Deadly Lies (Deadly #3)(29)

Sonofabitch.

“Max?” Frank’s voice wasn’t so tough now. “What’s in the box?”

Proof. “They’ve got Quinlan.” And he’d just gotten a piece of his brother. His head turned, and he met Samantha’s worried stare. The first piece.

Max surged to his feet. Samantha rose right with him, her hand gripping his wrist. “He’s still alive, Max,” she said urgently.

Max tried to shake her off. Her grip just tightened. “He’s still alive. This is just to screw with you, to make you desperate.”

“It’s his f-finger!” Beth cried out.

Samantha didn’t look away from Max. “It’s a message. You wanted proof, so they gave you proof. Your brother is out there. He’s alive, and we’re going to get him back.”


Proof sent.

Luke scanned the text. Victim’s finger delivered in box. Fingerprint and DNA testing needed ASAP.

“Fuck.”

His head lifted, and he stared at the team assembled in the SSD’s conference room. “The kidnappers just made contact again.” The first time that they’d done this. Changing the MO.

Hyde straightened in his chair. “They called already?”

“No.” His gaze found Monica’s. She’d been working on the profile for the kidnappers. “They sent a finger to the Malone house in a damn box.”

No change of expression crossed her perfect face.

“Why change the plan, Monica?” Luke pressed because she would know. When it came to the killers, she always knew.

“Because the kills are changing him,” she said.

Yeah, that’s what he’d feared but he’d wanted her take on the situation.

“The leader was much more violent with Briar’s body than he was with Peter Hollings’,” Monica continued. “He kept Briar alive longer. He inflicted the wounds not to kill, but to hurt.”

Yeah, and that worried him.

Monica confirmed his fear when she said, “Seems to me that our perp might have found something he likes.”

“Or maybe we’re not dealing with the same kidnappers,” Jon Ramirez offered from his position on the far right of the table. “Maybe this is some wannabe who read about Briar in the paper, and he thinks he needs to slice and dice to make his point.”

Monica gave a slight negative shake of her head. “There are too many similarities that weren’t released to the press. No one knew the men disappeared from college bars, and no one knew the initial calls came within three hours of the disappearances. And no one knew a ten o’clock call was promised, but never delivered.” Her hands flattened on the table. “It’s the same leader. The same group.”

“And just how many folks are we talking in this group?” Hyde asked from the head of the table, his gaze sweeping all of their faces.

“Kidnappers are rarely solo workers,” Luke said. “You’re talking a unit here, one that follows an alpha…”

“Like a pack of dogs,” came the quiet rumble from Special Agent Kim Daniels. Her eyes glinted but her face was as blank as Monica’s.

“Someone has to stay with the vic, to guard him at all times.” Luke lifted his hand as he began to count off the possible abduction team members. “Someone has to go for the drop. And someone has to cover the leader’s ass.” Because the leader would never leave himself vulnerable. “And someone is the constant watcher who keeps an eye on the victim’s family.”

They needed to identify that watcher. In case it was someone in the household, Sam would continue to communicate through texts for secrecy. They weren’t taking any chances with this case.

“At a minimum,” Luke told them, “we’re looking at four people. At most, six—no more than that, though. That would mean too many hands in the pie.”

“We need that box,” Hyde stated flatly. “The sooner we dust and run a fingerprint check, the better.”

Hell, yeah. They were all on the same page there. Luke grunted. “We need to talk to those other victims.” Luke wanted to meet with them, one on one. And actually get them to answer all of his questions. But money and power—those got in the way of sit-downs. “I want them back in the country.”

Hyde nodded. “I’m working on it.”

If Hyde couldn’t get them back, no one could.

Luke considered his options. Not many. “In the meantime, let’s get them on the phone. Get a conference call set up ASAP because I need to talk to them.”

The vics were scared shitless. He got that. They wanted to pretend the nightmare that they’d lived through wasn’t real. But another man’s life was hanging in the balance.

And Luke wasn’t in this business to stop the killers after the fact—after the blood had flowed and the dead had been hauled away. He was there to save lives, dammit, and that’s what he was going to do.


Sam went to the bank with Max and Frank. She smiled at the other customers. She kept her face all nice and bland. After a few moments of small talk, the bank manager, John Adams, led them into his office, and the money was brought out to them.

Five million dollars. The price of a life. Quinlan Malone’s life.

The bank manager was sweating. So was Frank.