Page 17

CHAPTER 17

Brooklyn's phone vibrated angrily on the kitchen counter, slicing through the tense silence that had blanketed the room after Mojo’s bark. She snatched it up, heart pounding. The number on the screen was unrecognizable, a long string of digits that sent a shiver racing down her spine.

Ethan looked up sharply from where he leaned against the edge of the counter, arms crossed. His eyes narrowed. “Answer it,” he said in a low voice. “Put it on speaker.”

She did as she was told, gripping the phone tightly. “Hello?”

There was a pause. Then, a distorted voice crackled through the line, robotic and hollow, sending a chill curling around her ribs.

“Brooklyn Alexander” the voice rasped. “We have Liam.”

Her breath caught, and she clutched the edge of the counter to steady herself. “Where is he? Who is this?”

The voice didn’t falter. “That’s not important. What matters is what you do next.”

Brooklyn glanced at Ethan, her expression pleading. He immediately moved closer, his body a steady wall of strength at her side. She set the phone on the counter between them. Ethan started to text like a madman on his own cell.

“What do you want?” she demanded, voice trembling despite her effort to sound calm.

The voice was cold, merciless. “A USB drive. Liam had it, and now it’s missing. You have until midnight to find it.”

Ethan straightened, his jaw tightening as his gaze darted to her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Brooklyn said, forcing steel into her voice. “What USB drive? What’s on it?”

“It doesn’t matter,” the person snapped. “Liam had it, and it’s not on him now, which means it’s your problem. You have until midnight. No cops. If you call them, Liam’s blood is on your hands.”

Brooklyn’s chest constricted, each word tightening like a vise around her ribs. Ethan’s eyes were locked on the phone, his body taut with restrained fury.

“Wait,” she pleaded. “How do I even know Liam’s alive?”

There was a brief pause, followed by a muffled, agonized groan. Her stomach twisted.

“That’s all you get,” the voice said. “Midnight. We’ll call again with instructions. Don’t disappoint us.”

Before Brooklyn could respond, the line went dead. She stared at the phone, her pulse hammering in her ears.

“Ethan,” she whispered, her voice cracking.

“I had Bellamy trying to trace the call.” He was already dialing his teammate. “Anything?”

Brooklyn stared at Ethan, but he shook his head. “It’s a burner phone. They pinged off two cell towers, so we know they were in Kona, but we needed a third tower to triangulate the call.”

How could this be happening? She sucked in a deep breath and tried to keep from screaming. She started pacing the length of the kitchen while Ethan spoke rapidly into the phone. Her mind raced, replaying the distorted voice, the veiled threats, the horrifying groan that confirmed Liam’s suffering. Where was the USB drive? She’d never heard Liam mention anything about it, but clearly, it was valuable enough to someone to threaten his life.

Ethan grabbed her phone and then did something to his phone with hers next to it. “I’m cloning your phone,” he explained. “Mine is already linked to the comms center. We’ll be able to track any incoming calls automatically now, and we’ll be able to track you.” Ethan said, lowering the phone. He was calm, tension etched deep grooves into his face, the barely contained rage simmering beneath the surface.

“I recorded the call and sent Rusty the file. They’re going to work on it, but the distortion makes it tricky. It could take a while.”

“Tricky? A while?” she snapped, her voice rising. “We don’t have time for ‘a while’, Ethan. Liam doesn’t have time.”

“I know,” Ethan said sharply. His voice softened as he stepped closer. “But we’re not going to get anywhere if we panic. Let’s focus on what we do know.”

She forced herself to nod, even though her chest felt like it might implode. “Liam never mentioned a USB drive.”

Ethan’s brows knitted together. “But they said he had it. They seemed very sure. The Yakuza aren’t going to risk kidnapping a kid if they weren’t absolutely sure he had what they wanted.”

Her mind raced, sifting through every conversation, every moment she’d shared with Liam. Her frustration mounted as nothing stood out. “I don’t know. He never said anything. He didn’t act any differently.”

“Which means we need to retrace his steps,” Ethan said. “They tried to grab him Tuesday and we think, my team and I, that it wasn’t planned. Like they suddenly discovered that Liam had the USB drive that day and made a grab for him to stop things from escalating very quickly.”

Brooklyn frowned. Her brain was buzzing. Ethan was trying to tell her something, but she struggled to pick up on it. “What are you thinking?”

“I think Liam must have gotten the USB drive on Monday, possibly Sunday but that might be a bit far out.”

“Uh…” Think, Brooklyn, think .

“Okay,” Ethan said as he went over and filled the kettle.

“Why are you making tea? I don’t want tea!”

Ethan turned the burner on. “We’re going to take this step by step. If we panic now, we can miss something or make a mistake. We have to focus.” He pointed to the stool at the breakfast bar. “Take a seat and take a few deep breaths. Then I want you to think back and see if you can remember what Liam and his father did this past weekend.”

Brooklyn sat down and drummed her fingers on the counter. This wasn’t helping. She started to rise again but Ethan shook his head. “Deep breaths.”

She clamped her jaws shut, settled back on the stool, and closed her eyes. She took long, slow breaths and tried to calm her mind. Ethan was right. Panicking wouldn’t help anything. She opened her eyes as he set a cup of tea down on the counter in front of her. She wrapped her hands around the mug to warm her chilly fingers. Her body felt frozen in place.

“Last week,” Ethan prompted.

Brooklyn closed her eyes again. “I was with Liam and Jackson on Saturday. We surfed in the morning and then went for a drive to Hilo in the afternoon. We ordered pizza and watched a movie Saturday night.” She opened her eyes. Normally, she would be embarrassed to admit she’d spent Saturday night with her brother and nephew, but they were well beyond that now. She didn’t care about anything except getting Liam back.

“Could someone have given Liam a USB drive on Saturday?” Ethan asked.

Brooklyn took a sip of her tea and pondered that question. “No,” she said finally, “I don’t see how it could have happened without me or his father seeing it and we would have asked questions.”

“Okay. What about Sunday?”

“Liam and Jackson stayed home to work on the science fair project. They worked on it all day. In fact, I remember my brother saying they hadn’t left the house all day and he needed to get a few things before his trip on Monday, but he was too tired to do it then. He decided he would do it after he dropped Liam off at school the next day.”

Ethan nodded. “Monday. Do you know what Liam did?”

She shrugged. “Went to school.”

“Anything else?” Ethan prompted.

She froze. Locking gazes with Ethan she said, “He went to Dave’s Café after school to play video games with the boys.”

Ethan nodded. “How do they get to the cafe?”

“Walk,” she supplied. “But if anyone had given Liam anything during the walk, the other boys would have said something. They were all there, even Ren on Monday.”

“Liam went to the café. Then what happened?”

“My brother picked him up and they went home, as far as I know. They ordered in and Jackson packed while Liam did his homework. I dropped by that evening to say goodbye to my brother and get any last minute instructions. My brother dropped Liam at school on Tuesday and I picked him up at the café and, well, you know the rest.”

She crossed her arms over her chest as if that could hold in her anxiety. “Shouldn’t we be looking for the USB stick? You said they wouldn’t have grabbed Liam if they weren’t sure he had it.”

Ethan’s phone rang. He answered it and immediately put it on speaker. “Rusty, any news?”

“Just searched the house. Nothing. I found a few USB drives, but all in the father’s office. None of which would be of any interest to the Yakuza.”

“Wait,” Brooklyn said as she stared at Ethan, “Is he at my brother’s place? Are you at Jackson’s?” she demanded.

“Yeah,” Rusty confirmed. “No joy though. I’ve been through Liam’s room and all the closets. He doesn’t have any hidey-holes, at least none I could find.”

“Hidey-holes?” Brooklyn struggled to keep her anger at bay. “Liam is a good kid.”

“Yes, ma’am, he is. But he’s also almost a teenager. I searched, and even though I couldn’t find a special hiding spot, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one. Is there anywhere he goes on a regular basis that he might hide something he didn’t want anyone to see?”

“Liam’s not like that,” she protested.

“Just suppose for a minute he was, where would he hide things?” Ethan asked.

Brooklyn wanted to keep protesting but she knew it was useless. They weren’t trying to smear Liam’s character although that is what it felt like. They were trying to help him , she reminded herself.

“If he was trying to hide something, he would probably hide it here. I never go into his room. I always tell him it’s his space and as long as he keeps it clean, I’ll only vacuum and change the sheets.”

“We’ll search his room here. Rusty, head over to Dave’s Café and see if you can turn up anything over there, okay? That’s the only other place Liam might have encountered someone who could have given him the drive.”

“Will do.” Rusty clicked off the call.

Brooklyn bit her lip as a thought occurred to her. “You don’t think that Liam could have hacked into something, do you? Like stumbled onto something online and the Yakuza found out?”

Ethan shook his head. “He’s a bright kid but the conversations we had while putting up the cameras tell me that even though he is smart, he’s not a hacker. He didn’t create the USB drive. Whatever is on it, it must have come from someone else.” Ethan straightened. “We have to search his room.”

Brooklyn rose slowly. “It seems like such an invasion of privacy.” The thought of pawing over Liam’s stuff was making her ill.

“We’re doing this to save Liam. Trust me he’s not going to care if you look at his things. Do you want me to do it on my own?”

“No,” she said shaking her head. “Somehow that would almost be worse.”

Ethan nodded. “Let’s get to it. Remember a USB drive is small and can be hidden in all kinds of ways. Be thorough. We don’t have time to make a mistake.”

As if she needed reminding of this. She was very well aware that Liam’s life was hanging in the balance. If she didn’t manage to save him, there would be no hope of saving herself. She would never get over it. Never.