Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Who could have taken Millie?
Was it Pamela? She seemed like the most likely culprit. Right?
Fear curdled my blood.
What if it was Cameron Phillips? What if it was him or another weirdo who had fixated on me and had been watching us?
What if my past had invited another sick bastard into our lives and this was all my fault?
Forty-Two
FYFE
Scrambling for my phone, I pulled up the email Adam had sent me on my mother and her new family. Scrolling through the ID pics, I stared at my mother’s wife’s photo. “That’s her. Right?” I held it out to the police officer who had introduced himself but for the life of me couldn’t remember his name.
I’d almost crashed my fucking car driving like a maniac to the daycare center in Caelmore. If I thought too hard on the fact that my daughter was in a stranger’s hands, that she’d been kidnapped after only a mere few months in my care, I’d lose my mind.
And I was no good to Millie as a panicked glob of emotion rather than a capable father who could find her.
The officer studied the CCTV footage from the nursery that clearly showed a blond woman skulking into the room and leaving with Millie in her arms. I reached over and paused the footage just as she was departing and looked up at the camera as if she hadn’t realized it was there.
The copper studied the image on my phone and nodded grimly. “It looks like a match. Who is it?”
“My mother’s wife,” I bit out angrily just as the phone buzzed in my hand, startling me. “Unknown caller.”
“Put it on speaker,” the police officer demanded.
Fingers shaking, I did just that. “Hello.”
There was some heavy breathing and a moment of hesitancy before she spoke. “I have your bairn. I’m going to text a bank account number to you. I want fifty grand in that account by the end of the day or you’ll never see your daughter again.”
“Jay McDonald,” I said her name.
There was a wee gasp on the other end of the line.
Rage suffused me.
The police officer mouthed, “Keep her talking.”
“We know who you are. You can’t get away with this,” I gritted out. “If anything happens—”
The copper put a hand on my arm, shaking his head.
Right.
Don’t threaten my daughter’s kidnapper.
“I couldn’t give a shit. Put the money over or you won’t see her again. That’s a promise.” She hung up.
A buzzing filled my brain and I think I might have started trashing Regan’s office if my phone hadn’t vibrated again with a text. It was the account details.
“Do you have your stepmother’s address? We’ll send a unit now.”
I shook my head, my mind racing. “No. She’s not from here. I-I have no idea where she might be hiding.” But I knew how to find her. It just wasn’t legal. “Excuse me. I need to call my girlfriend and tell her what’s happening.”
The copper opened his mouth to speak, but I was already hurrying out of the office and past the frightened staff. I couldn’t look at them. I knew it wasn’t their fault, but I was furious with the world and everyone in it right now.
As soon as I was alone outside, I called Lore and told her to trace Jay’s location from the call. It would mean hacking telecommunications, which was why I hadn’t shared my idea with the police. And then I called Eilidh.
She picked up on the first ring. I knew Regan was calling her to inform her of Millie’s kidnapping so I just launched in without preamble.
“It’s my mum’s wife,” I announced in frantic outrage. “Eilidh, Mum’s wife has Millie. Jay. She called. She wants money in exchange for giving Millie back.”
“Has she lost her fucking mind?” Eilidh screeched and there was a sick part of me that took satisfaction in her wrath. I needed her to feel this as deeply as I was and it was a strange comfort that she did. “How does she think she’s actually going to get away with this?”
“I don’t think she’s thinking!” I yelled back but not at Eilidh. “I have Lore tracing the call to find out where the fuck she is.”
“She can’t be familiar with the area,” Eilidh replied.
“I don’t know. Maybe she was with my mother when she visited all those months ago. I don’t know.”
Eilidh was quiet for a few seconds and then, “Do you mean when your mother came to ask you about the cottage?”
“Aye.”
“Fyfe, is the cottage empty?”
“Aye, it’s not rented out again until Monday.”
I heard the squeal of tires in the background. “I’m on my way there.”
A different kind of fear scored through me. “You think she’s at the cottage?”
“If your mother showed her the house, she might very well be. It’s worth checking out.”
“Let me talk to the police. Send them in.” If Jay could kidnap a baby, who knew what else she was capable of. Buried in the back of my mind was the knowledge that this woman lost her daughter a few weeks ago. That she was likely suffering some kind of emotional breakdown. “Don’t you dare approach that house.”