Ritchie and Cameronwere still bickering with each other. They finally decided that Becks shouldn’t drive anymore, and they blindfolded her. It took a long time for them to have a discussion outside the car where Becks could only pick up on a word or two prior to leaving the farmers market parking lot. It was decided that they would leave Cameron’s car and phone behind, and they moved Liam and Becks into the back of Ritchie’s car.
She hated being blindfolded, but at least she could now hold Liam’s hand.
She’d come to several conclusions during the drive. At first she thought that Ritchie and Cameron might be siblings. The way they squabbled made her think of her and Liam when they were younger. But then they made certain comments that led her to believe they were intimately involved, which meant theywere not siblings. But the one thing she was certain of was the fact that they’d known each other a long time. As in, longer than the month since Ritchie had left Becks at the altar and then showed up drunk and high when she was about to marry Ghost.
So what did it mean that Ritchie and Cameron had been involved with Becks and Liam? Why? She hadn’t figured that part out yet.
The bomb was definitely their doing. Ritchie scolded Cameron about it going off early, which led Becks to believe that they wanted the bomb to go off whenbothGhost and Liam were in the bar. So why were they willing to originally kill Liam, but now they wanted him alive?
Cameron’s comment about having the antidote to whatever she’d had Liam inject himself with was bullshit. There was no antidote because it wasn’t poison. Becks wasn’t an expert on illegal drugs, but she’d guess heroin or maybe ketamine. He seemed too blissed out to be cocaine, and she wasn’t entirely certain cocaine could be injected. Either way, it wasn’t good. If there was one thing she’d taken away from her school district’s D.A.R.E. program, it was thatanyillegal drug could be addictive from the very first try.
Ritchie was pissed about Cameron using the drug on Liam. It didn’t sound like it washisdrugs she’d used, but he kept repeating that now they couldn’t sell it. Was Ritchie adrug dealer? Since when? How had she almost married a drug dealer without even knowing it?
Becks had watched enough spy movies to know the trick about counting the seconds between turns so if she was able to get a message out to someone they could retrace her path. The problem was, it was harder than the movies made it out to be. Within minutes, she’d lost track of her numbers and then had miscounted when trying to remember the first couple of turns. If Liam had been sober, he no doubt could have done it, butBecks wasn’t a trained soldier. No wonder Cameron had wanted to incapacitate Liam but hadn’t cared about Becks. To them, she must seem utterly useless.
Which begged the question why they needed her, other than leverage against Liam. But he was in no condition to do anything, and right now they were getting her compliance through threats of keeping him alive.
She wanted to be mad at Liam. He’d complied so easily, drugged himself and took himself out of the game without even a fight. But the phantom memory of Cameron’s gun at the back of Becks’ head made it clear why Liam had done what he’d done. He might be incapacitated, but they were both still alive. If he hadn’t, one or both of them could be dead already.
It scared her to admit that she would have done the same for Liam.
Ghost had to be okay. She couldn’t even contemplate the alternative. But if he was inside when that bomb went off… Tears soaked her blindfold. If he was hurt, would anyone even know or realize that she and Liam were missing? What if someone rolled over her ring with their car and it got caught in the treads? It was a stupid, but desperate move on her part. Ghost had been adamant that she never remove her ring, and she hoped him finding it would clue him in that she was in trouble.
Why hadn’t she gone intoanyother profession but making sounds for animated movies? What use was that to them now? If she’d been a cop like her dad or a soldier like her brother, she’d beuseful. And nothing for nothing, she was in high heels and she was nowhere near in shape enough to run away, even if Liam was in the condition for them to run.
Cameron kept telling Ritchie that she’d gotten rid of Ranger’s tracker. Why did Liam have a tracker? Obviously it had been his dog tags that she’d had him remove. Ghost and the other members had the same ones. Were they all trackers?
The car slowed. Becks thought she knew what fear was until this very moment. Where were they? Why were they there? How long did they plan to keep them? It wasn’t like they were strangers. Becks would be able to identify both of them—so what did that mean for her and Liam once they got what they wanted.
Which also begged the question, what did they want?
Cameron came into the back of the car. Becks stiffened as she coaxed Liam out of the car with the promise of a ‘fun time’. Becks did not want to let go of his hand, but suddenly her door was opened and she felt Ritchie’s familiar hands on her arms.
Becks screamed, but he slapped his hand over her mouth. Hard.
“Don’t bruise her!” Cameron scolded from a distance away. “We need at least one of them presentable!”
Presentable for what? Becks’ mind demanded to know, but the hand over her mouth prevented her from asking out loud.
Becks stiffened as Ritchie pulled her from the car and away from her brother. One shoe fell off, causing her to stumble back into him. She nearly retched into his hand, never wanting any part of his man to touch her again.
With his arm around her chest and the other still over her mouth, Ritchie shook her roughly. Her head bobbled on her neck, making her bite her tongue.
“Listen here, you stupid slut. I amnotcarrying you inside. So you better walk or I will ensure youneversee your brother again, and you’ll only have my word that he’s still alive.”
Tears streamed down her cheeks under the blindfold as blood filled her mouth from biting her tongue. Becks’ chin trembled. She didn’t know what to do. Should she run? Ditch her other shoe and make a dash for it? Try to fight him? Somehow get to Liam and get the two of them back into the car? What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t risk them killing Liam! And not seeing him again? She didn’t know where Ritchie was tryingto take her, but she knew she’d rather be there with Liam than without him.
Not seeing any other way, Becks nodded.
“And if you scream, I will take that shoe you just dropped and shove it down your brother’s throat. Do you understand me?” Again, Becks nodded. “Good.” Ritchie lowered his hand and stepped back from her, keeping one hand on her upper arm. “Now walk.”
Two days.Ghost was going out of his mind. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. He refused to do anything that didn’t involve the search for Ranger, Becks, and Cameron. Not even the cleanup at the bar or assistance with the funerals. His heart broke for Frankie, Monica, and the two other dead, but he needed to focus on finding his wife. He would mourn them properly once Becks was safely back in his arms.
Apollo hadn’t alerted to anything in either drink. The OTC test showed negative for contaminants too, so they still had no explanation as to why Ranger had been walking as if drunk out to the cage on the apartment’s security footage. Traffic cams in town showed Cameron’s cage leaving, and then Keys lost it. Unfortunately, long country roads did not have many traffic cameras. So while he saw her leave, he never found another camera in surrounding towns or highways where her cage reappeared.
Since then, Keys had done a deep dive into Cameron Powell, and what he found had officially moved her from suspect to perpetrator.
Cameron Powell was raised by a single father until she was eleven years old, when her father married a woman namedJolene Austin. A woman who had a son roughly Cameron’s age, Richard Austin—better known as Ritchie, Becks’ ex-fiancé. From there, he opened up an entire can of worms filled with the two stepsiblings’ escapades through their teen years and into their early twenties. Ritchie went to law school while Cameron worked as a waitress by day and a stripper by night. It didn’t even seem like they stayed in contact much during their adult years until about two years ago, when their communications went from nearly zero to multiple calls and text messages a day.
