Then she stared at it.
Then she screamed. “No!”
Tessa whirled on her. “What?”
Ivy couldn’t answer. All she could do was hand her the phone, then drop to her knees. “Christ, have mercy.” She murmured the words over and over. Ancient. True. And never had she needed Jesus to be merciful the way she did now.
“Christ, have mercy.” Tessa’s voice joined hers once—holy, passionate, pleading. Then her tone shifted. Ivy only caught pieces of what Tessa was saying to Zane.
“Call Gil . . . Get Morris in the loop . . . Jacob can . . .” A longer pause. “The office?” and finally, “Sabrina.”
At Sabrina’s name, Ivy focused in time to hear, “Yes. We’ll wait.” Then, “I said we’d wait. We’ll wait.” The last said with a hefty amount of attitude. Tessa slid her phone into her backpocket but kept Ivy’s and set it on the ottoman before she slid to her knees in front of it. Tessa bowed her head, and while she didn’t speak out loud, Ivy saw her lips moving and knew she was praying.
Ivy joined her. As she knelt by the ottoman, the photo captured her attention. It was a boy. Young. Baseball uniform. Dirty, like he’d finished a game. Wet like he’d been caught in the rain. Behind his round glasses, his eyes were closed and there were no obvious injuries.
But the text made it clear that he was in big trouble.
Tez would love to see his family again. Stay by your phone. We’ll be in touch.
Ivy didn’t try to stop the tears that rolled down her face. “Please. I’ll give up anything. Please don’t let him harm that child. Please.” At some point, her prayer devolved into wordless petition. God could make sense of it. He would have to. She was officially out of ideas.
GIL STARED ATTHE PHOTOTessa had forwarded from Ivy’s phone.
Tez. Probably drugged. Snatched in the postgame chaos. An incoming call notification popped onto his screen, and Gil walked twenty-five feet away from Rex Jones, who was on the phone with Tez’s mom.
“Dixon.”
Luke didn’t bother with a greeting. “Morris talked to Jacob. We’re setting up a command center at our office. It’s secure, less chaotic than the PD, and we can control the situation better from there. Morris will be at the PD, and he’ll be our liaison. Also, Sabrina Fleming-Campbell is on her way from Carrington, and she’s bringing friends.”
“Good.”
“Leslie is on her way to the office. Faith is en route. She’s also bringing friends.”
“I don’t want the FBI to—”
“They aren’t.” Gil heard the “not yet” even though Luke hadn’t said it. “Faith’s boss has been made aware of the situation and has offered their full cooperation and support, but Zane’s running this.”
“I—”
“Youare too close to this, and you know it. Zane runs it. We all work it with him. You hold it together and you get to participate. You don’t, Zane will hand you and Ivy over to Morris and let him sit on you until this is over. None of us wants that.”
No matter how he worked it, he couldn’t find a way around Luke’s plan.
“Gil. You with me? And clue in—the only correct answer here is yes, and you need to give it to me and mean it.”
“Fine. Yes.”
“I know you hate it, but you made the right call. Now, Tessa has Ivy at her apartment. Morris is sending uniforms to escort them here. She promised Zane she’d wait for the escort.”
Ivy must be completely freaking out by now.
“We’ll get him back. I doubt they want to hurt that boy.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because he’s asleep and unmarked. If they were going to hurt him, or even wanted to cause more stress to the family, we’d get hysterical video. And because so far, the only person they’ve physically harmed has been Ivy or the people who were used to threaten her. No one else. I’m not a profiler, but kidnapping a kid? That’s a desperation play.”
“I pray you’re right.”
