Page 61 of Duplicity

She winced. “Politics isn’t really my thing. I try to care, but it seems like the whole thing is just backward.” She hit play and prayed it wasn’t this family member.

His voice was too squeaky. “It’s not him.” She moved that window over, too.

“You seem pretty sure.” Romeo sat on the edge of the desk beside her.

“I hope I’m sure when, or if, it is him.” She clicked the next one and immediately sucked in a breath. She pushed the chair back and stood, nearly falling.

Her father was there. Right behind her. She wasn’t alone with this guy or his men. She was with people who cared about her.

She wasn’t bleeding on the floor of a store, praying with everything in her that Sergeant Ellis would live. God hadn’t shown up in that moment. Her partner had died.

She had lived.

His children had lost their father, and his wife her husband.

She had lived.

Why hadn’t she realized that, in that moment, some piece of her trust in God had died with her partner? That she’d lost some of her childlike faith and died a little to the idea of hope and trust in a sovereign God?

Clearly, that’s what had happened inside her heart. She’d been going through the motions ever since. In denial, pushing it down—like Simon often did. Making them more alike than she’d realized.

“This one?” Romeo pointed at the screen. Those in the conference room came out. Her brother asked, “This is the man who abducted you?”

She stared at the screen.Lance North.Entrepreneur. Philanthropist. Beloved tech mogul, and staunch family man.

Cat nodded. “That’s him. That’s the guy.”

Her father said, “This is gonna be a problem.”

TWENTY-FOUR

“Lance North.”

Simon heard the words behind him. He spun around in the tiny alcove at the end of the hall by the stairs. If he looked past Peter, he’d be able to see all the way down to Clare’s office—Jasper’s office.

Peter asked, “Who are you on the phone with?”

In his ear, Talia said, “Boy, you did not wake me up at three in the morning just to give me orders.”

“T—” What else could he say? He’d told her what he wanted.

Peter snatched the phone from him and put it on speaker. “What did he ask you? He looks like that time I caught him transferring seized mob money out of federal accounts no one had touched in decades and into that children’s hospital account.”

Talia chuckled.

Simon couldn’t find it amusing.Lance North.That was what Peter had said. Which meant Cat had identified him.

The police and Vanguard would go after him. Lance would see them coming, and people Simon cared about would be targeted. The way Cat had been tonight.

He would never forget the look on her face when he found her. The relief on her dad’s and her brother’s faces when she showed up here.

No. No way was he going to let that happen again.

“Sie.” Talia had her “mom” tone going on.

“You weren’t asleep. You were online.”

“The baby woke up, so I…checked a few things.”

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