The car is old. Not all-I-could-afford old but properly vintage. Eighties, maybe even late seventies. The thing’s built like a tank.
A woman drives. A child is buckled in the seat next to her.
They’re out of camera range before I can get a close enough look.
“Wait a moment,” I tell the guards, switching screens to the next camera on the trail. This time, I’m expecting the car, so find it easier to pick out the occupants from the grainy image.
A girl with curly blonde hair.
My chest seizes.
“Get to the gate,” I order Yuri and Edgar, striding across to pick two bushmaster rifles from the selection, handing one to the larger guard and holding the other back for myself. “No shots fired until we know what we’re dealing with.”
Outside, the night is full of noise after the muffled silence of the underground chamber. The rustle of treetops in the breeze, the call of a morepork flying overhead. Wood pigeons chirp and goad each other long past their bedtime, and hedgehogs snuffle their way through the undergrowth, searching for a late-night feast.
The moon is so bright, I don’t need a torch as I jog back to the house. There’s another bank of monitors in a side room off the entrance hall, and I bring up the gate camera feed, just in time to see a woman doused with blood approach, my daughter in her arms.
Terror chokes me as I stare at the black-and-white image, scanning for signs of life. The quality is so poor that I can’t tell whether there’s genuine movement from Sophia or if it’s just a flicker of digital imagination.
The woman stares at the keypad, secured inside a locked Perspex box. She turns her head to speak to the girl. I see Sophia blink.
Everything I’ve held inside since I discovered her missing comes out in one triumphant cry. I thump my palm against the wall, leaving behind small flecks of blood from Antonio’s interrogation.
“Get her back to the house,” I order, speaking into a mic linked to Yuri’s walkie-talkie. “Both of them,” I add as his rifle points straight at the mystery woman’s face.
My limbs shake as I wait for them to advance on my front door.
I don’t know what trick of fate brought Sophia back to me but I’m never letting her out of my sight again.
CHAPTERFOUR
ISABELLE
I eat dirt for a few more seconds before a pair of cuffs are snapped over my wrists and the largest man I’ve ever seen uses them to yank me to my feet. I squeal as my unsteady weight falls too hard on my injured ankle, but quickly learn how to balance.
The change in position is an improvement over being sprawled on the ground but not much of one. When I see the rage simmering in my captor’s eyes, I kind of miss the rifle.
“No,” Sophia yells, still her favourite word. She also sobs, a sound that makes the sharp light dance in the big man’s eyes in such a way I can practically count down the seconds of my existence.
Then a bundle of arms and legs flings herself at me, clinging and trying to climb me at the same time.
“Hey,” I say, my inexperience with children choosing a bad time to show itself. “Calm down, Sophia. I’m sure these nice men”—I have to crane to see the other shadowy figure beyond the brick wall standing guard—“are about to let us in to see your dad.”
Fingers crossed one of theseisn’ther dad. More fingers crossed that if he is, he waits for an explanation before blowing away the blood-soaked woman who transported his hysterical daughter in her car.
“Come with me, Sophia,” the smaller man of the pair says, holding out his hand, which she ignores. He’s not carrying a rifle, and he’s not three times larger than any decent person needs to be.
I like him instantly.
“I was just bringing her home,” I explain. Brick wall doesn’t seem interested but hopefully the other dude is listening. “I found her at work and… Ah… There was a bit of trouble. Tried to take her to the police but I hear you’re not a call-the-police type of family.”
A radio crackles on Brick Wall’s belt and he picks it up, pressing the button and saying, “Yes,” in a voice about two octaves lower than mine.
There’s a barrage of crackles and static along with a few words that my tired brain can’t decipher. I’ve never been good with electronic transmissions. Airport announcements are the worst but stick anyone in front of a bullhorn and they might as well be speaking alien.
“Right away, sir.”
Oh, good. I’m immeasurably excited to discover someone else is in charge. That is until the barrel of the rifle swings my way again.
