Just landed!Brian’s text arrives on my phone as I’m looking down to check the time. My stomach swims at the thought of the next hour or two. But I steel myself. Collect the necessary supplies—it will be easier because he knows me, trusts me, thinks I’m just his wife. Just the mother of his children.
As I step out of the motel and into the blazing sun, I can’t help but snort—he’ll probably think I’m bringing him here for sex. For some roleplay bullshit that is so not his style, but that would delight him regardless. Fine. Let him believe that.
In the van, I wipe my sweating palms on my yoga capris. I double-check that I have various methods of immobilizing him at hand just in case—a Taser, chloroform, a syringe loaded with scopolamine, which will make him more willing to do what I ask and answer my questions.
The drive to the airport is short—one of the rare conveniences of San Antonio.
The nice thing about being a psychopath is that I don’t get nervous often. I don’tcareenough to get nervous, about most people, most things. But today, in the minivan I bought so I could take care of my family, my heart pounds so hard I’m certain I can hear it. I can certainlyfeelit, as it races like I’m sprinting up one of the steep hills in Alamo Heights on a hot morning, as though it might burst out of my chest.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
I take a right turn, pull into the arrivals line. The plan is towait for him to appear. I’ll smile and wave, and he’ll get in the car, and we’ll both act happy to see each other. When we don’t drive straight, but instead get on the highway, he’ll look surprised—he’ll turn and ask where we are going. If I’ve forgotten that we are heading home. I’ll wink at him, then take the exit for the motel. I’ll pull around back, where my minivan can’t be seen. I’ll give him a sexy smile and beckon him inside the motel room.
And that’s when things will get interesting.
Brian appears through the glass doors. Three car lengths ahead of me, a white minivan honks—a van, I realize, that is the same make and model as mine. I wave at Brian, unlock the doors. Paste on a smile.
But the dumbass doesn’t even look my way. He walks blindly toward the other minivan, wearing that same grin he usually reserves just for me. I sigh. I’ll just have to wait a second. Let him realize he’s at the wrong vehicle.
One, two, three seconds go by. And then ten. I peer through the windshield, leaning into the passenger’s seat to try to catch a glimpse of him—and I do. There he is, at the side of the van, a strange expression on his face—then hands are reaching out, yanking him inside. There’s a moment of wide-eyed surprise. His bag, heavy in his hands, keeps him from fighting back.
The minivan zooms forward.
I don’t think, I only react. My nerves are shoved out of the way by adrenaline as I yank my vehicle from the line, smash my foot to the gas, and roar forward. In seconds, I’m side by side with the other van, and I glance to my right just before they take a sharp turn for an access road, one I’ll have to turn around to follow them down.
I smash on the brakes and horns blare behind me. A giant black pickup truck—à laeverything is bigger in Texas—nearly rear-ends me. There’s nowhere to turn. The only way to follow the van is to circle through the arrivals line again. Curses flow from my mouth and I pull off to the side, turn on my blinker, and try to process.
And that’s when I realize who I saw in the driver’s seat of the van that nabbed Brian. He might have been wearing a wig. He might have had a sweater pulled over his shoulders, and in a pinch, from a distance, he might have looked ever so slightly like me.
But I know without a doubt who it really was: Ian.
Chapter Forty-Three
It’s impossible to turn aroundand give chase; cars and trucks and buses stream down both lanes without a single gap, my own version ofFrogger. Even pulling back into traffic takes too long, and finally, I cut off a slow-moving shuttle that advertises Marriott Hotel and Suites. The driver lays on the horn, but I’m too busy racing around—looping back to return to the arrivals area, to take that right turn and follow the van—to care.
When I finally get there, it’s nothing but empty airport road—probably where the employees go, or maybe where deliveries are made.
“Damn it.” I bite my lip until I taste blood, smack the steering wheel hard enough my hand throbs, and search for the white van—oranymoving vehicle, for that matter. But it’s abandoned. A long expanse of dark gray concrete, a handful of white and yellow lines, the side of the airport, unremarkable and utterly unhelpful.
I hit the brake, come to a stop.
“What now?” I whisper to myself. “What freaking now?” I picture my husband, tied up, gagged, in the back of the van. Thefear on his face, in his eyes—a thought that was almostjoyfulto me the other night, as I pictured beating the truth out of him. Now it fills me with dread, and I try to assemble everything so it makes sense.
Ian took Brian. Withhelp, no less—at least two sets of hands were pulling him into the van before he could fight back. Which would imply Ian planned this. He had help.
He also originally had accepted the contract on Brian. So he must be set on fulfilling said contract. Hedidtell me he wouldn’t kill him—but that was days ago. And I remember that he’d tacked on one extra word. Yet. He wouldn’t kill himyet. Maybe today is the day.
I knew he was coming to town, but he told me it wouldn’t be until tonight. At which point, he…what? Could console me in the knowledge that someone had gotten to my husband before I had? Maybe convince me of how bad Brian was? He thought he’d grab him before I could.
“He set me up.” The words come out in a gasp of realization. Ian set me up tonotget Brian—to get to Brian himself first. And then to do…what? Kill him, of course. Collect the many hundreds of thousands of dollars put on his head for…whatever reason. Human trafficking, according to Ian.
I pull the car around, head back toward the highway. Maybe this is why Ian wanted separate flights—why he said he wanted to go home before coming to San Antonio. Maybe he had planned to kill Brian all along and was just biding his time.
Or maybe he’s trying to help me, afraid that I mightnotkill him.
I flip my turn signal on and merge back on the highway, wondering where the hell Ian would have gone.
“Hey, Siri, call Ian,” I command my phone.
