Page 132 of Wilde Abandon

The house phone rang.

Fox walked to the kitchen where the phone sat on the counter.“Who’s calling you at this hour?”

4:49 a.m.Two hours, thirty-one minutes without her.

“It’s probably just a telemarketer.”

He raised a brow.“At five in the morning?”He stared at the caller ID.Local number.No name.Probably a burner phone.Her coconspirator?

Tanya tugged his shoulder, pulling him around to look at her.“I’m sorry about the trouble with Melody, but I know nothing about it.”Her gaze darted away, then came back to him.

She’s lying.

“I really wish, for once, you meant that.But you don’t.Because you only care about yourself.And I’m betting that you’re involved in Melody’s kidnapping.It wouldn’t surprise me if you planned it.So here’s what I’m going to do.I’m going to call that number.How much do you want to bet they’ll ask for a ransom for her?”

He started to punch the number into his phone.

Tanya grabbed him by both arms, her nails digging into his skin through his thermal, and shook him, panic in her eyes.“Just pay me the money and I’ll tell them to release her.”

He sighed, even as a sense of inevitability and utter hatred and rage swept through him.“Where is she?”He growled out the words, hating her, wanting her to pay for what she’d done.

4:51 a.m.Two hours, thirty-three minutes without her.

Tanya stepped back and shook her head.“Forty million.”

He nodded.“Right.One million wasn’t enough.Not for you and your”—he narrowed his gaze as he considered—“three accomplices.”Three in the van.One bitch of a mother pulling the strings.

Her eyes went wide.

“I’m not stupid,” he spat at her.“Where is she?”

Tanya stood stubbornly quiet and defiant in front of him.

“Fine.Have it your way.The FBI can deal with you.”

Her eyes went wide, then even bigger as the back door opened and Mason walked in with his gun trained on her and his badge attached to his belt.

Fox stared down his mom.“Everyone in town knows Lyric married an FBI agent, and you thought it was a great idea to kidnap her sister.”He shook his head.“Forty million,” he spat out.“You won’t see a dime.Enjoy prison.”He headed for the front door to get his laptop out of the car, so he could track the phone number.

“Fox!Wait!”Tanya shrieked.“I need a lawyer.”

“I’m sure one will be provided to you, since you don’t have any money to pay for one.Mason will tell you as he arrests you.”

“There’s no proof.It’s my word against yours.”

Fox held up his phone.“They heard everything we said to each other.And I recorded it.”He’d left an open line to Mason when he walked into the house.

Before Fox made it into the entryway, Mason stopped him with more news.“Dean did some snooping outside.He found a white panel van hidden in the barn out back.Cops are going over it now.”

Which hopefully meant the kidnappers were close.

Fox glared at Tanya.“Explain that to a judge.”He shook his head and left that house for the last time.Nothing good ever happened in that house.Maybe he’d burn it to the ground.

5:04 a.m.Two hours, forty-six minutes without her.

It took Fox all of two minutes to hack the phone number and determine exactly where it was, not even three miles away.Then he looked up the property records for the place and found it had been foreclosed on some time ago.Perfect place to hide some nefarious shit like a kidnapping.He sent all the details to Mason as evidence.

5:11 a.m.Two hours, fifty-three minutes without her.

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