That meant Fiona had a day or so to figure out the rest of her plan, so she didn’t have to go all-in with Sedotal. She smiled and started thinking.
Grier stared at the phone. Oh, just to hear her voice, to know she was safe filled his gut with a warmth he didn’t think he’d ever feel again. His gut told him she’d been trying to tell him something. Just on a little spring break. And the ledger turned out to be nothing more than a journal from her youth. So, he knew the call was more for his benefit than for whatever reason she was supposed to call.
Hamilton stared at him from across the desk. “What did she say?”
No harm in telling Hamilton. And maybe if he said the words out loud, he could make some sense of them. “That she was on spring break, that you’re supposed to take this to the Boston Monument tomorrow at five and that she knows you love the Boston Massacre statue better.” She’d also said she was fine. And that was the only thing that let him take a solid breath.
“A code, right?”
“Which means Sedotal is with her right now. But he’ll be back here at five tomorrow. So, she’ll be alone or guarded by someone else.” That much wasn’t rocket science. If something was going down in Boston, no way would Sedotal risk not being there to see it. “He wouldn’t bring her with him. Too risky, right?”
Hamilton shrugged and sighed. “Yeah, which means we have tomorrow to find her.”
“Yeah.” His wife and baby were in danger. And he had twenty-four hours or less to find them. He had to figure this out. “Okay. Does spring break mean anything to you?” But even as he spoke, Fiona’s voice laid over Mia’s in his head. “He took her to that fishing shack.”
“Thought you didn’t believe Mia.”
He didn’t want to believe her, wanted to kill her as much as he wanted her to be right. “I have to.”
“And if it’s a trap?”
Of course, it was a trap, but it was his only chance. His only lead. “I’m taking Sage.”
“You held a gun to his head. Then you punched him. I don’t think he’s your ally.” Hamilton had a valid point.
“Yeah. But the girl means something to him. And once we show up, Sedotal will know she told us where to go. He’ll have my back as long as I have hers.” He nodded at Hamilton, satisfied with the plan, such as it was.
“Do you have hers?”
Grier nodded. “I think I have to. Keep her safe.”
“Oh no. You’re not going anywhere without me.”
As much as Grier would love to have Hamilton along, there was security in having Hamilton ride beside him into whatever danger they faced, he needed him here, taking the ledger to the… massacre. God, his woman was a genius. He stared at Hamilton and smiled, shaking his head. “You have to stay here. Sedotal and his goons are gonna be waiting for you and we’re going to give them a nice big surprise.” As soon as he saw Fiona, he’d never let her go again. Ever.
As soon as Hamilton was on board with the plan and walked out to share his instruction with the others, Grier went to the cells for Sage and Mia.
He leaned against the wall opposite their cell doors, watched the girl try to clean the wound over Sage’s eye with a torn piece of her shirt. Neither bothered to look at him. Even when he spoke. “Fiona called.” Still nothing. And to be the guy who held their lives in his hands, he expected more. “I think she’s at the fishing shack you mentioned.” She glanced at him then quickly away, so he continued. “Since you helped me, I’m not going to let anything happen to you. All right?”
She turned, hands on her hips to glare at him. “Sage didn’t betray you.”
“I know.”
Now Sage looked at him. “Then why am I still in a cell?”
Grier chuckled. “Because I forgot the key.” And he had.
Mia nodded and pulled a hairpin out of the bun at the back of her head. She unlocked her door and walked out then unlocked Sage’s. Sage stared at her, mouth slightly open. “If you could do that the whole time…”
She smiled at Sage then Grier. “You might not trust me, but I trust you, Grier.”
Grier shook his head and walked beside her to the stairs. “Risky, since five minutes ago, I was going to have you killed.”
“But you didn’t.”
Sage limped behind them. “Don’t worry about me. You two just go on. I’ll just crawl up the steps.”
Grier went back to help Sage. “What happened to your leg?” He needed Sage in one piece.
“Ham.” Enough said.
“Can you ride?” In the absence of Kye, he needed Sage.
“I could ride with two broken legs.”
Oh, thank God. It was going to be one long night.
And he watched every second tick off the clock until they had all the details arranged. Then it was time for a nap, and he wasn’t in the mood to argue with Hamilton who had insisted. He wanted to get on the road, find his woman and his daughter and get them back home where he could watch them, never let them go. But Hamilton made sense. A long ride, probably a gunfight or some kind of confrontation was coming, and he would need to be alert. What Hamilton couldn’t control was Grier’s brain and its inability to shut down and let the sleep come.
At one in the morning, they took off. And by four-thirty, a third bike joined them. Kye had come.
Fiona’s list grew. Asshat, Tyler Sedotal, Body Odor Boy, and Sewer Breath. And that was just the start. The last two, her newest escorts, hadn’t called each other by name, and even if they had, the monikers Fiona had blessed them with fit better than anything anyone else could call them. Sewer Breath had thrown her, none too gently, into the back of an SUV, then blindfolded her with what smelled like BO Boy’s sock and they drove for what felt like days. And one of them snored, hopefully not while he was driving, but she couldn’t be certain because of the blindfold. Fortunately, the baby had slept right up to the minute the car screeched to a halt. Sewer Breath pulled Fiona out of the car and yanked the blindfold off her head. “Where are we?”
He ignored her question and shoved her toward an old plantation house in the middle of a lawn that was both badly in need of a mow and stretched as far as she could see in every direction, broken only by the narrow drive the car had taken. It was one of those two-story houses with white siding and black shutters and most of the windows were broken out, but in its day, it had probably been something much more impressive than now.
The porch was missing boards and the steps creaked and groaned as she walked up. BO Boy carried the baby seat and diaper bag, huffing and puffing like London had gained a couple of hundred pounds on their trip while Sewer Breath pushed open a squeaking door.
Fiona waited for him to catch up and she took the carrier and the diaper bag, and he smiled. “Thanks, babe.”
If she never heard that word again, babe, it would be a couple of years too soon. They’d stopped calling her Fiona or Princess a few hundred miles ago. But so far, they’d kept their hands to themselves, so there was that, at least.
She didn’t speak but walked into the house in front of him. Moth eaten curtains billowed in the light breeze and the air chilled Fiona so that she set the baby down, dug through the diaper bag, and pulled out a blanket to wrap around London. She changed her diaper and fed her as she walked to a window and looked out. Nothing to the north or east but lawn. Not a single clue to tell her where they’d driven.