Then I hear her voice.
“Ransome…” she whispers, and all it takes is that one word for relief to rush over me like a biblical flood. “I love you,” she says. “And I’m scared.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her as calmly as possible. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“I…” she stutters. And then her voice is calm. Collected. “I miss you.”
“I know. And it’s okay.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you. About the time we spent together.” She gives a smile that I know is forced. “Remember that time we went up north by the water trying to find that seafood restaurant?”
I have no fucking clue what she’s talking about, but I say, “Yeah.”
“And remember how I kept playing Bohemian Rhapsody?”
“You and that fucking song,” Tristan says, but Amara keeps going.
“I played it over and over,” she says.
Finally, I realize what’s going on. “Yeah, you did. Jesus. I was about to throw your phone out the window.”
She laughs. And while I know it’s staged, it makes my chest tight all the same. “I think I must’ve played it nine times, give or take. Before we figured out where we were going.”
“Yeah. Forty-five minutes of Freddie Mercury whining,” I mutter. Words that ordinarily would never leave my mouth, because I fucking love Queen, and Amara knows it.
Just like she knows I love her.
Amara nods. “Give or take.”
“Alright, that’s enough,” Tristan says. “If you ever want to see your girl again—alive, that is—you’re going to meet with me. For a little… negotiation.”
The call ends and Jenica looks up at me.
“That was good,” she says.
“You were good,” I am willing to admit.
Jenica shrugs, taking a sip of her coffee. “It’s all the Real Housewives. I’ve perfected the fake cry.”
With that, I head out the door, almost smiling.
Amara gave me a clue. A vital clue. She told me how many times she played Bohemian Rhapsody on the way to wherever they are. And while I don’t know where they started off, she mentioned seafood, and that can’t have been a coincidence. Not with Jenica telling me all that stuff about the old fish hatchery.
Wherever she is, it’s forty-five minutes out of somewhere, and it reeks of fish.
And I’m going to get her out no matter what.
53
AMARA
This is not the same as last time.
Braxton-Hicks are fake contractions. They come and go inconsistently. And while they hurt, they’ve got nothing on what I’m feeling right now.
I am in enough pain that I am literally laying on my side on the concrete, my head cocked to the side on the floor. My hands are still bound, zip-tied behind my back, making it hard to move. I can’t even rub my belly, something I always do when I need to soothe myself. When I need to soothe him.
Tears sting my eyes for the first time since all of this started. I don’t like crying. I’ve always had to be stronger than that. But right now, I don’t know how much more I can take. I’m having flashbacks of the last time I was in a warehouse with Tristan Chadovich. Gianni was the one tied up though, an image I will never forget. An incident I will never forgive myself for.
