Page 12 of Justified Fear (TFH Team Bravo #2)

“Just how bad were these guys? I’m assuming if they lied, they were bad.”

“We haven’t been able to figure out what the hell is going on. You said that they had security on the property?”

She nodded. “Well, not people. There were a lot of cameras.”

Another shared look which had her blood icing. What was going on?

“I swear. There was no real security there. I thought it odd, too.”

“Why?” Ryan asked.

“Well, I’ve done these parties before. Granted, this one was more intimate. But if these people were as well off as the Kellys, then I would expect at least one person walking the grounds. I know when Mom and Dad do stuff like that, they have extra security.”

Their house was actually out on some acreage, but they still made sure to keep their guests safe.

“And you had no sense of them having any?” Kap asked.

She shook her head. “I didn’t meet anyone, and there was no one out back when I went that way. Like when I hosted that dinner party on Maui, they wanted to know my whole background. The Kellys said it was no big deal.”

“And they hired you off the site?”

She nodded.

Kap looked over at Ryan. “We need to talk to your father and you.”

She frowned at the idea. “Will this take long? I have a life lesson to give over at Randall High today.”

“Life lesson?”

She nodded. “I teach high schoolers how to build a budget for their food. Home Economics has sort of disappeared, but everyone needs to learn how to build a pantry. I approached my local high school, but then word got around, so I do one or two of them a month.”

“It shouldn’t take long.”

She nodded as her father came over to her side.

Regret filled Ryan’s expression. “We’ll need to talk to you separately.”

There was a long moment of silence. She looked at her father, then back to Ryan.

“Do I need to call Aunty Lulu?” her father asked.

“You’re not under investigation,” Commander Delano said. “We want to make sure that this has nothing to do with your daughter.”

“You just said?—”

“I mean, we want to go through both of your memories to make sure that someone isn’t coming after her. If we do it separately, it might jog your memories.”

He drew in a deep breath, then released it. “You okay with this?”

“Of course. Let’s hurry, though, because you promised me a trip to Ray’s Cafe before we go out to Randall.”

“I didn’t forget, KeeKee.”

Her father left with Del and Seth, while she was led into an interrogation room by Ryan and Kap. It wasn’t an office, but she didn’t care. She didn’t have anything to hide.

They both waited for her to sit down. Interestingly, Maya had followed them in. Once all of them were sitting, Maya looked from Keely to Ryan, then back to Keely. She surprised Keely by walking to her side and lying down next to her chair.

Ryan’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t say anything.

“So, how can I help?”

He blinked. He really did have the longest eyelashes.

“Okay. Well…”

He seemed a little confused. She looked at Kap. “What about me did you need to know? I assumed that you could find anything about me online or with your supercomputers or whatever.”

“We want to talk to you about an incident a few years ago in San Antonio.”

Flashes of that scary time came to her. That’s the way she always remembered it. She was fourteen and should remember those moments, but they were blurry.

“The Boot Mall.”

“Excuse me?” Kap asked.

“Sorry. There’s this giant boot in front of the mall. I’ve always called it The Boot Mall.”

“What can you tell us about that?”

“Not much. I was with a few of my friends. Jennifer’s mom dropped us off. Luna’s mom was going to pick us up. We did stuff like that all the time.”

“But you felt off?”

“Not at first. At first, we were having a blast.” She smiled as that memory came back to her.

“We were really having such a good time. Shopping—mostly window shopping—and eating. That’s what did me in.

We went to have a snack, and something just felt off after that.

I didn’t want to ruin everyone else’s day, so I called my mom.

I told them I would just wait for my mom outside and then… ”

She blinked.

“And then?” Ryan asked, his voice gentle.

She shook her head. “Nothing. It’s all kind of blurry. Like I can remember something…but it’s all foggy.”

The agents shared a look.

“What?” She sighed. “It was years ago. What does this have to do with what happened Saturday night?”

Ryan opened a folder. “Do you know any of these people?”

She looked through the photographs. They all looked like teenagers.

“No.”

“All of these kids were kidnapped in the eighteen months leading up to your incident.”

“What?”

“They were all kidnapped from malls.”

She looked down at the pictures. “They all made it home?”

“Yes, because their parents paid a massive ransom.”

She looked up. “There was no ransom demand. If it wasn’t for the security guard, I might have been wandering around forever.”

“This guard, where did he find you?”

“He said he found me wandering around in an office area. You know that a lot of malls have their offices in the bowels of the mall, wherever they can fit them, right? It was also restricted, he said.”

“You don’t remember him finding you?” Kap asked.

She shook her head. “As I said, lots of fuzziness. It’s why the cops were convinced I was making it up or was on drugs or whatever.”

“And you were found pretty fast, right?”

She nodded. “Please, tell me what this is about.”

Just then, she felt Maya brush up against her chair, so Keely reached down to slip her hand through her fur.

“These kidnappings were happening all over the south for eighteen months. All of the kids came from families with money, and all of them were taken from malls.”

“Those that you know about.”

Again, the men shared a look.

“Look, I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but when something like this happens, wealthy people don’t always call the police. They hire their own people. They do their own negotiations. So there might be more.”

“You know this for a fact?” Kap asked carefully.

“Well, not personally, but they had it on Task Force Honolulu last week, and that’s what they said. I know that it’s just a show, but it has to be based in reality a little bit, right?”

“They do a lot of research, but they do have to worry about being entertaining,” Kap said.

“Oh,” she said, her voice deflating a little. “That makes sense.”

“Jakob Wulf did come here to follow us around for a week. Well, not us. Alpha,” Kap said.

She looked at Ryan. “You met Jakob Wulf?”

He nodded, trying to ignore the twist in his gut. Why was he irritated with the way she said Jakob Wulf’s name? It was all breathless, and he did not like it one bit.

“So, let’s talk more about Saturday night. I know you’ve been over this several times.”

“Yes, I have, but I will go over it as many times as you need.”

“Okay, so, start at the beginning of the day.”

He had planned everything so perfectly, but one thing had gone wrong.

Once again, he had underestimated Keely.

He rolled his shoulders and leaned on the doorbell.

He glanced down the street, happy to note no one was out.

When he’d picked the house, he made sure to snap up all the other houses on the cul-de-sac.

When no one came to the door, he started to pound. Finally, the door swung open, revealing Henry Chang.

“You said she would be there.”

He said nothing because they had had this conversation the night of the attack. He looked at the first asshole he’d hired. Rage slipped through his blood, but he kept it controlled.

“She was. You were late showing up. Then, you couldn’t find her. How hard is it to find one little woman? How about you let me in, so the neighbors don’t hear us?”

Chang grunted, then walked away from the door. The man had no manners. He stepped inside the house and closed the door behind him as quietly as possible. To resolve this situation, he needed to deal with Chang first. Then he would address the other two idiots.

Henry flopped down on the large white sectional as if he were entertaining a friend.

One thing Chang should learn is that they would never be friends.

The place was a fucking mess with cocaine scattered across the glass coffee table.

He would have never hired Chang if he had known the man was a coke fiend.

He had seen how the drug had torn apart some of his organization back in the day.

Granted, it was one of the things he used as leverage to take over the cartel.

It was also one of the reasons he would never touch any kind of substance like that—even alcohol.

The fact that this idiot fucked up his plan…it took all of his control not to beat the living hell out of him.

“Are Tony and Freddy around?”

“Yeah. They’re upstairs.” His eyes narrowed. “You look like shit.”

“Alone?”

“What?”

“Are the other two alone?”

“Yes. Why the fuck should that matter?”

See. Sloppy. “I wouldn’t discuss how you fucked up my plan. You know, the one I had perfected.”

“You know that she was taking a break outside. We didn’t know that.

“You promised me that the three of you could do your job. That you would contain the woman so that I could get her.”

Henry lifted his chin. Jesus, he should have taken care of this situation on his own. He thought it might be best to be hands-off. He had a fall guy lined up and ready to take the fall. Then this shit.

“We did our job. The woman wasn’t in the house. What about the guy?”

He knew Chang was trying to distract him. It wouldn’t work.

“Don’t worry. I have him tucked away safe, where no one will find him.”

The funny thing was, these people thought he was a pushover. Just some rich guy with money. He did have money, but he wasn’t nice. He wasn’t a pushover. He was fucking death.

“We can still get her.”

There was no we left. But he gave nothing away.

Despite this fuck up, Henry Chang was a lethal man.

He was good at killing, and only a stupid man would be too arrogant to take Chang seriously.

He was a threat. But one thing he was good at was eliminating threats.

It was how he ended up on top of the cartel.

“True,” he said carefully as he walked over to Chang, keeping a close eye on the other man’s hands. “But how would you do that? You and your friends fucked it up so much the first time, how can you be sure you can do this right this time around?”

“Just like I said before. We should have taken her from her house.”

He sighed. God save him from arrogant men who think because they’re evil, they are smart.

Chang leaned forward to take another hit of coke, and he knew this was the best time to surprise the bastard. Stepping closer, he pulled out the gun he’d secured behind his back. It was already equipped with a silencer. As Chang sat back up, he raised the gun.

“And I said that was a dumbass plan,” he said, pulling the trigger. Henry fell back against the white leather, blood splattered.

With a shrug, he turned and headed upstairs. It was time to take care of the other two. That way, Task Force Hawaii would be chasing their tails as they tried to figure out just what the fuck was going on. And he would be able to get to Keely. Finally.