A flurry of thuds and muffled sounds of struggle followed. Tegan, blind, didn’t know what was going on. Aari’s yells for help were abruptly cut short.
“Aari?” Tegan called, worry creeping in. “Aari? Answer me! Why isn’t he answering? What did you do to him?”
“He’s just having a nap right now,” the captor holding her said, speaking with a familiar accent. “The lad won’t be a bother for a while.”
Elvis!
Now the hand that held her felt like that of a rotted corpse’s.
“Tegan, please,” Tony said. “Where are the others?”
“Where are you taking us?”
“Somewhere. Not far now.”
“Where?”
“
Tegan!
” Tony bellowed. “Tell me where your friends are!”
Elvis squeezed her arm without mercy. She clenched her teeth, not wanting to let out any sound of pain.
“Don’t make this difficult, Tegan. Liam, take that thing off her and show her your hand.”
The sack over Tegan’s head was pulled off. She impulsively inhaled fresh air—or at least, it was fresher than what was circulating through the sack. Elvis turned her head toward him, though not before she saw that she was sitting in the rear seat of a seven-passenger vehicle. Aari lolled in the middle row with a brute of a man beside him. Tony was in the front passenger seat watching her, and Potato Nose was driving. Through the front windshield Tegan could see low-hanging gray clouds.
“Look here.” Elvis grinned;
grimaced, more like
, Tegan thought. He brought his free hand to her eye-level and she jerked back. The Australian’s pinkie had been cut off and unevenly stitched up. The skin around the wound was red and inflamed.
Elvis wiggled his remaining fingers. “Mr. Cross had that digit removed because I failed to keep you and the other girl locked up. Best cooperate with him ’less you want to lose a pretty pinkie, too.”
“Well done, Liam,” Tony praised mordantly. “A little pain is sometimes all it takes to motivate performance. I’m impressed with how quickly you located our . . . guests. Bag her again.”
Elvis—or Liam, as Tony called him—already had the bag over Tegan’s head before Tony finished. The last thing she saw before darkness wrapped around her again was a cross-street through the tinted side window. She quickly committed the street’s name to memory.
In spite of what Elvis had shown her, she was still resistant. “I’m still not talking.”
“We’ll try again in a few minutes,” Tony said, “when we have more room to work.”
No one addressed her after that. She’d given up her efforts at pulling away from the Australian and could do nothing but wait. The vehicle came to a stop and she heard a window roll down. A voice from outside asked, “What’s your business here?”
Potato Nose fumbled for words as Tony said, “It’s me.”
“Oh! It’s Mr. Cross! Open the gate!”
The vehicle rolled forward and made a turn before halting again. The engine was then shut off and Tegan was wrenched out and guided inside a building—she could tell from the blast of cool air that greeted her. She was taken to an elevator and then around a few corners before being suddenly forced down onto a hard chair. Someone tied her hands behind her back.
The sack was pulled off her head. She blinked in annoyance as harsh fluorescent light assaulted her eyes, and found herself seated at one end of a small table in the middle of a bare room. Tony sat across from her, with the Australian standing behind him. Tegan wanted so badly to swing a bat at their faces.
“Where’s Aari?” she asked.
Tony lazily rocked his head to the side. “If you would look right there . . . ”
She glanced to where he indicated and saw her friend lying still on the tile floor, wrists bound and a sack still over his head. “Aari? Aari! What did you do to him, Tony?”
“He’s still napping,” Tony said. “Relax, he’ll come around sooner or later. Right now, you have something bigger to deal with. Look, we know the others are in Kansas, so if you could just tell us where exactly—”
“They’re not in Kansas.”
Tony stood up, hands spread apart on the table, and glared. “They
are
there. Someone by the name of Marshall Sawyer purchased only three tickets for a flight from an airport in Kansas to California—I’m gonna go out on a limb and say Sawyer is the fellow who was with you at Lake Mead. This means your friends are still in Kansas. What were you doing there?”
Tegan flicked the tip of her tongue derisively at him. “Get out of my face.”
Tony lashed out, delivering a hard slap to her cheek. She gasped, spittle flying out of her mouth. Her eyes watered slightly but she looked back at him with defiance in her gray eyes.
Tony met her gaze and the coldness edged out of him. He slowly sat back down and skimmed his hands over his honey-colored hair. “Please, Tegan. I don’t want to hurt you, any of you. God knows I really, really don’t. But you need to tell me where the others are or you’ll leave me no choice.” When Tegan only glowered at him, he hit the table with his fist. “Liam, get the others. And make sure they bring the tools.”
“Yes, sir.” The Australian exited the room.
“You’re gonna cut off my finger?” Tegan asked. “Is that it?”
“You forced my hand!” he barked. “I need to do what needs to be done. You
will
talk one way or another!”
She stared at him, hatred and, strangely, pity welling up inside her. “You’re out of your mind. I don’t know what it is you’re a part of, but you’re nuts.”
“It may seem a bit out of this world right now, but in the end it will be worth it.”
“Right. The end justifies the means. Except I’m not so sure it actually does.”
Tony ignored her. The Australian returned, followed by Potato Nose and the brute who had been beside Aari in the vehicle. The brute was holding a hammer, a chisel, and a roll of rags. He set them down in front of Tegan. She sized up the tools, her mouth dry.
They wouldn’t.
She glanced at the Australian’s severed digit as he freed one of her arms to rest it on the table, and stifled back a whimper.
“Which one shall we take off today, sir?” the brute asked, tenderly rubbing a thumb along the edge of the chisel while Elvis held Tegan’s hand down.
“Whichever one you like,” Tony said. “Tegan . . . I’m begging you. I don’t give a damn when it comes to getting my guys in line, but you kids—you haven’t really done anything wrong. I’m giving you one last chance.” He fixed her with an imploring look. “Where are Jag, Mariah and Kody?”
As the reality sank in that she couldn’t escape what was about to happen, a pair of tears trailed down Tegan’s cheeks. “Tony, please . . . Please, don’t do this.”
“Where are they?” he repeated. Their gazes were locked, both beseeching the other to concede but neither wanting to surrender.
Tegan tried to stiffen her upper lip but it trembled. The brute moved to place the blade of the chisel against the first knuckle of her little finger. The hammer hovered just above it. Tegan breathed out shakily, and, with a feeling that she’d locked in an answer she could never retract, shook her head at Tony.
The young man looked defeated. With a pained expression, he murmured, “Do it.”
The brute aligned the chisel properly and raised the hammer. Tegan screamed as it swung down.
“I found something!”
The hammer halted an inch from the head of the chisel. Tegan forced herself to swallow back her scream when she realized she could still move her finger. She looked away, more tears sliding down.
“What is it, David?” Tony asked.
Potato Nose, who’d been crouched by Aari while the events were proceeding, showed Tony Aari’s phone. “The girl didn’t have hers but the boy did. It’s password-locked but I can crack it no problem.”
Tony’s posture relaxed immensely. He quickly waved the brute away from Tegan. “Will we be able to trace the location of all the numbers on the phone?” he asked.
“Yes. I have some contacts who could lend a hand there.”
“Great. Get on with it.”
“Yes sir.”
Potato Nose and the brute cleared out of the room as the Australian secured Tegan’s arm behind her back before returning to his position behind Tony. Tegan was emptied of tears but she still sniffled here and there.
Tony moved the hammer and chisel far away from her. “You were lucky. Extremely lucky.”
“There wouldn’t have been a need for me to be ‘lucky’ if you’d just let Aari and me go.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“I do what’s expected of me. I don’t ask questions. If you five are what the boss wants, my job is to deliver. It’s that simple. I trust the boss completely.”
“You’re not telling me anything!”
“Yeah, feel my frustration now?” he shot back.
“If you expect us to cooperate, we have the right to know what’s going on!”
“It’s not my place to tell you. I’m sure you’ll soon learn what we’re all about, though.”
“Fine. At least tell me how you found us.”
“Tracking device on your car. We put it in place as a failsafe back at Lake Mead yesterday. Good thing we did.”
“If that’s the case, how come you didn’t pick us up until now?”
“When that friend of yours shot my guy in the leg, the GPS tracker in his pocket took the bullets. We only got it fixed this morning. Who is your friend, by the way? We got his name, but why is he with you?”
Tegan shrugged indifferently.
The room washed into silence after that. Tony busied himself with his phone. He turned his device sideways and rapidly tapped the screen.
Tegan was both dumbfounded and offended.
Is he legitimately playing a game right now?
The door opened and Potato Nose entered with an exultant smile. “We got them, Mr. Cross. Concordia, Kansas.”
A fifty-pound chain dragged Tegan’s heart down. There was nothing she could say or do to deter them from hunting her friends. The only thing left now was to pray that Jag and the others would be able to fend for themselves. Maybe Marshall, by an extremely long shot, could reach them in time to help.
“Where in Concordia?” Tony asked.
“We’ll have to wait till tomorrow morning. My girl on the inside won’t be back in the office till then.”
“
Tomorrow?
”
“She’s not on our payroll, Tony. This is a favor for us. It has to be on her terms.”
Tony looked back at Tegan, then at her finger. Tegan slowly curled all her digits to hide them from him.
“Fine,” he said, getting up. “Tomorrow. Make sure she’s tied tight.”
Aari stretched out his legs and let out a long groan as the Australian tightened the zip ties holding Tegan’s arms behind her back.
Tony headed toward the door. “Don’t go anywhere now, you two. An acquaintance of yours is coming to see you tomorrow. And he has ways to extract more information for the boss out of you than I ever will.”
“I
lost them, Josh. I
lost
them.”
“I understand how you must be feeling, Marshall, but let’s keep exasperation at bay. Stay focused on finding the kids. Send me the canister and I’ll start working on the dopant right away. That’s one worry I can take off your mind.”
The Sentry was waiting in a short lineup at an express courier office some miles from St. Thomas. He was drenched from the rain. He’d been on the phone with Joshua for the past few minutes; the other man was shocked to hear about Tegan’s and Aari’s abduction but still extended what comfort he could.
Compartmentalizing his stress, Marshall asked, “How long will you need to get the dopant ready for use?”
“At the quickest I’d say anywhere between twenty-four and forty-eight hours for the first batch,” Josh answered. “I’ll arrange for a quick way to get it back to you.”
“Actually, when you’re done, send the prototype to the other three in Kansas. I’ll text you the address in a bit.”
“Will do. Don’t worry, my friend. Leave this in my hands from now on and you can channel your energy into finding the kids.”
The Sentry wiped away some water droplets from his jaw. How it was that Joshua could impart calmness over the distance astounded him, and for that he was deeply appreciative. “Thank you,” he said heavily.
“I’m here to help,” Josh said. “Listen, I have to check on one of my projects. Keep me posted on the kids, okay?”
“Yeah.”
Marshall hung up just as he reached the service counter and selected a shipping box. He placed the duffel bag in it and sealed the box before handing it to the clerk to weigh. He paid the extra cash for overnight delivery and grabbed his change. As he rushed out to his car, he was mauled by fast, heavy raindrops and swore at the downpour.
Driving back onto the main road, he silently begged Aari and Tegan to forgive him and prayed for a sign to guide him back to them.
* * *
The constant pounding in Aari’s head was at last starting to ebb. He’d felt the ache as soon as he came around and wondered if he’d taken a baseball bat to the head. Now, he sat across from Tegan in the barren, windowless room. There wasn’t much to discuss. They were both weary and had it up to their eyeballs with their so-called vacation. Aari couldn’t imagine how Tegan felt.
Being nabbed twice in a week
.
That’s not right.
He tapped her foot with the toe of his shoe. “Teegs? What happened when I was knocked out? I don’t feel my phone in my pocket anymore.”
“They took it,” she said blankly. “They managed to trace the others down. They’re waiting to pinpoint their exact location right now.”
Aari rested his forehead on the table and closed his eyes halfway. “What are they gonna do with us?”
“I don’t know.”
“So we’re just stuck here, then?”
“Seems like it.”
He raised his head. “Did something happen, Tegan?”
She began to quiver slightly. “They . . . ”
He straightened. “They what?”
“They nearly cut off my finger. The only thing that stopped them was one of Tony’s men finding your phone.”
Aari was burning under his collar. “Tony ordered your finger to be cut off? Why?”
“I wouldn’t tell him where the others were.”
He was angry to the point of speechlessness. Though now glad that his phone had been found, if only because it saved his friend from losing a finger, he feared for Jag, Mariah and Kody.