Retribution Read online

  12

  Seated in the car in the bank parking lot, Dominic opened his laptop and clicked a few keys. Jillian’s nerves stretched taut. She sat in the backseat next to Colton, who looked over at the screen. Hunter filled the front passenger seat. FBI agents were working around the clock, the local police were questioning everyone they could find who might know something, and she knew close friends and family were praying. But Jillian needed something, anything. She need a sign, some clue that could give her hope that her girl was still alive. Please, Jesus.

  Dominic pulled up the enlarged and enhanced picture of Tanner Brant and his passenger. Jillian huddled next to Colton and together they stared at the photo.

  She squinted. “She’s got her head turned, but it’s definitely a woman.” And there was something about her, something …

  “You’re right,” Colton said. He leaned closer. “She could just be someone Tanner took with him to the bank or it could be she’s involved in everything.”

  “How do we find her?” Jillian asked.

  Dominic took her hand. “We’ve got agents questioning Brant’s neighbors. Hopefully we’ll hear something soon.” His phone rang.

  Colton leaned back and Jillian rested her head on his shoulder. He wrapped her in a fierce hug and just held her. She relished the security, then immediately felt guilty. Who was holding Meg? “Meg,” she whispered.

  Wetness hit her cheek and she looked up into her husband’s face. Her big, strong, softhearted husband. Crying silently for his child in the backseat of one of his best friend’s car. She rubbed her palms across his cheeks, and he sniffed and turned his gaze to stare out the window. Jillian let him alone and tuned in to Dominic’s conversation.

  “We’ll be right there.”

  “Where?” she demanded.

  Dominic started the car. “They picked up the basketball coach and are holding him down at the station.”

  “Where was he?”

  “Visiting his dad in a nursing home.”

  Jillian’s surge of hope wilted. “Then he probably doesn’t know anything.”

  “Only one way to find out,” Hunter said. He turned in his seat and met Jillian’s gaze. “There’s always hope until there’s not. You understand?”

  She stared at him for a brief moment, then nodded. Megan was alive until they had proof she wasn’t. Jillian clung to the fragile hope.

  “Let’s go.” Colton slapped the back of the seat and Jillian clutched his other hand as prayers winged upward.

  13

  Meg waited. She’d been waiting. Tension flowed from the other side of the door. Would her captor step forward and take Meg up on her challenge? Would her kidnapper just round the edge, the thin edge of the door that separated them, and fire the weapon?

  Meg’s body gave one big shudder, but she was ready. She would fight. And she would either win and get away or she would die trying.

  Finally, the door began to shut. Meg frowned. Was it a trap?

  She waited too long. The door shut softly and the key turned in the lock. Meg froze. Then leapt toward the door and pounded on it. “What are you doing? Come back here!”

  The footsteps faded.

  Along with Meg’s hope. She’d failed.

  She dropped her makeshift weapon, sank to the floor, placed her forehead on her knees, and wept. Time passed as she sobbed out her frustration, her fury.

  Her helplessness. She didn’t care if her tormentor was watching her. She just didn’t care.

  Finally, sniffling, she dried her tears on her T-shirt and stood. She lifted her head and stared at the ceiling. “God! Can you hear me? Get me out of here! Please! Please.” She ended the plea with a whisper. “Please.”

  At the police station, Jillian and Colton watched from the other side of the two-way mirror while Dominic questioned Megan’s coach.

  “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know! For the millionth time, I don’t know!” He slammed a fist on the table and Colton sighed.

  “Fine,” he said. “You don’t know. Give me a reason why we should believe you.”

  Jillian’s phone beeped. A text from Serena.

  S: Where r u?

  J: At the police station. They’re questioning Meg’s coach.

  S: Can u meet me? I know I can’t take ur mind off Meg, but I can buy u a cup of coffee.

  Though touched by the gesture, Jillian wasn’t sure she was ready to do anything.

  J: When?

  S: Whenever’s convenient for u. I want 2 be there 4 u.

  Jillian tapped Colton’s arm. He turned and she showed him the text. He rubbed his chin. “It might be good for you. Go talk to her.”

  “I don’t want to. I can’t do anything until Meg comes home.”

  He turned and gripped her shoulders. “Go meet Serena.”

  Jillian sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

  “Serena spends almost as much time with Meg as we do. She loves her like her own. Go talk to her, see if, between the two of you, you can come up with anything, a name, a friend, a date we don’t know about. Anything.”

  “You really think it would help or are you just trying to get rid of me?”

  He leaned his forehead against hers. “I really think it might help. I don’t want to get rid of you. You’re smart, you love Meg. You’re the best person to bounce something off of Serena.”

  He was right. She drew in a deep breath. “All right.” With shaky fingers, she texted back,

  J: Can u meet me in an hour?

  S: Of course. Where?

  J: Billy’s?

  A small café near the hospital. She’d been there several times.

  S: C u there in an hour.

  14

  Colton watched Jillian walk out of the police station. Her shoulders drooped, her face had lines that weren’t there before Meg’s disappearance. His heart ached for the pain she was enduring and fury boiled in his gut at the person causing it. Revenge burned hot, acid bubbling just beneath the surface of his skin. He wanted to hurt the person who’d taken Meg.

  No, he amended silently. He wanted to kill the person.

  Colton swallowed hard, pushed aside the destructive thoughts, and sent up yet another silent prayer. He turned back to find Dominic leaving the interrogation room.

  Colton headed for the door to meet Dominic. His friend looked like an angry bear.

  “I’m sorry,” Dominic said, “but I really don’t think he knows anything.”

  “Another dead end.” The rage returned swift and hot, to mingle with the fear twisting inside him. A fear so tangible, he could taste it. His head spun. He stumbled.

  “Hey, are you okay?” Dominic grabbed his arm and shoved him into one of the chairs just outside the interrogation room.

  Colton didn’t bother trying to resist. He dropped his face into his hands and caught his breath. Then he cleared his throat and looked up and caught Dominic’s eye. “I’m never going to see her again, am I?”

  Tears appeared in Dominic’s eyes for a brief flash before his friend grabbed his shirt just below his throat and jerked him out of the chair. Dominic gave him a ferocious glare. “You listen to me, Colton Brady. We’re going to find her. She’s strong, she’s smart, she has God and us. Evil is not going to win. It’s not going to take her from us.”

  Colton swallowed his panic and gave Dominic a gentle shove. His friend stepped back. Colton firmed his jaw and nodded. “You’re right. Sorry. I just …”

  Dominic slapped his shoulder. “I know.”

  Colton took a deep breath. He wouldn’t give up. He would do anything for his child.

  Even die for her.

  Dominic’s phone rang and he stepped back to lift the device to his ear. Colton paced in the hallway, praying, thinking.

  “Okay, let me know what the number is. The other one will turn up. Right. Love you too.” Dominic hung up.

  Colton lifted a brow. “Serena?”

  “Yeah. She can’t find her cell phone. Said
she’s been looking for it all morning.”

  Colton froze. “What?”

  Dominic frowned. “You need me to repeat it?”

  “Serena can’t find her phone.”

  “Right.” Dominic stepped toward him, concern written all over him. “That’s what I said. Man, I know this is a tough time right now, but—”

  “No, no, something’s wrong. Serena just texted Jillian and asked her to meet her at Billy’s, that new little café that opened up about two months ago.”

  “The one near the hospital.”

  “Yeah, only if Serena lost her phone …”

  “… who texted Jillian from Serena’s number?”

  Colton bolted down the hall even as he pulled his phone from his pocket. He punched Jillian’s number as he ran.

  Dominic’s footsteps pounded behind him.

  15

  Jillian stood outside the café and looked around for Serena. Her phone rang and she fished it out of her pocket, her gaze bouncing from one person to the next. Who had Meg? Someone who looked ordinary? Someone she knew? Resentment rose up in her. Her baby was missing, maybe dead, and life just went on as though nothing was wrong?

  It shouldn’t. The world should stop. Everyone should be looking for her child.

  “Answer that phone,” the voice hissed in her ear, “and you’ll never see Meg again.”

  From the first word, Jillian couldn’t move. She stayed still until the ringing stopped. Agonizing seconds where she wanted to spin and demand answers. As though reading her mind, the voice spoke again in that same hissing whisper. “Don’t turn around, don’t try to look at me. Follow my instructions and you can see Meg in about twenty minutes.”

  “She’s alive?” Jillian asked, hating the tremble she couldn’t control.

  “For now.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “Follow my directions exactly. If you deviate from them, Meg dies.”

  Jillian swallowed hard. “Okay.”

  “Good.” Something hard jabbed her in the lower back. A gun? “Hand me your phone.”

  Jillian did, passing it back over her shoulder. The person took it and Jillian heard a dull clunk. Her phone now rested in the trash can outside the café. She glanced around, searching, wondering if she should call out. Fear for Meg kept her silent.

  “Now walk toward that gray minivan sitting on the corner.”

  Jillian obeyed. Her knees trembled, threatened to buckle under her, but her daughter’s life was at stake. Would this person really take her to Meg or was she just going to kill her and toss her body in a ditch? She had to take a chance. If there was even a slim chance that this was Meg’s kidnapper, Jillian would keep her mouth shut and obey.

  She climbed into the van trying to get a look at the woman with the nicely concealed weapon. Only she did a very good job of keeping her face averted. The baseball hat helped. But there was something familiar. If she could just see her face …

  “Put this on.”

  A sleep mask landed in her lap. A blindfold. She swallowed hard and picked it up. She placed it on her face and closed her eyes against the darkness. “Who was Tanner?”

  “My boyfriend in college. Just another guy who outlived his usefulness.”

  “You killed him.”

  “Of course.”

  Nausea swirled. This woman had no conscience. She’d already killed one person. Jillian now knew without a doubt she would kill again.

  16

  Colton bolted from the car and into the café. He stopped just inside the door and scanned the area. Jillian hadn’t answered her phone. “Ping it again,” he told Dominic.

  Dominic held up his own device. “I’ve got it right here. It’s somewhere in this location.”

  Colton dialed the number. It rang four times and went to voice mail. He dialed it again.

  Hunter swept through the door brandishing a cell phone held with a piece of cloth.

  Jillian’s. Colton reached for it, then snatched his hand back. “That’s evidence.”

  His belly turned to ice. He knew without a doubt, Meg’s kidnapper now held his wife too. Sweat broke out across his forehead. Disbelief hit him and his legs threatened to crumble. “No. No, no, no, no, no.”

  Hunter looked sick. Even Dominic appeared stunned by this turn of events. Then Dominic grabbed his arm and ushered him to a corner. “We’re only minutes behind Jillian. Someone here saw something.”

  “Start asking questions,” Hunter said.

  With shaking fingers, Colton brought up the latest family picture on his phone and started going person to person, asking if each one had seen the two people he loved most in the world. He texted the picture to Hunter and Dominic and they did the same. Ten minutes later, Colton got a yes.

  “Where?” he demanded.

  The young woman who’d nodded at his question flinched.

  He raked a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, it’s just that they’re missing and I’m desperate to find them.”

  Compassion graced her face. “I saw your wife just outside. She looked like she was waiting on someone. Another woman walked up behind her and they talked. I thought it a little strange, though.”

  “Why? Why strange?”

  “Your wife never turned around to speak, she just stared straight ahead.”

  She’d been ordered not to turn. Colton knew that, but didn’t bother to explain it. “Thank you. Anything else?”

  “They got in a gray van. I was sitting at the small table outside waiting for my date before I got cold and came inside, so I saw them get in. The other woman had on a baseball hat and sunglasses but had her hair down around her shoulders.”

  “What color hair?”

  “Black with a perm or else it was naturally curly.”

  “How tall was she in comparison to my wife?”

  “She was shorter by several inches.”

  “What else?”

  The woman gave a slight shrug and frowned. “I’m sorry, that’s about all I can think of. Like I said, I wouldn’t have even noticed them if I hadn’t thought it weird that your wife never turned to acknowledge the woman speaking to her.”

  “Thank you. Thank you very much. Could I have your name and number?”

  “Sure.”

  He swiped the picture away and pressed the home screen to find the app he needed to take the information.

  The woman gasped. “Wait, that’s her.”

  “What?”

  “Your wallpaper picture. That’s her in the picture.”

  Colton stared at the picture that had been taken the first Christmas he, Meg, and Jillian had been a family. Carmen had joined them. She’d smiled, but even he could see the sadness there, the anger that lurked beneath the surface. It had been the only holiday she’d spent with them. “Her?”

  The woman nodded. “Her.”

  17

  Meg paced the confines of her cell. She had come to the realization that there was nothing she could do until her kidnapper came back. Her stomach rumbled. She’d had nothing since the apple and had a feeling she wasn’t going to get anything else. She had no way to track time, no windows to know if it was day or night.

  Her mind raced, her fear threatened to boil out of control. She whispered prayers, had long conversations with God while she paced. She made deals. If he got her out of here, she’d never disobey her parents again. If God—

  The door slammed open.

  Meg whirled and let out a cry as her mother stumbled into the cell.

  Colton raced to Dominic, who stood questioning one of the other patrons. “Never mind, I know who’s got them. I know where they are.”

  “Who? Where?” He waved Hunter over and Colton told them what he’d discovered.

  Excitement pumped adrenaline through him. “Let’s go.”

  “We need to get a team together. There’s no telling if she has weapons or someone helping her.”

  “She killed her help, remember?” Colton snapped. He headed f
or the door. “I’m going to find my family.”

  “We all want to find them, but we need to be smart about it,” Dominic fired back. “You go off all hotheaded and without a plan and your family could wind up dead.”

  Colton stopped. The words were harsh. But true. He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Fine. What do you have in mind?”

  Jillian ripped the blindfold from her eyes and spun to stop the door from closing, but the woman was faster. She brought the barrel of the weapon down on the side of Jillian’s face.

  Pain radiated through her skull. Meg screamed. The door slammed,

  It hadn’t been a hard hit, just enough to distract her and keep her from escaping. But it hadn’t stopped her from seeing who her kidnapper was.

  “Carmen?” she said, momentarily stunned. And then she pulled her daughter into her arms, shoving aside the pain and confusion for the moment. She focused on her child. “Are you okay?”

  “Oh Mom, I’ve never been so scared in my life. Not even seven years ago.”

  Meg clung to her and Jillian inhaled her daughter’s smell. Sweat and fear emanated from her and Jillian relished it. She was alive. Her baby was still breathing, still in one piece. She gave her one last hard squeeze, then set a protesting, clinging Meg from her. “We have to think. We have to find a way out and we need to find it fast.”

  Tears trailed from Meg’s eyes. “I’ve looked. Trust me on that one. There’s no way out. And there’s a camera. She’s watching everything we do.”

  But Jillian had to find out for herself. Thirty minutes later, she slumped to the floor in defeat. Despair gripped her. If there was a way to escape, she couldn’t find it.

  Meg sniffled and sank next to her. Jillian wrapped her arms around Meg and held on tight.

  “What do we do now, Mom?”

  Jillian sighed. “We pray, honey. We pray.” She paused. “And come up with a plan.”

  “What kind of plan.”

  “You said she can see us?”

  “Yes.”

  Jillian had the vague idea of what might work. She pulled Meg closer. “Look defeated,” she whispered in her daughter’s ear. “Look like we have no hope and are scared to death.”

  Meg gave a soft snort. “I can do that easy. Then what?”

  Returning footsteps brought their heads up. “I haven’t gotten that far yet. Now we wing it.”