I dialed Desiree’s number again and listened to it ring to voicemail. Deciding to try one more time, I hung up and called again. On the third ring, it suddenly went silent, and I stopped pacing. I could see Brett’s and Al’s eyes flicker up to me from where they were in the living room. Brett stood up slowly.
“Desiree?” I asked. “Hello? Desiree, are you there?”
There was a shuffling sound on the other end, and my heart leapt into my throat. Sweat began to bead on the edges of my hairline, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“Hello,” a voice said. It was slithery and deep and like acid in my ear. “Aiden Beckett. If you know what’s good for you, you will forget the bitch. She’s dead already.”
“What?” I screamed into the phone, but it was too late. The click of the line going dead seemed to echo in my ear.
“What happened? Is she okay?” Al said as I stared at the phone.
“It was a man,” I said, my voice weak and sounding faraway.
“What?” Brett asked.
“A man. He said to forget her. He said she’s already dead.”
The words came out like salt in a wound, and I felt like I was going to fall over. I grabbed the wall and tried to press as much weight into it as I could. My mind was racing with despair and anger and hatred.
“No way,” Al said. “No way she’s dead. Not yet.”
“Why would you say that? Why would he lie?”
“Why would he answer the phone at all?” Al said. “It doesn’t make sense. He wants you to stop looking. But after all this, they wouldn’t just kill her on the spot. They will want to make an example of her. They’re probably still close. It’s easier to hide here than in New York. They know I’d find them.”
“That might be the point,” one of the men said. “They want the word to filter to you that they have her.”
“Negotiation,” Al said. “They will try to ransom her for power.”
“Then we have to find her,” I said. Hope was building in my chest again. If she was alive, then I could find her. I could save her.
“We need a plan,” Al said. “We don’t know where they could have her. It would play right into their hands if we just blitzed the city. The cops would be on us fast, and the FBI wouldn’t be far behind. This is a turf war. We have to play it like one.”
“I know the area,” Brett said. “If there’s an empty building around Ashford, I likely know about it and what used to be there. If we go into town, I might be able to guide us to a few places they might have her.”
“Then we get ready,” Al said. He turned to me. “This could get ugly. Bloody. It’s not something I relish, and it’s certainly not something I want to get someone into if they aren’t ready for it.”
“I’ve seen and participated in worse,” I said.
“Oh?” Al asked. “The service?”
I nodded. He made a clicking sound in his mouth and then nodded himself.
“I saw worse things in my one year in Vietnam than anywhere else,” Al said. “But what we are planning to do doesn’t have the cover of a military operation. Are you good with that?”
“Does it mean we get Desiree back alive?” I asked.
“You bet your ass.”
“Then yes. I’m ready to fight.”
“Me too,” Brett said.
I turned to him in surprise, and he nodded at me, a slight grin on his face.
“What friends are for,” I said.
“What friends are for,” he repeated.
“Call the number again,” Al said. “I got a tech nerd with me. He might be able to trace where the phone is if you can get them on the hook for a few minutes.”
“I need ninety seconds,” a voice said from the kitchen. A man I had barely noticed as part of the crew, tall and lanky but bookish, sat at the table. He was munching on what looked like garlic bread and dipping it into a bowl with meat sauce. “Ninety seconds and I can trace it within two blocks.”
“Ninety seconds, then,” Al said. “See if we can pinpoint the bastards, and we will go get her.” He turned to another one of his men, saying something in Italian, and the man nodded. Without a word, he left the cabin and went out to the car. As I dialed Desiree’s number again, I saw him pulling out a massive briefcase and two duffle bags.
He was barely in the door before the rest of the men had swarmed on him, taken the bags, and begun to unload and disperse weaponry among the men in the room.
28
Desiree
They hit me and kicked me a few times, usually just to push me somewhere I obviously didn’t want to go. I could take it. I was tougher than that. My only worry was a few of the times had been right to my stomach. Each time they hit me there, I panicked, worried about the baby. I begged them to stop but stopped short of telling them I was pregnant. I knew better.