Page 43 of Malice

“Can you show me the footage?” It took everything Malice had to stay calm and reasonable. Every moment longer this fool took to show him what he needed was another moment that fucker had Bonnie.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t call the police?”

“Not yet. Let me see the video, let me see who has her, then I’ll go see if I can find her and you can call the police. If we call them now, who knows how long they’ll take, then they’ll investigate. Who knows what he could do to her while all that happens. Let me start looking for her, then you can call.” He did his best not to strangle the man in front of him. Malice needed him to cooperate, at least until he was sure it was that fuckwad who had her. Or if it had been someone else, someone Malice was sure would turn out to be in league with the fuckwad, what they were driving, what they looked like, anything.

“Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, I guess we can do that.” Randy blinked several times then turned toward his computer, moving the mouse so the screen came to life.

It took him a moment or two to pull up the camera feeds then a few more to find the right one and scroll back through the recording.

“There she is,” Malice said, watching over Randy’s shoulder.

With a few more clicks he took it back to where she first walked into the frame, then started it running at normal speed. Together they watched as she walked toward the pickup, looking around like he’d told her to be sure to do, it wasn’t until she reached the truck, one hand extended to open the door, that something out of the ordinary happened. The rear door of the car parked two spaces away popped open, a man in a mask seemed to spring from the vehicle. Malice suspected he’d been hiding in the rear seat to keep Bonnie from spotting him. He quickly closed the distance to where she stood, seemingly stunned, he reached out with something in his hand and touched her with it.

It wasn’t until Bonnie went stiff for a moment, then collapsed, that Malice realized what he’d been holding.

“Fuck,” he said under his breath as he watched the masked man catch her as she fell, carry her to the car, where he dumped her in the seat inside the still open door, slammed it shut before hurrying around to the driver’s side, getting in, and driving away his mask still on.

Malice clenched his jaw to keep from cursing again.

“Can you run it back to where that car came in?” He wanted to see if the driver had pulled in with his mask on or if maybe, just maybe, they could see who it was.

“Sure.” Randy was oddly quiet as he did as Malice asked.

Five minutes later, Malice walked out of the hotel, pulling his phone from his pocket as he went. In the truck he dialed Ghost and didn’t wait for the call to connect before putting the truck in gear and leaving. He had the fuckwad’s home address and that was the first place he was going to look for her.

“What’s up?” Ghost said, answering the call.

“He’s got her.”

“You sure it’s him?”

“I’m sure. The fucker snatched her from the parking lot at her work. The whole thing’s on video. I just saw it. I saw him.” He hadn’t seen the face while the man had actually been snatching her, but he’d seen the fuckwad pull into the lot without the mask then get out and climb into the backseat. No one else came near the car between the time the fucker got in the backseat and the masked man got out. While it was theoretically possible there had been a second person, Malice didn’t think so. Either way, the fucker had been in the car while it happened, and he was complicit. That was what mattered. That and finding her now.

“Did you call the cops?”

“I didn’t. I knew they’d tie me up for hours with questions and I couldn’t let them do that. I watched the video with her boss then left, telling him to call. I told him to tell them everything, but I was getting started looking for her.”

“Good call. Where you at now?”

“On my way to his place. Can Jake try to track her phone? Then maybe he can do some snooping and see if the stupid shithead has anywhere else, he might have taken her?”

“I’ll get him started, but I’ll do one better and get a hold of Gizmo to look. Giz’s better and faster at this kind of thing. If it’s out there to be found, Giz will find it. I’ll let Lurch know what you’ve found out and see what he wants to do. Should I head out to help?”

“I don’t know, man. I can’t wait. I have to go see if he has her at his place. I have to find her as soon as I can. The thought of what he could be doing to her even now makes me want to puke.” He knew he sounded like a pansy, but he’d seen some horrific things while he’d been over seas and now he was imagining nearly all of them being done to Bonnie. Just the thought of it made him want to hurt someone. Hurt them bad enough they’d never hurt anyone again.

“I know man. Take a deep breath. Look for her.” Ghost kept his tone gentle and almost soothing. “When you find her, and I have no doubt you’ll find her, only hurt him enough to make sure he won’t leave then worry about her. Make sure she’s okay. Can you do that?”

“I can try.” Malice did as his brother instructed, at least as far as he could for now. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly then another. He forced himself to focus on one thing at time.

First, he had to find Bonnie.

32

Bonniestruggledtofigureout where she was. Terror had made things seem surreal for a while, to the point that she couldn’t be sure what she was remembering had happened and what might have been a nightmare. She knew she’d been getting ready to get into the truck to go home after work when someone had jumped out of a car and come toward her. The next thing she knew pain shot through her entire body, she’d lost control of her muscles, and she hadn’t been sure what was happening for a while after that. She wasn’t sure if it was the aching throbbing that she still felt that had made everything seem so weird or something else.

She vaguely remembered being put in a car and the car moving, but it hadn’t been very long before the car stopped again. She’d still been trying to make her body work again when someone had gotten in the backseat with her, put one of those zip tie things on her hands and some kind of loose bag over her head, it wasn’t very thick and light colored. Maybe a pillowcase? It didn’t block out all the light, but it did make it so she couldn’t see anything. They’d put another of the zip things around her ankles then left her lying in the seat. She’d heard doors open and close, then they were moving again.

Bonnie had no way of knowing how long they’d been in the car. It had seemed like a long time, but her mind hadn’t been functioning at full speed and she just couldn’t be sure.

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