“Well, for one thing, this list was all by itself behind a Fort Knox of firewalls, encryption algorithms, and counter-hacking protocols,” Misty said in between bites of scrambled eggs and cheese. “For another, Jack Phillips, the MI5 agent with the missing daughter, is number five on the list.”
That got Jes’s attention, as well as everyone else’s. They didn’t recognize the other names, but with Phillips on the list, it was difficult to believe any of it was a coincidence.
It had taken McKay and the intelligence people in STAT—working with the support team there in London—less than an hour to come up with a background sheet for each person on the list. From there, it was a matter of splitting up the team and the list into two groups and heading out to do a little investigating. Jes had gone with Jake and Forrest, while Caleb and Harley had gone with Misty.
Since Jake couldn’t do a British accent to save his life, Jes suggested he let her and Forrest—who was something of a natural when it came to accents—do the talking. Pretending to be detectives with the Metropolitan Police there to talk to them about a string of break-ins in the area had been Forrest’s idea.
Not that it helped very much in the long run. By the time they’d talked to the third family on their list, it was obvious these people were all hiding something from them. The first family had shoved them out the door within the first five minutes, while the other two had put on polite faces but said nothing of value.
Jake had noticed the people’s heart rate and breathing were elevated, and at the third house, he’d picked up the scent of blood. Forrest had noticed small pieces of glass near the back door of the cottage, too, a sure sign of forced entry. Combining that with the fact that Jes had seen a few kids in the family photos on the walls but the kids themselves were currently nowhere to be seen, it wasn’t difficult to figure out Darby’s people had already been here and kidnapped them. It was equally obvious nothing she or Forrest said would get the families talking. They probably believed if they whispered a word to the cops, their kids would be at risk. Jestina couldn’t say she blamed them.
“Head north toward Blackwall Tunnel,” Forrest said. “It should connect to the A12 and take us straight into the neighborhood where the family lives. The Robinsons’ house should be pretty easy to find.”
The drive through the narrow two-lane tunnel was soothing, and Jes felt her eyelids growing heavy as she was lulled by the droning sound of the vehicles moving around them. Her screwed-up sleep cycle was probably finally catching up to her. Not exactly a good time for it.
As she hovered in that place halfway between sleep and awake, Jes found herself replaying what had happened in the kitchen last night over and over in her head. The first thing she’d thought about when she’d woken up that morning was how close she and Jake had come to kissing. There’d been a minute or two when she thought maybe she’d dreamed the whole thing, but all it took was the memory of how good Jake had smelled as they’d stood there, and all of the emotions of that moment came flooding right back. She’d wanted to kiss him, and she was certain he’d felt the same.
But then he’d pulled back and the moment had been lost. Embarrassed, she’d turned and gotten the hell out of the kitchen so fast she’d almost fallen out of the thick, fuzzy socks she wore whenever she was hanging out at home. She’d barely remembered to stop and tell him thanks for catching her when she’d let go of that balcony, sure Jake would be able to hear her heart thumping in her chest.
The crazy part was that she had no idea where the whole idea of kissing him had come from. One minute they’d been sitting in the kitchen, laughing and talking about themselves with their teammates, and the next, her pulse had been racing and the urge to be in Jake’s big, strong arms had been damn near overwhelming.
Jes had dated since high school, but she couldn’t remember ever having this kind of response to any of the men she’d been with. Not even the ones she’d thought were special enough to sleep with.
“There’s the A12 straight ahead,” Forrest announced, jerking her out of her introspection as they emerged from the Blackwall Tunnel. “It should be less than a mile before we get there.”
The sun had completely set by the time Jake parked in front of the Robinson’s house. He made no move to get out of the car after he shut off the engine, but instead gave her and Forrest a look. “Assuming we find out the Robinson kid has been kidnapped, I think we need to push harder this time.”
Jes couldn’t argue with that idea. If they didn’t get anything more from the Robinsons than they’d gotten from the three previous families, they’d be no closer to knowing what Darby was up to, which meant the entire day had been a waste. From the text updates Misty was sending, she, Harley, and Caleb hadn’t had much luck, either.
“What do you have in mind?” Jes asked Jake.
“Let them know who’s behind the kidnapping and see if that shakes them up enough to tell us something.”
Putting Darby’s name out there was a big risk. STAT was digging deep into the background of all the people on the list Misty had found, looking for connections to something that would interest someone like Darby, but there was a good chance they might not find anything. If she and her teammates didn’t come up with something, the best they could do was put surveillance on the people on the list and see if that led anywhere. There had to be some reason Darby selected them, kidnapped their loved ones, and terrified them so much they wouldn’t even consider talking to the police. Money definitely didn’t seem to be the motive. Mentioning Darby sounded like a good idea to her.
She nodded. “Okay, let’s do it. Forrest?”
He nodded, too.
Getting out of the car, they made their way to the closest row house, with its bay window and cute front porch. They’d just reached the steps when there was a crash from inside the Robinson residence. It was immediately followed by a high-pitched cry of a little boy in full-on freak-out mode, then a woman screaming in terror.
Reaching behind his back, Jake pulled his Glock .40 caliber with a curse. Unlike the weapons he’d carried to Darby’s charity event, this one was legitimate, registered with the FBI as an issued weapon for special access programs. “I smell blood.”
Running up the steps, he kicked in the front door so hard it flew completely off its hinges, bouncing loudly down the hallway of a short entryway before coming to rest against a coatrack.
“Stay behind me,” Jake ordered.
Jes pulled her Sig, more than ready to tell him what he could do with his misplaced chivalry, that she was a federal agent the same as he was, but before she could get a word out, Jake was already heading toward the sounds of a struggle.
“Damien is here,” he said calmly over his shoulder, as if he were simply pointing out the air outside was a bit nippy. “Remember—he’s hard as hell to kill.”
Jes wasn’t likely to forget that.
She and Forrest followed Jake through the hallway and into the living room. A middle-aged man lay sprawled on the floor unconscious, blood pouring from a nasty gash on his head while a red-haired woman who couldn’t have been more than a hundred pounds dripping wet fought ferociously to protect him even as she tried to hold on to the little boy Damien cruelly dragged away from her.
At their entrance, Damien shoved the boy into the waiting arms of one of the men with him, then aimed a large-caliber gun at Jake, pulling the trigger as the guy with the boy ran through the living room, into the kitchen, toward the back door. The second man stayed to back up Damien, turning his weapon on them too.
Jake spun around faster than Jes thought possible, shoving Forrest to one side of the room at the same time he scooped her up and dived to the other. Before Jes had a chance to take a breath, she was flying through the air, hitting the floor once before Jake rolled both of them behind a heavy, upholstered couch. He lay on top of her, protecting her with his body as bullets ripped through the couch and chewed up the hardwood floor.
