Page 47 of Tommy Gabrini: All Fall Down
“Let’s get her inside,” Hammer said as he looked around to make sure there was no sneak attacks on the horizon. And they all went inside.
The Feds wanted entry, but Hammer wouldn’t allow it. “She’ll come down to the station tomorrow and give a statement,” he said. “But right now she’s going to be with her family.”
The cops and the FBI knew they had to step back. There was nobody who was going to tell Hammer Reese that he was out of line and overstepping his bounds, although they all knew he was. But law enforcement left the Gabrini house.
Once inside, and after all of the emotions had been poured out, Tommy and Grace had Destiny sandwiched between them, with TJ and GG on the floor between their parents’ legs. The baby was in Grace’s arms.
And Destiny was telling them what happened to her and her child.
“We never left Seattle,” she said.
“What happened to Owen?” Tommy asked. Owen was the young man, her latest rich boyfriend, that she was going to the Bahamas with. “We couldn’t find him anywhere.”
“We boarded his small plane expecting him to be onboard, but the next thing I know the doors were shut and I was taken to the back of the plane and that’s when I saw him.” She looked at her father. “Before I got onboard, they had shot him in the head. He was dead,” she said with a broken voice, and Tommy held her closer against him.
“Then they flew me and Danny to some location. I knew it wasn’t far because it took only a few minutes, as if we were going from one side of town to the next.”
“Or more likely from one airport to a private airfield,” said Mick.
“I’ll see if my people can find some video,” said Hammer as he began texting his assistant.
“Did they mistreat you?” TJ asked.
“No. They just kept me blindfolded and tied up the entire time. They kept Danny beside me, in a bassinet, and left bottles for me to feed him.”
“Why did you say Jamaica and not the Bahamas when I called you?” Grace asked.
“Whenever I got a phone call, somebody was speaking in my ear telling me what to say. The reason I said Jamaica the last time you called me was because they thought that was where me and Owen were heading. They got the location wrong. But I thought that could help me, so I didn’t correct them.”
“It did help you,” said Tommy. “It made your mother realize something was wrong.”
“What happened next?” Big Daddy asked.
“They took me and the baby off the plane, put us in an SUV, and then we drove something like maybe half an hour to another location. And that’s where we were the whole time ya’ll thought we were on vacation. But we wasn’t,” she said and the tears returned.
Tommy leaned her against him. “It’s alright, baby,” he said. “It’s alright.”
Destiny sat back upright. “When I got that first phone call from Mommy, after we’d been locked up for some hours, I thought I was going to lose it. But they told me if I didn’t say everything they told me to say, they were going to kill Ma and you too Daddy, and TJ and GG too.”
“That’s what they told me,” said TJ. “So I knew I had to toughen up and do whatever they said.”
“Did they ever mention TJ and what he was doing?” asked Hammer.
She shook her head. “No sir. What happened to TJ?”
“They implanted me,” he said, and she looked at him. “It’s a long story. But I saw the men that implanted me. They didn’t try to hide their faces. I worked with a sketch artist to try to identify them, but I’m not sure if I remember right.”
“What about you, Des?” asked Sal. “Did you hear any music or any private conversations or anything like that?”
“I didn’t hear anything, Uncle Sal. I believed I was in that place by myself for the entire time. I think they put me in that building and left. And never came back.”
“Just like you said, Hammer,” said Reno. “We’re dealing with remote control assholes.”
“Go on, baby,” Grace said. “How did they set y’all free?”
“It was crazy because it was like just after I hung up from you. Only I never had my phone. They took that too. I was talking over some intercom system or something like that. They had my phone hooked up to their system apparently because when you called my phone, Mommy, it rang over the intercom. But they were never there with me.”
“But how did you get free?” Mick asked her.
