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Tears burned my eyes wondering why she hadn’t just called the police.

I refused to cry in front of this motherfucker. “Who are you? What do you want from me?”

“All in good time. I need to take a pish.” He pointed the knife at me. “No funny business while I’m gone. I’m just right outside.”

But my mind was already racing with escape plans as Kenan darted out the only door. What sounded like a heavy lock sliding across the front made me curse with frustration. I stumbled to my feet to rip up the blind on the window to see if it was big enough to escape from. The room swayed, but I fought through the dizziness. My fingers were searching for a lock when Kenan appeared on the other side of it.

I tried to bite back a cry of fright and failed.

He waved his knife back and forth in front of his nose. “Ah, ah, ah.” He gestured with the blade. “Blind back down.”

I did as he asked, barely catching a glimpse of the outside as I slumped onto the bed, mind racing with questions, frantically trying to piece together my bizarre reality.

“Cammie.”

Gasping, I whirled toward the voice.

Caoimhe’s eyes were open, though she hadn’t moved any other muscle.

“Don’t speak,” she whispered hurriedly. “He might hear.”

I nodded, understanding.

“Wait for him to come back in.” Her words were so quietly spoken I had to lean in to hear her. “We’ll take him together.”

It had come to this, then. I had to trust the one person in the world who had proven time and again she wanted me out of the picture.

Petrified but with no other choice, I nodded my agreement.

50. Forde

It was a quick rescue. A passenger on a boat off the coast of Kiln had taken ill and we provided medical assistance on the journey back where air ambulance was waiting on Leth Sholas’s helipad to take her to Glasgow.

All in, we’d been gone for nearly four hours. Cameron would be asleep by now, but she’d given me a key to her place. We hadn’t slept alone since getting together and I didn’t feel like starting now.

I knew before I even turned down her street something was wrong because the blue and red lights were casting glows onto the road beyond. When I turned the corner and saw the police cars parked outside Cameron’s … saw the neighbors huddled outside their homes … I ran.

“Forde.” PC William stepped in my path as I skidded to a stop outside the house.

“Cameron?” I barked. “Is she⁠—”

“She’s been taken.” He held up his hands, placating me. “A neighbor saw a masked man put her in the boot of his car. By the time we got here, they were gone.”

What the fuck? “What man? What neighbor? Why didn’t they follow?”

“It was Mrs. Judd.” DC Alice appeared, expression strained with concern. “She’s too old to pursue them, Forde.”

“She should have woken up the whole fucking neighborhood, then! Did she get a license plate?”

“Scrubbed.”

Panic threatened to overwhelm me, so I directed my thoughts away from the fact that this was happening to Cameron. I tried to imagine it as any emergency I was involved in.

“Street cameras? Ring doorbells?” I demanded.

“We checked. We lose the vehicle we believe is involved at the corner of Gordon Street.”

“Heading south out of town?”