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Then revulsion.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” I took a step back.
Ready to run. Ready to scream. Ready to…
“Don’t move,” she whispered. “I told myself after you cost me that girl, I’d find a way to pay you back. There was your smiling face on that television screen, and I wanted nothing more than to murder you right then and there. All that work I’d gone through, and you did that.”
Shock.
I was in utter and complete shock.
How could this woman do this?
“Why?” I asked. “How?”
If I’d been thinking straighter, I would’ve just run. I would’ve done anything in my power to get away before shit went south like it was bound to happen.
But I didn’t.
Stupidly, I stayed right where I was and asked questions instead of doing what any other sane person in my predicament would’ve done—run.
“Get them to trust me.” The woman smiled, explaining exactly the atrocity as if she was explaining quilting and not kidnapping a child. “Who doesn’t trust an elderly grandmother?”
The thought made me pale.
She was right.
If I was lost or scared or alone, I would for sure trust an elderly woman that talked about her grandkids over just about anyone else.
Sick to my stomach, I tried to surreptitiously look for help, but realized rather quickly that everyone was too engrossed with a ‘possible lead’ and they weren’t looking at me.
I could see the back of Sin’s head as he leaned over a table and pointed at something, and I could see the side of Lynn’s face as he talked to a cop.
What I could not see was a single person looking our way.
A single person but Ames, that was.
Ames was very much aware of what was going on and where I was.
When Sin stood up, she purposefully caught his arm and gestured for something on the table, keeping his gaze directly focused on the table in front of him.
My bottom dropped out of my stomach.
“Had to come up here and do the job myself,” the elderly woman at my side explained. “She did right in the end.”
I had no clue what she was talking about again.
All I knew was that I was about to throw up all over again.
“What?” I croaked.
“When she failed to get a kid to me the first time” —the woman jerked her chin in Ames’ direction— “I had to come up here and get the kid myself. Her and those stupid nails. I tapped into the reports. Found out that she’d gone for ‘fashionista’ instead of ‘circumspect.’ The kid remembered her nails. So I had to do some of the dirty work this time. I haven’t had to do that in a couple of months since I found Ames. Reminded me of all the fun.”
Reminded me of all the fun.
She was talking about kidnapping a child and fun.
What kind of fucked-up person…
“I have to tell you, though.” She shook her head. “After this, I won’t be able to use her anymore.”
I swallowed hard. “What? Why?”
And why the hell was I still standing there when I should be screaming?
“Whatever you’re thinking,” she said, her eyes studying my face in a bored expression. “I suggest you don’t. I’m more than capable of taking care of every single person that’s here. I don’t come unarmed.”
That made me hesitate.
“Where did you take that little girl?” I asked, trying to keep her talking.
Eventually Sin would look up, and I could make him understand.
“I took her to her new owner.” She paused. “Well, I didn’t. My husband did.”
Again, bile burned its way up my throat, and this time I didn’t stop my instincts.
I puked.
All over the woman.
She gasped and stepped back, getting caught up in her forgotten walker, and went down hard.
That’s when I tossed my bucket over her and started yelling.
• • •
“You okay?” Sin asked.
“Yeah,” I repeated.
“She already said that like ten minutes ago,” Bronx said as he tapped me lightly with his shoulder.
“Agreed,” Johnny said. “Now shut up. I can’t hear.”
All of Sin’s brothers, as well as my own, had shown up after a few phone calls.
All of them justifiably pissed.
Because after Sin had come to the rescue, the old woman had been searched, and they’d found quite a few guns on her that were illegal as fuck—silenced guns at that—indicating that she probably could’ve done quite a bit of damage if she’d tried. Just like she’d said.
After relaying everything that had gone down to quite a few very intimidating people, including my own man and Officer Tatum Briggs, she’d been questioned.
And though she hadn’t given much of anything, she had given up Ames.
Ames who was now in the back of a police cruiser as she glared hard at all of us.
Ames that had been pivotal in the role of her own daughter’s kidnapping. According to her, she’d gotten in this sick game of kidnapping a few months ago and hadn’t been able to find her way out since. She’d been the one to kidnap the little girl from the supermarket—her first according to her—and give her to the transport man that would be transporting her to the older man who would then transport her to the buyer.
