Page 53 of One Cry Too Loud
Duncan McRae moved around us with a troubling comfort. It was like he was standing among friends and not the very people he had been trying to kill for the last few days. As I stared at him, watching the way he planted a kiss on Caroline’s cheek and began to start packing the groceries away, anger rose in me. This was him? This was the man who the world saw as the greatest cyber terrorist to ever exist? This was the person who had us running around like chickens with our heads cut off, who very nearly put us in the ground.
I opened my mouth to speak, to protest the lunacy of all of this, but Holly beat me to it.
“This isn’t right,” the Englishwoman said, her entire body shaking as she took everything in. “This can’t be right. Duncan, you’re-you’ve always been…”
“I am, Holly,” he said with eyes that I would have described as kind if I didn’t know what they were capable of now. “I’m the very same person you’ve always known, the very same person who taught you everything you knew. I’m still that man, sweetie. I still have that kind heart.”
“Stop this!” Kat shouted, breathing as heavy as she possibly could. “I’ve had enough of it. I’ve had enough of people trying totell this woman who they are, lying to her after abusing her in ways that can never be justified.”
“Is that what you think is happening here?” Caroline asked. “You think Holiday is the one who is being abused here?”
“I think she’s one of the people,” Kat said. “The others are that little girl and her adoptive mother. So, how about this? I won’t promise you won’t go to jail. In fact, I swear that I won’t rest until I see both of you rotting in matching cells. I will promise you something else, though..How about you tell us where to find that girl, and we let both of you keep all of your teeth?”
“Really? Violence?” Caroline asked. “Aren’t you better than that?”
“Are you really asking me that question?” Kat asked. “Usually, I would say the answer is yes, but you know what? I guess anytime I’m dealing with abusing, gaslighting bastards who steal children and try to murder my friend, that whole ‘better than violence’ thing goes right out the window.”
“Don’t speak of situations like you know them!” Caroline said, and for the first time, I heard some fire behind her voice, some fraying.
“Come now, Sweetheart. Remember what we talked about. Don’t let your emotions get the better of you,” Duncan said, giving his wife a stern eye. He must have heard what I did. “Remember why this is important. Remember why it matters that you get to say what you need to say.”
My mouth fell open. Duncan was talking to Caroline like she was the victim here, like she was some oppressed woman who was finally getting to stand up for herself.
‘No,” I said, unable to hold my tongue anymore. “No. We’re not doing this. You’re going to give us that girl back, and then we’re going to call the police, and if you don’t-”
“You’ll do what?” Duncan asked. “You are helpless. Completely and totally helpless.”
“We have too many guns to be helpless. It would do you well to remember that,” Kat said.
“Guns won’t help you,” Duncan said. “Sure, they’ll hurt us. They’ll even kill us, if you hit us in the right places. That won’t help you find Cindy, though.”
“Cindy is close by,” I said. “You have candy in your bags. She’s somewhere, and we’ll find her.”
“You won’t,” Duncan said.
“I’ll take my chances,” I answered, grabbing my gun.
“Do that,” Duncan said, eyeing the way my hand wrapped around the gun, still at my hip. “Do that, and when they find a corpse where a happy and healthy little girl used to be, you’ll know you’re the one to blame.”
“Oh my God!” Holly yelled.
“Actually, I’ll do better than that,” Duncan said. “I’ll tell you where she is.”
“What?” I asked.
“There’s a line of storage buildings about forty miles outside of town. It’s the largest one in the UK. Two thousand altogether. They’re all opened by digital passcodes, and I just scrambled every one of them.” He looked over at Holly and then at Joe. “Your little girl is in one of them.” He shrugged. “Of course, I’ll never tell you which one.”
“We can find her,” Kat said. “We’ll talk to the owners. We’ll get them to-”
“They couldn’t do anything if they wanted to,” Duncan said. “The only person in the world who can get you into those storage buildings is me. Even if you could convince the police to cut into them, storage buildings are classified under personal items and protected under our local law. You’d need a warrant for every single one.” He shook his head. “They’re not climate controlled,and there’s no food in there. That little girl would be dead long before you ever found her.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I replied, taking a step toward the man. “I was a cop for well over a decade, and I can tell you that-in extreme situations, you’d be surprised how quickly you can get a warrant. Hell, you’d be surprised how quickly you can get two thousand, especially when the wellbeing of a child is on the line.”
“You might be right,” Duncan confirmed.
“I just might be,” I said. Turning to Kat, I continued. “The phones aren’t going to work here. They’re blocking them somehow. Go to one of the neighbors and call the police. Tell them what’s going on. I’ll stay here with these two psychos and make sure they don’t make a run for it.”
Kat nodded her response, and turned to go.
