I listened to the flight attendant rattle down the aisle with her beverage cart while her partner handed out tiny crinkling bags of peanuts.

She stopped her cart next to me. “Drink, sir?”

I pushed up my face mask and peered over the empty seat next to me with one eye. “Vodka, neat.”

First class had its perks. I loved the lay-flat seats. Time passed faster when I could sleep the hours away without kids kicking the back of the seat, or overly friendly passengers aggressively seeking short-term relationships. No one fights you for the arm rest in first class. Thanks again, Scorpion Security.

My company was my life—really. On my last tour overseas, when Jeanie had discarded me, I’d thought my life was over. Lying in my hospital bed, I couldn’t think of a single thing to live for. Then, out of the blue, Noah called.

“You get your ass out of that bed!” he’d shouted. “You are better than this, Liam! I taught you boys to have a plan. What is your plan, son? What are you good at? What can you use your skills to build?”

The verbal ass kicking went on for thirty minutes, but when it was done, Scorpion Security was born. I owed my whole life to my business. That was no exaggeration.

“Call for you, sir.” Interrupting my stroll down memory lane, the flight attendant stood next to me, a sat phone held out in her hand.

I pushed the button to raise my seat up and reached out to take the phone. “Thank you.” I nodded at her and turned to the wall. Out the window, it was still night. The sky was purple and blue with just a fuzzy halo of orange lighting the horizon. Admiring the beauty, I pressed the phone to my ear. “Liam Fox.”

“Boss?” Ben’s voice crackled and popped over the weak connection. Airplanes were not designed for phone calls.

“Ben? What’s wrong?” I sat up straight. For Ben to track me down on a commercial airliner halfway across the Atlantic, something truly disastrous had to be going down. My heart started pounding triple-time as adrenaline rushed through my veins. “Is Maggie okay?”

“That’s just it, boss.” His voice cracked. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean? She’s gone? Gone where?” My throat constricted, forcing out a strangled sound. This can’t be happening. Not again.

“I’m sorry, boss. She never showed up for her sound check. Eli went to her dressing room to get her, but it was empty. Her chair was knocked over, and she was nowhere to be found.”

“Could she have just stepped out for some air?” I was grasping at straws, and I knew it, but I was stuck on an airplane, hours from land. If she was really gone, anything could happen before I managed to get back to the states and find her. I suddenly felt powerless.

“Call the Phoenix team in,” I demanded. “I want all hands on deck. This plane lands in three hours. I’ll get the first flight back.”

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The next three hours were excruciating. I had to sit and wait when all I wanted to do was rush to her aid. Customs was a nightmare. The lines were long, and the airport was stifling and hot. Once I finally cleared all the red tape and retrieved my weapons, I ran back to the counter and booked another Dreamliner flight back to the states. Short of bringing the Concorde out of retirement, I wasn’t getting back across the pond any faster.

I exited the airport at a dead run and slid into the dark car waiting for me at the curb. “Talk to me, Ben. What do we know?”

“Not much.” He merged into traffic and drove up onto the expressway. “It looks like a multiple kidnapping. Her manager Julie is missing too.” His eyes were unreadable behind his dark sunglasses.

“What do we know about Julie?” Maggie’s kidnapping threw me for a loop. My typically cold and calculated response, the one that made me so good at what I did, was failing me. I was way too close. I cared too much.

He handed me the file. “I’ve compiled dossiers on all Maggie’s employees and crew. We started them last time, but I updated what I could.”

I snatched it from him, snapped it open, and flipped through it page by page. I pored through every word, every detail, desperate for some direction. Then I found it. “Wait! Did you see this?” I stopped on a page in Julie’s file.

“What?” He drove with one hand and held the other out for the file.

“Julie was hospitalized as a teenager.” I looked up from the file. “Do we have her hospital records?”

“Ah, no. They were sealed.” He realized I wasn’t giving up the dossier and hit his bluetooth.

“Then unseal them! I want to know why she was under psychiatric care for six months!” Fuming, I looked back down and continued reading Julie’s life story.

Ben activated his phone and called Leo. “Boss needs medical records for Julie Lawrence, Maggie’s manager. She spent six months in the hospital when she was thirteen.”

“Hey, boss. Glad you are back.” Leo’s voice crackled through the car speakers.

“Leo, you have any questions, call us. We’re heading back from the airport to talk to the band.” I watched out the window as the city flew by.

“I’ll get right on that, boss. I’ll send anything I find to your phone.”

“Roger that.”

Ben pressed a button to end the call and turned to me. “Trailer or buses first?” He eyed me from behind his mirrored sunglasses.

“Take me to the makeup trailer. We’ll search Maggie’s and Julie’s buses after that.” I rested my arm on the edge of the door, staring blankly out the window.

Ding!

My email alert went off. I pulled up the message, and my eyes widened as I read it. How did we miss this?

“Oh my God.” I sucked a breath in through my teeth. “Julie’s not missing. She took Maggie.”

“How do you know?” Ben glanced over at me as he drove.

“At thirteen, Julie was diagnosed with a personality disorder. Her doctors note impaired empathy and remorse, obsessive compulsive disorder, and disinhibited, egotistical traits.” I looked up. “Potential for delusions and possessive behaviors.”

“So she fixated on Maggie?” He stared straight ahead, both hands on the wheel.

“I think so. I have no idea why, but it has to be her.” I kept reading, mumbling to myself. “It all fits. It was her all along.”

“Hey, boss.” Ben interrupted my reading.

“Yeah?” I slid the glasses down my nose and looked at him.

“Leo’s in my ear. Jeannie just showed up at the office. You want me to take you there?”

“No.” I didn’t even hesitate. “Take me straight to Maggie’s place.”

“Are you sure? We don’t even know who took her?”

“I’m sure.” And I was. If I had to choose between Jeannie and Maggie, it was no contest. Jeannie was my past. Maggie was my future.