Chapter
twenty-three
The first time Zander entered the Merryweather police station’s conference room, Detective Shaw had informed him and Carolyn that Frank’s autopsy revealed a bullet wound.
Same oval wood table. Same framed print of the American flag. This time, however, there were more players.
Kurt Shaw had taken the seat next to Zander. Across from them sat Police Chief Warner and a captain from the sheriff’s department. Kurt had contacted Agent Delacruz, who’d been patched in via video conferencing on an iPad. Two FBI agents were en route from the nearest satellite office.
While they waited for Emerson and her attorney to arrive, Zander had been answering questions. At Kurt’s urging, he was holding an ice pack against the swelling on the side of his face.
The sensation of the ice pack irritated Zander all out of proportion. Not because of the sting of cold. But because every second he held it there marked another second of time wasted.
They needed, they all needed, to take action.
The other men appeared somber and intense, but none revealed outwardly the roiling anxiety he felt inwardly.
“How about I get you something to eat or drink?” Kurt asked. “You look pale.”
“Thank you, but no.” He couldn’t even think about food—
The door opened. Emerson and her attorney, a serious man wearing glasses and a gray suit, entered. The attorney shut the door behind them, and they took the two seats at the head of the table.
“Good afternoon,” Emerson said.
“Afternoon,” the others responded.
Zander set the ice pack on the table.
Emerson wore a black shirt and black jacket. She broadcasted a regal brand of calm as she introduced herself and her attorney. Kurt introduced everyone else to her.
“Shall we begin?” she asked.
“Please,” Chief Warner answered.
Emerson stacked one palm on top the other on the table’s surface. “I’m willing to provide you with all the information I have on Tom Randolph, the man who kidnapped Britt Bradford. Are you familiar with Tom Randolph?” she asked Agent Delacruz.
“I am.”
“Then you know that his operation is huge and has been, up until now, impenetrable to law enforcement. In exchange for my testimony against him, I want immunity and I want witness protection.”
“That will take time,” Delacruz said.
“We’ll have to work with the DA’s office in order to make that happen,” the chief said.
“Yes,” Emerson responded. “I’m aware.”
Zander had been right about Emerson. She was here because she’d decided it was in her own best interests to turn on Tom and align herself with the police and FBI. He didn’t care why she helped them. Or what she got out of it. Or whether the FBI would be able to bring Tom Randolph down. He only cared about Britt. “We don’t have time to spare,” Zander said unequivocally. “We can’t wait for the DA.”
“Which is why,” Emerson said, “in an act of good faith, I’m willing to tell you at this time the things I know that might help you find her.”
“Good.” The chief gave a businesslike nod. “Go ahead.”
Emerson straightened her posture. “Tom and I run in the same circles and have for many years. The difference between us is that I’m an independent contractor, and Tom has put together a kind of syndicate. He deals in art, diamonds, and jewelry. Almost a year ago, I contacted him because I needed financial backing in order to pull off a very large job. He gave me the money. Unfortunately, the job went bust. Tom wanted his money back with interest. I had funds but not enough to cover what I owed Tom, so I flew to Washington to talk with Frank. I knew he had a painting worth the kind of money that would clear my debt.”
“Young Woman at Rest,” Agent Delacruz said.
“Young Woman at Rest,” Emerson concurred. “In order to assure Tom that I was good for the money, I told him about Frank and the painting. Then I came to Merryweather to see if I could convince Frank to let me sell it.”
Kurt’s pen scratched against his pad of paper as he took notes.
“For the first few months after I arrived here,” Emerson continued, “Tom allowed me to work on Frank my own way and at my own pace. At the end of March, Tom’s patience ran out. He sent some of his men here.” Her gaze sought Zander’s. “One of them was Nick Dunlap. Was he there today?”
Zander nodded.
“Nick and the others picked me up, and then Nick called Frank at his jobsite. He told Frank he wanted to speak with him and that if he declined they’d be forced to grab Carolyn or one of his daughters to compel him to talk. Then they recited the address of Carolyn’s workplace and of his daughters’ homes.”
“So Frank agreed to speak with them,” Zander said.
“Yes. Nick gave him the address of a remote spot north of town. As soon as Frank got there, they handcuffed us both. They put hoods over our heads and pushed us into the back seat of the van they were driving. They took us to a holding room and chained us to a pipe.”
Zander swallowed back the image of Britt, hooded. Britt, chained to a pipe.
“Nick called Tom to ask him what he wanted him to do next. Tom was relatively close at that time, in California. He told Nick to wait, that he’d fly up the following morning, and speak to Frank and me personally. Nick left.”
“And?” Zander asked.
“And Frank was extremely upset. He was fearful for Carolyn and his girls. As the hours went by, he began to complain of chest pain. He was panting, struggling to breathe. Dizzy. I yelled for help but no one came.” Emerson frowned. “I could twist my arm just enough to see my watch, which is how I know that Frank died at 5:11 a.m.”
His uncle had died tied to a pipe, robbed of medical intervention, as well as the ability to contact the people he loved.
“By the time Tom arrived, Frank had been dead for more than two hours,” Emerson said. “Tom was furious. He had Nick and the others take Frank’s body back to Frank’s car and park it on a road where Frank would be found.”
“Did they set you free at that point?” Chief Warner asked.
“They did, yes. They put a hood over my head and returned me to my car. Tom decided to leave Nick in Merryweather with me. The two of us were given the task of finding the painting.”
“And you hoped Carolyn would lead you to it,” Zander said.
“At first, I thought that Frank might have mentioned the Renoir in his will and, if so, that Carolyn would confide in me.”
“But he didn’t mention it in his will,” Zander stated.
“That’s correct.”
“So you and Nick started following me.”
“Initially, we followed Carolyn, her daughters, and you. But when you and Britt visited the cemetery in Enumclaw, we realized that the two of you were actively investigating Frank’s history. From then on, we concentrated most of our attention on you and Britt, which proved the right play in the end. You were the ones who paved the way to the painting.”
“Why help us now?” the chief asked. “Tom has the painting. Doesn’t that mean your debt is paid?”
“Had I found the painting shortly after arriving in Merryweather, Tom would have taken it as payment. But now he’s invested time and money and men in this pursuit. I’m betting that they’ve come to view the painting as payment for the work they’ve put in here in Washington. Which means they’ll view my busted job as a separate event and still want to collect on that.” Her manicured eyebrow arched. “Neither Tom nor Nick contacted me today when they set off for Olympia, which assures me that they don’t consider me to be their partner.”
Kurt opened his laptop. “It’s likely that they’ve taken Britt to the same place they took Emerson and Frank.”
“I agree,” Chief Warner said.
“Where did you and Nick meet Frank after Nick called Frank at the jobsite?” Kurt asked Emerson.
Emerson provided an address.
“How long would you estimate you drove after leaving that location?”
“Thirty minutes or so.”
“At approximately what rate of speed?”
“The top speed that the roads around here allow.”
Kurt went to work on the computer.
The chief adjusted his chair to face Emerson more fully. “What else can you tell us about the room where you and Frank were held? Any detail, no matter how small, could be helpful.”
“I heard the sound of airplanes taking off and landing,” Emerson said, then went on to describe the room’s details.
Kurt turned the computer screen toward the occupants of the table. It showed a detailed map, a portion of which was circled. Shaw pointed to the circle’s epicenter. “This is where Frank met Nick after leaving the construction site. I determined the search area based on the amount of time they traveled and the speed at which they traveled. Within the search area, there’s only one airstrip. Jefferson Airport.” He pointed to its location. “It services private jets.”
He zoomed in on the airstrip and indicated its nearby structures. “There are a network of hangars and commercial buildings adjacent to the airport that were built in the 1950s. Old enough to line up with Emerson’s account of the room where she was held.”
“I’ll get a search warrant for those buildings,” the chief said.
Agent Delacruz spoke from the iPad. “I’ll pull up the information I have on those warehouses and forward it to you immediately. I’ll also contact The Residences to see if they have surveillance footage of their parking lot.”
“I’ll be meeting with my SWAT team in fifteen minutes,” the captain said.
“Thank you.” The chief looked to Kurt. “Take Zander and Emerson and have them ID all the suspects involved in the kidnapping.”
“Yes, sir.”
Zander sat next to Emerson in Kurt’s office as she supplied names for Tom and his men. After each name, Kurt pulled up a photo for him and Emerson to positively identify. The faces of the men who’d taken Britt would be burned into his psyche forever. So far, they’d ID’d three. Only one left.
Kurt’s screen revealed a picture of Nick’s blunt features and thick neck.
“Yes,” Emerson said. “That’s him.”
Kurt looked to Zander.
“Yes. Nick’s the one who was following me several weeks back.”
“Got it.”
Emerson’s hands, intertwined on her lap, had never clenched as she’d turned on one former accomplice after another. Her attorney hovered at her shoulder.
“I’ll send this information to the SWAT team now,” Kurt said.
From what Zander could tell, Kurt had access to a substantial amount of information on each of the men they’d named. Now at least SWAT would know whom they were up against.
The clock drew Zander’s attention. Tom had told him he wanted to leave the country. How much more time did they have until he did just that? Would he take Britt when he went? If so, how would Zander find her? What if Tom had already loaded her into a plane and departed?
“Is there anything else you can tell us about Tom?” Kurt asked Emerson. “How he usually operates? What his objectives might be currently and how he might try to execute them?”
“Certainly.”
Zander continued to watch the clock while Emerson spoke, impatience causing his knee to bounce and his fingers to scratch painfully at his opposite elbow. A scream was building in his windpipe. He wanted to scratch and scratch until he tore off skin.
Six and a half minutes later, Emerson finished.
“Anything else?” Kurt asked.
“I have a great deal more to share with the FBI. About the jobs Tom has executed. His syndicate, and all the other players involved in that. But I’ve shared everything that can be of use in the operation you’re about to undertake. And now I’d like a cup of tea. Do you have a break room?”
“We do.”
“You’ll be able to find me there.”
Zander stood when she stood. Emerson observed him for a drawn-out moment. Then she inclined her head slightly. He inclined his. She preceded her attorney from the office.
Zander faced Kurt. “How much longer?”
“Not long. SWAT is fast.”
“Not fast enough.”
“They’re fast. Any faster, and they’d make a mistake. You don’t want that.”
“No.”
Kurt came around his desk and set his palms on Zander’s shoulders. “It’s our job to locate Britt and get her home safely. Not your job. Ours. We’re good at our job.”
“I’m going to the warehouses with you.”
Kurt’s grip tightened. “In situations such as these, when someone’s been abducted, we’ll occasionally bring a loved one along to comfort the victim when we recover them. I will bring you along, I promise you. But only if you’ll agree to remain in my squad car during the operation. I can’t allow you to jeopardize this mission.”
“Understood,” Zander said. “And agreed.”
Britt’s captors offered to escort her to the bathroom.
She declined.
They brought a bottle of water to her, unscrewed it, and held it to her mouth. She tried one sip, but when the water hit her knotted stomach, it immediately wanted to revolt. She kept the sip down, but barely. “Please,” she said. “No more water.”
“We wouldn’t want you to get thirsty,” the one called Nick told her.
“I’m not thirsty.” Through the open door behind him, she could see two of the men nailing a rectangular wooden crate shut. It looked as though they’d almost finished packing the Renoir in preparation to transport it. She didn’t read celebration in their body language. Not yet—they hadn’t gotten the Renoir off American soil. But she did read something close. Assurance. They knew they were almost to the finish line.
“Anything else you need?” Nick smiled. His regard slid down her body and up again.
Her skin crawled. “No.”
“Sure?”
“Very. Where are you taking the painting?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Will you leave me here when you go?”
“That’s up to Tom, and he hasn’t decided yet. Personally, I’d be happy to have you come along.”
“I’d rather stay.” She far preferred her chances here, tied to a pipe, than on an airplane with them.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re our hostage.” He rose and left, closing her back inside her solitary box.
Moisture pressed hard against her eyes. Fiasco.
Do not cry, Britt. Do not.
She prided herself on the fact that she never cried. Right now, tears seemed less useful and more destructive than ever.
Closing her lids, she concentrated on sliding air deeply in and out of her lungs while she carefully constructed a meticulous picture of Zander in her mind.
Zander’s decision to cut her out when he’d unlocked Frank’s phone and his subsequent lie to her about his location had hurt her. Those actions still hurt. But a crisis had a way of stripping away shallow hurts to reveal the much larger emotion beneath. At the moment, her hurt was made almost insignificant by the magnitude of the primary thing she felt for Zander.
Love.
Her throat constricted. Why hadn’t she told him she loved him? He’d been brave enough to tell her how he felt. Why hadn’t she had the guts to do the same?
Maybe because she hadn’t known for sure that she loved him until now. Maybe because she’d been more than content with how things had been, just as they were, since Nora’s wedding. Maybe because commitment had never come easy for her. Maybe because she’d been smug in the belief that she had time . . . that she could always sort through her feelings and articulate them at some future point.
The sound of a distant airplane engine punctuated the indistinguishable murmur of the men’s voices on the far side of the wall. The metal pipe bled cold against the back of her skull.
She loved Zander.
Of course she did.
They could read each other’s minds. They could communicate with a look. She knew the minutiae of his personality. He was honorable and loyal. Complex and brilliant. Wary and wry.
She’d harbored a piercing compassion for the despondent, betrayed kid who’d needed a home. Now she loved the man he’d become, even though her love for him was not a revelation that comforted her.
For one thing, it had come at a ridiculous time. Too little, too late had never been more accurate.
For another, the idea of loving him brought a cape full of fears billowing behind it. This circumstance was scary enough. Love for Zander couldn’t fortify her at this point. It could only weaken her.
And so . . . no.
Love? Just no.
This was not the time for love. Considering her predicament, there might never be a time for it.
The truth of that wrenched through her, causing physical pain.
If she was going to survive this, then she needed to place a partition between herself and thoughts of Zander.
And so she did.
The barrier put distance between them in a way that allowed her heart to continue pumping and her bravery to stabilize.
“Will SWAT be able to pinpoint Britt’s location within the warehouses based on the Mercedes?”
“They’ll try. If they aren’t able to get a visual on the Mercedes, they’ll begin searching the warehouses systematically.” Kurt steered his GMC along the winding road leading to remote Jefferson Airport. They followed a squad car that held Chief Warner and one of his deputies.
The SWAT team would arrive before they did. Kurt, the chief, county officers, emergency vehicles, and more would hang back or advance depending on the communication they received from SWAT.
“And when they find Britt?” Zander asked.
“They’ll likely deploy a flash bang.”
“Which is harmless, yes?”
“Yes, but when it detonates, it puts off so much light, sound, and smoke that it’s disorienting.”
“What if one of the guys is holding her hostage?”
“SWAT is trained to handle it. They’ll likely negotiate first. If that breaks down, they may take the attacker out.”
God. It was a prayer. A plea. Come through for Britt. Stand between her and danger. I believe that you can. I believe that you will.
Please, I beg of you.
A small plane descended toward earth against the bruised gray of the cloudy sky.
They were close.
Note passed from Zander to Colton in twelfth grade:
I heard that you tried to pressure Britt into leaving Maddie’s party with you. When she said no, you yelled at her.
Treat Britt like that again, and I’ll beat you up.
Note passed between Mia and Britt in twelfth grade:
MIA: That girl you set Zander up with was so pretty! Did they hit it off?
BRITT: At first. They went out three times, and then he told me he didn’t think it was going to work.
MIA: Why?
BRITT: Because she got way too serious about him way too quick. I tried to give her a Zander 101 course before they went out, and I warned her not to do that, but she clearly didn’t listen.
MIA: She’s crazy! You have super high standards for Zander’s girlfriends. She was lucky that you offered to set her up with him in the first place.
BRITT: Exactly!
MIA: Zander doesn’t date much. Doesn’t he get lonely?
BRITT: No. He has me.
MIA: I thought you’d picked a winner for him this time.
BRITT: I thought so, too, for a few days. But now I see that I was wrong. I don’t think her personality is quite right for Zander. They’re not a fit.
Note written by Britt when she was in twelfth grade:
Dad, can you please call the admissions director at University of Washington–Tacoma to confirm our appointment with him and Zander on Saturday? Everything has to go perfectly because we NEED that man to offer Zander a full ride. Should we casually mention that USC is desperate for Zander? You’re going to say no, since that would be a lie. But you’re good at negotiation, so I’m counting on you to come up with something (not a lie) that will still work.