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“Rita, honey, are you in the house?”
Jared began searching, but he couldn’t find anything amiss. Except, of course, that Rita wasn’t answering. As Casey’s barking became more frantic, Jared rushed into the kitchen. Standing outside the French doors was Casey, pacing back and forth, begging to come back in. Once Jared opened the door, she raced to his office. Following her, he found a piece of paper discarded on the floor. Flipping it over, he saw a printout of a picture of Rita. Under the picture were the GPS coordinates for his house.
“Fuck,” he swore.
Jared took a deep breath and steadied himself.Think, he told himself.Go from the very beginning.That meant a systematic search of the house to look for clues. But nothing seemed out of place. Checking for Rita’s purse, he found it hanging in the entry, her wallet still there along with her cell phone. She never left the house without her phone.
Jared grabbed his phone out of his pocket and called Detective Drake. He’d been the one to tell them that they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest Rita’s ex for stalking. He got the man’s voicemail. Taking a deep breath, he snapped a photo of the paper with Rita’s picture and the coordinates and sent it to him with the caption:Enough evidence yet?Then he went outside to search some more. Finally, after he walked the perimeter of the house, he found that the lock on the side door had been broken.
He’d almost missed it.Damn, I’m out of practice, he thought. A quick, sharp tug to the doorknob, and the door swung right open. As he walked back in, his phone rang. It was Drake.
“What is this?” he asked without pretense.
“It’s Rita. I think she’s been taken. We were at my house together, but then I stepped outside for a minute, and when I came back, she was gone.”
“What makes you think she didn’t just leave to run an errand or see a friend?”
Jared scoffed. “Without her wallet, phone, or her dog? I have a source who said that Tucker tried to hire him to kidnap Rita and bring her to him. He didn’t take the job, but I think someone else did. Someone who dropped that picture of Rita with the coordinates to my house.”
Without missing a beat, Drake asked him, “What aren’t you telling me?”
Jared sighed. “My source is currently tied to a park bench with a busted nose. He may be suicidal.”
“What in the hell kind of sources do you have?”
“The mercenary kind,” Jared snapped and squeezed the bridge of his nose. “Can you help me, please? They have a head start on me. I’m heading up to Long Beach now. My source said Tucker was there, in his yacht. If there’s a way to find out exactly where Tucker is berthed, that would be a start.”
“You can’t do this alone.
“Oh, yes, I can.”
“Look, you may have once been a badass, but this guy has one upped you. You’ll need help.”
“Are you volunteering?”
“I’ll make a couple of calls. Pick me up at the station on your way to the freeway. I’ll go with you.”
“Done.” Whistling for Casey, Jared went into their bedroom, opened his bedside gun safe and grabbed his 9mm service gun, then he grabbed his keys and headed to his truck. Panic spiked through him, but he knew if he let it get to him, he would be done. Rita would be done.
Jumping on Clairemont Mesa Blvd, he headed to the sheriff’s station to pick up Detective Drake. As Jared pulled in front of the sheriff’s station, Drake was waiting out front. He climbed into the truck and gave Casey a friendly scratch before pulling out his tablet. As Jared was heading to the freeway, Drake began talking.
“Tucker has a yacht moored at the Alamitos Bay Marina. Nice looking fifty-footer. I was able to reach Harbor Patrol, and they verified that it’s still there, but they have no idea for how long. It’s not like an airplane. He doesn’t have to file any type of departure plans.”
“Is he there, now?”
“Not at the moment, no. Security reported some activity around his boat, though, and they’re in process of pulling footage.”
“How did you have time to get a search warrant?”
Drake cleared his throat. “Yes, well, about that…I may have mentioned something about the Patriot Act, and the security guard got excited. I guess it’s normally a quiet marina.”
“John Tucker isn’t a terrorist.”
“We won’t know that until he’s apprehended, now will we? It will take us at least two hours to get up there. I have alerts out on Tucker to surveil, but not detain. Since he had someone else do his dirty work, we need to let this play out so we can get to your woman.” Jared clutched the steering wheel; he could only nod as they drove in silence for the next hour.
* * *
Rita woke to moving darkness. Her brain felt fuzzy. Shaking her head, she realized that she was blindfolded. And then, she remembered. She had taken Casey outside and had turned around when the dog started to growl. A man she had never seen before had been standing there. Before she could say anything, Casey had launched herself at him and bit down hard on his forearm. As he struggled to shake her off, Rita had run for the house.
