“You just had to interfere,” a voice hissed against my ear, low and rough, familiar in that awful way that meant I’d probably passed him on the street a hundred times. “Had to keep asking questions. You couldn’t just die on that fucking boat.”
I kicked, thrashed, clawed—every lesson in self-defense fighting to surface through panic. My elbow connected with something, but his grip only tightened. I got one hand up, tried to scratch, but he twisted my wrist until pain flared up my arm.
Something jabbed at my side, and my heart lurched.
Knife? No. Smaller. Needle.
The world began to tilt, the concrete blurring beneath me. I heard my phone clatter to the ground. My body wouldn’t answer me—legs buckling, arms leaden, lungs burning for air I couldn’t pull.
Everything swam and spiraled. I fought for another breath, enough to scream, but my muscles wouldn’t obey.
“It’s too damned bad your family’s going to have another tragedy.”
Thirty-Nine
RIOS
I was already halfway back to the bakery, cursing my sister’s predilection for falling in love with heavy furniture, when my phone lit up with a text.
I punched the screen so the truck would read it.
Madden:
Astrid was in an accident on Seacrest. I’m heading over to check on her.
I’d told her to stay put, but depending on how bad things were, of course she’d go check on her friend. I wasn’t far, so I hooked a left and cut over three blocks to Sand Dollar Street, which ran parallel to Seacrest. At the first possible chance, I turned onto Seacrest proper and scanned for flashing lights and emergency vehicles.
But there was nothing, just a half dozen cars lazily driving down the mostly empty street.
Even with a basic fender bender, there wouldn’t have been time to get the vehicles clear and a police report made. So what the fuck was going on?
As I dialed Astrid, a bad feeling spun up in my gut.
“Hey, Rios.”
“Where are you?”
A pause. “At the research station. Why?”
“You weren’t just in an accident?”
“No? What’s going on?”
“Nothing good. Gotta go.”
I hung up on her and circled another block, driving too fast back toward the bakery, scanning streets and alleyways on both sides. Madden would’ve come this way on foot.
A flash of something caught my attention down an alley, and I threw the truck into park, leaving it running as I jogged down the alley. A cell phone with a spider-webbed screen lay on the cracked pavement. It didn’t power on when I picked it up. I couldn’t be absolutely sure it was hers. A little further on, a paper coffee cup lay on its side in a puddle of brown. I scooped that up and rotated it until I saw Madden’s name scrawled on the side.
My blood ran cold.
Broken phone and dropped coffee equalled only one thing in my mind: She’d been taken.
Bolting back to the truck, I ran scenarios.
It had been two days since she’d sent the audit request. Two days since she’d poked the bear. What were the chances that the protections she’d put into place to ensure her anonymity had been sufficient? Not big enough.
My gut told me Carson had her. Who else had reason to come after her? I didn’t have time to dwell on what the hell he planned to do with her. I needed to focus on where would he take her. He wasn’t stupid. He couldn’t keep her anywhere on the island—not for long. Which meant he’d want to get off island. He wouldn’t be fool enough to take the ferry. That left a private boat. His own or one he had access to.
