“Tell him to keep at it,” Reese said. “Top priority. And we need tax assessor’s maps to locate the parcels he’s already found.”
“Hold on, I think that’s here.” Kenzie opened a second attachment, which included county maps of property in Louisiana that matched the parcels owned personally in Sawyer DeMarco’s name.
“Anything in Loggy Bayou?” Reese asked.
“Let’s see where it is.” She went to Google Maps, typed in the location, and the area popped right up. Amazing what satellite imagery could do. “There’s a lot of land out there. Tabby was right. It’s thousands of acres.”
She checked the property maps for anything DeMarco owned southeast of the city near the cell tower, and her hope deflated. “I don’t see anything he owns in that direction, nothing in Loggy Bayou.”
“Get back to Rick. Tell him to focus specifically in that area. Maybe DeMarco owns something in a corporate name.”
She nodded, sent Rick an email, which he answered right away.
I’m on it, his message read.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
Bran grunted. “My least favorite thing.”
“We sit back and wait,” Chase finished for him.
“Unless Hawk calls and needs help with Jeremy Bolt,” Bran said hopefully.
Reese stared at his younger brother and just shook his head.
THIRTY-THREE
Reese hated waiting almost as much as Bran. Forty minutes had passed and still no email from Rick. Then Kenzie’s cell phone started ringing, not the disposable, which meant it could be DeMarco or one of his men.
Kenzie checked the caller ID. “Blocked,” she said, pressing the phone against her ear. Reese moved into position beside her.
“This is Kenzie.”
“So I guess you two don’t like following orders. Or maybe you just want me to put a gun to the kid’s head and pull the trigger.”
“No!” Kenzie started shaking. “No, please. Please don’t hurt him.”
This time the call was not distorted. It was a man’s voice, deep and raspy, like a smoker. Reese took the phone out of Kenzie’s hand, put it on the table, and hit the speaker button. “I’ve set everything in motion just the way you wanted. The deal will be canceled before your deadline.”
“Why are you in Shreveport? By the way, Eddie says hello.”
Reese softly cursed. He glanced at his brothers. Chase looked resigned. Bran’s features had gone iron hard.
“I asked you a question,” the caller said. “Why are you in Shreveport. Who’d you talk to that led you here?”
Reese considered his answer. Best to stay as close to the truth as possible. “Griff is Arthur Haines’s grandson. We figured Haines had the most to gain from taking over the Poseidon deal. We looked into his background and figured he owned you a big-ass gambling debt, thought maybe you were the guy in charge. Which meant you probably had the boy stashed somewhere in Shreveport. We wanted to be close by when you let him go.”
DeMarco chuckled, a grating sound that zipped up Reese’s spine. “If you think I’m buying that, you’re dumber than I thought. Who’s the big guy? I warned you not to drag your brothers into this.”
Hawk. “He isn’t my brother. Just a friend who owed me a favor.”
“All right, here’s the deal. Now that you’ve figured all of this out, you may as well assign your position in the purchase directly over to Black Sand Oil and Gas. And since you decided to play detective, you’ve got a new deadline. Get this done by ten o’clock tomorrow morning you get the kid back alive. Fuck up again, he’s dead.”
Kenzie’s face went bone white. Reese held on to his control by a thread. “Fine, we’ll do whatever you want. But we’ll still need proof of life before I sign the final documents.”
“One more phone call. You talk to the kid, but if the deal isn’t closed, the kid disappears without a trace and there’s no way to prove who killed him. You understand?”
Reese’s hand tightened into a fist. “I understand.”
“You’d better.” The line went dead.
Kenzie walked away from the phone into the bedroom and Reese could hear her crying. He wanted to go to her, tell her everything would be okay, but it was a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.
“It was a fairly long phone call,” he said. “Think Tabby can trace it?”
“No point,” Chase said. “He’ll be using a disposable and we already know where to find him.”
A penthouse apartment above the casino. It was common knowledge in Shreveport.
“You’re right,” Reese said. “It’s Griff’s location we need to find.”
“Wherever Griff is,” Bran said, “now that DeMarco knows Reese is in Shreveport, he’ll beef up security around the boy. We’ll be going up against a small army.”
Reese flicked a glance toward the bedroom, saw Kenzie wiping tears from her cheeks. He forced himself to focus. He phoned Derek Stiles and told him what he needed him to do. Black Sand Oil and Gas would be substituted in the contract, taking over the purchase of the platform. Whatever it took, the deal needed to be completed by tomorrow morning.
Derek wasn’t happy, but he would do what Reese asked.
When the call ended, he checked Kenzie’s computer screen, felt a rush when he spotted an email from Rick Holloway.
Did a little digging. Found a piece of property in Loggy Bayou owned by DeMarco’s grandfather. Attaching an assessor’s plat map and deed description. Hope this is what you’re looking for.
Reese clicked open the attachment and examined the map. He felt Kenzie moving up behind him, caught her hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Holloway found a piece of property in Loggy Bayou owned by DeMarco’s granddad. Got to be where they’re holding Griff.” A least he hoped so.
He felt Kenzie’s pulse accelerate, pounding in the delicate bones in her wrist. She looked down at him and managed a worried smile. “Let me in there. I’m better at this than you are.”
Reese smiled back and felt a sense of longing. How had this woman managed to get through his carefully guarded defenses?
“You’re right,” he said. “You are better.” He slid out of the chair. “Help us figure out what we’re up against.”
* * *
This was Kenzie’s domain. Handling problems, coming up with solutions. Blocking thoughts of Griff and the kidnappers’ new deadline, she brought up Loggy Bayou, overlaying parcel map details with the angles of meandering streams and what looked like dirt lanes. She cross-checked, using the legal description on the deed, along with longitude and latitude coordinates on Google Earth.