Zack said, “I always heard you were a piece of shit. You didn’t have the balls to come at me yourself? Why is that not a surprise?”
He pulled his pistol from his now-open lockbox, held with his free hand between his knees as he drove. It felt comfortable. Soothing, somehow.He squeezed the grip tightly, wishing he was aiming in on Lancer’s brainpan right now.
Lancer said, “Honestly, I would have liked to be there myself, but I was a little busy. I was so sure those two dipshits were going to make a mess of things at the clinic that I was already on plan B, and I couldn’t be there for the fireworks.”
Zack was doing sixty miles an hour in the heavy snow. He said nothing.
Kincaid himself paused a moment, then said, “My plan B, if you haven’t guessed, was to grab your kid.”
A wash of panic coursed through Zack Hightower. The wipers swept snow and ice and water off the windshield in front of him; he blinked once, twice, said nothing.
“C’mon, fucker!” Lancer shouted. “Say it. Say, ‘What kid?’ I fucking dare you.”
Zack wasn’t going to give this man what he wanted. Right now, all he wanted to do was figure out where Andie was. Desperately, he tried to think of words to say that could elicit this.
After a moment, Kincaid said, “Does she know? Does she know you’re the dude who gave her up? I guess I could ask her.”
“If you fucking touch her, I’ll—”
“Don’t pretend to give a shit now, Hightower. If you cared about her back then, we wouldn’t be here, would we?”
“You kidnapped her?”
“I did.”
“Let me talk to her.”
“You don’t make the rules, asshole.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to trade.”
“Me for her? You got it. Me,unarmed, for her,unhurt. Let’s do it right now.” Zack was serious. He would toss his weapons and meet up with Lancer to save Andie.
But Lancer had other plans. He said, “Nope. That’s not the trade I want.”
“What…what then?”
“You have until five p.m. to get the Gray Man here. I imagine he’s across the country. I don’t give a shit. Feed him a story, get him on the way. Yougive him to me, I give you Andrea. If I even smell a hint of the cops in that time, and believe me, I know the smell of cops, that kid will die, and I’ll be gone.”
“Wait,” Zack said. “Hang on. Just…just hold on a second. How am I supposed—”
“My employers know everything, Zack. We know Courtland Gentry and you and Matthew Hanley are working together. I know you can get Gentry here. Tell him whatever you want. I’ll give you a location, you tell him it’s you he’ll meet there. He shows up, the girl walks free. It’s her only fucking chance, man.”
Zack’s mind raced. The stinging in his leg was forgotten. “Look…what about me? You sent those guys after me at the clinic. Obviously, your bosses want me, just the same as—”
“It’s not whattheywant that matters. It’s whatIwant. You, Hightower, you don’t mean shit to me. Court Gentry is the man who put me in prison in Cuba, and he’s gonna pay, or your kid’s gonna pay.”
It was quiet between them, Zack trying to think of some other way to bargain. Then Kincaid said, “You turned your back on that girl a long time ago, bro. Don’t do it again.”
“Wait.”
“I’ll wait. I’ll wait five hours, twenty-eight minutes. Get Gentry to Boulder, I’ll call you back at five p.m. and give you a location. It will be in the mountains, within thirty-minutes’ drive time of the airport.
“If Gentry shows up, you and your girl walk away from this.”
Scott Kincaid ended the call.
