Havoc by Shannon McKenna
24
Mace didn’t remember driving to the Shaw’s Crossing Medical Center, but he must have done so. The receptionist was talking to him as if he should be able to understand, but the noise in his head was too loud.
He’d felt this way after battle. And for months after the fire. Like he’d been knocked out of his physical body and was floating, numb, on a parallel plane.
The woman was pointing, so he directed his body the way that she indicated and launched it forward. Right foot, left foot. He had to tell his family. They needed to know.
The corridor was so long. Fluorescent lights stabbed his eyes. Doctors and nurses spoke to him but Mace couldn’t tell what they said. He must look like shit. He knew the look, having seen it on men’s faces many times. On his brothers’ faces, too, after the fire.
The grayish skin, the blue lips. The blank stare.
He glimpsed Fi’s sinuous, ice blue form near the nurse’s station. She took one look at him. “Dude, relax,” she said. “Demi’s okay. The baby’s fine, too. You can breathe.”
“Good,” he said dully. “Great news. I’m glad. Where are the others?”
“Eric’s still talking to the doctors. Anton’s with him. Nate and Elisa just went back to Demi’s house to pick up some things for her. She’ll be staying here for a few days. We’ll have to organize some security for her.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll… I’ll think about it.”
“Mace.” Fiona stared into his eyes, and slowly put her hands on either side of his face. “What the hell is wrong with you? Where’s Cait? Is she still at the party?”
His reply died in his throat. The puzzlement in Fiona’s eyes slowly turned to shock and disbelief. Her hands dropped to her sides. “No,” she whispered. “No way, Mace.”
“I wish,” he said. “I found proof. Clint found a trace on her. I found a dark-web message platform in her phone. A thread from Kimball. Private details only Cait would know. It mentioned payment, so I checked her Arrow Fast-Cash account. Someone deposited two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars two days ago.”
“No,” she said stubbornly. “No, I don’t buy it.”
“Just because you don’t want to believe it won’t change it,” Mace said.
“I’m not denying reality! I’m saying, she’s Titus’s daughter, Mace! She would never consent to be Kimball’s whore!”
“No, she’s not,” Mace ground the words out. “It was all bullshit. The journal, the notes, the trace. The letter at Glenna’s. Tom LaMott wasn’t Titus. None of it was real.”
“You’re wrong.” Fi’s voice was low and fierce.
“Come on,” he snarled. “The trace, the messages, the money? In the thread, he said he liked the erotic hot tub video from the hotel. No one else was in there with us.”
Fiona snorted. “Dude. Please. The hotel website will tell you that suite has a hot tub on the terrace, and any halfwit who saw you two together would know that you two would get it on in that tub first chance you got. That’s not betrayal, just a good guess.”
“And the money? Two hundred and twenty-five thousand fucking dollars?”
“Not that much from Kimball’s point of view, considering what he has to gain. Had she put it into her account yet?”
Mace stopped, racking his brains. “No. It was just sitting on the app.”
“Of course. Because Cait doesn’t know it’s there. If someone sent you a sum like that, you’d transfer it into your account right away, not just leave it there. Kimball put the money there to fuck with you. To separate Cait from you.”
Mace shook his head. “No, it just doesn’t make sense.”
“Face it,” Fiona said harshly. “And face it fast, because you don’t have much time. You let Kimball jerk you around with your fears, like an asshole. How do you explain the letter in Glenna’s campervan?”
“She could have that prepared letter all along, and planted it anywhere she thought would look convincing. Her father didn’t look like Titus in the photos. Titus was wrecked. No one could guess what he looked like before Kimball broke him.”
“Bullshit.” Fiona’s voice rang. “I knew. I saw Tom LaMott’s eyes. He’s Titus. I was stuck in a room with him for a year. I had nothing better to do but stare at him.”
“But the messages—”
“Were dirty, right? Calculated to make you feel violated, ashamed?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Of course. Those messages were for you, not for Cait. Sticking his hand in your pants is Kimball’s specialty.”
“But the trace, in her clothes,” he said. “We just bought that stuff. And the message thread, and the money…how?”
“Did anyone send a message to Cait’s phone when you were in Seattle?” Fi asked. “Something that could’ve given access to her phone?”
“Some messages from her friends, when she checked in, but nothing that—oh.” Cold dread slammed into him like a train. “Oh, fuck me.”
“What?” Fiona demanded.
“The message, from Federica. Cait gave the boutique her phone number, for their newsletter and their VIP client program. The next day Federica sent her a gift. Told her to choose two sets of lingerie from the catalog.”
Fiona pulled up a number on her phone, and placed a call. She waited for several minutes. “Hi…yes, Federica? Yes, I know, I’m so sorry about the hour, but this is a matter of life and death…yes. Really. Right. Did you send a text message to Mace’s girlfriend Cait, offering her a link to order two sets of free lingerie?” Fi was silent for a while, then nodded. “Okay. Thank you so much. That’s exactly what I needed to know.”
She closed the call, and met his eyes. “Federica didn’t send that message,” she said.
They gazed at each other, horrified.
“Bro,” Fi said. “You just fucked up. So hard.”
“I cut her loose,” Mace said, his voice hollow. “Told her to get the hell out of town.”
Fi pulled her phone out of her evening bag, and stabbed at it with her finger. Soon, the warble of Cait’s phone began to sound, from his own suit pocket.
“Oh, shit,” Fi said, in blank dismay. “You took her phone?”
“She left it behind,” Mace said. “At least we know exactly where he took her.”
“Yeah, we do, so move! I’d go with you, but I’m in spike heels and a wedding dress, and I have to change. Anton and I will be right behind you. You’ve got better shoes in your car, right? And a gun?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Take my gun, too.” She pulled up her dress, and pulled a small pistol from a holster strapped to her thigh and slapped it into his hand. “A few more bullets might help.”
“Thanks,” he said.
“I get it,” Fiona said. “You thought it was too good to be true. That nobody could love you like that, because you’re bad, right? You failed, the night of the fire. But you were wrong. The love was real. So run, because if Kimball kills her, your life is worth shit.”
Fi could always be counted on for tough love. Not that he needed it.
He was already pelting through the hospital at a dead run.