Chapter 1
THE BRUTAL KILLERput a knife to her mother’s throat. Addison Leigh’s mother blinked in terror, her eyes wide. The switchblade pressed against her crinkly neck. Right there in the small Portland home Addy shared with her mom.
Addy gasped.
“Back off, Agent Leigh, or else,” the masked man snarled, his lips moving in the mouth opening.
Addy tried to breathe. To think.
The video playing on her computer screen in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office was time-stamped five minutes ago.
Five minutes!
This man could still be in her house. With her mother.
Was it real? Staged? Was this armed man really at her house?
What should she do?
Think, Addy. Think.
She grabbed her phone and dialed her home number. One ring. Two. Three.
No answer.
“Warren, come here!” she yelled to her fellow ICE agent two cubicles down in the bullpen.
Ring four.
“C’mon, Mom, answer,” Addy muttered as she jumped to her feet and tried not to lose it. “Please answer.”
Voicemail. No. No.No.
She slammed her fist on the desktop.
Calm down.Panicking won’t help.
A lack of answer didn’t mean anything. Her mother could be napping, and her caregiver, Nancy, never answered the home phone.
“What’s up?” Dressed in his usual khaki pants and white button-down, Warren sauntered her way.
“Watch this video.” She clicked replay. “It’s my mom. Or a Photoshopped version of her. I called the house. She’s not answering.”
Addy dialed Nancy’s cellphone and watched again as the man pulled her mother’s head back. He growled at the camera from behind a coward’s ski mask, the brown skin of his hands telling her he might be connected to her current investigation. Something dark dotted his hand, but she couldn’t tell what. A wound maybe.
His eyes focused on the camera, dark orbs in the mask’s holes.
“Back off, Agent Leigh. Or else.” His tone was high-pitched, obviously in an attempt to distort his voice, making it harder to do comparisons.
Back off. Backoff what?
Was it Bruno Razo? A killer. A drug kingpin and gunrunner who was the focus of Operation Crossfire, her current investigation? A sorry excuse for a man.
Addy sucked in a gulping breath. Another and another, making sure to hold it together in front of her fellow agent as the call to Nancy rang in her ear, the sharp rings piercing Addy’s brain.
Warren bent closer to the screen and let out a low whistle. “If it’s Photoshopped, they would’ve had to film your mom at some point. And she would’ve needed a terrified expression like this when they did.”
“Her dementia causes fear all the time, so they could possibly have caught her on a walk or at the park with me or Nancy.”
