Gavin Read online

  “Twelve hours is too long,” Gavin chafed.

  “Maybe,” Shane said, “but we’re moving as fast as we can.”

  And, sure enough, they landed on another carrier and were moved to another helicopter. They pretty well were hopscotching their way from one to another. “We should be in Hawaii sooner than we expected,” Gavin said, looking at his watch.

  “We’ve cut off a good two hours from a commercial airline flight,” Shane said. “Interesting mode of travel.”

  “Yeah, just missing the food,” Gavin said. “As soon as we land, we’ll need a place to stay and food at some point.”

  “The paperwork states we’ve got accommodations in the same Marriott. Plus we have a liaison set up with local police—someone from one of the military bases is waiting for us,” Shane said, frowning. “They’ll be attached to our mission.”

  “I don’t like that,” Gavin said, as he stared at Shane, shaking his head. “Okay, the additional download is complete, or I just lost internet service. Let’s get through the paperwork first, share any usable intel. Then one of us can sleep for two or three hours while the other reviews the data on my phone. Then we’ll switch up, compare notes. See what leads we can find to pursue once we’re on the ground.”

  They approached the Oahu airport, off to the side where the private planes were. A large helicopter hangar was here as well. Gavin hopped out as soon as he could, then bent down and walked away from the helicopter.

  “I don’t think we’re supposed to go in this direction,” Shane called out.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Gavin said. He was a part of the Mavericks for a reason. No more ridiculous red-tape rules that made no sense. He enjoyed avoiding all that and getting down to work. Plus he appreciated his Maverick buddies, and they hadn’t been working with anybody else so far, and Gavin didn’t plan on signing up for that extra baggage to restrict him now. “Nobody attaches themselves to us or to our mission, much less dictates what we do.”

  He could feel Shane’s surprise. Looking at his buddy, he said, “I just want to make sure that we’re free and clear to do what we need to do,” he said. “I can’t operate effectively with someone trying to tie my hands all the time.”

  “They said you’d be difficult,” a voice called out.

  Gavin turned to look, his eyebrows going up. “Steve?”

  The man walked toward him with a lazy grin on his face, his hand outstretched to shake. The two men shook hands as Gavin introduced him to Shane.

  “Steve Arbrey, what are you doing here?” Gavin asked.

  “Whatever I need to,” he said. “I was told to meet you and to take you to your hotel first off.”

  “Why can’t we go on our own?” he asked.

  “Because I’ll debrief you,” Steve said, sounding exasperated. “You’re still the same go-go Gavin, aren’t you?”

  Gavin shrugged. “Well, we’ve got a whole family missing,” he said, “and it doesn’t seem like taking our time is a very good option. We’re almost halfway into those first critical twenty-four hours.”

  “Which is why I’m debriefing you on the way,” he said, as he pointed out a black SUV ahead of him. “Come on. Let’s go.” As they hopped into the vehicle, Gavin looked around and asked, “Why you?”

  “Because Melinda is my fiancée,” he said. “And I damn well want to get her back alive and well.”

  “Interesting,” Gavin said. “You know the military likes to keep you guys a hell of a long way away from any personal involvement in an investigation.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but I asked to drive you in so I could talk to you and to give you some personals about the family.”

  “Well then, let’s hear it,” Gavin said and put his phone on Record.

  “The two daughters were raised almost as if separate families,” he said. “Melinda is early forties, Rosalina is early thirties. With a decade between them, the sisters didn’t have a whole lot to do with each other. There were a lot of problems and jealousy until they became adults and came together, working on a common goal, which is working for the company.”

  “Problems in the company?”

  “No. Not that I know of.”

  “Either of them angling to take over the company?”

  “No. Not that I know of.”

  “Do you have shares in the company?”

  “No,” he said, “but obviously Melinda does.”

  “Yes. Each sister has 10 percent according to our intel,” Shane added.

  “What are the board members like?” Gavin asked.

  “Stuffy old white men,” Steve said. Then he laughed. “That’s according to Melinda.”

  “Right, and how long have you known her?”

  “Five years,” he said. “My brother was on a mission in Afghanistan and got his foot blown off. I met her through his treatments and the process of getting back on his feet with some state-of-the-art technology. He was part of a military program, testing out new stuff for Melinda’s company.”

  “So Trident has defense contracts?”

  “No, they have military contracts,” he corrected. “Nothing defense-related about it.”

  “Ah,” Gavin said. “Interesting. So keep talking. What do we need to know?”

  Steve filled him in on what he knew about the family, but it was all cursory boyfriend and peripheral stuff.

  “Enemies?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Corporate enemies?”

  At that, Steve shrugged. “A couple competing companies, sure.”

  “Anybody competing for the same contract?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “We need to find out,” Gavin said, looking at Shane, who was busy texting and sending messages. He nodded at his partner, then turned to Steve again. “Does anybody have a line on the men who grabbed them off the street?”

  “No. We initially thought it might have been a terrorist group. But nobody’s recognized them.”

  “Ransom note?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “And no one has claimed responsibility either.”

  “Which a terrorist group definitely would have. But, in this case, we’d also have bodies to show for it,” Shane chimed in.

  “So, a private problem then?” Gavin asked Steve.

  “It’s possible. The father has a brother, and the mother has two sisters. They’re all friendly enough. I can’t see anybody kidnapping them over something personal.”

  “So, you are the fiancé of the one woman, but what about the other woman, Rosalina?” Gavin asked. “What about her relationships?”

  “She was married to a doctor for a couple years. They divorced. She’s been single ever since,” Steve replied.

  “Amicably divorced?”

  “I believe so,” he said. “The ex-husband remarried and has a two-year-old.”

  “So not still longing for her?”

  “No. The divorce itself was a bit difficult, as I think all divorces are wont to be, but there didn’t appear to be any lasting impact.”

  “Interesting,” Gavin said. “Are they designing anything new? Anything different or unique? Do they have a million patents pending on something that the world really wants and that people are trying to get their hands on?”

  “Not a million, but they do have over a dozen patents pending,” Steve confirmed.

  “That’s fairly standard for any R&D company,” Gavin said.

  “They don’t believe corporate espionage or anything along those lines is a part of this,” Steve told them.

  “They?” Gavin pounced. “Who is they?”

  “The police,” Steve said. “I’m in contact with them because I’m related, of course, as Melinda’s fiancé.” With that, his voice dropped. “Jesus Christ, I hope you can find them.”

  “We’ll find them,” Gavin promised, with a long exhale. “I just can’t guarantee what shape they’ll be in.”

  Rosalina Rennert woke up and looked around the small room she was
in. She was seated on a chair, her hands tied behind her back, and both her feet were tied to one leg of the chair. Her sister faced her from across the table. The two of them stared at each other, wide-eyed and terrified. No sign of their parents. Rosalina wasn’t gagged; her sister was.

  “I have no clue what’s going on here,” Rosalina whispered. “Do you?”

  Her sister shook her head emphatically.

  “Have you been threatened or blackmailed?”

  Her sister shook her head again.

  Rosalina closed her eyes, trying to think. She knew she had a lot of brainpower, but this kind of stuff was beyond her. She did much better with numbers, equations, formulas. Human machinations and betrayal were beyond her ability to comprehend. She liked things simple and clear-cut. Not this bullshit.

  If the kidnappers had wanted something from them, why hadn’t they just said so? Instead, the two of them were sitting in this room for hours now. Her parents’ safety worried her the most. They were older, and her dad already had a bit of a sticky ticker. Not good. Stress was something he was told to avoid.

  That was a joke. This trip to Hawaii was supposed to be a chance for the family to reconnect after the diagnosis on his heart condition. Her father, being a little bit more solemn these days, had decided it was time to cut back. And look what happened. They all decided to cut back and to take a holiday to bond as a family; instead Melinda had been separated from her fiancé and her children, kidnapped along with Rosalina and their parents.

  At least their parents had each other, assuming they were even together.

  This room was more like a detention center, with cement walls, a table, and a single door. No windows at all. She expected a two-way mirror, but there wasn’t even that.

  They had barely arrived in Hawaii and had just started to destress and to spend some time with each other. Rosalina hadn’t really ever connected with Melinda’s kids before, so this was a chance to do that. They were from her previous marriage, though their father hadn’t been in their lives for a couple years now. Rosalina really liked Melinda’s fiancé, Steve, and was happy for her sister and proud of her for starting all over again. It was a really shitty time for something like this kidnapping to happen. But when would be a good time for a kidnapping, right? Though Melinda and Steve had been a couple for five years, they had just recently gotten engaged. Talk about a new beginning getting blown up in their faces.

  “Did you recognize anybody?” she asked Melinda.

  Again Melinda shook her head.

  Rosalina wondered why she hadn’t been gagged, yet Melinda had been. No point in asking, as her sister could only nod or shake her head.

  Studying the ties on her ankles, Rosalina noted they were zap straps or zip ties but slightly different. They were effective, and it would be hard to get free, short of cutting them. So she wasn’t going anywhere. She could jump and bounce her chair to maybe free her bound feet from the chair leg, but, even so, the door was probably locked anyway. Groaning, she glanced around and said, “A window would be nice.”

  Just the sound of her own voice was helpful, but it wasn’t that helpful. She twisted her hands behind her, noting they were tied together but not tied to the chair. To get free, she realized that she could stand and slide her hands up over the back of the chair, but that wouldn’t help much. Her hands remained tied behind her. She could get them under her butt, in theory, but, with both her legs tied to one of the chair legs, that additional maneuver wouldn’t help her further.

  Then she stared at her legs tied to the one chair leg and laughed. Now that she had her hands behind her back, she sat on her palms immediately and slid them through to the back of her knees, and then, in a swift movement, dumped her and her chair backward, then slid her feet and the ties on them down and over the chair’s leg. They were tapered, so it got easier as it went down.

  With that done, she rolled over, quickly pulled her hands over her feet and could stand up with her hands tied in front now. Her sister’s eyes widened, and she stared at her in shock. Rosalina shrugged. “Not sure it helps much,” she said, “because I’m still tied up.” Rosalina hopped over and untied the gag on her sister’s mouth. “Don’t suppose you have anything sharp enough to cut these, do you?” And she pointed at the ties on her feet.

  “No,” Melinda gasped.

  When Rosalina studied her tied feet further, she realized, without the chair leg involved, the ties had loosened just enough so that she could shift one of the loops of the zip ties, and, just like that, one foot at a time, she was free. With her feet free, she went to work on her hands, trying a similar method. It wasn’t as easy, but she walked around, checked on her sister, and could untie her because she was tied with ropes. With that done, they got Melinda’s legs free. Still Rosalina’s hands weren’t free, but her sister was completely free.

  “Oh, my God,” Melinda said. “Where did you learn to do that?”

  Rosalina stopped, looked back at the chair, and shrugged. “You know how I always loved puzzles.”

  “Those are hardly puzzles,” she snapped.

  “No,” Rosalina said, “but, in this case, their solution was exactly what we needed.” She went back to chewing the heavy plastic on her wrists. It didn’t take long before it snapped. With their hands and feet free, she looked at the door. “So, what next?”

  Immediately Melinda raced to the door. “We have to get out of here.”

  “Oh, I agree,” she said. She picked up a chair and studying it for a moment, untwisted one of the legs until it came off.

  Her sister looked at her. “What are you doing?”

  “We need weapons,” she said. Handing the first chair leg to her sister, she then unscrewed two more. “Now let’s go,” she said, and her sister reached for the door.

  Chapter 2

  The moment the unlocked door opened, Rosalina expected to face a guard or to be charged by somebody racing toward them. But, as they peered around the door, they saw nothing but a nasty dark-gray hallway, as if they were in the basement of some large building. Several ducts and HVAC system components lined the ceiling above them. She also saw several more doors. They slipped out, and she walked to the door beside them and opened it, only to find it was an empty room. They quickly checked all the other doors down this hallway, looking for their parents, but found no sign of anyone.

  Each sister armed only with what they had, a chair leg and two, they headed toward the Exit sign.

  “This looks like a big hotel,” Melinda said.

  “It might be,” Rosalina said. “I don’t really care. I just want to get out of here.”

  “You want out of here?” Melinda said. “My children and fiancé are back at the hotel.”

  “For all we know,” Rosalina said, “we could be in the same damn hotel.”

  They pushed on the Exit door, surprised that it allowed them to get out. One of those lever-operating systems, where you push it in, and the door unlocked and let them out. They raced up the stairs. On every floor they kept looking for another way out.

  The next level was obviously a much lighter atmosphere. “It looks like we were three floors down from ground level,” Rosalina said. She headed out into an underground parking lot. Quickly they slipped through and were in the area where the vehicles were parked. Immediately they hid between two vehicles.

  “How is it that we got out so fast?” her sister asked.

  “I suspect they wanted Dad and Mom instead,” she said, “but, because we were all together, they took us all.”

  Melinda stared at her in shock.

  “The good news,” Rosalina said, “is that we can get you back to Steve and the kids.”

  “We need a phone,” she said. “How do we know we’re even safe here?”

  “We’re not,” Rosalina said. “Come on. Let’s go this way.” She led them around the vehicles and up to the car park exit, where nobody was in the little booth at the side. It was all automated. She ducked under the gate, and, just like that,
they were out on the busy street. Looking around, she said, “Well, it looks like we might still be in Honolulu.”

  “How can you tell?” Melinda asked, gasping beside her.

  “I can’t really,” she said, “but it’s one very busy town center at least.” She turned to look around and saw a couple businessmen walking toward her. She stepped out smartly in front of them and said, “Excuse me, we have an emergency. Could we possibly borrow your phone?”

  One of the men immediately handed his to her. “What kind of emergency?” he asked, looking puzzled.

  She pointed at her sister. “We were kidnapped.” But she was already dialing. She tried the police emergency number first. But it was busy. “We need to get through to 9-1-1,” she said.

  “Maybe,” her sister said, “but let me try Steve.” She immediately dialed Steve. As soon as his voice came on, she cried out, “Steve! I’m here!” She looked at the businessman. “Do you know what corner or what street we’re on?” They quickly gave her the street location.

  Rosalina looked at him. “I hate to ask, but are we still in Honolulu?”

  Bemused, both men nodded.

  Once Melinda made arrangements with Steve for a pickup, she returned the phone to the men.

  When she didn’t stop to thank them, Rosalina added, “Thank you. Really. Thank you, so much.”

  The men just shrugged and said, “Sorry this happened to you,” they said. “Is there anything else we can do?”

  “I’d like to make one more phone call, if you don’t mind,” Rosalina said. “Our parents were kidnapped with us, and I’m wondering where they are.”

  He handed her the phone immediately. She dialed her father’s number, and it rang and rang, then went to voicemail. “Dad—” she said, and then she stopped. She hit End, terminating the call. “I don’t want to let the kidnappers know we’re free,” she said, looking back at her sister. Her sister had her arms wrapped around her slim frame and nodded. “Not until we’re safe,” Rosalina said. “You know they’ll come after us.”