Holding his Hostage - Amy Gamet Page 0,33

on Bannon’s invisible timer, counting down to incalculable danger that put the lives of her children in jeopardy. She took a shaking breath in. “For more reasons than one.”

20

It was blustery and dark, a cold wind blowing in gusts across the empty parking lot of Poughkeepsie Plumbing Supply. A chain-link fence surrounded the property, train tracks running between the warehouse and the Hudson River some forty feet away. The fence was buckled in places, wood pallets stacked up behind the building like discarded gift boxes on Christmas morning. A small addition stuck out from the side of the main building like a metal-roofed shanty.

Sloan used his banged-up NVGs to scope out the telephone poles and tall buildings around the property, Joanne on his heels.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t wait until HERO Force gets here tomorrow?” she asked.

“I just want to check it out. See if we can get the lay of the land while no one’s around.”

“What exactly are we looking for?”

“Security cameras, for starters. Doesn’t look like they have any.”

“I’d think they would have put their money into repaving this parking lot before they’d do anything high-tech, don’t you?”

He moved toward a particularly badly buckled section of fencing farthest away from the light. “Let’s get in there and take a look around.” He stepped aside for her to go first. “You remember how to climb a fence?”

“It’s four feet tall, Sloan. I think I can manage.”

A light breeze carried the scent of fried food from a restaurant nearby, and he moaned. “You know what I love? Fried dough with powdered sugar. Food of the gods.”

She took one big step up the fence, then threw her leg over the top. “Do you ever stop thinking about food?”

“No.” He made it over the fence in one practiced movement. “Oh, with honey on top. Hell yeah. I gotta make me some of that when I get home.” He moved toward the door to the shanty, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be an office.

“What if there’s an alarm?”

“Then we run very, very fast. Come on.” He stopped at the door, finding it locked, and unzipped his rucksack.

“What are you looking for?”

“Lock-picking tools.”

“You just carry those around?”

“Only when I’m going to be picking locks.” It was a complicated mechanism, but well within his skill. He eyed Joanne as he worked. “What were you and my mom talking about back at the cabin?”

“Nothing.”

“You can just say you don’t want to tell me.”

“Fine. I don’t want to tell you.”

“Hmm. Must have been good.”

She didn’t answer.

Really must have been good.

He’d been walking by the door and heard his name, barely resisting the urge to stop and listen. He would have paid money to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. Jo and his mom had always had a good relationship, which was far easier to accept when he and Jo had a good one of their own.

The lock clicked. “Got it. Come on.”

He shined the light on the room around them, illuminating a desk, several filing cabinets, and two tables full of plumbing parts. He felt Jo walking behind him in the darkness, hating how aware he was of her presence.

Did she feel it, too? This thread that joined them like an electrical wire, its current surging? It was worse now that her kids were gone, even worse still as his adrenaline surged, anticipating a possible showdown tomorrow. He was drawn to that current, desperate to touch it, no matter that he would be burned.

And he would be burned—of that, he was certain. If not by the intensity of their connection, then by the opening of that same old wound from when she left.

The thought brought him up short. He’d been so damn angry when she married Regan that anger was his predominant emotion. But there had been a wound beyond his temper, a hurt he realized now he’d never been able to fix.

“You check the filing cabinet. I’ll check the desk,” he said, pulling a second flashlight from his pack and handing it to her. A train whistle sounded in the distance, a low vibration growing as the locomotive got closer.

Most of the drawers were full of office supplies, but one had a checkbook. He flipped through the duplicate copies, finding nothing unexpected for a plumbing supply company. He threw it back in the drawer.

“I found bank account statements,” said Jo. “A bunch of them.”

“How much money?”

“A lot more than you’d need to fix that parking lot and install some cameras. Seven figures.”

Suddenly,