Unknown number
She's being so brave for your daughter. How long do you think she can last?
The phone fell from my nerveless fingers, clattering on the counter.
"Jack?"
"Jack, what is it?"
I couldn't answer James. My voice was failing me. All I could do was stare at that image burned into my retinas.
Anna. Daisy. Both of them were in hell.
Because of me.
James picked up the phone. Looked at the photo. His face went gray.
"We're going to find them," he said, but his voice shook. "The trace, the background noise, the metadata, we'll find them."
But how long would that take?
And what would Carter do to them before we did?
18.Jack
Ihadn't slept.
How could I, with that photo burned into my memory, reappearing every time I closed my eyes? Anna slumped in that chair, bruised and broken. Daisy huddled behind her, small and terrified, unable to see what Carter was doing but forced to hear everything.
How long do you think she can last?
The question had been on repeat for six hours. Six hours of sitting at my desk, staring at my phone, willing it to ring with news while dreading what that news might be.
The penthouse was a morgue. Silent, cold and waiting.
Just then, as if the Universe had finally heard my plea, my phone vibrated against the mahogany desk. A contrast to decorum in my home.
My heart, which had been beating a slow, deadrhythm of dread for hours, exploded into a frantic gallop. Every nerve ending fired at once. My hand shot out, fumbling, nearly knocking the phone to the floor before I caught it.
The name on the screen: James Westbrook.
4:57 AM.
Six hours. They'd been searching for six hours since that photo.
I swiped to answer, brought it to my ear. No greeting. No breath. Just desperate, silent hope screaming in the void.
"We have a lead." James's voice was a taut wire, stripped of all greeting, all preamble. Every syllable was urgent. "Credible. A uniformed patrol doing a routine sweep of the old waterfront warehouses spotted a light. Third-floor windows of the old Halcyon Textile mill."
A light. In an abandoned building. My heart stuttered, caught between hope and terror.
"The place has been condemned for a decade," James continued. "No power. Shouldn't have lights. They called it in, and we scrambled a chopper with thermal."
I was already on my feet, my body moving before my mind could process. Slipping into the dark jacket that lay over the back of my chair with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
"Is it them?" The words were a ragged scrape against my throat. "James, is it?—"
"Two heat signatures in an interior room on the third floor. One adult-sized, one child-sized.One stationary, the other moving. Not moving. And—" He paused, and I heard him take a breath. "Three other signatures spotted in a different part of the building, all adults. One stationary and two moving. Almost like they were guarding the perimeter."
