Allison Brennan: Fear No Evil

Nick motioned with his head that he needed Dillon to follow him upstairs. Dillon nodded. “Mama, let me take you to Dad’s office.”

“No, I need to make coffee. And something to eat. When Carina and Connor get back they’ll be hungry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go. Find Lucy,” said Rosa Kincaid, her Cuban features fiercely determined.

Dillon followed Nick upstairs to Lucy’s bedroom, where Patrick was working on Lucy’s computer. “I got a call from a friend in the FBI. They found Lucy.”

From his tone, Dillon was certain Lucy was dead. “What happened?” His voice cracked with emotion.

Nick rested a hand on his arm. “She’s still alive.”

“Where?”

As soon as Nick opened the door, Patrick let out a vicious curse. Dillon stared at the computer screen.

Lucy.

She was tied to a chair, her long dark hair loose and tangled, her dark eyes looking wild beneath smeared makeup. When she jerked her head up, Dillon said, “It’s a webcam.”

“Live,” Patrick said, “and the fucking FBI doesn’t know where it’s coming from!”

“What are those numbers?” Dillon asked. In the bottom right-hand corner there appeared to be a digital clock of some sort with the numbers running backward.

46:02:36. 46:02:35.

“I don’t know yet,” Patrick said. “Nick’s FBI contact sent us this link and asked if she was Lucy.”

Though technically the FBI wouldn’t get involved in a typical missing persons case this quickly, Nick’s best friend was the special agent in charge out of Seattle, Quincy Peterson. He had unofficially put the word out about Lucy.

Nick dialed a number from the house phone and put it on speaker. “Peterson,” the voice answered.

“Quinn, it’s Nick Thomas. I have you on a speakerphone with Dillon and Patrick Kincaid, Lucy’s brothers.”

“Is it her?” Quinn asked.

“Yes,” Patrick said through his clenched jaw.

“Shit.”

“Agent Peterson,” Dillon asked, “what’s going on? How did you find her?”

“A friend found the link.”

“And you don’t know where Lucy is being held?”

“No. The webcam feed is masked. He bounces the data all over the world before it’s fed into a server and shown. That server is rotated continually to prevent us from tracking him. We have Quantico putting all their best people on it, and my friend is working on tracking the feed as well, but it’s difficult.”

Patrick interjected, “That doesn’t make me feel any better. Does this ‘friend’ have a name?”

“The FBI is getting involved. We’re assembling a task force of the best agents in the country to find your sister.”

“What can we do?” Dillon asked, realizing Peterson had avoided the question about his “friend.” “My brother Patrick is the head of e-crimes. We can-”

“What I need is a recap of exactly what happened when Lucy disappeared. Any witnesses?”

“No,” Dillon said. “She disappeared between nine and eleven yesterday morning. She was supposed to be meeting someone at Starbucks before her graduation, and her car, with her purse and keys inside, was found in the parking lot, but no one saw anything. The employees didn’t think she’d been inside.”

Nick spoke up. “We learned she’d planned on meeting someone she met online.”

“Who?”

“His name is Trevor Conrad and he’s supposed to be a student at Georgetown, but we can’t find any record of him.”

“I need her computer,” Quinn said. “I’ll send someone from the local FBI office to pick it up.”

“No,” Dillon said.

“Hell, no,” Patrick concurred. “We’ll bring it to the task force. Consider yourself working very closely with the San Diego Police Department.”

“I don’t think-” Quinn began, then relented. “All right. We’re basing operations out of the San Diego field office. I’m on my way down there now.”

“Agent Peterson,” Dillon said, “what are those numbers in the bottom right corner?”

When Quinn didn’t say anything for a minute, Dillon prompted, “It looks like a countdown.”

“It is,” Quinn finally said.

Dillon was almost afraid to ask, but he did nonetheless.

“A countdown to what?”

“Murder.”

Kate monitored her bank of computer screens as her enhanced programs attempted to triangulate the location of Trask’s signal. The largest screen, the one in the middle, was the live feed of the victim.

Kate did pull-ups on a bar she’d installed in her room as she watched the young woman on the screen. The girl sat frozen, defiant, scared. Trask wouldn’t let her stay like that too long. But for now, he was still whetting his viewers’ appetite, showing them the prize. He’d probably give them something before the first free hours were up, something to entice them to pay the twenty-five thousand.

At four hours, FBI Agent Paige Henshaw had been raped.

Sweat coated her skin, but Kate continued the pull-ups until her arms shook. She dropped and did crunches. The air was too thin up here in the mountains to run, so she’d modified her routine, keeping it intense, building her strength.

She came up on a crunch and caught movement in the center screen. One of Trask’s goons had untied the victim and was holding her from behind. Another man, Roger Morton-the man who’d first raped Paige-held a knife.

Kate jumped up and touched the screen. No ! If the power of her will could stop what was happening, the earth would stop rotating on its axis.

Roger held the knife in front of the girl’s face. Her eyes went wide and she visibly shook. He put the tip of the knife at her throat, then in one swift motion ripped her blouse with his other hand.

She flinched, the knife cutting into her throat just enough to draw blood. Roger and the goon laughed and pulled off her blouse. She wore a black lace bra. Something she had probably picked up with a girlfriend at the mall, enjoying the feeling of maturity, of growing up, of femininity.

Now its sexy lace was her humiliation.

“Show your fans what you’ve got, Lucy baby.” Roger stepped aside so the camera could pan the girl’s chest.

She pulled away from the grasp of the bastard behind her and punched Roger in the face. She almost got in another jab, but the men wrestled her to the ground. She fought and cried out, not in pain but in rage.

“Keep fighting, honey,” Kate said to the screen. “Keep the spirit alive. Don’t let them defeat you.”

Roger slugged the girl and a voice from off-camera said, “Don’t.”

Trask.

Goose bumps rose on Kate’s arms. Her scalp tingled. Her chest tightened. The bastard was watching. Why should she be surprised? Why would it be any different from how it had been five years ago? Three years ago? She’d slowed down Trask’s operation, but hadn’t ended it. Other girls had died after Paige.

Kate double-checked her programs, helpless to do anything but wait for the computer to find a weakness, and pray that it wasn’t another clever trap. Each girl Trask had killed had provided her with more tools to locate him, but he was improving his security at the same rate she was improving her hacking ability. Last year the FBI had almost lost another agent based on her intelligence.

Or lack thereof, she thought with dread. After she’d sent that last set of data, she had discovered that Trask had set a trap for the federal rescue team. Jeff Merritt hadn’t wanted to use Kate’s information in the first place, but when she sent him her analysis, he had jumped at it, walking right into Trask’s trap, ignoring Kate’s warnings to be cautious, that it might be another of Trask’s ruses. If only she’d had more time, more resources, more help.