He directed a hard look at his ex-SEAL-turned-detective buddy.
Addario didn’t confirm or deny Lucas’s statement. Instead, he went back to his original request. “Take me through what happened. From the beginning.”
All three men remained silent as she recounted her morning. Addario asked the first question when she mentioned arriving at the wedding center. “What time was this?”
“Around nine thirty.”
“Was Mitch there? Did you talk to him?”
She shook her head and offered a tight smile. “I didn’t look for him. It’s bad luck to see the bride before the wedding.”
As if this particular wedding hadn’t already been drowning beneath bad luck. Starting with the groom. She sneaked a glance at Brett and quickly looked away. The harsh, icy expression on his face gave her heartburn.
“When did the man who took you and—” he stopped to consult his notes— “Langley Canfield arrive?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t look at a clock.” She’d been too busy coming to terms with the choices she had to make.
“Did the man who took you and your bridesmaid identify himself?”
“No.” She grimaced. “I should have asked, shouldn’t I? I should have tried to form a bond with him.” She instinctively looked at Brett, who looked away.
Why was he here anyway? It clearly wasn’t to support her.
“Did you recognize him?”
“No. I’d never seen him before.” Sarah relaxed slightly, so far, she hadn’t had to lie.
“Did he say why he took you and Langley Canfield?” Addario’s question was flat, but his eyes were suspicious.
This was the question she’d been waiting for, and she answered without hesitation. “He said Mitch owed him money. He took us to force Mitch to pay him.”
Addario’s dark brows knit. “How much money did Mitch owe him?”
“He never said. Just that Mitch owed him, and me and Langley were going to help him collect.” She watched Addario jot something down on his pad. “He said that if Mitch wanted to see me again, he’d better pay up.”
“Did he make this demand to Mitch personally?” Rio asked.
Sarah’s throat tightened. “Yes. He called him. Over and over again. He left threatening messages.”
“Did your fiancé respond to any of these messages?”
“Ex-fiancé,” Sarah stressed. “And no, not that I’m aware of.” She forced herself not to look in Brett’s direction.
It hadn’t been that long ago that Brett had stopped by the house to warn her about Mitch. Was he remembering that too?
“So, Mitch didn’t respond to, or return, any of these threatening calls. Even though this man was threatening your life?”
“No. He didn’t.” The bald denial just hung there.
The bastard.
She tried to keep her face blank.
“Do you find that odd? You were taken minutes before your wedding. The man who kidnapped you made multiple threatening calls to your fiancé, yet your fiancé never took the calls. Never returned them. Didn’t respond in any way. Do you find that odd?”
Pure annoyance flashed through her.
“Of course I find that odd,” she snapped.
Which wasn’t even a lie. While it was no surprise that Mitch had refused to pay for her return, it was beyond foolish not to pay a debt to a weapons dealer. Such foolishness could get one killed. And while Mitch was many things, he’d never been stupid.
“Do you have any idea why your fiancé never responded to your kidnapper’s calls?”
“No.” She left it at that.
Several seconds of silence fell over the room while Detective Addario wrote on his pad. Finally, he glanced back up, his gaze falling on Sarah again.
“Did the man who took you say why Mitch owed him money? What the money was for.”
Sarah locked down every ounce of guilt and held the detective’s gaze. “No.”
The bald denial just hung there. Did it sound guilty? Could they tell she’d lied? But she couldn’t afford to have the police track down the gunrunners. Not until she got Sean out of their clutches.
“You said earlier the man who kidnapped you was sleeping when you went for the gun.”
Sarah took a shallow relieved breath. He’d moved on. Hopefully, that meant he’d bought her denial.
“That’s right. With each phone call he got angrier. More threatening. I was scared he’d carry out the threats. When he fell asleep, I saw an opportunity. I broke the zip ties around my wrists and went after the gun.” She flinched…the memory of life fading from brown eyes swelling in her mind. “Only he woke up—” The staccato gunshot. The metallic smell of blood. Sarah broke off, strangling on a huge chunk of air. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” she