• • •

Reynaldo was carefully going through the woods when he heard the bark.

“Bo!”

He knew all of Bo’s barks. This one was not greeting a friendly face. This was a bark of fear and panic.

With the other two men following him, Reynaldo took out his gun and sprinted back toward the farmhouse.

Chapter 41

Brandon was just settling onto a bar stool in Kat’s apartment when a blocked call came into his mobile phone.

He had already contacted as many of his friends as he could to start hacking into YouAreJustMyType.com. Six of them were with him right now, on Skype, all their faces on the computer screen. Back on campus, his friends had the powerful mainframe and so would be able to handle the hack better. Brandon would work it remotely in conjunction with those on campus.

He picked up the phone. “Hello?”

A voice he didn’t recognize said, “Brandon?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“Just listen. You have two minutes. Go downstairs and out the door. Turn right. On the corner of Columbus Avenue, you’ll see a black SUV. Get in it. Your mother is in the backseat.”

“What—?”

“If you’re not here in exactly two minutes, she dies.”

“Wait, who is this—?”

“One minute fifty-five seconds.”

Click.

Brandon jumped off this stool and sprinted to the door. He threw it open and pressed for the elevator. It was on the ground floor. He was six floors up.

Better to take the stairs.

He did, more tumbling down them than running. His phone was still in his hand. He crossed the lobby and burst through the door. He leapt down the stoop to street level and veered right on 67th Street, nearly knocking over a man in a business suit.

He didn’t let up. He dashed down the street, looking at the cars ahead of him. There, at the corner per the phone call, was the black SUV.

He was getting closer, when his cell phone rang again. Still in stride, he checked the caller ID.

A blocked number again.

He was near the SUV now. The back door opened. He put the phone to his ear and heard a barking dog. “Hello?”

“Brandon, listen to me.”

His heart stopped. “Mom? I’m almost at the car.”

“No!”

Brandon heard a man shouting in the background. “What was that? Mom?”

“Don’t get in the car!”

“I don’t un—”

“Run, Brandon! Just run!”

Brandon stopped, tried to back up, but two hands reached out of the back of the car and grabbed his shirt. His cell phone dropped as a man tried to drag him into the SUV.

• • •

Kat welcomed the walk across the park, a chance to clear her head and think, but the familiar sites didn’t offer any of their usual solace. She thought about the Ramble a few blocks north, how her father had worked the area, what must have been going through his mind.

When she looked back on it, when she looked back at her father’s behavior, his drinking, his rage, his disappearances, it all made sad, pathetic sense. You hide so much. You hide your heart. You hide your true self. The facade becomes not just the cruel reality.

It becomes your prison.

Her poor father.

But none of this mattered anymore. Not really. It was in the past. Her father’s pain was over. To be the best daughter she could be, to honor his memory or offer whatever comfort you could offer to the dead, she had to be the best cop she could be.

That meant figuring a way to nail Cozone.

Her cell phone buzzed as she exited the park on the west side. It was Chaz.

“Were you just here?”

“Sorry, yeah. I was with the captain.”

“He told me you’re coming back.”

“Maybe,” she said.

“I’d like that.”

“Me too.”

“But that isn’t why I called,” Chaz said. “I’m working the missing people angle like you asked. What I have is only preliminary.”

“But?”

“I have eleven missing adults, including Dana Phelps, Gerard Remington, and Martha Paquet, across four states. All had recently met someone online.”

The hairs on her neck stood up. “My God.”

“I know, right?”

“Did you contact ADIC Keiser?” she asked.

“I sent it to his point man. They’re going to dive into it further. But eleven missing, Kat. I mean . . .”

Chaz just left it at that.

There was nothing more that needed to be said. The feds would know what to do now. They had done more than their part here. Kat hung up the phone as she crossed onto 67th Street. That was when she saw the ruckus down at the Columbus Avenue corner.

What the . . . ?

She broke into a sprint. As she got closer, she could see Brandon Phelps struggling. Someone was trying to pull him into the back of an SUV.

• • •

The old dog ran a few steps into the house, almost sliding on the mix of hardwood floors and blood, and kept barking at Dana.

She knew, of course, what that meant. Juicehead—the computer guy she had just killed had called him Reynaldo on the phone—would hear the distress in his beloved dog’s bark. He would hurry back here.

Her first thought was to hide.

But that was not going to happen.

A strange calmness spread across her. She still knew what she had to do.

She had to save her son.

There was no mobile phone in sight. The only phone she could see, the only one on the desk, was a regular gray house phone connected into the back of the computer. It wasn’t portable. If she wanted to use it, she would have to stay where she was. In plain view.

So be it.

She lifted the phone, put it to her ear, and dialed her son’s phone number. Her hand shook so badly that she almost misdialed.

A voice shouted, “Bo!”

It was Reynaldo. He wasn’t far away. It would be only a matter of time. Still, she had no choice. From what she had overheard, Titus was planning on grabbing her son. She had to stop him. Nothing else mattered. There was no question, no regret, no hesitation.

The phone began to ring. Dana braced herself, but when she heard her son say, “Hello?” she almost lost it.

Footsteps pounded heavily on the porch now. Bo stopped barking and trotted toward his master.

No time left.

“Brandon, listen to me.”

She heard him gasp. “Mom? I’m almost at the car.”

“No!”

Reynaldo shouted, “Bo!” again.

“What was that?” Brandon asked. “Mom?”