Dante leaned forward, all humor gone. “I can’t, and even if I could, I won’t. I will not risk Gabriella’s safety for anyone. She is there to do a job, one she has been planning for years. I want her out alive, and that means no mavericks. Any hint that you are here, they will triple security.” He stood and walked back to the table. He sat down to resume his dinner.
Kane could see by the tension in Dante’s body that he was angry—whether at Kane or Flores, he wasn’t certain. He rose, walked back to the entrance. Then he turned around.
“Gabriella is in over her head,” Kane said. “There’s no love lost between us, but I know you care for her. I would have taken care of Flores for her. I know what he did.”
Dante slowly lowered his fork. He turned to Kane. “You and I are opposite sides of the same coin, Kane. We fight our own wars. You fight yours. And I sincerely hope we never have to battle each other.”
He turned back to his food. “I pressed the panic button two minutes ago. You have about ninety seconds to disappear or I’ll turn you in for the bounty on your head.”
“What bounty?”
He laughed. “There are so many, old friend, I’ll probably sell you to the highest bidder.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
As soon as they started on the road back to San Antonio, Noah got on the phone. Lucy blocked out his conversation and checked her own email. First thing she opened was an email from her contact at NCMEC. She’d sent him the photos Siobhan had taken of the blond girl with the infant leaving the house in rural Freer on Sunday evening. He’d identified her.
Lucy:
Our facial recognition and age maturation program has identified with 89% certainty that the woman in the photo you sent me is Macey Sue Hornthrope from Kansas City, Missouri.
Macey went missing four and a half years ago shortly after her fifteenth birthday. She is currently nineteen. Police determined that she ran away with her boyfriend, eighteen-year-old high school dropout William “Billy” Randall. While they did minimum due diligence, because of her age and the fact that there was no sign of forced abduction, the police shelved the case as inactive. I’ve attached a copy of the initial report and investigation into the Hornthrope home situation, but in a nutshell, the parents were in the middle of a nasty divorce, Macey was the middle of three girls, and there was evidence that Macey had been using drugs for at least a year. When Mrs. Hornthrope forbade Macey from seeing her boyfriend, Macey ran away.
There have been no sightings of Macey, at least none that have come through our office or the federal database. She was considered low-risk—you know how it is. She was over 14, she left voluntarily, she was a drug user.
I’ve sent you Randall’s last known address and contacts for both Macey’s parents and Randall’s mother. His father is not in the picture.
I contacted the Kansas City police and they indicated that the parents are still looking for her—posting on message boards, social media, contacting the missing persons department regularly for updates. It’s my opinion that both parents would welcome their daughter back, no questions, if that will help you convince her to make contact, should you have the opportunity to talk to her.
Let me know what else I can do to help.
I heard through the grapevine—ok, your sister-in-law—that you’re getting married. Congrats. Next time you’re in DC, let’s have coffee.
Sincerely,
Grant Mara
Assistant Director, NCMEC
As soon as Noah got off the phone, Lucy told him the news. “It’s a start. I’d like to start by calling Randall’s mother—find out where he’s living, if she even knows. He could still be with her, maybe pimping her out. Forcing her into prostitution to feed their drug habits.” She stared at Macey’s current photo, the one Siobhan had taken. She looked scared, not strung out. “Or maybe they split and she didn’t think she could go back home.”
“We’ve both seen situations like that before.”
“I want to find her. Let her know she has options. Encourage her to cooperate. Explain that she has to help us.”
Noah shot her a glance but didn’t say anything.
“She’s probably a victim, but we don’t know, do we? Was she forced into prostitution? Did she go voluntarily? Was it a combination? She may be loyal to these people. Or terrified of them. Or both. We can’t trust that she’ll turn on them, especially if they’ve brainwashed her to the extent that she can’t see her life any way other than what it is now.”
“Like you said, Lucy, we don’t know.”
Noah was right—and Lucy needed to talk to Macey, assess who she was now. In the past, Lucy always sided with the victims. She still did … but she’d learned the hard way that some people pretend to be victims when, in fact, they’re predators.
“Grab my phone,” Noah said.
Lucy did.
“Look up the SAC in the Kansas City office and send him a memo from me—he can task someone to follow up with the Kansas City police on Randall and Hornthrope and get us current information.”
Noah dictated the memo for her to send. The requests coming from Noah would hold far more weight than if they came from a rookie agent, so Lucy was happy Noah thought of it.