“Excuse me, se?ora,” the housekeeper said when she pushed into me, blocking my path through the doorway with the vacuum. At that moment, she dropped something into my pocket and said quietly, so no one but me could hear her, “?Quieres ver a su hermana otra vez? Sister? Lemy? See again, sí?”
It felt like my stomach was instantly filled with heavy cement. She couldn’t have said what I thought. No. No.
She smiled and nodded before putting her index finger to her closed lips in a gesture for me to be quiet. “Shh.”
Her words lurched repeatedly through me. “You want to see your sister again?”
Fuck! The fear gripped me. What the fuck is in my pocket? Where is Lemy?
“Are you alright, Miss Farrington?” Agent Jones asked.
My eyes trailed to Consuela, who smiled like it was a perfect morning.
“Fine,” I said too fast and too loudly, and then I rushed to the bathroom. I locked the bathroom door behind me and fished the hunk of plastic from my pocket.
A phone!
I flipped it open, and a tiny orange sticker that read PUSH ME was on the call button—I was redialing a pre-programmed number.
I hit it and lifted the receiver to my ear.
“Miss Farrington?” Instantly my mind spun as I recognized the voice of the man who murdered Drew Jameson.
“Yes,” I hissed into the phone.
“Don’t speak again,” he commanded in a low voice. “We must be absolutely certain that no one hears you. I have someone here with me that I think you care a great deal for. I’ll let her speak to you, but remember, be the intelligent woman I know you are and don’t make a sound. We don’t want to alert the FBI agents doing such a good job protecting you—because that would kill our young friend. What do you call her? Lemy?”
The mention of my little sister’s intimate nickname made my heart lurch into my mouth.
“Waychul?” At the sound of her tender, frightened voice I crashed to my knees on the tile floor.
“Lem—” I slapped my free hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t talk.
“Waychul, I go home. You come get me?”
Tears gathered then spilled down my face.
“Ahh, so now you know what is at stake,” Eduardo Miguel told me sinisterly.
I hyperventilated behind my hand.
“Hide the phone and do whatever it takes to get away from your guards later tonight—make sure it is dark, and make sure you are careful not to be followed or caught, or the child dies.”
All I could imagine was Lemy chained in that monster’s basement.
“Get to St. Louis Cemetery in the French Quarter and find a tomb marked Jacquette Devereaux, plot 325. There is a standing cross at the head of the tomb. Underneath it will be another phone and further instructions.”
At that, he disconnected.
So now . . . I’m at the gravesite and I have the new phone in hand, but there are no instructions or stickers, and I’ve tried to redial but this phone has either never called out or the history has been deleted. I have never felt so defeated and without hope as I do now, sitting here at Eduardo Miguel’s mercy, praying he won’t hurt Lemy and that he will really let her go once he gets me.
The morning hours go by without word.
I’m losing my fucking mind! What if I fucked up? Made a mistake in my terror?
I flip the phone open again—like I have every half hour—to see if there’s a message I could have somehow missed.
The battery is still good.
I hold the phone to my forehead and will it to ring. Beg for it to ring!
Nothing!
It’s unbearable! I can’t sit here any longer. I have to do something.
“Don’t make a sound or move, Farrington,” says a familiar voice. “Don’t change your expression.”
My mouth drops open and my lungs hitch in a gasping breath of surprise.
Ryder!
“Look up if you’re alone, down if you’re being guarded.”
I let my eyes travel up the nearest tree trunk into the branches above.
“If you can talk freely, stretch and yawn.”
I think about that. I’ve been sitting here for hours and have neither seen nor heard from anyone. But how in the hell did he find me here?
Horror fuses through the marrow of my bones. No one knew where I was except for Miguel . . .
No. It’s impossible. After everything, he couldn’t be working for—
Every rational thought I have is swallowed by the irrationality of the fact that Ryder knows I’m here, right here in this graveyard, next to this grave. I’m positive I wasn’t followed. There is literally only one way he could know to find me here.
I stand and move towards the spot his voice came from. I take one step then two. Next thing I know, I’m charging through the thorny bushes that are behind Devereaux’s tomb.
I crash into Ryder full-force, punching and biting. “I TRUSTED YOU! I TRUSTED YOU!”
“Farrington, stop!”
I know he lets me punch him longer than he has to, but he finally grabs my wrists and pins my legs, laying on top of me, quickly incapacitating me.
“You son of a bitch!” I seethe and spit at his face. “She’s just a baby!”