I walk out of the house and start jogging down the private lane to meet Winston. Hitting favorites on my phone, I scroll down to Mama. No answer. Blabby Abbi. No answer.Rein it in. Keep it cool.
An email comes through. It’s from Johna. It’s the audio file she played for me on the phone. The rest is everything she knows about her husband’s movements that day and where he was going when she last spoke to him. Grizzly’s car was found abandoned on the side of the road. Nothing remarkable about it inside or out.
“Damn it!”
Keep assessing. Work it out.Recent calls. Adam.
“Yeah.”
“I need someone to check on my mom and Abbi. I texted you the addresses.”
“Got it.”
Favorites. Dee.
“Sup, Dude? How’s married life treating you?”
Thank fuck.
“Marshall, Jax with you?”
“Yeah. He’s here. What’s going on?”
I talk to these guys all the time. They know when things aren’t right.
“We ran into a problem here. Vaughn is gone. Some people I got mixed up with in Latvia have her. A friend of mine, too. I can’t reach Mom or Abbi. Have you talked to them today?”
“No. Shit. Fuck. On our way over there right now.”
Rustling and footsteps come through the phone before I hear their front door shut. Marshall hasn’t even explained anything to Jax yet, but they’re both already out the door.
“No. I have other people on that. I need you to go to Eve’s house. I’m getting on a plane soon, and I’ll meet you there. I’ll text you the address.”
“No way, man. We’re going to get Mom and Abbi. Fucking little Abel, man! No way.”
“Okay. Okay. Fine. Adam, Cal, or Cotton might get there before you, though. Just work together as much as you can. Get everyone back to Eve’s and meet me there.”
“Yeah. We got it. What do we do then, just sit on our damn thumbs until you get back?”
He’s right. They can be working on things while I get there. These two have helped me in the past. I trust them.They’re good. Damn good.
“Yeah. No, actually. We need a hacker. Someone good. We know for sure these guys have...Hey, Winston. Thanks, man.” I jump in the backseat and hand Winston two hundred euros before clapping him on the back. “Quickest route to the airport.”
“Yes, sir. Fifteen minutes.”
“Marshall.”
“I’m here.”
“We need a hacker.”
“Yeah. We’re on it. What else?”
“Okay. Uh, so what we know. They...they have Vaughn. She injured one of them, but not likely seriously. I don’t know how many were here. More than two, I suspect. Around the same time, in North Carolina, my friend John Whitley was taken on his way home. John’s a pro. Navy. More on the tech side of things, though. He’s my hacker. They left his wife a message, too. Nothing of note there. They used a cell blocker here to keep Vaughn from contacting me before they took her. This is all related to an international human trafficking setup. Sex, snuff films, private hunting, you name it, they sell people for it. I killed some pretty important guys in Latvia. They were the heads of the operation. Apparently, there are more now.”
The boys stay quiet on the other end, taking it all in.
“You already know I can’t reach Mom or Abbi. They tried to take Eve from her home.”
