Cold sweat drenched my hairline.
I spun around, ran the few feet to my office, and grabbed my laptop.
“What?” Arabella demanded. “What is it?”
The image of me and Garen sitting across from each other filled the screen.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Shaffer?”
“I’ve come to hire you.”
I clicked to fast forward. Frantic gestures and teeny voices. Blah-blah-blah . . . There.
Garen and I stared at each other. I zoomed in on myself and turned the sound up.
Nothing. I sat completely still, like a statue. So did he. No movements. No words. Just quiet staring. All my secrets were still mine.
I collapsed in the chair. I was suddenly so exhausted.
“Nevada? Are you okay?” Arabella grabbed a tissue box from the corner of the desk and thrust it at me.
I touched my face and realized I was crying.
“I think you’re stressed out,” my sister said. “I have a pack of cigarettes I’ve been hiding from Mom for when Catalina and I get stressed out. There is one left.”
“Mom is going to kill you when she finds out.”
“She won’t find out if you don’t tell her.”
I got up and hugged her.
“Are you okay?” my little sister asked.
“No. But I’m going to be. We’re all going to be.”
My laptop screamed at me. Bug’s face filled it. “Get here! Now, now, now!”
I sprinted out the door to Rogan’s HQ, Arabella at my heels.
I ran through the first floor, pounded up the stairs, and burst onto the second floor. Rynda stood next to Bug, her face pale, her phone to her ear. Kidnappers.
“. . . scared me. I’m very scared.”
She listened for a moment. “My husband is everything to me. I’m going to give the phone to Ms. Baylor. She’s authorized to negotiate on our behalf.” She handed the phone to me.
“This is Nevada Baylor.”
“Good,” a cultured male voice said on the other end. “Perhaps we can finally get somewhere.”
“You broke the rules of engagement,” I said.
Bug’s fingers danced over the keyboard and the man’s voice echoed through the room.
“Oh?”
“We had an understanding, and you broke it.”
“What kind of an understanding, Ms. Baylor?”
“You want your ransom. My client wants the father of her children safely home. You trust that we won’t involve authorities and that we will surrender the ransom, and we trust that you will keep Brian safe and allow us time to prepare the ransom. You made a demand, you gave us no chance to respond, and then you sent Harcourt to attack Rynda and her children in her house. And now you sent us a severed ear. This is a severe breach of trust.”
There was a long pause.
“The Harcourt incident was unplanned,” the man said finally. “It won’t be repeated.”
“Is Brian still alive?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“We would like proof of life, please.”
“Very well.”
The phone went silent. Rynda clenched her fists.
“Hello.” Brian’s quiet voice echoed through the room.
Bug pushed a mic toward Rynda. “How are you?” she asked, her voice breaking.
“In pain,” he said.
“Did they treat your wound? Did they bring in a doctor?” Rynda asked.
“Yes, but it still hurts. Please give them whatever they want.”
“I love you,” she said. “I’m trying, honey. I’m doing everything I can. Please hold on for a little longer.”
“I love you too,” Brian said. He sounded dull, his words devoid of any emotion. Maybe it was his ear, and he was in shock.
Rynda clenched her hands into a single fist. She looked like she wanted to scream.
“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way,” the kidnapper said, “let’s get back to business, shall we?”
“It would help us a great deal if you told us what we’re looking for,” I said.
“You cannot believe that Rynda is that naive.”
“I don’t need to believe anything,” I said. “I’m a truthseeker, and I’m telling you that my client has no idea what you’re asking. The most I got out of Vincent, before he dove through the window, was that it’s something connected to Rynda’s mother.”
Another pause. Vincent mustn’t have told him. Ha.
“That should be good enough,” he said.
“We’re looking for a needle in a haystack and we don’t even know if it’s a needle. It could be a pen or an apple. We’ve gone through Brian and Rynda’s computers. We didn’t find it.”
“It’s not in the computer.” A note of irritation crept into his voice. “It’s somewhere in the house. Or outside of it, in a personal safe deposit box, or wherever else Olivia stashed it.”
“You want us to find we don’t know what in we don’t know where.”
“And you’ll find it, if you want Brian to survive.”
“Could you at least give us time?”
“Very well. You have forty-eight hours.”
I had expected twenty-four.
“I suggest you make good use of it. I hate to see children cry because they miss their parent, don’t you? If I don’t have what I need in forty-eight hours, I’ll deliver their father to them in pieces.”
The disconnect signal filled the room. Bug turned the feed off.
“Someone needs to squish him,” Arabella said. Red tinted her cheeks. She clenched her teeth. He really managed to piss her off.
I turned to Rynda. “You don’t have to worry about Brian for forty-eight hours.”
“But what happens at the end?” She hugged herself.
“We’ll deal with that then. Have you called Scroll?”
“Yes. They’re on the way.”
“Good. I need you to take this evening and think back over the past few weeks. They seem to be absolutely sure that whatever they want is in your house or somewhere where you would have access to it. Did your mother give you anything as a keepsake? No matter how unimportant? Ask the kids.”
She sighed. “I’ll do that.”
“I can talk to the children.”
“No.” She held up her hand. “No, I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.”
She went down the stairs.
I turned to Bug, held out my phone, and typed a text to Bern, holding the phone so Bug could see what I was typing. I didn’t want to take any chances that Rynda or someone else would overhear.
Talked to kidnapper. He’s absolutely sure that whatever we’re looking for isn’t on Brian’s computer. Could we check if Sherwood computers were accessed using Brian’s credentials from some unusual location?
“On it.”
I leaned to Bug and whispered. “Could you please check the route Brian took to work and find out how many cameras are facing that street?”
Bug blinked and ran to his workstation.
My cell rang. Please be something good. I looked at it. Rogan.
Here we go. We’d have to discuss Garen Shaffer. I knew this would happen sooner or later. “Hello?”
His voice had the calm, collected overtones of a Prime. “You promised me a dinner.”
My mind made a 180-degree turn and it took me a second to catch up. “Yes.”
“I’ll pick you up in an hour and a half. Cocktail attire.”
Cocktail attire meant there was probably a reservation. I was wearing bloodstained ACUs.
“Do you need a dress?”
What was he up to? “No. I have one.”
“See you at seven.”
I exhaled and trudged back down the stairs to take a shower and get dressed.
Behind me Arabella spoke into the phone. “Catalina, what are you doing? . . . Can you cancel that? Nevada needs help.”
“Did he say what this was about?” Grandma Frida asked for the twelfth time.
“No.”
I sat at the kitchen table and tried to work on my laptop. Bern and Cornelius were still going through Brian’s correspondence, so I decided to scour his mushroom Pinterest account.