“Talk, then. Right here, because I’m not getting in your fucking truck.”
“Yeah…okay. Well…Andie has been kidnapped by some people who will know immediately if you report it. They’re professionals, they’ll be listening to all the emergency frequencies. If you get on that radio, or call someone in the police and it gets out over traffic, then they will move her somewhere we can’t find her. Or they will…they will do something worse.”
“What do they want with her?”
“It’s…it’s nothing she’s done. It’s—”
“Of course it’s nothing she’s done!” Delaney snapped. “She’s fifteen, what could she have done?”
“It’s…I guess the truth is…it’s somethingI’vedone.”
A momentary look of utter confusion on Pete Delaney’s face melted away, slowly but obviously to Zack. He had a feeling he knew some version of what the man was about to say before he even said it.
Delaney said, “Jen swore this day would never come.”
Zack nodded slowly.
“You’re him, aren’t you? You’re…the guy Jen was married to before. The CIA guy.”
Hightower nodded again now. He had no idea what Tiffany had or had not told her second husband, but it didn’t surprise him at all that she’d told him everything.
“And you’re pointing a gun at me now?” Delaney said.
Zack lowered it immediately. “Andie’s life depends on you taking a beat and listening to me. I’m just trying to do what’s right.”
“Okay.” Delaney put the radio back on his belt. “Talk.”
Zack holstered his weapon, then moved to the front of Delaney’s emergency vehicle and leaned against it, taking weight off his injured leg. “Tiffany and Stacy. Jennifer and Andrea. Their names got out.”
“Fuck.Fuck!” Delaney stomped the snow-covered ground. “Towho?”
“An enemy. A dangerous enemy. I can’t tell you any more than that.”
“Yourenemy, you mean.”
“Well…I guess he’s yours now, too.”
“So…why is anyone aftermydaughter?”
“I…It’s complicated.”
“Well, why don’t you try simplifying it for me?”
“Their mission is to get to me. We’ve tracked them to a cabin about a mile back to the east. She’s there, I’m sure of it, and I’ve got assets inbound that are going to help me take care of this situation.”
“Assets inbound? The fuck are you talking about?” Before Zack could answer, Delaney said, “How did they even find her?”
Zack looked up at the snow falling all around them. Said, “That’s, unfortunately, on me. I found out what happened to Tiffany and Stacy. Their new names, where they were living. I found out and I came here, not to see my ex-wife but to see…I went to Cara’s. I got tracked by the opposition. From that they must have figured out that—”
“You motherfucker,” Delaney said, balling his fists and moving closer. “I’m going to beat the shit out of you.”
Pete was big, but not bigger than Zack. And Pete looked like he could handle himself, but Zack knew, even with the knife wound to his leg, the deputy fire chief was not going to take him down in hand-to-hand combat.
But he understood the man’s sentiment. He said, “I get it. But can you do thatafterwe get your daughter back?”
Delaney stopped his advance. He seemed to think it over a moment. He said, “And…if I pull out my radio or my phone to call the police, you’re saying…they’ll kill her?”
“The guy who has her. His name is Scott Kincaid. He’s an assassin. Agood one. And an absolutely ruthless one. He’s got at least two other men with him. Their names are Maybus and Winter. I don’t know much about them. We also think there might be more.
