“The kid doesn’t need anything. I don’t care if she shits herself, and she looks healthy enough to me. We’re only talking twenty-four hours here, not a weekend retreat.”
“Please,” Jenna said. “She’ll be quieter that way.”
“Fucking hell. Get the brat’s stuff, and be quick. Again, if anybody shows up to follow me or tries to interfere, I got no problem blowing heads off.”
“I know, and I’m not trying to do anything but make sure she’s comfortable. But I have to go upstairs to get it. Do you want to come with me?” She hoped he didn’t because she had an idea.
His jaw tightened. “You’ve got one minute. I hear a siren, I start shooting. Now run.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Easy, you’ve got a phone call. It’s your nanny. Patching it through now,” said the voice over the intercom.
Noah and the guys were in their ready room in the secure area of HOT, which meant no personal cell phones allowed. They were planning the mission to protect Congresswoman Fairhope on her journey to the middle east, and the clock was ticking down until go-time.
But if Jenna was calling him at work, then something was going on. He shot to his feet and jogged over to the desk where the phone was located.
“Jenna, what’s happening?”
“Noah,” she blurted, and he could hear her teeth chattering. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled in alarm. “He took them. Owen Fisher took Alice and Aunt Maggie. He broke in and he took them.”
A shard of ice dropped into his stomach. “Wait—what? Owen Fisher abducted your aunt and Alice?”
He turned when he said it, speaking as much for the guys as for himself. Everyone shot to their feet and waited.
“Yes. He… He thinks I have the money. Sam’s money.”
“Wait a second, Jen. Calm down. I’m putting you on speaker so the guys can hear, okay?”
“Y-yes.”
He hit the speaker button and dropped the phone in the cradle. “Go ahead, honey. Tell us what happened.”
He was trying to be calm, but inside he was a boiling mess of fury and ice. The fucking Vegas Mafia had taken his niece along with Jenna’s sweet aunt. He’d kill them. Every last one of them. The look on his teammates’ faces said they felt the same way.
“He put a tracker in Aunt Maggie’s wallet when he pretended to be with the cable company. He followed her here. He had a utility company shirt on and I thought he was legit—” Her voice choked off, and Noah gritted his teeth.
“It’s okay, Jenna. Tell us the rest.”
“He shoved his way inside, then he threatened to cut off Aunt Maggie’s fingers if I didn’t give him the money. He said it’s a Bitcoin account. I panicked and told him I might know where it is, but I refused to tell him the location because I said I knew he’d kill us all.”
“That was good thinking, Jenna.”
“H-he gave me twenty-four hours to get the money. He took Aunt Maggie and Alice and threatened to send me fingers and toes if I didn’t. He also said he’d kill them if we called the police. He said to make sure you understood that too. I need help, Noah. Please.”
Her voice broke, and his heart felt like it was breaking too. He wanted to be there with her. Right fucking now. But all he could do was listen.
Saint looked grim. The other guys did too. Hacker shoved a hand through his hair and swore under his breath. They were wheels-up in less than seventy-two hours. The last twenty-four would be spent in isolation before they deployed. They had no time. No fucking time.
For the first time in his life, Noah considered what it would mean to go AWOL. He couldn’t do it, of course, because he’d end up in prison for abandoning his post. For deserting.
But, fucking hell, what was he supposed to do now?
“I know, honey. We’re going to fix it. Somehow.”
“Noah, he made me swallow a GPS tracker. He wanted to know where I am at all times. He said if the signal quits, he’ll kill them both.”
Noah wanted to growl. Fucking Owen Fisher intended to follow Jenna to the money and eliminate her once he had it. He’d kill her aunt and Alice too. He wasn’t a nice man, and he didn’t give a flying fuck about anyone’s life or future. He wanted to motivate Jenna to get the money, but he didn’t intend to let her live.
“I did something,” she continued. “I convinced him to let me get a diaper bag for Alice. I didn’t have much time, but I upended Aunt Maggie’s wallet into the bottom of the bag. I didn’t want to put the whole wallet in there for fear he’d find it.”
Noah’s heart thumped. “Did you check her wallet after they were gone?”
“Y-yes. I didn’t find anything like the pill he made me swallow. I hope it’s in the bag, but I don’t know. Everything was so fast it could have rolled under the furniture. I don’t know.”
God, she was brilliant. Brave and brilliant despite being scared out of her wits. It wasn’t an easy thing to geolocate a tracker you didn’t have the software for, but it wasn’t impossible either. Especially when you had another like it. “You did good, Jenna. I’m coming home. Don’t go anywhere.”
Her voice broke again, and this time she sobbed. “I don’t have anywhere to go. I t-tried to follow him. I ran to Lola, but she wouldn’t start. I tried to get a jump, but it was too late.”
He hated hearing her cry. Fucking hated it. “Don’t give up on me, honey. We aren’t helpless, and you might have tagged him. We’ll find the money, or we’ll make him think we have. I gotta go now, but I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, her voice sounding weak and small. “Hurry.”
“I will. I’ll call you once I’m in the car.”
“He took my phone. I had to borrow Mrs. Barlow’s. She had your work number because of Alice.”
“Okay, honey. I’m on my way as soon as we hang up. Stay with Mrs. Barlow and I’ll come get you.”
“I want to go home. I’ll be okay, but I need to be by myself. Mrs. B can tell something’s wrong, and I don’t want her calling the police.”
“All right. Go home, lock the doors, and don’t open them for anyone.”
“I will.”
Noah ended the call and looked at his guys. His eyes were gritty, and his throat was dry and tight. Anger ate him up from the inside out. He felt as helpless as he had when the Parkers had abused him and the others. He’d been powerless to stop them, and he felt powerless now.
“We’re coming with you,” Wolf said, giving Saint a significant look. “We know as much as we need to for this mission at the moment, and we’ll finish it when we go into lockdown. Right now, we’ve got a limited amount of time, and we have to save your family.”
“Amen,” Saint said. “We fucked up. We should have taken the time to get the equipment so Gem and the guys could’ve scanned Maggie’s belongings more thoroughly.”
It wasn’t like Strike Team 2 personally owned the sophisticated scanning equipment, or that they carried it with them at all times. It was HOT property, not theirs. Detouring to HOT when they needed to get to Delaware would have taken another hour or more, and they’d assigned it a lower priority. That’s what you did on missions. You calculated the risks and made decisions.