“We want you to get the money that your boy Tyler had hidden away. We know that you have access to it, or you can get access to it. But tell no one except the person you need to get that money for you. No other cops. No one else. And yes, we know all about him and his piss ant investigation. He won’t uncover shit. Tell him it’s a wild goose chase. But he’d better cooperate. You get that money and meet us at the drop place in six hours. We’ll text you the location.”
Then the line went dead. “Chelsea! No!”
I laid my head on Bill’s shoulder and sobbed. This was all too much. I was so close to cracking all together. I felt sick.
“We will get through this,” Bill said. “Look. All we have to do is stick to their plan. But we alter it a bit to suit ourselves.”
“You heard him. If we bring any cops then Chelsea is dead.”
“Nothing can stop them from killing her if they want to. That’s a fact. I pray she is ok, but we can’t play by their rules. They can change them in an instant, so why can’t we? If we are to have a prayer in hell of this working then we have to do what we can. But we have to play along with everything. I’ll call Al and tell him what’s going on.”
Bill grabbed his phone and called his friend. I quickly got dressed. This was insane. I couldn’t believe that this was actually happening to me. Why? And Chelsea… how? It must have happened right after I left her party. How did someone abduct her there? Did they wait until the party was over? How did I sleep so long? I fell asleep about nine. And I slept through the night while my best friend was going through who could possibly know what. She had to have been so scared.
I hated myself for allowing this to happen. I’d put her in danger by going to that party. They’d been following me. They knew my every move. If we tried to mess with them or screw them over on this deal then they would know and they would kill Chelsea. Then they would still get to me.
“Get a grip,” I said. “Got to get a grip.”
“Ok, Al is getting the money together and he is putting together an elite team to take these assholes out. They will not get caught. Al assures me they are his best. So, I take him at his word. We will turn this to our advantage. These guys have just hung themselves. They just don’t realize it yet. Their arrogance is their downfall.”
I wanted to believe him. But I wasn’t sure. I had so many doubts. But right now, I had to go with this. It was all I could do. I had to save my friend. And I was willing to sacrifice myself to do it. I just hoped that Bill’s friend could pull off a miracle like he claimed that he could.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Chapter 10
Bill
This was stupid. I knew it as sure as I was breathing. It was risky and it was going the wrong route here, but we didn’t have a lot of options at the moment. These pricks had an innocent woman in their clutches. I was damned if I was going to stand by and let her be sacrificed, even if it meant I might be putting Zion’s head in the lion’s mouth. She wouldn’t have stayed away even if I had told her.
We had to play by the rules, or at least we had to let them think we were playing by the rules. That was the important thing. We just had to pretend to play along and everything had to go smoothly. One tiny misstep and it would all fall apart. Zion and Chelsea would be dead.
I told Al everything and he was excited to know that these guys had reached out, but he was going to proceed cautiously with the team he was putting together. “We have to be careful with this,” he said. “If they even suspect that something is wrong then it will be all over.”
“Ok, so what do you suggest? What’s the plan?”
“I’m surprised you haven’t thought of one.”
“Yeah, I’ve got one, but it’s not entirely ethical and it might not be really that legal.”
“Well, as long as you don’t tell me about it then I don’t have to worry about it until after the fact. And if it doesn’t work then it doesn’t work, but two plans are always better than one.”
“I agree. What are you doing?”
“We will have guys lined up around the drop point, in hiding of course. And then when Zion does the drop we will spring into action.”