Ezio turned and yanked open the door to the garage.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” He slammed his fist into the wall of the garage. Sam’s car wasn’t there.
“What?” Asher was behind him peering into the garage.
“Sam’s car isn’t here. I told her not to drive it. I thought that was the reason she’d taken a goddamned Uber.”
“Calm down, you’re not helping things.” Asher pulled at his shoulder to get him back into the kitchen.
Ezio knew he was right, but this was killing him. Where was she? What was happening to her?
“Who’s that?” Zsa Zsa was asking Kane. “Is he okay?”
“Never mind. Can you tell us Carl’s number?” Kane asked kindly.
“I could transfer you, if that would help.”
“That would be wonderful, Zsa Zsa.” Kane’s voice held a smile.
They all listened to the tinny music as they were put on hold.
“This is the parking garage. How can I help you?”
“Can I please speak to Carl?” Kane asked.
“Speaking.”
“Carl, I’m Ezio Stark,” Ezio interrupted. “I’m Samantha Brook’s boyfriend. We have a problem on our hands, and we think you might be able to help.”
“What kind of problem?”
“She’s been missing for the last fourteen hours. We can’t file a police report yet, but we can do some investigating on our own. She was last seen getting into an SUV in front of your building last evening at about five p.m. The receptionist from Lawton International said you talked to her before this happened. Can you tell us about your conversation?”
“Well sure,” Carl answered. “Somebody hit her little red car. It was the front side, it was smashed in enough that it wasn’t drivable. I filed a police report and I sent them an electronic file of our CCT recording of who did the damage.”
All the SEALs grinned.
“Is there any way that you could send that to me as well?”
“Do you think that would help? Are you sure she just didn’t go away with her girlfriends or something? Women do that kind of thing, you know,” Carl chuckled.
“Anything is possible,” Ezio gave a strained laugh. “But, just in case that’s not what happened, can I give you an e-mail to send it to?”
“Sure, shoot it to me, and I’ll send it. I like Miss Brooks, she’s one of the nice ones.”
Ezio gave him Kane’s e-mail address. He waited on the phone until Kane gave him a thumbs up that the e-mail had come through, then he hung up with Carl.
As Kane downloaded the footage, Ezio looked at his watch. It was now seventeen and a half hours since Samantha had gotten into the SUV. What was she going through?
22
Sam woke up and smelled puke, which made her want to throw up. She was lying on the ground so she rolled away from the smell, and let out a muffled shriek when she felt the pain in her arm. She opened her eyes and looked around her. Where was she? Why did her arm hurt?
It was dark.
It took long minutes for Samantha to remember what had happened, and when she did, she wanted to cry. But she didn’t. Crying wouldn’t serve any purpose. She opened her eyes again. This time they were acclimated to the dark. Was she still in the crack house room?
Nope. She was lying on a cement floor. She saw Kevin, tied up and propped against a wall about twenty feet away from her, his face bruised. She looked around some more. It was a cavernous room. When she took in all the boxes and crates, she figured it was a warehouse.
She smelled coffee. And puke. She looked down and realized she must have been the one to throw up. She pushed away from the puddle so she could concentrate on the coffee smell. If this was a warehouse filled with coffee, maybe she was close to the Port of Richmond? Thank God Eden was always feeding her stupid-assed trivia, otherwise she wouldn’t know that Richmond had a port. Fat lot of good knowing where she was would do her.
When she felt her eyes blurring she bit her lip, hard. Anything to stop the tears from falling.
“Kevin,” she called out.
“Kevin, can you hear me?” she called out louder.
No response.
She took a deep breath. Time to take stock.
“I’m in a warehouse near the Port of Richmond. I’ve been shot. The blood loss can’t be too bad, I’m not too dizzy.”
She stopped there. She was lying on the floor; how did she know if she was dizzy or not? Sam rolled again onto her good arm so she could try to leverage herself into a sitting position. She gagged.
“Nauseous but not dizzy,” she wheezed.
“In a heck of a lot of pain, but not dizzy.”
The room swirled around her. She looked for something to lean against and saw a wooden post about four feet from her. She crawled, using one hand and her knees to do it.
“Okay, I am dizzy.”
No more gunfights for me.
Come on, grin, that was funny.
She felt a burning sensation at the back of her eyes again. This time a tear fell.
“One. You get one freaking tear, and that’s it, Brooks!”
“Kevin, wake up!” she shouted. He still didn’t move. How bad had they hurt him? Wait, wasn’t the game-runner supposed to be here too? What was his name again?
“Harry,” she yelled.
No response.
She yelled louder,
