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I’d promised my dad I’d do something big with my life—and that promise was a choice that I had made. “I think having you guys out here and the fact that this case is so personal—it’s just bringing this stuff up.” I shrugged. “I’m over it.”
Ash smiled at our cute, auburn-haired waitress as she brought the check and then focused on me. “Good. Because you’ve got a pretty good thing going. Levi and I have been talking about relocating the business out here… I think there’s a serious need for high-end security in your industry. What do you think?”
“I think you’re absolutely right—your business would grow exponentially if you made the move. But what about Mom?” My mother and her fiancé, Alexander Viejo, were firmly rooted in Boston. He was a professor at MIT, and all their friends lived in the area. She would have an absolute fit if all three of her sons were living on the West Coast.
“I don’t know. Alexander’s pretty old, though. He’s gotta be about to retire. Then they wouldn’t have to stay in Boston.”
“Are you saying that Mom might move out here too?” I’d been in Northern California by myself for a long time. I loved my family, but I also loved them not breathing down my neck.
Ash smiled and shrugged; I couldn’t tell if he was just fucking with me. “She’s really pissed that she hasn’t met Lauren yet. You need to do something about that.”
“I’m bringing her to the wedding. We are sort of in the middle of a crisis out here, you know?”
“I know, and Mom knows, but that doesn’t mean her feelings aren’t hurt…”
I groaned. My mother and her feelings were sometimes labor-intensive. “I’ll call her.”
“You better. Otherwise, you’ll never hear the end of it.”
I drove home while Ash checked his email. “Hey—I got something from the police. A list of all the vehicles stolen in the past week.”
“Are there a lot?”
“No,” he said, scrolling through the email. “But there’s enough that we can split up the team and track each lead down. There’s no guarantee that these guys stole another vehicle from the area, but it’s something—and that’s all I need.”
I crawled into bed, wrapping my arms around Lauren’s warm body, and immediately fell asleep. An hour later, Lauren’s phone buzzed with a text message, waking us. She sat up and read it immediately, her eyes wide, and then handed me the phone without a word.
Meet my men at the office park near Oakland Airport. Building 900, Langham Landing. Wednesday at 3 p.m. They will have Hannah.
Lauren, you will need your passport, your remote access codes, clothes, etc. No cell phone. No security. You drive yourself to Oakland, and your sister can drive your car home.
No exceptions.
If you are followed to the exchange site, or if anyone else is notified of or involved in this transaction, the trade is off. As are all promises.
Wednesday was four days from now.
“No.” I threw the phone on the bed. “No fucking way.”
Lauren stiffened, but she didn’t look at me. She stared at the pattern on the comforter, her jaw set. “I know this isn’t what you wanted to hear…but the instructions are pretty clear.”
I wanted to argue, but I needed to go about this the right way, before things—me—got out of hand. “Get dressed. We need to show this to my brothers.”
Levi was mulling his coffee when I jammed the phone into his perfectly pressed dress shirt, unable to form a coherent introductory sentence.
“It’s a text from Li Na,” Lauren explained.
He read the message, his face impassive. Then he put the phone down and stared out the window.
Ash came in, and Lauren handed him the phone. He read the text, his brow furrowed.
“So?” I asked, when neither of them said anything.
Levi turned to me. “So. This is pretty clear. We’ll follow these directions to the letter—except for the fact that my team will be there. We’ll get Hannah out.”
But he’d missed the most important point. “What about Lauren?”
He squared his shoulders. “I’m not going to let anything happen to her.”
