Chapter 4

“Nice digs,” Jean-Luc said from the passenger seat of the rented 4Runner. “Nice neighborhood.”

Gabe ignored him and leaned on the steering wheel to study Bryson Van Amee’s apartment building and the surrounding neighborhood. It was nice. Affluent. Clean. Full of sprawling parks and red brick buildings with a subtle British flair to the architecture. A million steps up from the barrios he’d seen during his past two trips to Bogotá. Of course, then he’d been assisting the Colombian Army in hunting for the brutal leader of a drug cartel, not searching for an unfortunate American businessman caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“I don’t think the snatch happened inside his place,” Gabe said, “but it won’t hurt to check it out.” He needed to get a feel for the kind of person Van Amee was. A survivor, he hoped, or else they’d be dragging a body back to the States.

“Security guard on the front door,” Jean-Luc pointed out. “Cameras, too. IP-based, which means they probably store their footage digitally.”

“How do you know?” Gabe had seen the cameras, but as far as he knew, there was no way to tell whether they were IP or analog just by looking.

“My brother-in-law owns a security company in New Orleans,” Jean-Luc said, raising a pair of binoculars and focusing on the closest camera. “I help out with installations when he’s short-staffed, and… oui, I recognize that model. It’s a Hikvision IP camera. I can call him to double-check, but I’m pretty sure. We should ask to see their footage.”

Gabe shook his head. “I don’t want to risk tipping anyone off that we’re looking.”

Jean-Luc lowered the binoculars and grinned. “I like the way your mind works, mon capitaine. Very James Bond.”

“No,” Gabe corrected, “very practical. Van Amee’s limo driver, Armando Castillo, reported him missing when he didn’t show for his scheduled pick-up. Building security had no clue anything was wrong until Armando raised the alarm.” He scanned the building, looking for faults in its security. At first glance, he didn’t find many. A guard here, a camera there, angled just right. Not necessarily unassailable for a trained operative, but a newly formed, ragtag terrorist faction would have a rough time of it.

“Leads me to believe the EPC has someone on the inside,” he continued. “How else would they know who to hit and when?

They had to have surveillance on him.”

“I’ll call Harvard, see if he can hack into their network.” Jean-Luc raised his phone to his ear, spoke for a moment, gave the camera’s brand name and apartment’s address, and nodded. “Harvard says it’s a go. He’ll have the footage for us in an hour.” He slid his phone back into the pocket of his button-up shirt, which he wore open over a Pink Floyd T-shirt. “So, we have time to kill. You want us to sneak a peek inside?”

“Not yet. I’m going to recon the block first. You stay here and keep eyes on.” Gabe climbed out of the 4Runner and grabbed one of the radios Harvard had given him before they left the safe house. “Anything suspicious, radio me. Don’t go in by yourself.”

“Aye-aye, mon capitaine. But, uh…” Jean-Luc reached into the backseat. “Shouldn’t you take your cane?”

“Goddammit.” He snatched it from Jean-Luc’s hand. The only reason he had the fucking thing was Jesse Warrick, after getting a load of his medical history and doing a physical, insisted he use it more. Since he told his men to defer to the medic, he couldn’t very well go against his own order.

“Goddammit,” he said again, and Jean-Luc laughed as the car door shut.

* * *

Nothing.

Not that Audrey had expected a glaring neon sign with an arrow that said, Find Bryson Here, but, well, at least one clue would be nice. The apartment was disgustingly tidy, so like Bryson. No ruffled pillows, no dust on the rosy hardwood floors, no leftover dishes in the sink or crumbs on the marble counters. The coffee pot appeared unused, and the fridge sat mostly empty. Also not a surprise. Brys couldn’t cook worth a damn, somehow managing to burn everything he toasted, nuked, or fried up in a skillet. Like the time he’d tried to make Mama’s famous casserole shortly after their parents died to cheer her up and ended up with half of Savannah’s fire department on the front lawn.

Audrey smiled a little and ran a finger along one of the unused frying pans hanging above the kitchen’s center island. Yes, they had their issues. He was money and power-obsessed. She wasn’t. He was concerned with his image, worried about what others thought of him as a man and them as a family unit. She couldn’t care less. Although he didn’t understand her, he loved her in his own way.

Now he was gone.

Her smile faded, but she wouldn’t let the surge of stomach-churning fear get to her again, or else she’d spend the next several hours hung over a toilet like she had when she realized she’d witnessed his kidnapping.

God, that short call might be the last time she ever talked to him. He was the only family she had left, and without him, she’d truly be alone in the world. The thought sent a shudder of cold dread through her even though, in reality, she’d always kind of been alone in the world. Her parents had died when she was barely a teenager and Bryson had already been off living his life, making his millions. He’d hired nannies and tutors, sent her to the best boarding schools, and made sure she had everything she could possibly want...

But none of those things replaced a family. None of them replaced him.

Now he was gone.

Maybe forever.

No.

No, she refused to think that.

She would find Bryson. And maybe they could start fresh, without the dark cloud of old resentments and misunderstandings marring their relationship. Maybe they could become a real family again, just like when their parents were still alive.

Yes, it was a lot to hope for, but she was nothing if not stubbornly optimistic.

But where to start?

Audrey drifted over to the window that took up one whole wall of the living room and stepped out onto the balcony. So many buildings, people, and parks in this quiet neighborhood alone. She had no idea where or even how to start looking. Chloe, the Wicked Sister-in-Law of the West Coast, had been next-to-no help.

“Don’t get involved,” Chloe had said. They simply had to do what the kidnappers wanted. Pay a ransom, get Bryson back. No police involvement. “Everything will be all right,” she had said. “Trust me.”

Uh-huh. Audrey would trust her the day Chloe admitted her boobs, butt, and the age on her ID were all fake. The only thing that woman had ever done right in her miserable life was give Bryson two sweet, adorable sons.

Audrey had ignored Chloe and called the FBI, who hadn’t seemed all that interested, but said they would “look into it.” Wasn’t the FBI supposed to be all about finding kidnappers? At least, they were on TV. So she tried every other alphabet soup bureaucracy she could think of, and even Bryson’s insurance company, in hopes someone could do something. But everyone said it was someone else’s jurisdiction, except the insurance company, which was more worried about their bottom line than her brother’s wellbeing. As soon as she hung up with them, she called her manager, canceled her show, and started packing her bags. If nobody was willing to help, she’d just find Brys herself.

Somehow.

God, now that she was here, she realized how hopeless and foolish it was. What the hell could she do to find him?

On the street below, a man with a cane caught her eye as he climbed out of a dented blue 4Runner parked at the curb. He didn’t look Colombian. For one thing, he towered head and shoulders above everyone he passed. He had dark close-cropped hair and light skin and wore a simple white short-sleeved shirt over olive green cargo pants. His footwear looked an awful lot like combat boots. Even two stories up, she could feel the waves of command radiating from him.

He seemed to be looking for something.

No, not looking. Canvassing. That’s what all those cop dramas Mama used to like had called it. Canvassing the neighborhood. Er, casing? She always got those confused, but that was beside the point. He didn’t belong here and jangled all of her mental warning bells.

Did he know something about Bryson’s abduction?

If not, why else would a man like him be here?

With a hard lump of fear rising in her throat, she watched him turn the corner at the end of the street, then she looked at the 4Runner he’d abandoned. From what she could see, it appeared to have local plates, and another man sat inside. So maybe she was overreacting. Maybe they were tourists, and the man with the cane was searching for a restroom… in an upscale neighborhood like this? Okay, that didn’t make sense. But maybe they were lost and looking for their hotel. Or they?—

The man inside the vehicle lifted a set of binoculars and focused them directly at her.

Audrey ducked back into the apartment. A car door slammed shut a heartbeat later.

Oh God, oh God, oh God.

She scanned the room. The apartment was too open and airy, too minimalist to offer any decent hiding place. Maybe he wouldn’t be able to get in. The security guard at the door hadn’t believed that she was Bryson Van Amee’s sister, and even though she had a key, it had taken a lot of wheedling and charm to access his apartment.

Footsteps pounded hard and fast down the hallway, and her hope plummeted. The man obviously knew tricks to get by security guards. Big surprise. Did he also know how to get inside a locked apartment?

When the knob rattled and she saw the point of a knife slip between the door and frame, she got her answer.

What had she been thinking coming here alone? Yes, she’d wanted to find her brother, but not like this. Not as a fellow captive. Bryson was always admonishing her for her recklessness. Always said that she needed to look before she leaped or else?—

The door clicked and opened, catching on the chain she’d at least had the foresight to slide home.

“Policía,” the man called. His Spanish was perfect, and even carried a Colombian accent, but she didn’t believe him for a second. “?Abra la puerta!”

Uh-huh. Hell would most definitely freeze over before she acknowledged his command to open the door. The way she saw it, all she had going for her was the element of surprise. He figured someone was inside, but he didn’t know who or where or whether she was armed.

She grabbed the closest thing, a heavy glass lamp on the end table beside the couch—such a girly weapon and not as heavy as she’d hoped, but it’d still make the fake policeman see stars—and moved to the right side of the door.

“?Policía!”

Ri-ight. And if she had a cup of tea and a biscuit, she’d be the Queen of England.

Holding her breath until her ears buzzed, Audrey waited for him to kick the door, her hands beginning to sweat on the lamp. Any second now.

Any…

Second…

The door flew open, banging into the opposite wall, and she went into pure adrenaline-fueled fight or flight mode, slamming the lamp down as hard as she could on his blond head. Once, twice, a third time for good measure, her heart hammering so hard she thought for sure it was going to pop out of her chest and join in on the beating.

The fake policeman collapsed with an oomph, and she scrambled over his big body. And, boy, was he big. A solid lump of muscle lying dazed on the floor, blocking her only escape. He looked more like a frat boy than a kidnapper in his Pink Floyd T-shirt, jeans, and Nikes, one of which connected with the back of her left knee, buckling her leg.

She managed to keep from slamming face-first into the floor by catching herself on her hands and knees. Tried to crawl away from her attacker, but he snagged her skirt. On instinct, she kicked out, crashed the heel of her sandal into his nose, and wished like hell that she were wearing a stiletto instead. As blood spurted, he lost his grip, and she scrambled to her feet.

He cursed in a language that was definitely not Spanish—Russian? Holy shit, was he Russian? Ignoring his bleeding nose, he was back on his feet as if he hadn’t ever been down.

Who was this guy, the freaking Terminator? If he was this resilient, she didn’t want to stick around and meet his friend with the cane.

“Hey, stop! I just want to talk to you.” His English was also perfect, carrying notes of the Deep South, bringing to mind great food, pudding-thick humidity, and dangerous swamps. He repeated the command in Spanish.

American, some tiny, rational portion of her brain realized as she darted toward the stairs at the end of the hall. Still, that didn’t mean he was a friend. He wouldn’t have kicked down the door if all he wanted to do was have a simple chat. She hit the stairs at a sprint, half-expecting him to vault over the railing and cut her off at the bottom. He didn’t, but a glance over her shoulder as she crashed through an emergency exit at the back of the building proved he was still right behind her.

He had a gun now, holding it alongside his leg.

Oh God.

She turned to flee down the alleyway toward the street and smacked into a rock wall of a chest covered with a white short-sleeved cotton shirt.

The man with the cane.

She was not going to outrun them, so she did the only other thing she could think of. She screamed. And screamed. And screamed.