Page 19 of Kill Me Sweetly

“I got it!” Nick shouted, and the excitement on his face as I stared at him on the monitor was contagious. “We take him somewhere else to remove it.”

Everyone was silent for a beat until Angel spoke. “That’s not a bad idea. And I think that’s what we’ll do. But also, we need to plan for them going to any and all locations the history of the tracker tells them.”

“Our place and the shop.” I nodded. “But it could buy us time at least, and we can watch from a distance at the location we remove the tracker.”

“It’s a plan. I gotta go, doctors are talking near me again and looking at me like I’m crazy,” Gabe whispered.

“Okay, go. We don’t want to have to break you out of another psych ward.” Noel snorted, and Gabe’s phone disconnected.

I whipped my head in Shep’s direction. “Another one?”

He waved me off. “I’ll tell you later.”

“It might not be a bad idea to entertain Plan B, just in case,” Noel said.

Mason scratched his head. “If it comes to that, we know how to leave the property undetected, and get to our safe house.”

Yep, we had a safe house. It wasn’t as awesome as the one we lived in now. It was a decent size, about an hour from here and in the woods…but we were so cool that we had it.

“I think Noel’s right,” Shep huffed. “We pack go bags tonight, get them ready just in case. We’ll make sure all of yours and Gabe’s are set too.” He gestured to the screen.

“Sounds good. We’ll see you in the morning.” Angel shut down the call, and the five of us stared at each other.…Well, not Four—he was currently focused on the table.

“So, what now?” Maxwell asked.

“I’ll start getting the bags packed.” Shep stood.

“I’ll get mine and Gabe’s.” Mason left the kitchen, and I grabbed Shep’s arm before he did too.

“What should I do?”

“Keep an eye on them.” He jerked his chin in the direction of Max and Four.

“Okay.”

Four wasn’t talking, so I focused on Max. He was fidgeting, and I could tell he was nervous.

“Can I ask you a question?”

His eyes darted to me, and he shrugged.

“Did you ever find out who kidnapped your daughter?”

“No. The…” He eyed Four from across the table and lowered his voice. “The Alabastrine Consortium only told me that they were mercenaries and that they were gone. I took that to mean they were dead.”

I pursed my lips. “And what do you do for a living?”

“I’m the VP for a mortgage recruiting firm.”

Weird. “Why would mercenaries kidnap the daughter of a mortgage recruiter, and does that pay as well as the lifestyle you’re living?”

“I don’t know why they took her, but money seemed to be a good enough reason. It’s the root of all evil, isn’t it? And yes. I created the firm with a friend as teenagers in the basement of my parents’ house. We went to college, and it grew and grew. Now it’s one of the largest mortgage recruiting firms in the country.”

I jerked my head back. “Your dream as a teenager was to have a recruiting firm?”

Max snorted. “No. It was to be successful. Look, do you want me to get into my childhood?”

I shook my head. “Okay, I’m trying to piece this together, because it’s making zero sense. Your daughter for money and that’s it? Mercenaries? It’s so odd.”

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