Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
“Please,” I whispered. I hated her for making me beg.
My plea seemed to calm her. In fact, her face smoothed into a surreal mask that alarmed the hell out of me.
“Good. Good. This has been a great start,” she said, as if we were finishing work for the day and not that she was holding me hostage. “But I need some air. I think I’ll drive around for a while. We wouldn’t want your rental sitting out there for someone to find. I’ll be back in the morning.” She waved to the bedside cabinet. “There’s some food and water in there.”
“Don’t.” I stood, and she immediately trained the gun on me again. “Don’t you dare leave me here.”
“Oh, Ari …” She cocked her head as if I was the sweetest thing. “Don’t you get it? We’re never leaving each other again.”
But two seconds later, she stepped out of the storage room, gun aimed at me as she punched the code on the keypad and waited for the garage door to close.
Tightness crawled across my chest as panic set in.
This wasn’t happening.
How could this be happening?
North. North would find me. I nodded, shaking so badly my teeth rattled. North would be looking for me right now.
She couldn’t do this.
She couldn’t get away with this.
Calm down, I commanded myself. Stop panicking. I inhaled slowly and exhaled. Over and over, until my shaking decreased. Then I searched the rolling metal door, looking for weakness. I hammered against it. I tugged on it. Time passed—I didn’t know how much, but I dripped with sweat from my attempts to get the damn door open. For a while, I yelled in the hopes that someone would show up and hear me.
Voice hoarse, I sat down on the bed and gazed around the room, letting my rational mind take over. I was Wesley Howard’s daughter, and I was North Hunter’s one and only.
Between the two of them, they’d find me.
And if they didn’t and I had to face Caitlyn tomorrow, I had to come up with a plan to disarm her so I could save my damn self.
Forty
NORTH
Aria’s phone had been abandoned somewhere on the Santa Monica Freeway. I was done waiting around after discovering that. I called the rental car company to track her rental while Wesley called the police.
The company had just called to tell us the car was found, abandoned in Glendale.
Standing in the hotel suite we’d commandeered, I stared hard at Wesley, Walker, and Wesley’s private security team, trying like hell not to succumb to that splintering feeling in my head and chest.
Aria had been missing for twenty-four hours.
The first few hours I’d tried not to panic.
My gut told me something had happened to her, and I felt like a useless prick waiting around, doing nothing.
Wesley had contacts in the LAPD. He chartered his private plane to fly him and his team over from Scotland. Walker had insisted on coming too.
A knock on the hotel room door had me rushing toward it. Wesley hurried at my back and greeted the two men in suits on the other side.
“Frank, Pete, thanks for coming.” Wesley ushered them in. Aria’s father’s eyes met mine. “These are the detectives I told you about.”
“Any news?” I barked.
The taller of the two raised an eyebrow, but the shorter man shook his head. “We’ve sent officers out to Glendale. They’ll canvas the area while we pursue leads elsewhere. According to Wesley, Aria told you she was shopping on Rodeo Drive?”
I nodded.
“We’re pulling footage from traffic cameras and parking garages in the area. We’ll hopefully hear something soon.” The short man turned to Wesley. “We’re looking into Caitlyn Branch. We have officers out interviewing colleagues at her last job, a restaurant called Curiosity.”
“So you really think if we find Caitlyn, we’ll find Aria?” I couldn’t even think about what that woman could be doing to Aria while we stood around in this fucking hotel room.
“It’s our only lead at the moment until we get the footage from the parking garage. So far, we haven’t been able to track Caitlyn down. She’s unemployed and was evicted from her apartment a month ago. We’ve got men staking out both places in case—” A shrill beep cut Pete off, and he whipped out his phone. We waited with rising fucking impatience as he swiped at the screen. Then, “Got her.”
My heart lurched into my throat. “Aria?”
Pete nodded and passed around the phone. “Parking garage camera picked her up walking to her car.”
Wesley and I looked at the screen together. Pain and fear and longing filled me at the sight of Aria rounding her car to the driver’s side. She seemed to be doing something at the side of the car for a few seconds and didn’t notice the woman approaching the passenger side. My breathing stopped as the woman turned to look over her shoulder, as if making sure no one was watching, and then she got into the car.