Deadly Lies (11 page)

He’d better be.

“But this is the best chance we have to stop these perps. We can’t force your compliance, but…”

But the guy would really like to. Yeah, he could see that.

“But we can put you under a protective detail. And that
is
something we could force.” A nod toward Samantha. “Either way, Agent Kennedy isn’t leaving your side.”

Not a threat. Not blackmail. Just a fact.

Dammit
. “Does it matter to you? If this gets my brother killed,
does it matter to you?
”

Samantha flinched but Dante didn’t bat an eyelash. “All the victims matter to me. That’s why I’m in this business. You might
not like the way we work—”

“I fucking don’t.”
Protective detail.
Right. He could always just have them both thrown out—
he
could throw them out. But if someone was watching, that person would see what was happening, and Max didn’t want to risk
that exposure.

“Just play it cool,” Dante advised him. “Listen to Sam. She won’t steer you wrong.”

What? He was supposed to trust her? When she’d already lied to him?

“Report when they make contact,” Dante told Sam. “We’ll set up surveillance for the drop.”

Max’s mouth opened to protest.

“They won’t know.” Dante rushed to assure him. “You’ll get your brother back, Mr. Ridgeway, and we’ll get the men who took
him.”

Promises, promises.

“Can you handle this?”

Max blinked. “Don’t worry about me, I can—”

“Sam?” The agent cut through his words.

Her chin lifted a notch. “I’ve got it.”

Dante grabbed the files. “Are you in, Ridgeway?”

Samantha touched his arm. “There’s no other option now. I’m here.”

Because she’d tricked him. He wouldn’t forget that.

But now Frank would have to act. They’d get the money, and they’d damn well get Quinlan back.

Get him back in pieces.
The bastard’s voice seemed to whisper through Max’s mind as he stepped away from Sam. “If Quinlan dies, I’ll destroy the
SSD.”

Samantha flinched. “I want to get him back for you.”

But she wasn’t promising that she
would
get him back.

“Trust us to do our jobs,” Dante said. “We’ll have eyes on you from now on. When you go to make the exchange, we will be there.”

“And if they see you?” Max demanded. “What then?”

“They won’t.” Certainty from Dante. “We know what we’re doing, and believe me, we have agents who specialize in not being
seen.”

“Ramirez,” Samantha murmured.

Dante nodded. “Our agents will follow the kidnappers after the drop. They’ll track them back to their hole, and they
will
recover your brother.”

The guy was obviously confident, but then, it wasn’t Dante’s brother on the line.

Dante’s gaze searched his face. “Now do we have your cooperation on this?”

Not like Max had any other options. He inclined his head in a grim nod.

Samantha’s hand fell away from his arm. “Thank you,” she whispered.

His jaw locked.

“You made the right decision.” Dante turned toward the door. “Be careful, you two. I’ll be watching.”

“Luke, you need to know, Quinlan was taken from The Core,” Samantha said.

That stopped the other agent, and he glanced back at her. “You sure about that?”

“
I’m
sure,” Max answered.

“I was at The Core right before he vanished. If we’d stayed just a little longer…” She shook her head. “We need to get agents
in that bar. Curtis Weatherly also visited that place shortly before he vanished. The Core is a link.”

Dante nodded. “I’ll get Ramirez and Daniels to talk to the staff again. We interviewed them all before and ran background
checks, but everyone turned up clean.” His head inclined. “So we’ll just look deeper, and we’ll make sure we keep our eyes
on that place.”

Shouldn’t have left Quinlan.
Guilt ate at Max’s gut. If he hadn’t left his brother in The Core…

“I can get some plainclothes cops in there ASAP,” Dante continued. “We’ll keep a surveillance team in The Core from now on.”

A little too late to help Quinlan.

Dante rolled his shoulders and yanked open the door. “S-sorry, boss. Didn’t realize you were… occupied.” His southern drawl
was thicker, his posture a bit weaker. “I’ll come back later.”

“You do that,” Max called out, voice tight.

And then the guy was gone.

• • •

Sam slipped upstairs when Max and Frank were on the telephone again with the bank. She moved as quickly and quietly as she
could. Her gaze darted into the rooms, scanning, searching—

There.

The closed door. The one at the end of the long hallway. Quinlan Malone still had a room at his father’s house.

She twisted the knob, and the door opened silently. Sam didn’t turn on the lights. No need. The computer sat waiting for her,
right in the middle of Quinlan’s gleaming glass desk.

Sam closed the door behind her. The bedroom was huge, more of a suite than just one room, but… there was nothing personal
there. No pictures. No ball caps. No books or magazines. No intimate touches.

A bed with a black bedspread. A chest of drawers. The desk—so neat and organized.

And the laptop. Just waiting.

Like a hotel room. Ready for any guest, not a particular person.
Shaking her head, Sam eased into the chair and booted up the computer. Time to get to work. She’d start with Quinlan’s laptop
and use a batch script to crack the network encryption. Once she had enabled remote access to the systems in the house, the
computers would be hers. Then she’d access all the e-mail accounts and scan the drives to see just what sort of information
the Malones and their staff might be hiding.

The computer beeped as the system came online. Then the password screen came up.

For the first time that day, Sam smiled. This was her favorite part of the job.

• • •

“Sir, are you sure you want to make a f-five million dollar cash withdrawal?” The banker’s voice quivered over the speaker
phone.

Frank’s stare held Max’s. “Yes.”

“I’ll draw up the paperwork,” John Adams said, “but this is going to take some time, sir. I can’t have the money ready for
at least forty-eight hours.”

“
Now,
” Max mouthed.

“I need the money now,” Frank ordered. “Cut the paperwork bullshit, John, and get my money ready, understand?”

“There’s no way I can get that amount ready before—”

“Get it ready. I’m taking it today.” No discussion, just a flat demand.

And that’s why he was called Fuck ’em Frank.

John’s sigh drifted over the line. “Sir, you don’t seem to realize just how—”

An ear-splitting scream ripped through the house.

Samantha.

Max leapt from the chair and ran for the door. Frank followed right on his heels. The banker’s voice droned behind them.

Max’s feet pounded over the tiles. “
Samantha!
”

The scream echoed again. Even louder now and then…

Retching.

He spun, sliding around the corner, and saw Beth curled on the floor, her long blond hair streaming around her face.

Not Samantha.

“Beth?” Frank demanded. “Woman, what the hell were you screaming—”

Her head lifted. She shoved back her hair, and her eyes fixed on them. “B-box…”

Footsteps thudded behind them. “Max!” Samantha’s voice now. Fierce.

He didn’t look back. He’d seen the box. Small and brown, lying on the floor with the top torn open.

Beth pushed back, crawling like a crab away from the box.

A fist squeezed Max’s heart. “Where did it come from?”

“I-it was on the steps. The guard put it there, I-I thought…” Beth sucked in a sharp breath. “I thought one… of the m-messengers
had brought it from the office.”

Max bent down and reached for the box.
Jesus.

Beth whimpered.

Samantha grabbed his hand. “Don’t.” Her soft skin pressed against his. Her mouth came close to his ear as she whispered, “Not
bare skin… we have to check for fingerprints.”

His hand fisted.

“Use this.” She dug a pen out of her pocket.

He took it, his fingers rock steady. He shoved the top off the box with the tip of the pen.
Fuck me.

A bloody finger lay nestled inside.

Beth started crying.

A ring finger, one still adorned with his brother’s lucky horseshoe ring.

Sonofabitch.

“Max?” Frank’s voice wasn’t so tough now. “What’s in the box?”

Proof.
“They’ve got Quinlan.” And he’d just gotten a
piece of his brother. His head turned, and he met Samantha’s worried stare.
The first piece.

Max surged to his feet. Samantha rose right with him, her hand gripping his wrist. “He’s still alive, Max,” she said urgently.

Max tried to shake her off. Her grip just tightened. “
He’s still alive.
This is just to screw with you, to make you desperate.”

“
It’s his f-finger!
” Beth cried out.

Samantha didn’t look away from Max. “It’s a message. You wanted proof, so they gave you proof. Your brother is out there.
He’s alive, and we’re going to get him back.”

Proof sent.

Luke scanned the text.
Victim’s finger delivered in box. Fingerprint and DNA testing needed ASAP.

“Fuck.”

His head lifted, and he stared at the team assembled in the SSD’s conference room. “The kidnappers just made contact again.”
The first time that they’d done this. Changing the MO.

Hyde straightened in his chair. “They called already?”

“No.” His gaze found Monica’s. She’d been working on the profile for the kidnappers. “They sent a finger to the Malone house
in a damn box.”

No change of expression crossed her perfect face.

“Why change the plan, Monica?” Luke pressed because she would know. When it came to the killers, she always knew.

“Because the kills are changing
him,
” she said.

Yeah, that’s what he’d feared but he’d wanted her take on the situation.

“The leader was much more violent with Briar’s body than he was with Peter Hollings’,” Monica continued. “He kept Briar alive
longer. He inflicted the wounds not to kill, but to
hurt.
”

Yeah, and that worried him.

Monica confirmed his fear when she said, “Seems to me that our perp might have found something he likes.”

“Or maybe we’re not dealing with the same kidnappers,” Jon Ramirez offered from his position on the far right of the table.
“Maybe this is some wannabe who read about Briar in the paper, and he thinks he needs to slice and dice to make his point.”

Monica gave a slight negative shake of her head. “There are too many similarities that weren’t released to the press. No one
knew the men disappeared from college bars, and no one knew the initial calls came within three hours of the disappearances.
And no one knew a ten o’clock call was promised, but never delivered.” Her hands flattened on the table. “It’s the same leader.
The same group.”

“And just how many folks are we talking in this group?” Hyde asked from the head of the table, his gaze sweeping all of their
faces.

“Kidnappers are rarely solo workers,” Luke said. “You’re talking a unit here, one that follows an alpha…”

“Like a pack of dogs,” came the quiet rumble from Special Agent Kim Daniels. Her eyes glinted but her face was as blank as
Monica’s.

“Someone has to stay with the vic, to guard him at all times.” Luke lifted his hand as he began to count off the possible
abduction team members. “Someone has to go for the drop. And someone has to cover the leader’s ass.” Because the leader would
never leave himself vulnerable.
“And someone is the constant watcher who keeps an eye on the victim’s family.”

They needed to identify that watcher. In case it was someone
in
the household, Sam would continue to communicate through texts for secrecy. They weren’t taking any chances with this case.

“At a minimum,” Luke told them, “we’re looking at four people. At most, six—no more than that, though. That would mean too
many hands in the pie.”

“We need that box,” Hyde stated flatly. “The sooner we dust and run a fingerprint check, the better.”

Hell, yeah. They were all on the same page there. Luke grunted. “We need to talk to those other victims.” Luke wanted to meet
with them, one on one. And actually get them to answer
all
of his questions. But money and power—those got in the way of sit-downs. “I want them back in the country.”

Hyde nodded. “I’m working on it.”

If Hyde couldn’t get them back, no one could.

Luke considered his options.
Not many.
“In the meantime, let’s get them on the phone. Get a conference call set up ASAP because I
need
to talk to them.”

The vics were scared shitless. He got that. They wanted to pretend the nightmare that they’d lived through wasn’t real. But
another man’s life was hanging in the balance.

And Luke wasn’t in this business to stop the killers after the fact—after the blood had flowed and the dead had been hauled
away. He was there to save lives, dammit, and that’s what he was going to do.

Sam went to the bank with Max and Frank. She smiled at the other customers. She kept her face all nice and
bland. After a few moments of small talk, the bank manager, John Adams, led them into his office, and the money was brought
out to them.

Five million dollars. The price of a life. Quinlan Malone’s life.

The bank manager was sweating. So was Frank.

Not Max.

Max kept a strong hold on her hand. Almost too tight. His fingers threaded with hers, keeping her close.

He had his job to do. She had hers. “Excuse me, gentlemen,” she murmured. “Could you please direct me to the ladies room?”

The bank manager pointed to the left.

She offered him a wan smile, then she stood and walked down the narrow hallway and toward the restroom. The dress she’d borrowed
from Beth shifted easily as she walked. Within moments, her hand pushed open the women’s restroom door.