Chapter Seven

Hours later, Trevor watched as Ollie paced the third-floor kitchen, a cup of cold coffee in his hand as he talked aloud.

“She doesn’t have money. She doesn’t have power.” He turned to look at Trevor, pain evident in his face. “Why take her for ransom? It doesn’t make sense.”

“She’s a journalist, right?”

“Yeah, for the last few years. She used to be in marketing. Big corporate marketing. Traveled all over the place, and the job was driving her into the ground. She quit, then was living on her savings for about a year. I think it was about four years ago that she picked up the journalism gig.”

“And you two kept in touch after you broke up?” He heard the hint of jealousy in his voice, and hoped that Ollie didn’t pick up on it.

“Yeah. We’re still friends. I thought she’d run far and fast from me after what I did, but she’s got a good heart.”

But do you love her?

He didn’t ask it. Why would he? He already knew the answer. He’d overheard Ollie himself saying it to Damien: You’ve had someone you love kidnapped, too.

Love. Not loved. The present tense.

He shook himself. A woman had been kidnapped. What the fuck kind of asshole was he for dwelling on how Ollie felt about her?

With no small amount of effort, he forced himself to regroup, then turned his attention back to Ollie. “What about family money? Could that play into this?”

Ollie shook his head. “There used to be. But they hit hard times a few years ago. As far as I know, they’re leveraged to the hilt. Probably beyond.”

Trevor nodded, thinking. “The kidnapper might not know that.”

“True enough. We’ll work that angle.”

“What kind of journalism? Investigative? Maybe she stumbled across something.”

“No, nothing like that. Assignments for entertainment magazines, mostly. That kind of thing. Puff pieces.” Ollie checked his watch. “I need to call her parents, but I’m going to wait another hour. They’re on vacation in London, and I don’t want to wake them up with this news.”

He started pacing, shock and grief etched on that face Trevor had come to know so well.

“What a conversation that’s going to be. Hey, it’s the asshole who kicked around your daughter, and by the way, she’s been kidnapped. Don’t worry, the ransom is taken care of, but so far we don’t know shit.”

Trevor took a step toward him and held out his hand. Ollie didn’t take it. Slowly, Trevor pulled his hand back. “We’ll get answers,” he promised.

“Yeah, but it doesn’t feel like it right now.”

“I know.” He put his hand on Ollie’s shoulder, and Ollie immediately shook it off and started pacing again.

Trevor sighed, frustrated and confused. “Come on, Ollie— oh! Fuck me,” he said as he realized what they’d all been missing.

Ollie stopped pacing and turned to face him. “What?”

“We’re too close. I’m off my game. You, too.”

“Dammit, Trevor. What are you talking about?”

“This isn’t about a ransom,” Trevor said, watching as confusion played over Ollie’s features. “It’s not about money at all. Not at the core.”

Ollie shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s about you, McKee. The ransom note was addressed to you. Not to her parents. And it’s no secret that you’re in tight with Stark. Whoever did this had to know that you’d be pulled in right away.”

Ollie went completely pale. “Me,” he said. “The sick bastard took her to punish me.”

* * * *

Within minutes, the team was assembled around the conference table, and Ollie was beating himself up for somehow being at the crux of this. He shot a quick glance toward Trevor, who met his eyes, then shook his head just slightly. The message was clear—this isn’t your fault.

Short and to the point, and it made Ollie feel a tiny bit better, if for no other reason than knowing that there was someone who had his back.

Their eyes held another second, then Trevor turned his attention back to the table and nodded at ASAC Horowitz. “Can you take a look at Ollie’s closed and cold cases?”

“Already on it,” Horowitz said, holding up his phone.

“I’ll call Charles,” Ollie said, referring to his old boss in Los Angeles. “See if anything rings a bell from one of my old cases here. But off the top of my head, I’ve got nothing.”

“And New York?”

“I’ll call the office there, too, but it seems more likely this would have originated here.”

“Agreed,” Trevor said. “But no stone unturned.” He held Ollie’s eyes again. “Whatever it takes, we’ll get her back.”

That warmth in his belly was back, and Ollie nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We will.”

“You need to examine your personal life too,” Quince said, his British accent more pronounced since he’d just returned from a job in London and come straight to Stark’s house. He was former MI6 and an ex-member of Deliverance, a now defunct organization that had operated vigilante style, but with the primary mission of protecting and rescuing kidnapped children. Liam had also been part of that group, and Ollie couldn’t be happier they were both on the team.

“I have been,” Ollie assured him. “Honestly, no one rings any bells.”

“What about Courtney’s boyfriend before you?” Denny asked.

Ollie shook his head, doubting that would lead anywhere. “She had one serious relationship before me, and he’s married now. Courtney was even in their wedding. They’re close friends—Courtney, Bill, and his wife. But I’ll go see him. If she’d noticed someone watching her or was nervous about anything, she might have told him.”

Ryan leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “Wouldn’t she have told you? After all, you’re with the FBI.”

“She would. At least I think so. But no stone unturned, right?”

“Oh, we’ve got something.” From the end of the table, Brax looked up. “A partial license plate.”

Thank God.

It wasn’t a resolution, but at least they were moving in the right direction.

“Hang on,” Brax said, tapping keys on his laptop. “Mr. Stark, can you dim the lights?”

Damien moved to the panel and did, adding, “But it’s Damien. Not Mr. Stark. That goes for all of you.”

“Roger that. Okay, look.” He gestured toward the giant LED screen that had been set up for the team. Black at first, then the video feed came into view. “This is the parking lot in Studio City at Laurel and Ventura. The area we’re looking at is right behind the Vons where her car was found after the 911 call was received.”

Ollie’s eyes were fixed on the screen. Someone—presumably the kidnapper—had put in a call to 911 just after midnight from a payphone outside of the grocery store, which was how the ransom note had been found in the first place.

“Here,” Brax said, and a graphic of a yellow arrow appeared on screen, indicating little more than a shadow. Then the shadow moved, crossing the visual field and coming into dim focus to reveal Courtney.

Ollie closed his eyes, fighting a wince. He knew what was coming. And soon enough, it did. A dark figure approached as she was about to open the driver’s side door. He got her from behind, his hand going over her mouth, and Courtney going limp in his arms.

“Chloroform?” The question came from Nikki, and he looked over to see that she’d joined them and was standing beside Damien, his arm around her shoulder.

“Very likely,” Brax said. “Keep watching,” he added as the perp dragged her out of frame.

“Well, shit,” Ollie said.

“Hold on.” Brax tapped some keys, the image shifted, and they had a view of another car as the kidnapper carried Courtney to a late model Honda, then shoved her into the trunk.

Ollie’s gut twisted at the sight. “Tell me you got a plate.”

“Only a partial,” Brax said. “But we have footage of the Honda driving west through the lot, approaching her car. Still only a partial, but it tells us that our suspect entered off of Laurel Canyon about that time.”

“When exactly?” Trevor asked.

“One-oh-four in the morning. No idea what she was doing at the grocery store that late.”

“She wasn’t,” Ollie says. “It closes at ten. She must have been coming in from across the street. There’s a little bar tucked away on Ventura Place. She goes there about once a week to meet a friend from college.”

“There you have it,” Trevor said. “Someone might have known that habit. Leah, you’ll take point interviewing the bar staff.”

“On it,” she said, shooting Ollie a sympathetic smile.

Next, he assigned Mario the task of going deeper into her work. “Poke through her files. Read whatever she was currently working on. Maybe she was trying to get out of doing fluff pieces. Maybe she was working on something investigative that took a wrong turn. Denny, you know what you’re doing.”

“Trying to track the car by that partial.”

“Got it in one.”

“That’s all good and well,” Ollie said. “But it doesn’t feel right. This won’t be about some article she was writing. The note came to me specifically, but anyone watching her would know we haven’t been close in years. Somehow, this is tied to my work.”

“What we know,” Trevor said, “is that we don’t know anything for sure yet, and so we’re covering all bases. You know the game, Ol.”

“I do.” He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“We’ll get her back,” Trevor said, his voice intimately soft. “And we’re definitely playing the Ollie card. You need to be in deep with that. Going over any intel we get from the firm or the Feds. Letting us know if anything is missing.”

“I know,” Ollie said. “And I’m all over that. But first, I need to talk with her parents.” He gestured at the table and Trevor nodded, clearly understanding him. Trevor would hand out the rest of the assignments while Ollie went to make the call.

It was nice, that silent communication. They’d had a rhythm going for a while now, just as friends. But it had definitely ramped up. And in the midst of a hellish day like today, that was at least one ray of sunshine.

* * * *

Ollie was fighting a low-grade headache when he walked into the third-floor kitchen and sat down at the table across from Nikki.

“They’re devastated.” He could still hear the sobs of Courtney’s mother echoing in his head.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, taking his hand.

“They’re in Europe. Some business trip. I told them they should stay put for now. At least they’ll have some distraction from the worry. I told them we’d contact them the moment we knew anything, but they were worried they wouldn’t be able to get a flight that would get them here fast.”

He stood up, then moved to the coffee machine and programmed a latte. “I told them that we’d take care of getting them home. That Damien would send one of his jets. I’m sorry. I should have asked first.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. And just like that, he felt a little better. No matter what other shit he was dealing with, he knew that Nikki would always be his rock. And through her, even Damien.

“Did they have any ideas as to who could be behind it?” She asked as Damien walked into the room.

“The parents?” Damien asked.

Ollie nodded. “Just got off the call. And no. Nothing. As far as they know, she’s got no enemies, there have been no new boyfriends, no angry old ones.” He reached up and massaged the muscles in his neck. “The bottom line is it’s because of me. It must be. Someone is doing this to punish me.”

“Or just for the money,” Nikki said.

“Nikki has a point,” Damien said. “Courtney has a connection to us, and she’s a lot easier to grab than Nikki or the kids. Especially now.”

Ollie nodded slowly, seeing where they were going with this. “But people know you. They know you’re generous. So it wouldn’t be a bad gamble that you’d pay the ransom for your wife’s best friend’s ex- fiancée.”

“Which doesn’t help us at all,” Nikki said. “If that’s the case, it could be any psycho who reads gossip columns. And that doesn’t narrow the field.”

“No. It doesn’t.” Ollie rubbed his temples, feeling like they’d come full circle back to nothing, then grabbed his latte. As he did, Bree came into the room. “Sorry to interrupt. I just wanted to get a snack for the girls.”

“No interruption,” Nikki said. “This is your home, too.”

Ollie had the impression Bree was going to say something else but then Damien said a soft, “Damn.”

“Bad news?” Nikki asked.

“Nothing about the case. It’s Ash,” he said, referring to Ashton Stone, the adult son that Damien only recently learned even existed. “He was going to come in this weekend, but he had to cancel. Then again, considering all we have going on, it’s probably just as well.”

Beside him, Bree shifted and Ollie got a look at her face. There was an odd expression on it, something a little bit soft. It almost reminded him of how he’d felt about Trevor before he could do anything about it. Except on Bree’s face, there was relief there, too. And he couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking.