Chapter 13
Two days had passed since Laura’s death. Jess had spent the entire day going though bouts of sobbing and baking. Being in the kitchen always calmed Jess. And Mason didn’t seem to mind all the food that was around. They had packed up most of the baked goods in plastic containers to bring with them to Mason’s “office.” As they came through the double security door entrance, Mason handed off the goodies to one of the men sitting close by, and directed her straight down a hallway. She glanced toward the ward room. A shiver shook her body at the memory of watching her friend on the large screen lose her life.
Mason had told her last night that they needed to come in today, and she had been thankful for the warning. At least she had time to prepare herself to come back to the place.
Mason…
She could not have asked for a more calming, caring person to help her grieve the past two days. He had one of the guys drive his truck back to the apartment so Mason could hold her on his lap in the back seat. And he held her long into the evening—rocking her, holding her, letting her sob until she had no more tears.
At one point, she got up and went to take a shower. But not even the hot water could wash away what she had seen. The reality that both of her friends had died because of her. And there seemed to be little hope the people hunting her wouldn’t find her eventually.
And when they did, they would do far worse than what they had done to Caribbean and Laura.
By the time Mason came in to check on her, she was in a heap on the shower floor, staring at the water swirl around her and flow down the drain. She felt nothing.
“Jesus, Jess,” Mason said, and turned the water off. He wrapped her in a towel and carried her into his bedroom. After he dried her off, he slipped a sweatshirt over her head and a pair of shorts, and slipped her under the comforter on his bed.
“Get some sleep, sweetheart,” he murmured, and kissed the top of her head.
She grabbed his hand before he could pull away. “Will you stay with me?”
He didn’t respond, just lay next to her, chest to back, and wrapped his arm across her waist. When the nightmares came—and they came in living color—he was there to keep her safe.
Placing his ID card against a flat black square on the wall, a heavy metal door slowly swung open. Down a short hallway was a dark room with various sized screens. She could hear the low murmur of voices, but no one was visible. To the right was a glassed in office. Riley sat at a desk talking to Lance and Colonel Holt. She glanced at them, and pointed to the next room.
Mason nodded, took Jess’s elbow, and they entered a room with a large conference table. Two other men sat at one end. They looked up as they entered, and nodded to them.
Mason pulled out a chair for Jess, and then sat in the chair beside her. He was so massive…it should’ve scared her, but instead, it comforted her. Provided a bit of strength, which she desperately needed.
Riley, Lance and Colonel Holt came in and took seats across from her.
“We know you’ve been through a lot, but Mason insisted we keep you informed of developments, as much as we can,” Riley said.
Jess glanced at Mason and smiled. For the first time since the shooting, she felt as if she truly had an ally.
“Thank you, I appreciate that.”
“Early this morning, a bomb threat was called into the Milton Weston Design building.”
Jess gasped. Her office? She thought of all the people she had worked with since she moved to Providence and had started working for the architectural design firm. Many had families. Small children. “Was anyone hurt?”
“The building was evacuated, and an explosive device was found. The bomb squad was called in to diffuse it, and no one was hurt.”
“Are we sure it was related to Jess?” Mason asked.
Lance leaned forward and rested his forearms on the table. “No one has taken responsibility yet, but the timing leaves us no choice but to assume it is.”
Anger scorched through Jess’s veins. How dare these assholes go to this extreme. They were killing people, threatening lives—and over what? A man who had been killed in an act of self-defense? A man—if he could be called that—whose pride had been so wounded by a woman rejecting his advances that he was willing to rape and shoot her?
Daniel Forrester was a predator and a bully. And Jess could see where he had learned his narcissistic view of women. His father was terrorizing her.
But Jess would be damned if she would stand by and let him hurt anymore of her friends.
A man knocked on the door, handed some papers to Riley, and whispered in her ear. Riley glanced at the papers, the frown lines around her mouth and eyes deepened. She passed the papers to Holt.
When Holt read them, he handed them to Lance, and glanced at Jess. “We have confirmation that the families of Caribbean Meda and Laura Townsend have been placed in protective custody at an undisclosed location.”
Jess exhaled and let relief flood her body. From the look on Riley’s face, she had assumed it would be bad news. Jess glanced at Riley, then Holt. Neither one was smiling. Or relieved.
“But?” she asked and waited for the piano to fall.
“We were having difficulty locating your mother. We sent a team down to ascertain her whereabouts and get her to safety. It appears we were too late to prevent her from being taken.” Holt leaned across and grasped her hand. “However, we do have confirmation that she is still alive.”
Jess looked at the picture of her mother, her cheek swollen and red, holding a newspaper with the current date.
“What do they want?” she asked.
Gazes darted around the room.
“Me.” She said, and resolved herself to the inevitable. There was only one way to free her mother, and keep everyone associated with her safe. “Then let’s give them what they want.”
“That’s not necessary,” Riley said. “We’re monitoring all channels trying to get the location where they are keeping your mother. I think the fact that the instant murders of your friends did not compel you to turn yourself over is forcing them to rethink their strategy. They want to deal.”
“Then let’s deal,” Jess said.
Mason shook his head, and let out a chuckle. Riley and Lance stared at her.
“Is it feasible to use me to draw them out?”
Riley shrugged, but it was clear she was considering the plan.
Mason slammed his hand on the table. “No. You are not using yourself as bait.”
The loud slap against the wood shook Jess. “Why not?”
“Haven’t you been paying attention to what they are doing?”
“To my family and friends? Yes! But what’s the alternative, Mason? Wait for them to actually blow up a building? Watch another live-streaming of my mother being beheaded? Do you really think I want all those deaths on my conscience?”
The muscles in his neck were taut and his jaw clenched. “There’s another way, we just have to find it.”
“No, there’s not. The other way would’ve been for me to have gone with Forrester that night.”
He swung his gaze to her, his eyes filled with anger and disbelief. “And let him rape you? Murder you? How would that have been better?”
A lump formed in her throat. “It would’ve just been me. No one else would’ve suffered.”
“You don’t know that. How many women would’ve suffered the same fate as you? How many already have? A man like Forrester is a animal—he wouldn’t have stopped until he was forced.”
Jess clamped her mouth shut, and wrapped her arms around her middle. She hated that Mason was making sense. Not that it mattered. She was doing this. Needed to do this. The time for sitting around and waiting for these assholes to show themselves was over. Time to pull them from the cave where they dwelled and in and out into the light where this team of special operations experts could deal with them.
“Okay,” Colonel Holt said, “Let’s table the discussion for now and see what other information we can uncover in the meantime.”
* * *
Riley entered her office and caught a glimpse of Mason and Jess passing by on their way out. Neither looked pleased with the other, or what had transpired in the meeting. Riley had to give it to Jess—she was stepping up and trying to help herself and her mother as much as she could. It was either incredibly brave, or incredibly stupid.
“That’s got the makings of either a very quiet ride back to Mason’s place, or a very loud one,” Lance said, and dropped into the chair opposite her.
“Silent treatment all the way,” Riley said. “It’s our secret weapon. Guys can’t handle it when we clam up.”
“True statement.”
Holt knocked on the doorframe, stepped inside the office, and closed the door behind him. “Riley, you and Lance come up with a plan that will put Ms. Baylor in the least amount of danger.”
“The demands they made in the note on the thumb drive left at Mrs. Baylor’s house are pretty straight forward. They want Jess in a very public arena. We should be able to set up a net around them. Contain the threat to Jess and the public,” Lance said.
“I don’t want the RRA to get hands on Jess, but we need to get them out of their hiding places—and she is our best option.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And keep this between us.” He waited for Riley and Lance to acknowledge him before he opened the door and exited the skiff.
Riley exhaled and slumped into her seat. “Mason will lose his shit if he finds out about this.”
“Yeah, I think he is a lot closer to Jess than he wants to admit.”
“I feel bad for Jess—she really has no one that she is close to. This is possibly the worst thing that has happened to her. Instead of being able to lean on her friends or her mother for support, she has to deal with a bunch of strangers. Talk about being on the outside of your own life.”
Lance nodded. “So, how do you suggest we rectify this?”
“She needs to trust us with her life, if any plan to use her as bait is going to work. For her to trust us, she has to get to know us—outside this office, and not in a professional capacity.”
“And we do that, how?”
Riley smiled. “I think it’s time to introduce Jess to the Sand Trap.”