He jumped from the car, looking back only once to see her staring after him, her dark blue eyes wide and wondering.

Lincoln Park, Michigan

Tuesday 4 August, 7.25 P.M.

Drake Connor was tired, hot and hungry. He made his feet walk the last twenty yards to the gas station, which was the first place he’d come to that would have cold drinks and air conditioning. He’d walked miles, sticking to back roads. Lots of grass. Tons of countryside.

He’d stayed off the highway because he wasn’t sure who was looking for him, and he was becoming more cautious by the moment. You mean paranoid? No, because it’s not paranoia when people are actually looking for you. Considering his sister had reported her credit card stolen, she’d be sure to have reported her car stolen too. All he needed was for a local lawman to recognize him from a BOLO.

He was thirsty and starving. He still had the issue of no food or money, but he’d already planned how he’d get around that.

Glad that he’d had the presence of mind to go back to Belle’s car for his ball cap, he pulled the brim down and leaned against the pole holding the gas station sign a good seventy-five feet in the air. He’d seen the sign long before he’d seen the station. Stood to reason it would have a decent amount of traffic, even though it was getting late. He just had to wait for the right vehicle – with the right driver.

A few minutes later, a possible combination pulled up to one of the pumps. A black SUV with tinted glass. A middle-aged woman got out. She wore a business suit with a skinny black skirt that ended below her knees, which would hamper her ability to run from him or fight him. That works. Her shoulders heaved in a weary sigh as she stretched her back. She was tired after her long day. Excellent.

Now if she’d only go into the station’s convenience store after she finished filling her tank, it would be the perfect setup. Drake slid his hand back under his shirt, making sure the handle of his gun was in the optimal position for a quick draw, pulled the brim of his cap low and waited impatiently.

‘Yes,’ he whispered when she put the gas pump away, got her purse and started walking inside. If she’d only left her car unlocked, it would have been an A-plus combo, but she pointed the key fob over her shoulder and locked the doors with a beep before slipping the fob in the pocket of her skirt.

Drake followed her into the station and up to the cashier, grabbing her around the neck when she reached the counter. He pressed the barrel of the Ruger against her throat, yanking her back against him when she tried to struggle.

‘Hands where I can see them,’ he said calmly to the cashier. ‘One false move and I’ll blow a hole in her neck. Open the cash register and put the money in the nice lady’s purse.’ He nudged the gun against the woman’s neck. ‘Open your purse for him, nice lady, and put it on the counter.’

Glaring balefully, the man behind the counter did as he was told, filling the purse with small bills. Drake had timed this well. The lotto numbers were about to be drawn and the Powerball was over fifty million bucks, so everyone had bought tickets on their way home.

‘You little punk,’ the cashier spat, which was funny considering the man was only five-three or so. He was the little one. Not me.

From the corner of his eye, Drake caught a movement in the back hallway where the restrooms were. He didn’t think, he just acted, pointing the gun at the cashier and pulling the trigger. He heard a scream as the man went down.

A crazy lady with a shotgun ran from the back toward him. Panic closed Drake’s throat when he saw her aiming the shotgun at him. He tightened his hold on the hostage, grabbing her purse and backing out of the store, dragging her with him.

‘Put the gun down!’ he yelled at the lady with the rifle. ‘Don’t you fucking move!’

‘Please!’ his hostage cried. ‘Don’t shoot! He’ll kill me.’

‘My husband!’ the shotgun lady screamed. She ran behind the counter and dropped from sight, probably to check on the cashier.

‘Give me your keys and I won’t hurt you,’ Drake said to his hostage. ‘Unlock your car first, then give me the damn keys.’ With any luck it was a smart key and he wouldn’t have to put it in the ignition. The woman in the business suit obeyed, and Drake swallowed his panic, dragging his hostage around the SUV to the driver’s side. He planned to release her and leave her behind when he got in the car, but she began to struggle.

‘No! You’re not taking me!’ She thrashed her body, leaving Drake with no choice. He pushed her to the ground and put a bullet in her head, then jumped in the SUV. He flung the purse with the money on the passenger seat, then started the engine and—

Shit. His gut turned to liquid when he looked in his rear view. The cashier’s wife was running out of the convenience store, aiming the shotgun at the SUV. He floored it, the SUV’s tires squealing as he burned rubber, fishtailing as he sped toward the station’s exit.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Tuesday 4 August, 7.30 P.M.

Scarlett drove a block away from the Ledger building and pulled over again, her heart pounding in her throat. She’d been shaken to the core by her own admission, filled with feelings of guilt and despair as well as grim acceptance of what she’d done, but seeing the panic in Marcus’s eyes . . . He’d been experiencing true fear. For a moment there she thought he was going to be sick.

Willing her hands to be steady, she Googled Matthias Gargano, Lexington, and 1989. She frowned when the top result was an article from a Lexington newspaper. About a funeral.

Oh my God. It was a child’s funeral. ‘Who were you, Matthias Gargano?’ she murmured. But she was afraid she already knew.

She kept reading and found her guess had been right on the mark.

Mourners said their final goodbyes to Matthias Gargano, three-year-old son of George Gargano and Della Yarborough-Gargano, at Trinity Episcopal Church. The victim was survived by his parents, grandparents, and his two brothers, Marcus, age 8, and Montgomery, age 6. The tragic victim of a kidnapping gone wrong will be interred in the Yarborough family crypt in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Scarlett had to steady her breathing. How had she not known about this brother?

‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. Mikhail was not the first child Marcus’s mother had lost to violence. She’d lost Matthias nearly twenty-five years before. ‘That poor woman.’

The next article, from the same Lexington paper, was dated a few days earlier, its headline making her racing heart stop short. ‘GARGANO BOYS HOME SAFE’.

‘Oh no. No, no, no.’ Her stomach twisting into a vicious knot, she read on. The three boys had been kidnapped in a well-orchestrated operation, taken from different places but at the same time. Marcus and Montgomery had been grabbed on their way home from prep school.

Montgomery? That must be Stone, she thought.

The family’s chauffeur had been overpowered, drugged, then ejected from the car. The two boys had been drugged and carried to an abandoned warehouse. Three-year-old Matthias had been taken from his bed during his nap by someone posing as one of a construction crew that had been hired to do repairs on the family’s penthouse.

A ransom of five million dollars had been demanded. Scarlett’s mind spun both at the amount and that Marcus’s parents had been able to produce it in less than twenty-four hours. Disaster had struck, though, when the kidnappers realized the FBI and Lexington PD were on to them. The family had been warned not to involve the authorities, but the boys’ mother had done so. The furious – and panicked – kidnappers shot at all the boys, hitting two, but their third shot missed the oldest.