Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(150)

So when I asked Stan to drive me home and he’d said, “Dan is on his way up,” I’d nodded, swallowing the flare of hope and tucking my grim resolve tightly around me. I made tea in the large kitchen, offered some to Stan. He accepted and we waited for Dan.

We talked about Stan’s landlady and her weekly pinochle game. We talked about Stan’s cousin and her ugly baby; I surmised that was the “ugly baby” he’d been referring to weeks ago. We talked about how he’d come to work for Dan and Quinn—he’d grown up with them in Boston—and how much he liked his job. We talked about how he and Fiona had been training at the same jujitsu studio in Chicago and how she kicked his ass on the regular.

But Dan did not show up.

Fifteen minutes became a half hour. Finally, Stan texted him, asking for a status update, and Dan immediately texted back,

Dan: Staying with friends in town.





Dan: I won’t be back tonight.





Shards of glass.

As Stan escorted me from Caravel, I decided that if I formed a band, I would call it Shards of Glass. And we’d only sing really, really angsty songs about my ex, Dan O’Malley. So many words rhymed with Dan. It was meant to be.

Man. Plan. Fan. Ban. Tan. LAN. Uzbekistan. The songs would basically write themselves.

During the ride to the hotel, I dodged Stan’s curious glances in the rearview mirror and expounded my list of rhyming words.

When we arrived at the penthouse, I saw a note from Eleanor. She wrote that she was working a night shift, and then would go home, to her house, afterward to sleep and prepare for the party on Sunday.

This meant I had the penthouse all to myself.

Burrowing under blankets, I pulled up Doctor Who in my room and ordered room service. Unsurprisingly, the order consisted mostly of cheese. But—good news—the appetizer platter helped me realize that mascarpone and provolone rhymed, which meant Shards of Glass would definitely be writing a song about cheese.

Distracted, depressed, and dazed, I succumbed to a dreamless sleep sometime between Doctor Who’s first adventure with Donna, and the episode afterward, where ghosts of departed loved ones return to earth only to end up being an army threatening world domination.

But when the sound of my phone woke me—several text messages sent back-to-back, a plate of cheese cuddled to my chest, and the last episode of Doctor Who season two just finishing on the television—events of the previous evening returned to me.

I winced as the boulder of pain landed and resettled on my chest and checked the clock. It was still early. My alarm wouldn’t be going off for another forty-five minutes.

Another chime announced another text message came through, and bleary eyed, I checked my phone. I stared at the messages. I looked up at the wall, wondering if I were still asleep, and then looked back to my phone screen and read the messages again.

Unknown #: We have your husband. You will wire $3mil within twenty-four hours of this message. If you involve the authorities, you will never see him again. If you don’t send the money, you will never see him again. Respond within 10 minutes for proof of life or this message will be sent again.





I scrolled through my texts, seeing that the message had been sent five times and each time the hour-window decreased by ten minutes. They’d texted me five times. Clarity didn’t arrive all at once.

At first, in my sleepy haze, I thought the messages were a joke. I wracked my brain, trying to figure out who we knew with this kind of sick sense of humor. I didn’t believe it. It’s not that kidnapping and ransom were out of the realm of possibility. Rather, it felt implausible.

I loved him, I told him. He didn’t love me. We’d fought. I’d thrown things. He’d gone into town to spend the night with friends.

And then, what? He’d been kidnapped? Who did we know that kidnapped people?

Seamus.

Seamus kidnaps people.

Ice entered my veins. Seamus tried to kidnap Janie two years ago, he’d tried to kidnap me just last week. So . . . not implausible.

I gasped.

Confusion gradually became worry, which gradually became panic. The sensation reminded me of videos I’d watched on YouTube of tsunamis, how the water level rises slowly at first, and then higher, higher, higher, faster, faster, faster.

“Oh God.” I covered my mouth, staring at the screen of my phone just as a repeat of the message appeared, ten minutes subtracted. I dropped it to the bed and stood, backing away, my mind racing.

What do I do?

“Wait,” I said to no one, closing my eyes, telling myself to get a grip. “Quinn.”

Rushing forward, I grabbed my phone, found Quinn’s number, and dialed it.

“Pick up, pick up, pick up.” Pacing the room, I pulled my hand through my hair, about to scream when Quinn finally answered on the third ring.