When I come back into the main room, I take stock—we’ve grown in numbers. There are four men and one woman in total, besides myself.
“Rachel.” Ryder strides over and takes me by the hand.
“This is Briggs, my partner.”
“Ms. Farrington.” He stretches his hand to meet mine. He has a deeply ingrained military stance about him. His light brown hair is trimmed short and his blue eyes spark with intelligence.
“Rachel, please. It’ll be easier for me.”
“Of course, Rachel.”
“These are Briggs’s brother and sister-in-law, Bryan and Patti Briggs. They’re both retired Special Forces and have accompanied us on many highly sensitive operations,” Ryder explains.
“Thank you for coming.” I shake their hands too.
“You may have heard us discussing the FBI’s frenzy to relocate you—” Ryder begins.
Briggs interrupts, “They’ve marked you as a possible suspect.”
“Yes, but more likely, that’s for show—they don’t want to admit to having lost the key witness in their protection,” Ryder says, hijacking the conversation once again. “Since there was no sign of a struggle, they need some story to save face.”
“I understand how it could look bad,” I agree, “but they should have screened their household staff better.”
“The other possibility is that one of the agents themselves was corrupt and gave housekeeping access to you,” Bryan states.
“I don’t care what they think, anyway. All I care about is my sister,” I say truthfully. “What is our plan?”
Ryder goes to the table and sets up a mock diagram with cups, coffee packets and the remote control.
“This is the streetcar.” He indicates the remote. “Bryan will hop on it at Tulane Street, which is nine stops before yours. He’ll access the passengers and hopefully be able to tag your sister and her guardian.”
“It won’t be easy with everyone in costume,” Briggs tells the group. “Rachel, any idiosyncrasies you can think of about your sister—does she twist her hair around her finger? Does she tap her foot when she’s nervous, bite her lip or wring her hands? Those details could be pertinent when he’s zeroing in on her.”
“She’s a real quiet kid. She has a speech difficulty and doesn’t talk a lot in front of people she doesn’t know or isn’t comfortable with. She’s seven but still talks a lot like a toddler—short three word sentences; she misses her r sounds, making them sound more like w’s, and she stutters when she’s scared.” I try to make all of this information purely factual because imagining her makes it feel too real. I have to separate myself from my emotions. “And she rocks when she’s nervous or uptight to self-soothe.”
“Thank you, Rachel. That’s valuable information.” Patti lays her hand on my shoulder comfortingly.
“If Bryan can create the opportunity to separate her from her captor, he’ll do that and get her off the streetcar safely.”
“Isn’t that too high of a risk?” I ask.
“Getting Lemy safe before you’re even involved is the optimal outcome. That’s our objective,” Ryder says. “We could get the two of you out of there without harm.”
“If you can’t?”
Ryder doesn’t like my question.
“Then you’ll know,” Patti says. “We’ll give you the signal to board the streetcar.”
“We’ll all have communication devices, except for you.” Briggs opens the black electronics case. “Ryder will stay next to you—masked so he’s not recognized by any of Miguel’s men.”
“I’ll board the streetcar right behind you. You’ll never be alone,” Ryder reassures me. “And Patti will be at the exit door to secure Lemy.”
“And any asshole who tries to make that difficult will have two thousand volts of electricity to contend with.” She flashes her taser.
“Patti is also a woman’s Golden Gloves champion,” Bryan says proudly. “She’s very adept at hand-to-hand. She’s kicked my ass a few times.”
My eyes shift to Ryder’s and his to mine.
Dear God, I hope this works.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryder
We stand with a myriad of revelers—in the middle of a sweeping celebration of color and pageantry—but we’re on an island of trouble all our own.
Farrington is in the simple clothing I got for her—a red t-shirt so we could detect her in the crowd and a purple mask so she wouldn’t be recognizable to law enforcement.
I hate that she’s here, but I can’t think—I can’t feel—not now. Especially not now.
We’ve almost reached the streetcar stop on Toulouse.
“Rachel, you’re going to have to go from here. But I won’t be more than four paces away from you at any time.”
Her lips purse and she turns to walk away, but I pull her back to me.
“I’d kiss you if it wasn’t so fucking risky.” My fist squeezes urgently around her arm. “I need you to understand. I’ll protect you to my death. Do you understand?”