Page 126 of My Fault
“To start with, you’re not immediate family, so we don’t need to tell you anything. What I’m going to ask of you is that you call her parents or legal guardian and inform them of what happened. The law says we can’t file a missing person report for twenty-four hours, so—”
“Are you not listening to me?” I shouted, losing my nerve. “She’s been kidnapped. Now stop fucking around and do something!”
I didn’t realize how close I’d gotten to him until he grabbed me and slammed me against his car.
“Calm down or I’m going to have to arrest you,” he said.
I cursed between my teeth until he let me go.
“Now call your parents or I’ll do it myself,” he said, puffing out his chest and trying to intimidate me.
I turned around, took out my phone, and dialed. Dad picked up on the fourth ring.
“Dad…I need you to come. Something’s happened.”
Four hours later, we were back at home. Nobody knew where Noah was, but there were people milling all around and plugging in machines to trace our calls in case her captors tried to get in touch with us. William Leister wasn’t a nobody, and when his stepdaughter disappeared, the first thing people thought was that it was a kidnapping for ransom. I’d already told ten different cops two hundred times about Ronnie’s threats, but what I didn’t know was that they’d found the threatening letters in Noah’s desk drawer. When I realized her father was the one who’d kidnapped her, I nearly lost control.
I was a disaster; I couldn’t believe what was happening. They’d had to give Raffaella a tranquilizer when she’d found out, and now she was in one of the bedrooms with a friend trying to calm her down. My father was on the phone the whole time, talking to cops and officials. All I could do was smoke one cigarette after another and try to ignore the hundreds of horrible images flashing through my head.
Lion and Jenna had come over, Jenna’s parents, too, but I had no idea what they were up to. It was past five in the morning, and no one had heard anything.
“If something happens, I’ll never forgive myself,” I said, almost hyperventilating. “All this is my fault… Dammit! Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Nick, if Noah decided to cover this up, she had her reasons,” Jenna said. “I’ve been her friend for a month, and I had no idea her father was in jail, let alone that he was an abuser.”
“If he lays a hand on her…” I said, hearing my own voicecrack. I couldn’t just sit there doing nothing. I wanted to beat my head against the wall, anything, just to get my life to go back to where it had been earlier that week. I’d been happy for the first time in years, and all of it was thanks to that incredible girl who for some reason had chosen me… Just imagining Ronnie touching her turned my stomach. I knew Ronnie was in on this. I’d bet my life on it.
Just then, the phone started to ring. Everyone was running around like crazy. I went to Dad’s office, where everyone fell silent while he picked up the phone when the police motioned for him to do so. The speaker was on, so every word of the conversation was audible.
“Leister,” he answered.
“Mr. Leister…it’s an honor speaking with you,” said a voice I’d never heard before. It was deep, cheerful, as if all this were amusing. “The man who took my wife and daughter to the other end of the continent so I couldn’t find them. You’re an intelligent man, yes siree. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have your business empire and my wife would have never spared a thought for you.”
I looked to the left and saw Raffaella covering her mouth with her hand, repressing her tears, and shaking her head.
“Where’s Noah?” my father asked in a tense voice.
“We’ll get to that. But honestly, the location of my daughter isn’t your concern, Mr. Leister. All you need to worry about is how much money you can come up with to get back a person who honestly isn’t even part of your family.”
My father looked over at me.
“I’ll pay whatever it takes, you bastard, but don’t you dare lay a finger on her.” That was exactly what I would have said, and I felt grateful to him.
“A million dollars in used bills in two backpacks, to be handed over by you in person at midday,” Noah’s father said. “If youscrew this up, I’ll leave the consequences to your imagination. And come alone, Mr. Leister—that’s an order.”
“I want to talk to her,” my father said tensely. “I need to know she’s all right.”
“Of course, Mr. Leister.”
I heard her a second later.
“Nicholas…” That was all she said. She sounded horrible. I couldn’t help taking a step forward when I heard her on the other line.
But right then, it went dead.
45
Noah
