“Please be careful. I’m so scared.”
“I will. I love you.”
I hung up the phone, the sudden break in connection with my daughter slicing through me. As I started the car seconds later I fought the overwhelming terror that I would never speak to her again.
Chapter 17
Five-thirty a.m.—and Roz had still not shown up. And he wasn’t answering his cell phone. Stone had spent the last half-hour pacing, swearing, and kicking the furniture. Why had he sent anyone else to that woman’s house? He should have done the job himself. Except that he’d needed to be on the phone to other FreeNow members scattered across the country. Now that they were below the twenty-four-hour mark, no one in the organization was sleeping.
His cell rang. Stone snatched it up and saw Tex’s ID. Some time ago he’d contacted Tex—“Agent Rutger”—and told him to look for Roz. “Yeah?”
“He’s disappeared. No sign of him anywhere. Or his car.”
Stone’s fingers fisted. Another traitor among them. What if there were more?
“Get’s worse,” Tex said.
What could be worse at this point? “Yeah?”
“There are no bodies at Hannah Shire’s house.”
Stone let that sink in. “Maybe he got rid of them.”
“No time. Police got a shots-fired call. They were there fast.”
“What? Why didn’t he use a silencer?”
“I don’t know. He has one.”
Stone tipped his shaved head toward the ceiling. Shots fired—and no bodies? “Where are the women?”
“Disappeared too. They took off in her car.”
Stone’s heart jolted. He put a hand to his temple. This could not be happening. “They got away?”
“Looks like it.”
Stone sat down hard on his couch. Roz had sounded strange when he called. Like he was having trouble breathing. Had Hannah Shire shot him with her own weapon? That would explain the neighbors hearing it.
What kind of woman was this?
“Police found blood drops in the house,” Tex said. “Good news is, local cops don’t have a clue what’s going on.”
She must have shot Roz. Stone dropped his chin. That was a major loss. Roz and Tex were Stone’s own recruits, allowed to work directly beneath him. Those kinds of men were hard to find, needing that certain balance of deep discontent and a thrumming drive to fill their souls with purpose. Roz was older, more mature. But Tex was intelligent as well as burning loyal.
What happened? How had Roz let the two women escape?
Whatever the case, Hannah Shire and her mother were alive.
Stone thought back to Roz’s phone call. Talk about lies. The man had to know even then he wasn’t coming in. He’d better run like a desert jackrabbit. No place on this earth could hide him now. FreeNow traitors all met the same end.
Stone cursed. “I don’t want to think what could happen if those women know too much and go to the wrong people.”
Meanwhile the clock ticked.
“Let me go after them,” Tex said. “We should have killed them right away. I won’t let them get away this time.”
Stone grunted. Tex had already killed Nooley for the man’s failure to get the video back and silence Leringer in time. Tex had shown no hesitation at the order. But to one hundred percent redeem himself, he needed to fix his own mistake.
“I’m sure you won’t let them get away again.” Stone kept his voice low. “You got twelve hours to track them down and beat out of them everything they know. Then kill them. And Tex?”
“Yeah?”
“Fail me, and you’re dead.”
Chapter 18
Emily’s coworkers began arriving at the TriPoint Marketing offices around 8:00. She paid little attention. Since her mother’s phone call she’d been researching Morton Leringer. Like her mom said, Leringer owned a lot of businesses under his umbrella corporation. But what was his connection to Raleigh? She couldn’t find anything on that. And she didn’t see anything that made him sound like a terrorist. Why would he want to hurt the country that had made him so rich?
Her muscles were like rocks, and her hand all cramped from holding the mouse too hard. Every minute that passed made her more worried about her mom and Grand. Were they safe at the hotel? Was somebody in the sheriff’s department really out to get them?
Emily heard people greeting each other, making coffee.
A big-shot like Leringer would make news if he was murdered. Emily searched CNN.com for the story. A video with a frozen picture of Morton Leringer on a stage caught her eye. It had been posted a few hours ago. She clicked Play. Leringer began to move, his audio turned off. Emily stared at the man her mother had tried to help.