As she turned onto her street, she heard the police sirens in the distance, approaching. She got to her front door and took a deep breath. She was doing this. She had to, even if it meant that she would die or be taken.
She opened the door and ran inside. There was a pool of blood where she had taken out the man who had attacked her.
“Mom?” she called out. “Mom!”
She ran up to her parents’ bedroom. There was no one there. She checked her own bedroom and every other room in the house. There were signs of struggle, things on the floor, a broken mirror, but no one was in the house. The other man had left, and had taken her mother with him.
She was so frantic that it took her several minutes to calm down enough to call her father.
CHAPTER 51
Boston, February 27
Morgan raced home probably as fast as he’d ever driven before. He sped up I-93 North out of Boston, weaving through traffic. He took his exit, nearly tipping over as he made the curve, then ran every red light until he reached his house. He arrived to find Alex, by the headlights of his car, sitting on the lawn in the dark, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Dad,” she cried as he got out of the car. She ran to embrace him, and he took her in his arms. “Dad. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t save her. I just ran. Dad. I just ran out of there and I left her.”
“Calm down, Alex, honey.” He hugged her, and felt the skin of her face against his. “Honey, you’re freezing! Tell me what happened. Are you hurt?”
“No, I’m not hurt—”
“There’s blood on your face,” he said.
“It’s not mine,” she said, reflexively touching her face where he was looking. She sobbed. “Dad! They took Mom!”
“Who did?”
“Two men in masks,” she said. “They were in the house. I stabbed one and managed to get away, and then I ran and left her—” She broke down in tears. “Why did I run?”
“Did you check the house?” he asked. She nodded. He held her by the shoulders and stooped slightly so that his eyes were level with hers. “Alex. Alex. Listen to me. You did the right thing. You were faced with an impossible situation, and you ran. You did the right thing. You lived.”
She nodded weakly.
“Now,” he continued, “I’m going to find your mother. I need you to be strong for me and look after yourself while I do. Can you do that?” She nodded again, this time more calmly.
He took out his secure phone and dialed. It rang half a dozen times before he heard Lincoln Shepard’s voice on the other end. “Y’ello.”
“Shepard, it’s Cobra. I need your help.”
“Listen, I’m just running some test on a new thing I’m hacking together—”
“Right now,” said Morgan.
Shepard apparently took note of Morgan’s tone, because he asked, “What happened?”
“My wife’s been taken.”
“What?”
“Abducted. From my house. About half an hour, forty minutes ago. I’m going to need your help on this.”
“Can I get an address?”
Shit. There goes anonymity. “Yeah, sure, it’s—” He gave Shepard his home address and heard him typing it through the comm.
“I’ll scare up whatever surveillance I can get,” he said. “Any idea on the color, make and model of the vehicle?”
He turned to his daughter. “Did you happen to see what car they came in?”
“No.”
“That’s a negative,” he told Shepard.
“All right. I’ll look at traffic cameras in a pattern radiating from your location. Running some algorithms to narrow down the search.”
“All right,” said Morgan.
“Hold on,” said Shepard. “Bloch’s here.”
“Cobra,” came Diana Bloch’s voice. “What’s going on?”
He explained.
“Do you think it was Novokoff?” she asked.
“The thought had occurred to me.”
“Okay,” she said. “I’m diverting all our resources to this. I’m calling Bishop and tactical in. Meanwhile, I think it’s a good idea if you sit this one out.”
“Not a chance,” he said. “I’m coming back down to the city. Keep me posted.” He hung up, then looked at his daughter, who was shivering with her arms wrapped around herself.
“Alex,” he said. “I wish I could take care of you right now and take you somewhere safe, but every second counts right now. Listen carefully. I want you to take your mother’s car and go to the Mullinses’, over in Burlington. You remember where that is?”