what kind of security and systems the courts employed, Sean could hack in faster and pull out the information he needed: Rosemarie Nylander Miller’s new legal name.
He hacked security for a living, but only because people paid him to test their systems. He hadn’t illegally hacked since college, and he didn’t like the idea. He didn’t want to go to jail, but jail time wasn’t the greatest risk. He’d have his P.I. license revoked, wouldn’t be allowed near computers, and RCK East would be disbanded.
But Lucy would be alive and safe, and that was all that mattered.
At this point, he was in limbo. They knew exactly who had kidnapped her, and why; Miller had figured out WCF had set him up. Yet with all the talk, all the research, and all the investigation, they still didn’t know where Lucy was. His head told him that investigations took time, and after fourteen hours during the night, when business and government were shut down, they already knew a lot. But a lot wasn’t good enough, and his heart told him Lucy was in immediate danger.
Dillon stepped outside. “It’s twenty-three degrees,” he said.
“So what?”
“Noah called. They got the administrative warrant for Miller’s financials. He pays his Wilmington mortgage with a check that lists a P.O. box in Wilmington. The mortgage company believes it’s his primary residence.”
“That doesn’t help us.”
“Noah is now talking to the bank. Somewhere in the files is an address that leads back to him. Or a check he wrote that we can trace.”
“The address he uses will be the Wilmington house,” Sean said. “That’s what I would do-it’s his house, but he doesn’t live there. It’s a front.”
“Then what? We’re covering every base we have.” Dillon’s voice cracked and he averted his gaze.
Sean realized then that his anger and pessimism wasn’t helping. “More information is coming,” he told Dillon.
“What are you waiting for?” Dillon asked.
Sean couldn’t answer because his phone rang. “Duke, what do you have?”
“Her name is Marie Fitzgerald. She lives in Austin, Texas.”
Sean’s heart skipped a beat. “Duke, I didn’t want you to risk-”
“I didn’t. I got the information through a judge in Virginia who has helped us in the past, and I went that route. Sean, I know you would do anything and risk your future to save Lucy. You’re also my brother, and I couldn’t let you lose everything you worked so hard for. Once you go down that slippery slope, it’s hard to stick on the right side of the law. We walk the line close enough.”
“Thank you.”
Duke’s trust and understanding surprised Sean, but maybe it had been there all along and Sean hadn’t seen it.
He said to Dillon, “Duke found Miller’s ex-wife. In Texas. Let’s talk to her.”
The door opened and Lucy’s captor stomped down the stairs, whip in hand. He lashed out at Carolyn three times, and she cried out and burrowed into the corner. “I will punish you later,” he said. “I know who the guilty one is.”
Lucy’s heart beat so loud that she couldn’t hear herself think. She tried to get away from the edge of the cage but of course that was futile. He slapped her with the whip. It cut her ear and she bit back a scream.
He bent down and unlocked her handcuffs, leaving one end dangling from the cage. He then walked around to the opposite side and unlocked the cage door.
“Crawl out,” he commanded.
Lucy didn’t move.
He whipped her through the slots in the cage. “Move, female! Move!”
She yelped and crawled as fast as she could away from the whip, toward the door.
He smiled. “Very good,” he said like a proud parent.
She slowly stood, using the side of the cage to support herself. He used the whip on the back of her legs and she fell to her knees again.
“You will stand when I tell you to stand.”
What the
He called her “female.” What was with that?
“You may stand.”
She slowly pulled herself up. She couldn’t see a gun on him; it looked like the only weapon he had was the whip. But she was weak from the drugs and bruises. She couldn’t fight him, not yet. She could run. But could she out run him? At her peak, yes. But she may not have a choice. She’d seize on the first chance she had to escape.
She glanced at Carolyn. She couldn’t leave her. He’d kill her. Even if Lucy ran to get help, he’d kill Carolyn.
She needed to get Carolyn out and find a car.
She then remembered her bare feet. She looked around but didn’t see her shoes anywhere.
“Walk,” he ordered and gestured toward the stairs. Lucy obeyed the man behind her.
“What is your name?” she asked.
The whip came down on her shoulder and she stumbled, grabbing onto the thin wood railing to prevent falling.
“If you want to speak, raise your hand and I will call on you.”
Even if he didn’t look crazy, he was thoroughly insane. Nevertheless, he spoke clearly. His eyes weren’t red or watery or bloodshot-no sign or smell of drug abuse. That scared her more.
At the top of the stairs, she raised her hand.
“Speak, Female.”
“What do I call you?”
“Teacher,” he replied.
In bright red, the digital clock on the counter of the old-fashioned, well-worn kitchen told her it was 9:37 a.m. She looked around for a phone but didn’t see one. She didn’t see anything she could use as a weapon, either. No knives, no guns-as if he’d leave them lying around.
“I have something to show you,” he said. “We’re going outside. You will do what I say, or you will be punished. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said.
The house was two stories, an old farmhouse. The furniture was old, from the 1940s or 1950s. His grandparents’? It was clean, covered in plastic, and there were plastic runners on the floors.
She had no shoes.
And she couldn’t leave Carolyn.
He opened the door and they stepped out onto the porch. The snow had all but stopped, a few stray flakes falling to the ground, but more was to come. The air was cold and damp, the light from the farmhouse reflecting on the thick gray mist that surrounded them.
“Walk,” he said. “We’re going to the barn.”
She couldn’t see anything in this thick mist. At her first step into the snow, she winced. She would get frostbite just walking to the barn. If there was one farm, there had to be another, right? She didn’t see a car as she walked, her bare feet burning from the cold, then numb.
She could barely walk. She hugged herself, trying to get just a little warmer, but the more she tried, the colder she felt.
The barn loomed in front of them, a towering unpainted structure. When he opened the door, a familiar stench hit her-blood. Was this a slaughterhouse? It was a farm; the blood could be from cows or pigs …
“Go to the fifth stall on the right.”
