“Okay.”
“In a minute,” Vinnie says.“Slow the hell down.Sit down.Don’t drive anywhere yet.”He inhales.“Fuck.She wouldn’t have…”
“Wouldn’t have what?”I demand.“What the hell are you talking about?”
“She promised she wouldn’t go…”
“Go where?”I clamp my hands into fists.“Gowhere, Vinnie?”
“I don’t know.”He gulps audibly.“Yesterday we found another message on Belinda’s computer.It said, ‘If you want your starter back, give me dessert.’”
I close my eyes.The words fall into place so quickly my head reels.Starter means Belinda.Dessert means Dani.It’s clear as fucking day.My throat goes dry.“No,” I say.“That can’t be right.She wouldn’t…”
Vinnie sighs.“She would.She’d do anything for Belinda.Damn it!”I hear his fist crack through something.“I told her.No trades.No fucking trades!”
Silence on the phone.Until?—
“We have to stay calm,” Vinnie says.“Otherwise we’ll be no good to her.”
My mouth is dry.I picture Dani, the way she looked at me last night as if I was her world, the way she curled into me and said she loved me.I imagine that same woman walking into a trap.My hands close into fists until the knuckles whiten.
“Where is she?”I ask again, and now the demand swallows the fear.
“Check your footage,” he says again.“I’ll check ours.Get over here.This will be command central.I’ve got access to the dark web.Download everything you’ve got and get over here.Now.”
I end the call without saying goodbye and race, still naked, into my office where I fire up my system and check all the security footage, beginning at midnight last night.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Then—
Out the front door around three a.m.
My Dani.
My sweet Daniela.
She walks west, toward the dirt road until she disappears from view.
My heart nearly stops.
“Why, Dani?Why?”I slam my fists down on the keyboard.“We would have protected you.We would have gotten Belinda back and protected you too.I swear it!”
My voice doesn’t sound like my own.It’s fraught with fear and anguish.
And it hits me.
I’ve never been this scared in my life.
Not when my father shot me.Not when he killed Ted.
Not in the barn eight years ago when Eagle shot Diego Vega.
Not when I thought Eagle OD’d because of my negligence.
