One Good Reason (A Boston Love Story Book 3) (25 page)

“I don’t like it,” Parker growls. “This crowd is ready to combust.”

“I’ll stay with her,” the gym guy assures him. “Bring her right there and straight back. I swear.”

“Honey.” I reach up and brush my lips against Parker’s. “Remember that conversation we just had, about not putting me in a cage?”

His eyes flare with frustration and a muscle jumps in his jaw. “You come straight back. You’re not here in my arms in five minutes, I’m coming in after you. I don’t care what ginger boy has to say about it.”

“Ginger boy?” I snort. “I’m totally telling Luca you said that.”

“I don’t give a shit what you tell him.” His mouth crushes mine in a kiss. “Five minutes.”

I nod and pass Lila my beer. “Here. I’m not going to finish this.”

She shrugs and takes a sip. “More for me.”

Parker doesn’t look happy about it, but he lifts me up over the railing with a nod to the bouncers. I wave goodbye to my friends as the attendant leads me around the ring toward the doors where the fighters are waiting in their separate locker rooms, getting geared up. Just before the crowd swallows us, I look back… straight into Parker’s eyes.

I see the worry there, in their depths. But also trust. And maybe, if I look a little deeper, I see love, too.

He loves me
.

I hang onto that feeling as I hurry after the Scythe guy, cutting a path up the fenced-off walkway toward the back rooms and trying to ignore the screaming crowd. We leave behind the mass of fans and step into a secluded hallway, the heavy doors swinging shut behind us with a bang, blocking out the roar.

“Damn, that was loud,” I mutter, ears still ringing. I shake my head to clear them as I follow the man down the hallway. “How do you stand working here, on fight nights? Aren’t you worried you’ll go deaf?” I joke.

The man doesn’t answer; he just keeps walking down the deserted hall.

I’m starting to feel uneasy about this.

“…Or maybe you’re already deaf,” I murmur, eyeing the space around me. There are no locker rooms back here. I stop walking.

“Where’s Luca?” I ask, my pulse picking up speed.

The man turns to me, and I see the remorse on his face a second before I see his fist swinging out to clip me across my temple.

“I’m sorry,” he tells me, a second before his blow makes contact and everything goes black. “I didn’t have a choice. He’s got my family.”

W
hen I wake up
, my wrists are bound with a zip-tie and my head feels like someone used it as the ball in a game of ping pong. There’s also the fact that I’m being carried like a sack of flour over the shoulder of the guy who bashed my brains in.

I’m not sure if it’s the blow to the head or the fact that he’s holding me upside down, but I think I might vomit down his back. Which, seriously, would serve him right. I try to struggle, but none of my limbs are cooperating. The most I can manage is a weak kick against his shins as he hauls me from the backseat of his car across a parking lot. I see cracked asphalt passing beneath his feet and wonder vaguely if there’s a chance this man kidnapped me by accident.

Maybe he was looking for another Zoe.

I’ve never even seen this guy before. Who would possibly arrange for me to be accosted and abducted?

Lancaster
.

The thought creeps into the back of my mind and lodges there, until it’s unshakably entrenched.

But he’s in jail
, a voice of reason reminds me.
There’s no way he’s behind this.

My foggy theories don’t matter, because we’re suddenly moving up a set of dilapidated stairs and into what looks like an old office building, judging by the stained beige carpet. My head jostles roughly as he carries me through the space, and nausea stirs to life in my gut again.

I’m definitely going to puke
.

Unfortunately, before I manage to vomit on him, my captor bends forward and deposits me on a stainless steel table, the kind you find bolted to the floor in a crappy doctor’s clinic. Grunting in pain as he drops me, I fall to my side on the cold table, unable to keep myself upright with my head spinning.

He hit me really fucking hard, the bastard.

“Why are you doing this?” I moan as the man stares at me, both hands fisted in his hair. He looks more distressed than I feel, which is really saying something.

“I didn’t have a choice.” The man swallows nervously. “I’m just a part-time worker at Scythe. I don’t even usually work on fight nights. But this guy… he showed up in my fucking house last night.” He swallows again, Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “I have a wife. I have a three-year-old son. He said if I didn’t help him…”

I try to breathe. “Who? Who are you talking about?”

“I don’t know his name, okay? All I know is, he said I had to go to the fight, somehow get you away from the crowd, and bring you here.” He leans back against the opposite wall. “And if I did that, he’d let my family go.”

“Call the police,” I hiss, struggling into an upright position.

“I’m not putting my family in danger.” He runs his hands through his hair, breathing heavily. The whites of his eyes flash as he looks around the run-down doctor’s office. It’s clear he’s spiraling quickly into panic. The guilt and the worry are eating away at him. He’s probably not a bad guy, under normal circumstances.

Considering nothing about this circumstance is normal, it’s safe to say he’s not exactly my favorite human on earth, right now.

“What’s your name?” I ask.

He glances at me, wild-eyed. “Steve.”

“Untie me, Steve,” I beg. “You’ve got the wrong girl. I don’t know who the hell would want you to bring me here. I don’t have anything to do with this… this… whatever this is.”

He freezes. “You’re Zoe Bloom, right? He said you’d be near the front, surrounded by those big guys. Blonde. Petite. You fit the description perfectly.”

My forehead wrinkles. I lean back against the wall, feeling dizzy again. “This doesn’t make sense,” I whisper, more to myself than to him. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Oh, but you did.” The man’s voice slithers in from the doorway like a snake, dripping venom.

I go still as my eyes move to take him in… and gasp when I realize exactly who brought me here.

Doctor Charles Birkin.

H
e’s more disheveled
than his picture in the Lancaster Consolidated staff directory — gone is his tie, his crisp white physician’s coat. His hair looks dirty and overgrown. His clothes are stained and ill-fitting, as though he’s lost weight too rapidly to replace them.

It’s clear even before he enters the room that he’s on drugs. Junkies have a particular look — flushed, fidgety, covered in a faint sheen of sweat. Their eyes are always a little too wide, their moments a little too jagged.

“Zoe Bloom!” Birkin claps his hands as he steps toward me. “Let’s have a round of applause, shall we?” He looks at Steve. “Why aren’t you clapping?”

Steve’s hands curl into fists and he swallows. “I did what you said. Brought her here. Tell me where my family is.”

“Oh, Steve.” Birkin shakes his head and walks toward him, hands in his pockets. “Of course. You did a great job.”

Steve flinches as the doctor comes closer. “Just tell me.”

“Sure, sure.” Birkin stops less than a foot from the man, who’s practically shaking he’s so overwhelmed. “They’re…”

The doctor’s voice lowers; Steve leans in slightly to catch his words, his neck extending like a turtle poking out of its shell. Before he can move, Birkin whips his hand out of his right pocket and jabs a needle straight into Steve’s jugular.

I swallow a scream as I watch his eyes roll back in his head and his legs give out beneath him. Birkin laughs crazily as the big man crumples like a paper doll in the rain.

“Thanks for your help, Steve.” He shakes his head and turns back to me, grinning widely. “What a great guy.”

My heart is pounding; my eyes are locked on the empty hypodermic needle in Birkin’s hand. “Is… is he…” I swallow. “Is he dead?”

Birkin laughs again. “Of course not! What, do you think I’m some kind of monster?”

I don’t answer. Because
obviously
I think he’s a fucking monster, but I’m really not keen on having a needle shoved in my carotid anytime soon.

He takes a jerky step toward me. “Just a sedative; he should wake up in a few hours. I don’t kill innocent people.”

That’s good news.

“Then, please, let me go,” I whisper.

“But, Zoe…” He makes a
tsk
noise. “You aren’t innocent.” I watch his hands pull back on the end of the needle a bit, so the tube fills with air. “Do you know what happens to the human body when you push an air bubble into a vein?”

Shit, fuck, damn.

My heart pounds harder.

“The medical term for it is an
air embolism.
Fancy name for a bubble, in my opinion. Then again, given that such a little bubble can do such amazing things… like travel to your heart or your brain, block the blood flow until you slowly lose consciousness and die… I suppose it deserves some elaborate terminology. Don’t you agree?”

He takes a step closer, rolling the needle between his fingers.

“Please,” I whisper, trying not to panic. “Please, you’ve got the wrong person. I didn’t do anything to you.”

“Well, now, that’s just patently untrue, Zoe.” He frowns at me. “I got a very interesting phone call from Robert Lancaster’s Head of Security a few days ago! Mr. Linus – I believe you’ve met him. Not the friendliest man I’ve ever encountered, I’ll say that much.” His eyes narrow. “Want to take a guess where he was calling me from? I’ll give you a hint: it wasn’t his beach house in Palm Springs.”

I drag in a shaky breath.

“Seems some people at the FBI had some questions for him. Questions about
me
. And the health of our employees.” He leans closer and I try not to show how much fear his proximity inspires. It takes all my self control not to squeeze my eyes shut.

“You can imagine, he wasn’t very happy.” Birkin’s pupils are constricted to pinpricks; a surefire sign he’s high out of his mind. “He told me all about you, and your little investigation. And then he told me it was
my
fault for keeping those medical records saved to the company network. He told me to
fix
it.”

I swallow, still watching the needle in his hand.

“So, Zoe, here I am.” He comes closer; I can feel his rancid breath on my face when he speaks again. “You and I are going to have a little chat about what you gave the FBI. And then you’re going to do what you do best.”

My heart is pounding so hard I’m worried it’ll give out. “What? What do you want me to do?”

He makes a disappointed face. “And here I thought you were supposed to be clever.” He shakes his head. “You’re going to hack their servers and erase all the evidence you gave them. No evidence means no trial. No trial means no jail time for me or Lancaster or Linus.”

He’s nuts. Certifiably insane. Unfortunately, I don’t think pointing that out at this moment is going to do me any favors.

“And, if you do it all perfectly…” Birkin’s hand reaches out to stroke my face; I feel the side of the plastic needle pressing against my skin and tears of horror fill my eyes despite my best efforts. “…Then maybe I’ll let you go.”

I don’t dare to breathe with the tip of his needle so close to my eye socket.

“Oh, don’t cry, Zoe!” Laughing, he stumbles backward a few steps. “We’re going to fix everything.” He tilts his head. “Well…
you’re
going to fix everything.” His grin is manic. “Because, if you don’t, I’m going to kill you.”

I swallow hard.

Fuck
.

B
irkin tows
me by my bound hands like a dog on a leash, leading me through the abandoned offices using his cellphone as a flashlight. The power was cut in this building a long, long time ago. We step over piles of trash and medical waste, around discarded particle-board furniture and past broken light fixtures.

“This used to be a nice place, you know,” he says conversationally. “I had a successful practice. A loving family. A good life.”

“What happened?” I ask quietly.

He goes silent.

“Drugs,” I guess.

He jolts to a stop and looks back at me with his unfocused eyes. His fist tightens on the needle in his hand. “You don’t know. You don’t know anything about it.”

I press my lips together. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

He nods and continues pulling me down the hallway. Eventually, we reach an office. There’s a crappy laptop sitting on the dust-covered desk. Birkin pushes me toward it with an angry shove.

“Fix it, little hacker girl.”

I stare from him to the laptop.

I couldn’t hack a Girl Scout Troop blog with that piece of crap.

Am I going to tell him that?

Hell to the no.

If I can get online, maybe I can somehow call for help.

“Can you unbind my hands?” I lift my chafed wrists, bloody from the zip-tie’s sharp edges. “I won’t be able to type like this.”

He stares at me flatly. “You’ll manage.”

Thinking it’s probably best not to argue with the crazy, needle-wielding drug addict, I nod and walk toward the chair, trying not to sway. My head still feels foggy from Steve’s punch; I wonder if I might have a concussion as I settle onto a creaky, springless chair.

“This is going to take a while,” I warn, trying to buy myself some time.

He leans back against the wall and glares at me. “You have an hour.”

It takes all my energy to keep my face from reacting. Even with a super-computer, I couldn’t hack the FBI in under an hour. His demands just show how out of touch with reality he’s become, addled by morphine and god only knows what else.

That actually works in my favor.

“Okay,” I say in what I hope is an agreeable tone. “I’ll do my best.”

He nods. “Don’t try anything stupid. I’m watching every keystroke. You try to call for help, I’ll kill you before they ever get here.” The look in his eyes tells me he means every word.

I take a deep breath.

So
…

All I have to do is figure out a way to call for help while making it look like I’m hacking into a government agency on a computer so crappy, I’m surprised it’s able to piggyback off the weak WiFi signal Birkin’s iPhone is broadcasting, without alerting the drug-addled madman watching my every move.

Simple
.

Right?

Mind reeling, I turn to the computer, prop my bleeding wrists against the edge of the dirty desk, and get to work.

“
T
his is taking too long
,” Birkin says for the tenth time.

He’s getting twitchier by the minute; either he’s coming down from his high, or he’s starting to get suspicious that I am not, in fact, halfway through my hack into the FBI’s secure servers, as I assured him five minutes ago.

“Almost done,” I say, fingers typing nonsense into the terminal window. I figure so long as it at least
looks
like something out of the movies — green code on a black background, lots of complex number sequences — he won’t know the difference. But if he’s coming down from his high…

He might start paying better attention.

He might realize I’m lying through my teeth.

He might jab that air-filled needle into my neck.

I blink back tears as my fingers move, trying to push the thoughts away. If I can just stall a little while longer, until they get here…

“How much longer?” Birkin appears at my side, looking sweaty and feverish. His pupils are slightly more dilated.

“I’m almost inside their network,” I assure him. “Should only be a few more minutes.”

Where the hell are they? Come on, come on, come on.

A feeling of dread stirs inside my stomach.

What if they didn’t get my message? What if they couldn’t figure it out? What if I made a huge mistake, not just calling the police?

I fight back a shiver of panic. My fingers tremble against the keys as blood drips onto the desk, my raw wrists weeping steadily until the wood surface is slippery and red in the low light of the office. Only the glow of the laptop illuminates the space.

Birkin is unstable. That much is clear. If a team of policemen pull up outside with flashing lights and sirens, I’ll be dead before they make it to the front door.

No way in hell am I taking that chance.

Plus, it’s not exactly like I can call 911 and ask for assistance without him noticing.

I can, however, access his iPhone.

With the laptop piggybacking on his satellite signal for WiFi coverage, I’m already connected. Once I realized that, I knew I could send a text right from the computer. I could reach out to Parker and Nate. The only question was… what the hell kind of message does one send, in this scenario?

Writing something obvious like, “Help! Birkin has me tied up at his old office and is holding me hostage with a freakishly large needle, come save me ASAP!” basically guarantees my demise if Birkin so much as glances at his phone messages in the time it takes help to get here. He’d instantly know I hacked his phone.

Hello, needle to the neck.

Sending a cryptic message seems even less ideal; sure, in his drug-addled state there’s a chance Birkin wouldn’t realize I was the one sending texts from his phone if they aren’t an overt call for help… but there’s an equal chance that Parker and Nate would have no idea what I was trying to tell them.

Hello, slow and painful death.

In the end, the decision comes down to trust.

Trust that the universe isn’t always out to get me.

Trust that, sometimes, you can count on people.

And, ultimately, trust that Phoebe’s unfailing addiction to all things fashionable will finally serve a purpose other than making her look fabulous.

The message I sent has no words — only an image.

I have to hope it’s enough to lead them to me.

As time ticks by, I feel my blood pressure slowly rising. I can’t stop wondering if I made the right decision.

Of course you didn’t, idiot,
a nasty, doubtful voice whispers.
When Parker gets a text message from a random number with nothing but a picture of a Hermès handbag, he’s going to think it’s a butt-dial and ignore it.

Another voice chimes in.
Don’t worry. That guy you love? He’s pretty smart. He’ll know it’s from you. He’ll figure it out.

“This is taking too fucking long!” Birkin is getting more belligerent with each passing minute. “Why is it taking so long?”

“I’m doing my best.” I try to keep my voice steady as I watch him come closer. “They have a strong firewall. Maybe if you undid my hands I could type faster.”

“Shut up!” He waves the needle closer. “For the last time, I’m not untying your fucking hands, you little bitch.”

I type out a few more strings of nonsense code.

How long has it been since I sent that text?

At least a half hour, maybe more.

Assuming they understood what I was trying to say, it’ll still take time for them to track down possible locations. His house. His old practice. I was unconscious on the ride here, thanks to motherfucking Steve, so I have no idea how long it will take them to find me…

Too long
.

Birkin is itching at his skin like it’s crawling with invisible bugs. He can’t seem to stand still — he’s pacing tight circles behind me, muttering to himself.

“Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up.”

I type faster.

“I don’t think you understand the severity of this situation, Zoe,” he says, putting his face right up next to mine so his breath puffs against my skin. “Lancaster — he owes me money. I need that money to—”

Buy drugs.

“—to get out of here,” he says, eyes flashing. “To get out of this damn city. I can’t stay here anymore. My reputation — Lancaster said he’d give me so much money it wouldn’t matter. But now…” He leans in closer. “You fucking ruined everything. Everything!”

I flinch back as his hands slam against the desk.

“What time is it?” he hisses, reaching into his pocket.

No, no, no, no. Don’t look at your phone.

“Wait!” I yell, voice cracking. “I think— I think I’m about to crack the firewall!”

Birkin is strangely silent.

My fingers stop moving — they hover over the keys, shaking with the effort not to turn and look at him. My legs tense up, poised to run if no other option presents itself. With my hands bound and my head spinning, there’s pretty much no way I’ll outrun him. But I’m sure as shit going to try.