Allison Brennan - Fear No Evil

Dillon stared at Patrick. “I can find her.”

Patrick shook his head, mixed emotions crossing his boyish face. “Don’t.”

“I have to. For Lucy. Just get me a more accurate location by the time Jack calls back.”

“He might not even call,” said Patrick.

“He’ll call me,” Dillon insisted.

“Who’s Jack?” Peterson asked.

“Our brother,” Patrick said. “Jack is Dillon’s twin.”

“Another Kincaid?” Peterson mumbled.

Jack returned Dillon’s call thirty minutes later.

“Hello, Jack,” Dillon answered.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked without preamble. They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in eleven years, but Jack got right to the point.

Dillon didn’t waste time. “Lucy has been kidnapped. I need your help finding an ex-FBI agent who’s hiding out in the eastern Mexican mountains.”

“Are you sure? Lucy’s an adult. Maybe she just walked.”

“If you have an Internet connection, I can send you the feed where she’s half naked and tied to the floor.” Dillon’s voice vibrated with anger. Jack had gone off to do his own thing twenty years ago and came home only for funerals. He didn’t know Lucy, and he wanted to believe she had just left the family without a word?

“Of course I’m sure she’s been kidnapped.” Dillon suppressed the complex emotions that talking with his brother Jack inevitably stirred. “The FBI has a task force in place. Her kidnapper has done this before. And if we don’t find her in forty-three hours, she’ll be dead. Murdered live on the Internet. Do you think I would call you if it weren’t a life-or-death emergency? If I didn’t think you might be in a position to help?”

“And you want me to track this FBI agent down why?”

“She has some sort of compound where she’s been tracking this killer for the last couple of years. She has her own issues with the FBI and won’t come back voluntarily.”

“So you want me to kidnap her and bring her to you?”

“No. I want you to bring me to her. She’s on a mountain, about an hour north of Monterrey, which according to the FBI is dangerous territory.”

“Dangerous is an understatement,” Jack said. “I’m not bringing you anywhere. I’ll find the agent myself and compel her to return.”

Dillon said, “No, Jack. You’ll bring both me and Patrick to her. She has computer files we need and the ability to find Lucy. She thinks she can do it on her own, but I think our killer might just want her to find him, that he might leak her information to trap her. And Lucy is his bait.”

“Why do you care about this renegade FBI agent? Who cares about the damn feds? Nothing but backstabbing bureaucrats with guns. I’ll help you find Lucy. I have friends all over the world.”

The quiet arrogant confidence in Jack’s voice was typical.

“No,” Dillon said. “Why is it always your way, Jack? You know very little about this situation. I’m certainly not putting Lucy’s life in your hands.”

“But you’re putting her life in your hands, Doctor? Since when were you in the military? Or the police academy? Do you even know how to shoot a gun?”

“Forget it, Jack. I’ll find Kate on my own. I’m sorry I called you. I guess you really are no longer family.”

Click.

Dillon stared at his cell phone. He didn’t like to gamble, but he also believed he understood his twin. He hoped he did.

For twenty years, Dillon had wondered what had happened to Jack that he would turn his back on his family and devote his life solely to the military-whatever the hell it was Jack did for them. Jack had only come home for Justin’s funeral, a sad testament to a man who as a boy had been Dillon’s best friend.

But Jack was fiercely loyal, had been from early childhood. They’d moved every six to twelve months while Colonel Kincaid was moved from military base to military base. They could only count on themselves and their family, because friendships were fleeting.

Jack joined the military when he turned eighteen and then something happened. Something that seemed to prevent him from keeping in touch with his family. Jack never spoke of it, never even acknowledged that anything had happened.

But Dillon knew his twin brother. Family used to be important to him.

The phone rang five minutes later.

“I’ll meet you in four hours at a bar called La Honda in Hidalgo, Texas,” Jack said. “Don’t bring anyone with you.”

Dillon wrote down the information Jack imparted and hung up. He was glad he was right about Jack, that he would come through after all.

Don’t bring anyone?

“Patrick, we’re going to Texas. I’m going to find Agent Peterson and see how fast he can get us out there.”

“GOOD MORNING, sunshine.”

Trevor Conrad walked into the room, staying out of view of the camera. Lucy must have dozed off. She startled awake.

How could she have even fallen asleep?

She jerked at the ties around her wrists. Her skin was chafed and sore.

“Fuck you, Trevor,” she said.

He chuckled. He was laughing at her. Lucy’s face grew hot with humiliation and anger. Fear was there, too, cold and hot at the same time, making everything in the plain room sharper, with fewer shadows.

Light.

The one covered window blocked the sun, but the quality of light told Lucy it was morning. How long had she been sleeping? It couldn’t have been long.

“Lucy, I’d like to reintroduce you to Roger,” Trevor said. “You remember him, of course.”

The big ugly jerk she’d kicked in the balls when he’d cut off her bra walked in behind Trevor. She watched as he unzipped his jeans.

“No. No no no no!” She shook her head back and forth, as if she thought that if she said it long enough, loud enough, they would go away. She fought her restraints, but they held fast. Warm blood coated her wrists from the chafing ropes.

Trevor laughed softly. “You’re such a fabulous actress, Lucy. You may have a future in film.” He shrugged. “Or not.”

Roger approached and knelt over her, his penis growing rigid. She closed her eyes.

Pretend you’re far away.

He pulled her jeans down to her ankles, where they tangled in the ropes at her feet.

The beach. The ocean is rolling up the sand. Seagulls. Kids. Friends. Volleyball.

Something cold and hard touched her skin and her underpants were cut from her body. The hard reality of her fate slapped her and Lucy couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening. She couldn’t be anywhere else.

She screamed.

Kate tried to ignore what was happening to Lucy Kincaid as she scoured data for any clue that would tell her where the satellite feed was originating. It was hard to avoid it, to avoid remembering Paige. Her eyes watered and her teeth ground together as she tried to suppress her own primal scream at what Lucy now endured.

Damn bastard Trask knew she was watching.

Power.

The enormity of his power structure is what confused Kate. He’d had money at his disposal, even before his online porn sites began to flourish. His corporations paid taxes, filed reports, had a board of directors-all of which had been thoroughly investigated by the FBI and deemed legitimate. In fact, at one point her boyfriend, Evan, also an FBI agent, had told Kate she was chasing a ghost, that Trask didn’t exist. That the disappearance of the women she and Paige had been trying to find was unrelated to their jobs as porn stars. That April Klinger hadn’t been killed on screen. It had all just been an act, he said.

She’d fought with Evan the week before the sting, before Paige was kidnapped.