Page 111 of Love is Angry

“Well, well, Echeveria junior,” Noelle says as she approaches me warily. “Might I ask why you called me from myboyfriend’s daughter’s phone? And, on that note—where the aforementioned daughter might be?”

She’s wearing a navy-blue suit underneath a tan trench coat. She’s neatly groomed and elegantly fragranced. I assume she’s got a meeting later—something important to require this much effort for her physical appearance.

“He has Madison.”

Noelle stills, her eyes round with shock. “What do you mean, he has Madison?”

“My father. He had someone come into my apartment. He kidnapped her. He plucked her right out of my fucking arms, Noelle. Whatever I thought I knew about my father, it barely scratches the surface, and I’m fucking terrified that what’s below is far worse.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Echeveria, I have to—”

I snatch the phone out of her hand before she can finish dialing. She gapes at me as horror dawns in her eyes.

“What’s going on here, Rhue?”

“My father has Madison. He’s holding her somewhere so she can’t tell the world that he’s a fucking rapist before the election. You’re the only one in the world who might know more about his movements and properties than I do.You cannot call Mr. Willis.”

Her grey eyes flash dangerously. “You wanna tell me why, kid? He’s her father!”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “And what’s the first thing a loving father is going to do when he hears that his baby girl has been kidnapped?”

She rolls her eyes at me. “He’s not John Wick, Rhue. He’ll go to the police—”

“Exactly.” Her mouth snaps shut when I cut her off. “Guess where my dad is right now, Noelle? Tell you what, I’ll makeit easy on you. True or false: Julian Echeveria is currently browbeating the last honest detective at the RPD?”

“True?”

“Correct!”

Noelle pauses for a long moment, cycling through all the options in her head. “Did Mr. Echeveria actually say he has her?”

I can’t help but scowl at her. “What, you think I’m wrong? That I heard wrong?”

“No. It’s just that he has a way with words. There’s more in what he doesn’t say than in what he does say—I’ve studied his interviews, and let me tell you—it’s a study in negative space if there ever was one.”

I hold out her phone. “If I give this back to you, are you going to call Maddie’s dad?”

“No.”

I trust her now that she knows what’s at stake. I hand her phone back to her, then pull out my own phone and find the recording. I play it for her, watching her face the whole time.

“Holy hell,” she breathes when I shut it off. She doesn’t need to hear the whole beat down. “The man believes he’s untouchable.”

“My fear is, he’s right,” I tell her. “I’ve sent all the evidence I have to my friends in Ithaca. They’re pursuing the police angle there, though there’s a decent chance my dad got to those fuckers too.”

“Why would he—”

“Because I go to school there,” I cut her off impatiently. “Because Maddie goes to school there. Because he’s a goddamned control freak and he’s pinning his entire fucking life on winning this godforsaken election.”

She’s quiet for a moment, thinking. “What evidence do you have?”

I don’t really want to show her, but I don’t see a choice here. I pull out Maddie’s phone and show her the picture. “That’s it,” I tell her as she gasps in shock and covers her mouth with both hands. “That’s all I have.”

She narrows her eyes at the picture, then blinks. “Can you send that to me?”

“What? Why?”

“Because I have photo editing junk on my phone, and there’s a background there. The flash is making it impossible to see anything, but if I could adjust the background, maybe we could get an idea of where she is.”