I’ll find him.
Suddenly I realized that the threat to my family didn’t end with Milo. On the contrary, we were safe only if Milo was alive, so the FBI could question him and expose Ricks and the conspiracy.
My fingers tightened around the steering wheel. George would kill Milo when he found him. It was the last thing I wanted now, but I couldn’t call him off. I had no way to reach him, even if he would’ve listened to me.
I had to get back and tell Dom everything. My family wouldn’t be safe outside the program until the conspiracy had been exposed. It would end Ricks’s presidential bid, and there would be one fewer criminal in Washington, D.C.
I weaved around a delivery truck and a minivan. I wondered how Lucinda would react when I told her. She had been blaming herself, but it had been my fault. My connection to Gitmo, my past on the island.
The revelation tightened my chest. I felt a wave of guilt and blinked tears away. I would spend my life trying to understand how a minor event in my past had led to the murder of my daughter.
All this time, I had been trying to decide whether I would forgive Lucinda. Now I wondered if she would forgive me. I didn’t know what would happen to us. I didn’t know if we would stay married. We both had choices to make.
The end of the program could be the end for us, too.
To me, it felt no-win.
* * *
—
I reached Delaware at the end of the day and pulled into our driveway. The front door was closed, which struck me as strange because the evening was so temperate. The van was gone, but the black Tahoe was there.
I cut the ignition and got out of the car. It was still and silent. Moonie wasn’t barking. Instinctively I hurried to the house, ignoring the pain in my ribs.
“Jason!” Wiki shouted, and I looked up to see him hustling down the stairs. “Thank God you’re back! I’ve been waiting for you! Where’ve you been? We’ve been calling and calling—”
“Wiki, what’s the matter?” I asked, my heart in my throat.
Wiki hit the driveway and hustled toward me, his astonished gaze taking in my swollen cheek and the cut over my right eye. “What happened to you?”
“Tell you later. Where’s Lucinda and Ethan? Aren’t they here?”
“No.” Wiki met my gaze, swallowing hard. “Milo has them. He has Dom, too.”
“No!” I cried, stricken.
“Don’t worry, they’re alive. He wants to make a deal. Come on, I’ll take you to the team.” Wiki hustled to the black Tahoe, and I hurried to the passenger side, frantic.
“Go, hurry!”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Adrenaline flooded my body. My aches and pains subsided. “What happened to Lucinda and Ethan?”
“The bosses want to brief you.” Wiki focused on the road. We zoomed past Thatcher’s front yard. “Please don’t get me in trouble. I was supposed to wait in case you showed up and—”
“Wiki, tell me!”
“But it’s less than an hour away. We set up a command center, right over the border in Maryland—”
“Tell me!” I slammed the dashboard.
Wiki startled. “Jason, I’m not supposed to brief you. It’s above my pay grade.”
“I know why they said that! They want to break it to me that they flipped Milo! They were working with my daughter’s killer! They knew where he was all along! He’s not in Mexico, they lied to us!”
Wiki went pale. “I know, but I swear, I didn’t know they were running him until last night. Neither did Dom. They’d never tell us something like that, and we—”
“Whatever! This is damage control, all of it! Tell me what happened to my wife and son!”
“Okay, but don’t tell them you already know.”
“Fine, go ahead.”
Wiki inhaled, his eyes on the road. “Bottom line, they’re all there. Gremmie, Watanabe, and Reilly, our hostage negotiating team—”
“Negotiating for what? My wife’s life? Ethan’s? Dom’s? What happened?”
“Okay. Lucinda sent me to the fish market last night. She wanted bay scallops, a pound. She told me, ‘The sea’s bigger than the bay—’？”
“Right, right.” I remembered with anguish.
“I know the difference between a bay and a sea scallop, though they’re both bivalves. Bay scallops are native here—”
“Wiki, get to the point!”
Wiki blinked, flustered. “When I came back from the fish market, they were gone. Then Milo called.”
My heart stopped. “Who did he call? Did he call you?”
“No, Gremmie, then Gremmie called me.”
“When?”
“About ten minutes after I got back.”
“When did this happen?”
“Before dinnertime. I left for the fish market at five-thirty. I got home at six forty-five, and they were gone. There were signs of a struggle. Dom must have put up a fight.”
“How do you know? Was there blood?”
“No blood. The kitchen chair was turned over. There’s more than one of them. Milo’s not working alone.”
“I know that! I could’ve told you that! He’s working for Senator Ricks!”
“What?” Milo looked at me like I was crazy. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have time to fill you in. Tell me what happened to Lucinda and Ethan.”
I tried to picture the struggle. “How did they get Dom, too? Was he in the house with them?”
“We don’t think so—”
“You must know! You have cameras everywhere! Where did they enter from? I know you looked at the surveillance tape!”
“They entered from the back door,” Wiki admitted reluctantly. “The investigative team reviewed the tapes, and I didn’t get to see—”
“How did they find us?”
“We’re investigating that. I’m sorry, Jason, I know it’s—”
“How many were there?”
“I think two, plus Milo. They had on ski masks. We know one was Milo because of the tattooed sleeves. He’s not trying to hide. He’s already negotiating. He called us right away.”
I didn’t get it. “So why did he wear a mask?”
“Scare tactics, we think. They carried AKs, but no shots were fired.”
Oh God. I looked out the window, trying to compose myself. We were heading south past ritzy vacation houses. The sun was sinking, shooting bronze rays into the marsh, silhouetting the tall reeds and cordgrass.
“We believe they’re alive and unharmed. There were no signs anyone was injured.” Wiki glanced over, lips pursed. “Between us, the bosses are totally on board. They’ll make the deal.”
“For immunity?” I asked, anguished, but I knew the answer. I would have loathed the idea before, but no longer. “Fine with me. I just want Lucinda and Ethan back. And Dom.”
“I know, we’re on the same page.”
“So they came in through the back door, and Dom saw them on the monitors?”
“Yes, that’s what we think. So don’t worry, the negotiation team has been in this situation plenty of times. They have procedures, like any kidnapping. They’re already negotiating the other terms.”