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But her mother didn’t have the lungs to walk down the hall, much less out the door. She had told the police this but they clearly didn’t believe her. She hadn’t pushed it because the last thing she wanted was to start answering a bunch of questions about her and her mother’s past.
One cop had asked her, “Do you or your mother have any enemies, ma’am?” She knew the way he asked it, he was being tongue-in-cheek.
Oh, you have no clue, asshole.She truly hated men in uniform.
It was clear that someone had taken her mother. The puzzle was how they had found her in the first place.
She walked to the office, opened the door, and said, “Any CCTV? I saw what looked like cameras.”
A few minutes later, on the camera feed, she saw her mother come around the corner of the building, and the woman was not alone. She was in a wheelchair being pushed by someone in jeans and a bulky hoodie.
She was wheeled out of the building while the front desk was apparently unoccupied. The exterior cameras next picked her up being loaded into a van, then the hoodie driving them off. Only the first three letters of the license plate could be seen.
She looked at the manager, who was standing behind her, riveted by this spectacle.
“And no one saw this?” Clarisse said. “Do you have no one who actually watches this stuff? And no one thought to show the police this while they were here? They didn’t ask if there was footage? Is this a joke or what?”
“I…I don’t know what to say. We’re a little short on personnel. And we never really saw the need for security. We thought the cameras were enough. And who would want to hurt any of our dear, sweet residents?”
“You do realize that I could end up owning this place, right? And if I do, I sure as hell won’t be requiringyourservices.”
The woman swayed on her feet. “We can get the police back in here and show them the footage.”
Clarisse had already leapt ahead and thought this through. No police. She would handle this on her own. “I’ll make a deal with you. Say nothing to the cops and I won’t file a lawsuit against you and this place.”
“But—”
“It wasn’t really a request.”
“Thank you so much.”
“Now I need to transfer that video file to my computer, and then I want you to get out of my face. I don’t want to see you ever again.”
After the file was delivered, she returned to her mother’s room, sat down in the chair, rubbed her temples, and shut her eyes.
Hoodie and white van stealing her mother away. Not good in so many ways.
My defenses have been pierced.
She was sure the van was already abandoned and the hoodie abductor was long gone with their hostage, for that was what her mother had become. They hadn’t realized her mother was missing until her meds were due. That was five hours after she had been rolled out of the place. Wheels up on a private jet, she could be in another country now. Just being driven somewhere, she could already be in any number of states.
And what am I going to do about that? Because I’m not sure who it is, though I have my suspicions, strong ones. But the worst part is, I’m apparently no longer anonymous, when that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be.
This was a race, a competition of sorts. That was why she had brought Gibson in. And it was the first time Clarisse thought that she might lose.
And now I have somewhere else to be.
It wasn’t connected to this, but it was connected to something else important. The most important of all.
My survival. Because I’ve damn well earned the right to keep on living.
CHAPTER26
T?HANK YOU FOR MEETING MEon a Sunday, Phillip,” Clarisse said, though that was not the name she was using today. She and Phillip Crandall were in the lobby of a building in North Carolina. She had just let him in and was escorting him to the elevators. They got on using her security card.
Crandall looked wealthy and was. But he was also too arrogant for his own good. He’d always wanted to be a player, a big-deal investor when he had neither the brains nor the discipline to be one. Which made him perfect for her.
She was not blond for this encounter. Her hair was a demure but professional-looking brown. She had on tinted specs and blue contact lenses. Her dress was businesslike, with a measure of underwire-bra-aided cleavage. It had always amazed her how little it took to completely gain dominance over a man. Their dicks were their Achilles’ heels. And Crandall was not only arrogant, he was also a pig.
