I sprinted to catch up and reached her as her index finger rang the doorbell.
A man wrenched it open before the dinging ended. He had all his teeth, but half of them were black as he smiled when he saw us. “Ladies, welcome.”
Vonnie held out the box, practically shoving it in his chest and tried to take a step back. “Oh no, we’re good. Just wanted to make sure Derek got these baby clothes,” she said, but the man didn’t take the box, leaving us stuck on the porch.
“I’m Derek and I said come in,” he said again in his eyes narrowed, full of malice and unspoken words.
Shit.
He pushed the door open with his back, giving us more room to enter the house and then waited.
And waited.
Vonnie stared at him.
I stared at Vonnie.
Finally, with a sigh, she pushed her way through the opening and entered the home. I couldn’t let her go alone, so I followed and tried not to breathe or make any sudden movements. The place reeked of old cigarette and BO. The furniture was old, the brown and cream pattered couches from the eighties at least.
Once we were both inside, the man took the box from Vonnie and stared at it. “You look in this box?”
“Of course not,” I answered, but my words shook.
He furrowed his brow at the two of us. “This tape looks like you did.”
I held his gaze trying to be firm in our resolve, but I couldn’t keep the eye contact. Instead my attention fell to the long entertainment system on the wall behind him. It wasn’t anything special except for the small television sitting on top of it, and right next to that a music box.
“My jewelry box,” I said without thinking about it and pointing at the little wooden jewelry holder.
His smile grew, showing off his rotten teeth. “Yeah, thanks. I picked it up for my mom. She collects them.”
Wow. Not only was he admitting to breaking into my brother’s house but that his mother collected jewelry boxes.
“Well, now that you have your box, we’re gonna head out,” Vonnie said, and she grabbed onto my hand, pulling me closer to the door.
“Oh, not yet,” he said. “There’s a slight problem with payment. This box is ten days overdue. That means I need to collect on interest.”
“Interest?” I asked with so much shock my next words surprised me. “I don’t have any money.”
The man smirked, full of evil as his gaze slide over Vonnie with too much interest. He practically left a grease stain on her from where his attention centered on her chest. “That’s okay. I can take my payment in more ways than cash.”
The front door opened behind us and two men holding guns walked in.
Vonnie inched closer to me. “Okay, now we’re in trouble,” she whispered.
I tilted my head in her direction. “You think?”
23
RILEY
“You sure this is the boat they were on?” I asked Sloan as he flipped through a bunch of pictures of a ship docked at a marina in Florida. Palm trees dotted the shore and the sun flickered off crystal clear blue water. Everything appeared serene unless you knew the particular vessel held two people as captives.
Sloan nodded. “Yup, Spencer found them and I’ve been working on upgrading the images to get as much information on the crew and owner as possible. I want to track this baby wherever he goes in the world.
“Good work. I didn’t know if I believe the Grand Master wasn’t behind at least part of this, but it would be great to find out as much as we could on the ship and crew.”
Corbin and Cyrus Kensington both come out of their situations unscathed, at least physically mostly. A kidnapped billionaire wasn’t that unusual in our line of work. In this case, we’d rescued the people we needed but hadn’t caught our bad guy, which put a damper on the mood at the shop. No way were the Kensington twins out of harm’s way yet.
