Page 74 of Trick's Trap

Killian narrowed his eyes and stayed silent. Tahlia rubbed her forehead.

“Never mind,” she muttered. “You and I both know your supposed standards are just some fake set of hoops you make your clients jump through to justify what you do. They’re meaningless. You can stop pretending you care about a person’s innocence. Just take the damn cash and murder indiscriminately because there’s no difference to the people you kill.”

The air almost vibrated. Tahlia knew she should have been frightened by the touch of menace emanating from the hired killer, but she was past caring.

Whatever he did to her between now and Florida couldn’t be any worse than what was in store for her there. She turned away, staring out the window as the city sped by.

The minutes stretched into an hour. Silence reigned as they pulled into a small airfield. A luxuriously appointed jet was waiting on a short runway.

She was going home.

Trick avoided hittinga garbage truck by mere inches. He gripped the wheel and pulled into the narrow space between two SUVs before shooting across three lanes to enter the fast lane.

“Jesus, Patrick, you’re going to kill us.” Liam held onto the dashboard of the Mercedes by his fingernails.

He clenched his teeth, his eyes intent on the road.

“Update,” he barked.

“We’ve eliminated Logan airport,” Ethan said over speakerphone. He and Jason were following in their FBI-issued vehicle. Jason’s line was connected to their office, where their fellow agents were scouring flight plans and pouring over traffic-cam footage.

“If it’s not Logan, why the fuck am I on this highway?” His voice was both shrill and hoarse. Panic clawed at his throat.

“Breathe, damn it,” Liam snapped from the passenger seat. He was clutching the doorframe now. “Crashing and killing us both won’t help Tahlia.”

“He has a point, Trick,” Ethan said in a rare moment of solidarity with Liam. “You need to calm down. Be methodical. Think of it like a high-stakes poker game.

Was he kidding?

“Just find the fucking plane or train or whatever the hell this guy is taking her away on.”

“It has to be a plane,” Liam reasoned. “A train or a car would take too long. If they were willing to hire a hitman to force her, then those assholes are desperate. They won’t want to wait.”

He paused for a moment. “I should have known something was wrong when Tahlia called you Trick. She never uses your nickname. It’s always Patrick with her.”

Trick’s guts twisted as he remembered the near-hysterical explanation Maggie had given him when she and Peyton came to find him. They’d been hugging the floor, trying to stay out of sight of the windows when Peyton finally clapped her hand over Maggie’s mouth to tell him what happened in a clear clipped voice.

Liam’s phone chimed, and he texted a rapid reply. “Eric just got there. He’s going to sedate Maggie.”

“He’swhat?” Jason’s shout came through Ethan’s phone loud and clear.

“Let him do what he has to do,” Liam snapped. “We gotta focus on Tahlia now.”

Jason swore. “I know,” he apologized. “We’ve got two possibilities out of a private airfield near Lexington. I think those are our best bet.”

Trick swore aloud. They were at the highway split he needed to take to get to Lexington. Gritting his teeth, he shifted gears, cutting a car off to make the lane change in time.

Liam murmured something, but he kept his mouth shut as they sped along. Trick pulled off the highway a few minutes later, gunning the engine until they almost hydroplaned into the lot of the small airfield.

His brother got out of the car first, but he didn’t have Trick’s motivation. He outran Liam, bursting into the nearest hanger ahead of him by several lengths.

He scanned the space. Two jets were parked there when there was room for more. A white-haired couple was preparing a small snub-nosed Cessna.

“Where is it?” he shouted at them.

“Where is what?” The wrinkled woman backed away from him, her eyes wide. He must look like a madman.

“The plane from this spot,” he said, pointing to the empty space. “If it’s the one headed to Florida, I need to stop it from taking off.”

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