Nick inserted the flash drive into the laptop.
Everett scrolled down to the last page and pointed to the screen. “The last line is underlined.
They want it done as soon as possible. There’s a bonus if it’s done before her birthday, June twenty-second.”
“What the hell . . .”
“Sir, I think it’s a kill order.”
TWENTY-ONE
MICHAEL WAS IN A PANIC AND TRYING NOT TO LET IT SHOW. HE HAD TO MAKE SURE ISABEL
was safe.
He had a plan. He was going to call Isabel, tell her to stay in her suite with the door locked, and not let anyone in until he got there. Once he had her, he wasn’t going to let her go until the bastards out there who wanted to hurt her were apprehended or killed. At the moment, he was voting for the second solution.
It took only one phone call to find out she had checked out of the hotel in the middle of the night.
Three o’clock in the morning, to be exact. One of the Hamilton limos had driven her to the airport.
Where in God’s name had she gone? Isabel wasn’t scheduled to leave for Glasgow until Monday.
She had obviously changed her plans. She hadn’t taken an early-morning flight to Glasgow. He’d checked. Had she gone home to Silver Springs and put the trip to Scotland on hold?
Dylan had the answer. He knew that Isabel wouldn’t go anywhere without letting her sister know.
He called Kate and asked her if she had checked her messages today.
“Not yet,” she told him. “Why? We were in church, and now we’re in a restaurant with your parents and some of their friends. I’ll check them when I get back.”
“I need you to check now and tell me if Isabel sent you a text.”
Kate excused herself from the table and walked out into the restaurant’s foyer. “Is something wrong?”
Dylan planned to tell her everything when she got back to Nathan’s Bay, but not now. “Michael wants to know.” He didn’t mention why.
While he waited, Kate scrolled down through her messages. There was a text from Isabel that she had sent at five twenty that morning. Kate couldn’t believe what she was reading, and she didn’t take her sister’s news at all well.
“Oh my God, she doesn’t even have a hotel room booked. What could she be thinking?” she asked her husband. “Why couldn’t she wait until Monday and fly into Glasgow? I had her schedule all set and her hotel rooms reserved.”
A hotel room was the least of her worries, Dylan thought, but didn’t say. “Send me the text. We’ll talk about Isabel later.”
He disconnected the call before she could ask any more questions. Kate sent him the text, and he read it out loud.
“Okay, that’s good,” Michael said. “Whoever wants her out of the way thinks she’s still here on Nathan’s Bay. Right? According to the instructions in that order, they think she’s leaving for Glasgow Monday.”
“Who the hell puts a plan like that on a flash drive?” Dylan wondered, shaking his head.
“Maybe someone who thinks others are less likely to see it,” Nick speculated.
“I hope to God she hasn’t called the attorney or anyone else. If that son of a bitch Reid calls her and she tells him where she is . . .” Michael stopped, took a deep breath, trying to get his anger under control, then said, “I’m going to go get her.”
“I thought you might,” Noah said. He pulled the laptop over in front of him and quickly looked up flights to Edinburgh. “There’s one leaving this evening, but it’s booked.”
“Can you get him on?” Nick asked.
“Yeah, I can. I’ll call Kemper.” He picked up his cell phone and asked Michael, “Do you have your passport with you?”
“Yes.” He never left home without it.
Dylan could see the anxiety on Michael’s face, and said, “She’s going to be all right.”
“Yeah? How do you know that?”
“Do the math,” he said. “Her plane took off at five thirty this morning, and it’s a six-hour flight.
She arrived in Edinburgh at eleven thirty this morning our time. So she’s just getting off the plane. It’s four thirty in the afternoon there. She hasn’t been there long enough for anyone to get to her.”
It was a prayer and a hope, but Michael wanted to believe the men who were after her didn’t know she was in Edinburgh.
Nick held out his hand. “Dylan, give me your phone. I’ll see if I can reach her.”
Everyone in the room watched in silence as Nick held the phone to his ear. After several anxious seconds, he handed the phone back to Dylan. “Her phone isn’t connected.”
Isabel wasn’t making it easy for them to find her. She had probably forgotten to turn on her phone when she got off the plane, and if that was the case, as soon as she did turn it on, Nick could track her.
Everyone believed Isabel wasn’t in immediate danger—everyone but Michael—and each had a theory as to her whereabouts. Noah thought she might have checked into a hotel near the airport and was so exhausted she went to bed. With Everett’s help he gained access to her credit card account but found no charges had been made yet.
Dylan was hopeful. He had given Isabel the name of the company that supplied drivers throughout Scotland and knew they had offices in Edinburgh. If she was being sensible, she had contacted one of them and was now with a responsible driver. Three phone calls later, however, his hopes were dashed when he found out she hadn’t hired a driver. She had rented a car—a car without GPS—and had taken off for parts unknown. At that news, Dylan started praying for the people of Scotland, too.
Michael’s outlook was even more pessimistic. He thought Isabel might have driven into the North Sea. Driving up into the Highlands all alone was just plain crazy. He pictured her trying to navigate those narrow roads in Scotland and shuddered. That wasn’t his only worry. There were also the overzealous fans who all wanted a piece of her. If she was recognized—and there had been so much Internet exposure after her performance with XO, he was sure she would be—she’d be run over.
The Buchanan kitchen quickly turned into an operations room, each of the men making calls to anyone who could help locate Isabel. Nick and Noah even had the FBI’s contacts in Scotland and England searching for her. With all of their resources, they were confident she would be found quickly.
When they had done all they could to reach her, they faced the biggest worry of all. Who was after her? And why? The bloody device was in her pocket, and she obviously hadn’t known it was there.
The only conclusion that made any sense was that Walsh had somehow put it there. A close examination of the video confirmed it. Nick had saved it on his phone and played it for the others.
Rewinding and slowing the action proved their suspicion. Walsh was clearly reaching for her pocket with something in his hand.