The Hill (17 page)

Judd's hand jerked and the mouse slipped from the desk.

“Well, I did hire him, and he's going to continue to protect me
from your goons, and we're not going to stop. We're not going to stop until we
find out what happened twenty years ago.”

Judd had retrieved the mouse and was busy tapping the keyboard
and clicking through files.

The man's voice sliced through the line like a cold blade. “Oh,
but you are going to stop, London, or you're going to be very sorry.”

“Let's see, you tried to snatch me twice, broke into my place,
set fire to the unit next door, beat up my driver and killed a security guard at
my building. I'm not quitting.”

“Maybe we can't get to you as long as Brody is in the picture,
but we can get to others.”

A chill snaked up her spine. “What others?”

“Check your cell phone, London.”

She scrambled for her purse and pulled out her phone. A text
message with an attachment had come through. Judd hovered over her shoulder, and
with trembling fingers she tapped the message to open it, and then tapped the
picture attached to the message.

Maddie's face filled the screen. They had her daughter.

“Just one other, London, and we've already done it. We have
your daughter, and we're prepared to do whatever it takes to stop you.”

 

Chapter Fifteen

London choked and lunged for the phone. “What have you
done with my daughter? Where is she?”

The line had gone dead, and Judd raked a hand through his hair
as if to clear the confusion in his brain. A daughter? London had a
daughter?

Once she realized her tormenter had hung up, she grabbed the
phone and threw it off the desk. She screamed and pushed the laptop, but Judd
collected her hands in his.

“Shh. It's going to be okay.”

“Is everything okay, London?” Celine tapped on the door.

She called out in a clear voice, “Nothing serious.”

Then she turned a tear-streaked face ravaged by grief toward
him. “It won't be okay. It can't. He has my daughter.”

He cupped her face with his hands. “Tell me. Tell me about your
daughter and we'll get her back.”

She drew in a shuddering breath that racked her entire body.
“She's eight. I had her when I was a teenager. My father forced me to give her
up—no...I gave her up willingly. He didn't have to force me. She was an
inconvenience to me at that age. I got pregnant in Italy. Maddie's father was a
race-car driver. He—he died in an accident, and my father instructed me to leave
the country without telling Paulo's family.”

She started sobbing and couldn't continue.

He swept away her stream of tears with this thumbs. “So you did
the right thing and adopted her out to a loving family. Is she here in the
city?”

“Yes, but you heard him. They have her. They must've found out
about her from my laptop, the laptop they stole from my condo. I had pictures of
her on that computer.” She turned her father's laptop toward her. “And here. My
father had pictures of her, too. I couldn't believe it when I saw them. He
must've had someone taking pictures of her all along, but he never showed them
to me. He must've figured I didn't care.”

“Maybe he didn't want to upset you.” He rubbed a hand down her
arm, wishing like hell he could take away the pain etched into grooves on her
face.

“Can you verify her...kidnapping with her parents?”

“I'm not in touch with them. If I tell them now this is all my
fault, that they lost their daughter because of me, they'll hate me. Besides,
you saw her picture. She was holding a copy of today's newspaper. They have
her.”

He pulled her head against his chest. “You didn't do anything
wrong, London. He's not going to hurt Maddie. If he did, he'd have no leverage
over you. He's just showing you that he can get to her.”

Judd stopped stroking her hair, and a deep worry permeated his
bones.

London looked up at him. “What's wrong? If I don't pursue this
anymore, they'll leave her alone, right?”

He brushed her hair from her damp face and stared out the
window. “Twenty years ago, when my father was going through hell, my brother
Eric was kidnapped.”

London sniffed. “He survived.”

“He did. At the time, people said it was a sympathy ploy and a
diversion for my father. They believed he planned the kidnapping himself.”

“No parent would do that.”

“It was the same as your daughter, London. They were proving to
my father that they could get to his family. He knew. He knew he was being set
up and he knew who was responsible. That's why he never said anything. They
threatened us. They threatened his family. It's the same despicable bunch
now.”

Her hands fisted in her lap. “How are we going to get her back?
How are we going to stop them?”

“We've got to put an end to this right now.” He wiped her face
with his T-shirt. “He made a mistake. He gave something away—Operation
Phoenix.”

“What is that?”

“Look.” He tapped the laptop, bringing it to life. “I searched
for Operation Phoenix while he was talking to you and got some hits.”

London trapped her hands between her knees. “I'm afraid to
know.”

“No, you're not.” He rubbed her back. “I know you want to get
that little girl back to her family.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and drew in a deep breath as if she
were drawing upon some well of strength to face her fears.

He started opening the files and folders, and they began to
piece together the story of Operation Phoenix.

“These figures are bad.” She poked at the monitor. “BGE was
facing some lean times twenty-five years ago, and then like magic our fortunes
turned around.”

“Look at these shipments.” He ran his finger down the columns
of a spreadsheet. “Pharmaceuticals, methylene.”

She leaned closer. “BGE hasn't been in pharma for years.”

“It looks as if this is where it started, London, but there
doesn't seem to be any target location for these shipments.”

“So where did all that methylene go?”

It took them skimming through a few more files, but Judd found
what he was looking for. “Bogus companies, bogus addresses. All this methylene
was ending up on the street as crystal.”

“Meth?” She folded her arms across her stomach. “You mean BGE
was supplying drug dealers. We made hundreds of millions of dollars from these
shipments.”

“That's what it looks like. My father and his partner must've
suspected something when this stuff started showing up on the streets.”

“I think I'm going to be sick.” She cupped her hands over her
mouth and nose and took deep breaths in and out. “I can't believe my father
would do this.”

“He may not have known.” He flicked his finger at the monitor.
“Look at all these scanned invoices. That's not your father's name, unless he
used his middle name or something for signing off.”

She squinted at the screen. “That's my uncle Jay's
signature.”

“Is that Niles's father?”

“Yes.” She gripped the edge of the desk. “Are you trying to
tell me my uncle Jay engineered the setup of your father and his partner because
they found out about his side business? My uncle died years ago, after my father
pushed him out of the company. So who's been stirring up trouble since then?
Who's been trying to keep your brothers from discovering the truth? And who has
Maddie?”

“Niles is the obvious suspect. And if that's the case, I don't
believe he's working alone.” He tapped the desk with the end of a pen. “He's a
member of the Bohemian Club up on Nob Hill, isn't he?”

“Y-yes. I just told you the other day that my father was a
member, too, and Uncle Jay.”

“I've had clients who were members. One tried to blindfold me
when he took me there, but I pointed out I wouldn't be able to do my job
blindfolded.”

“So they allowed a nonmember into the club? Did you witness any
of their silly rituals?”

“He invited me in as a guest, which is allowed, and there were
no rituals that night. But I did get an eyeful.”

“Is it true there are nude, masked women lounging around the
club?”

“Not that night, but I did see a few city movers and shakers,
including a couple of high-ranking police officials. Anyone else may not have
recognized them, but since my brother is a detective I knew who they were.”

“What are you implying, Judd?”

“I'm connecting the dots. Your father's company was involved in
illegal activities, whether he knew about those activities or not, and there had
to be a lot of cover-up of those activities. Your father was also a big
supporter of law enforcement. He was on the police commission.”

“It's like we said before—who else but the police would be able
to plant that evidence on your father? Who else could get to so many people so
easily? But who do you think is involved? It can't be the chief of police. He's
relatively new to the city.”

“But there are others. Others who were around then and are
around today. Others who don't want any of this to come out, any more than Niles
does.”

He reached for his cell phone. “I'm calling my brother Sean.
He's been on his leave of absence long enough. We need his help.”

“And what about Eric? You said he worked on the FBI's
child-abduction task force. He was abducted himself—probably by these same
people.”

“I think Eric's in D.C., but he'll come out for this.” He
snapped his fingers. “And Ryan. I'm calling him down here from Crestview. He
knows Cynthia. He spoke to the real Phone Book Killer. We're going to put this
together, and we're going to get Maddie safely home to her family and ensure her
future security and yours.”

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it so hard he heard his bones
crack. “I gave her up to give her a secure life. As her birth mother, I owe her
that.”

“They won't hurt her. If they do, they know there's nothing
stopping you from spilling everything you've discovered. They won't risk
that.”

“But once they find out we know it all, every sickening detail,
they'll have nothing to lose by hurting her.”

“Look at me.” He took her chin between his fingers and stared
into her green eyes, glassy with fear. “Nothing is going to happen to you or
Maddie, not as long as I have breath in my body.”

“When do you think he's going to call back?”

“When he's good and ready. That's the point, to show his
strength and power. But we have work to do in the meantime.”

* * *

L
ATER
 
THAT
 
NIGHT
,
back
at her place, London paced the floor, cupping her phone in her hands. Judd's two
brothers in California, Sean and Ryan, were already on their way to the city.
Ryan might have already arrived. And Eric was taking the first flight out of
D.C. Judd's plan had to work. She hadn't given up her baby all those years ago
only to put her in mortal danger now.

The company she'd been trying so hard to be worthy of now
sickened her. She wanted to believe it was all Uncle Jay's doing. It hadn't been
too long after Joseph Brody's suicide that Spencer had pushed Jay out of BGE. If
her father had been completely complicit in the illegal activities, he wouldn't
have been able to do that. Jay wouldn't have allowed it. Her uncle probably
would've used her father's involvement to gain a bigger foothold in the
company—for himself and his son.

She had to hang on to that.

The phone vibrated in her hand and she checked the display. She
nodded at Judd and put the phone on speaker.

“Hi, Niles. Thanks for getting back to me.”

“Of course. You piqued my curiosity.”

“I want you to come to my place so I can talk to you
face-to-face and give you some paperwork, but the upshot is I want to step down
as CEO of BGE.”

He sucked in his breath, and his excitement was palpable over
the phone. “I'm having dinner near Union Square. I can be there in a jiffy.”

She ended the call and pocketed the phone. “So he's on his
way.”

“He's gonna wish he'd stayed in Union Square.” Judd's eyes
narrowed and the menace rolled off him in waves.

They finalized their plans and Judd relocated to the burned-out
unit next door while she waited for Niles's arrival.

London paced the room until the buzzer on her intercom filled
the room. “Yes?”

“What do you mean, yes? It's Niles.”

“Okay, I'm letting you in, but you still need to check in with
the security guard in the lobby—new policy.”

She waited a few seconds and slipped out of her place. She
jogged down the hallway and tapped once on the door to the empty unit.

Judd let her in. “Are you ready?”

“As ready as I'll ever be to detain and torture my cousin.”

“Nobody's getting tortured.” He placed his hand at the back of
her neck and massaged the base of her skull with his thumb. “Just remember what
he's been doing.”

“Allegedly.”

“Are you chickening out now?”

The sound of the elevator opening gave her renewed resolve.

“No.”

She poked her head out the door. “I'm down here, Niles. Had to
take care of a few things.”

His gait faltered but he continued. “Can I just wait in your
place?”

“It's locked up. We'll just talk here for a bit and then we'll
go to my place, have a little wine and celebrate.”

He brushed a lock of blond hair back from his high forehead. “I
have allergies, you know. I may not be able to last too long in there.”

“It won't be long, Niles.”
Just until
Maddie is back home safely.
She widened the door and stepped
back.

He walked in, his nose wrinkling. “What are you doing in here
anyway?”

Judd wasted no time. From his hiding place behind the door, he
lunged at Niles and immobilized him. Then he forced him into the waiting
straight-backed chair and tied him up before Niles recovered from the first
assault.

Struggling against his restraints, Niles shook his head. “What
is going on? Is this some kind of joke, London? This is too much, even for
you.”

Judd stepped in front of him, and Niles's eyes bugged out.
“Wh-what are you doing here? What is this, London?”

“This—” Judd drew up another chair, facing Niles “—is an
interrogation.”

Niles sputtered. “This is an outrage. I'll have you arrested.
I'll have your license. I know people.”

“Funny you should mention those people now, because we're
interested in those very people.”

Niles's face drained of what little color it had. “Is this a
joke, London?”

“Where's Maddie?”