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“I-I’m not sure. A few hours ago. As soon as he left, I tried calling her, but she’d not been answering. As soon as she answered I told her.”
She wasn’t answering because we were fucking her, and that has put her in danger. Yet again, we’ve caused her harm. It might not have been purposeful, but we keep fucking her life up one way or another.
If I were a good man, I’d walk away. Leave her to build a healthy and happy life without us three toxic fuckers in it. Maybe I’ll find the strength to do that, eventually, but first, I will find her and make sure that piece of crap who has her can’t hurt her.
“Wait one minute.” Kirill holds up a finger. “If he was with Lola only a few hours ago, how did he get here so fast?”
Kirill has a point.
I turn my attention back to the phone. “Do you know the exact time he was with you?”
“No, not exactly,” she replies. “Sorry. It’s all been so stressful. I think I went into shock. I’ve never been attacked like that before.”
“Lola, if he calls you again, you need to let us know immediately,” I say. “Call on this phone.”
“Of course. And please, call me if you find her.”
“There’s no if.” Tino almost growls down the phone. “We will find her.”
He hangs up, and we stare at one another.
“How, though?” I say.
“Your dad,” Tino suggests. “He has contacts. People in the police, right? High ups in politics in the state. He is our best bet right now.”
“I know you hate him,” Kirill adds. “But we need him at the moment.”
I kick at a bit of gravel, but I nod reluctantly because they’re right. We do need him.
Three hours later, and I’m feeling even worse about this entire situation. The security cameras outside the spa were messed with and weren’t working when Mack was taken. It’s a sign to me that her academic stalker is more of a threat than we’d believed.
It seems the professor had a contact in the police force, too. That contact alerted the professor when Mack’s mom’s car was pinged on a camera near the motel. It has to be how he found it. I had thought of him as a nerdy professor. It appears he’s anything but. His picture shows a strikingly handsome, older man, and the idea of him with his hands on Duchess makes me want to burn down the world.
“He’s had past accusations of stalking, but nothing stuck,” my father says as he reads through the information on Paxton the cops sent over.
“How the fuck did he get to teach?” I shake my head. “It seems lax of the college.”
“He has a lot of friends in some very high places.” My father’s crocodile smile is for once reassuring to me. His shit eating grin means he’s not too worried. “Not as many as we have, or in quite as high places as those we know, though.”
“How do we find her?” Mack’s mom is barely holding it together. She shocks me when she grabs Nataniele by his lapel and shakes him. “Get her back for me, Nataniele. Bring my daughter home.”
Tears spill down her cheeks, and my father wraps an arm around her, gently guiding her to a chair.
She puts her head in her hands. “What if it’s not him? What if it’s not the professor who’s taken her?”
A muscle next to Nataniele’s eye twitches. “Why do you say that?”
“Mackenzie’s friend, Lola, said he was with her only a few hours before she was taken. How did he get here and mess with the cameras?”
Nataniele bites his lower lip. “What are you thinking?”
“People threatened us, Nataniele. We owed money, remember? They threatened Mackenzie, too. Said they were going to do terrible things to her.”
My blood runs cold. Could this be even worse than we think?
He shakes his head. “No, they got their money. We made sure of it.”
“But maybe they decided that they wanted her anyway.” Fresh tears spill from her eyes.
