“Did you call her again?” she asked.
Connor shook his head. “I’ve called her over ten times. She’s still unreachable.”
Sveti felt her face crumple. She covered it with her hands. “She will hate me so much,” she whispered.
“Wrong. Fuck, no,” Sean said roughly. “Nobody but nobody blames you, Sveti. Tam won’t, either. It was our fault for not being careful. Not taking this thing seriously enough. We’ve all gotten slack. You were right outside the house, for Christ’s sake.”
Sveti shook her head. “I didn’t even get a car license number.”
“Don’t sweat it,” Davy said flatly. “It would have been bogus and it wouldn’t have helped us. Anyone gunning for Tam is a hard-core professional.”
“Davy!” his wife snapped. “Isn’t Sveti miserable enough already?”
“Sorry,” Davy said.
The police had been and gone, an Amber Alert had been issued, but no one had any illusions that they would be able to find whoever had taken Rachel. All the McClouds and their close friends were there, crowded into Connor and Erin’s living room. All except for Nick and Becca, off on their honeymoon in Mexico on a beach in the sun. Sveti wished that he were here, too.
She rubbed her swollen eyes and struggled to breathe around the fear and grief. How scared Rachel must be, all alone with those bad men. It hurt to think of it, worse than any physical pain she could imagine. It would be so much easier to cut it off, to not care, but she had never had any luck with that. She’d tried very hard when she was with the organ thieves, but it had never taken. Not really.
So this was the truth she’d been wondering about. The lurking nightmare of cruelty was reality. Freedom and flowers and the blue sky—that part was just the hopeful dream. It was the answer to her dilemma.
Now she knew the truth. And her only refuge was anger.
“They will never do this to me again,” she heard herself say.
Everyone in the room looked at her, as if afraid her mind had cracked under the strain. She looked around, wild-eyed. She had to make them understand with the limited English that she had.
“They will not do this to me again. The assholes,” she said. “I won’t let them. I want to become like Tam. I want to be able to kick the asses of the assholes. Anyone who hurts or scares a little child, I want to…to cut off their balls. Put out their eyes. Rip out their guts.”
Then they were looking at her, and she knew they were seeing her ninety-pound frame, her skinny wrists, how wispy and weak and insignificant she was. Fury flashed through her. Her fingers clenched into fists as hard as diamonds, for all they were so tiny.
“It doesn’t matter that I’m small.” Her voice was high, shaking. “I’m not stupid. That’s more important. I can get stronger. I can use guns, bombs, rocket launchers. I will make those fuckers pay.”
Margot sat down next to her and slid an arm around her waist. “I don’t doubt it for a second, sweetheart,” she said. “But we have to get this thing sorted out. I understand how angry you are—and how scared. And how young.”
The men looked at each other with obvious alarm. Their women glared right back at them. There was a moment of curious tension.
Sean made a noncommittal sound. “Huh. Well, then. I guess it’s gonna be law enforcement for you, honey, just like your dad,” he said. “Someday.”
Connor’s head sunk down between his shoulders. “I can’t believe this,” he said for the tenth time. “Right outside the door. We should have sent Rachel to Stone Island with—”
“Bodyguards and an armored car, and two of us. Suck it up and let it go,” Sean said harshly.
“Jesus,” Con muttered, “Tam trusted me to protect her kid. And I let her down. I’m a fucking brain-dead idiot dick.”
“Stop right there, bro,” Davy said. “Don’t. Not useful.”
Connor’s head came up, eyes blazing. “It could have been Kev,” he said. “Easily. Or Jeannie. He’s got as much of a grudge against me and Erin as he does with Tam. If the people in my family ever have a hope in hell of sleeping through the night, those fuckers have got to die.”
“Of course,” Sean said. “So we’ll do it. Let’s move on.”
“Move where?” Connor’s voice was vicious. “We have no leads. Just a couple of badass lowlife fuckers in Eastern Europe with the means and the motive. But where? Which one?”
“Maybe they’ll make contact, just to taunt us,” Sean said. “Or maybe Tam will have a clue. Something’s got to give. Call her again.”
Connor picked up the phone, pushed a button, waited. He shook his head and let it drop into his hands. They fell into a silence as cold and heavy as lead.
How the fuck had they found him?
The question burned in Val’s mind as he dragged himself up out of the icy water. The jagged rocks tore and sliced at his hands and knees. Fortunately, he was too numb to really feel it.
When he’d last been here with Domenico at low tide, they’d been equipped with scuba suits, neoprene gripper gloves, flashlights attached to their headgear. It had been high summer, five years ago.
He composed his mind as best he could to remember the twists and turns of the place, the loops, the dead ends. Only one access to the caves was large, light and attractive enough to develop for tourists. The rest was a dank, dripping labyrinth, most of which had to be squeezed through to keep from ripping off one’s scalp.
How had they found him? Every stitch of clothing he had on had been bought two days before in Sorrento en route from the airport.
The ugly truth sank in, slithering into his mind, starting with his belly and creeping its slow, relentless way into his conscious mind.
Not his clothes. Not his equipment. Him. He himself, Val Janos, his physical body, had an RF transmitter in it somewhere.
That was how Hegel’s Seattle team got to Tam and Rachel at the airport—by following him. That was how they’d been nailed the day before at the hotel. That must have been how András had gotten him today. Which meant that Hegel must be dead.
He felt humiliated. He lacked the mental flexibility to think an unthinkable thought. Fucking thick-skulled idiot.
Being deep inside a cave solved the problem in the short term. There was no way they could trace him now. But unless he intended to take up residence there and eat eyeless fish who subsisted only on bat shit, he had to come up with a better idea, and fast. If they knew where he was, they could very well know where he had been. That would be András’s next move once he got tired of searching for Val here.
Tam was waiting in one of those places that was almost certainly archived in their files—unless she had already thumbed her nose at him and left. Altogether possible, knowing her. Probable enough even to hope for. He hoped she would be her usual difficult, independent self and get
