Free Deadly Lies by Cynthia Eden

and there was agony in his eyes. “I didn’t want to come back to this damn house,” he muttered.
     “Didn’t want to see—”
    “M-Max?” Bleary eyes opened.
    “What’s he on?” Sam demanded. The older man from downstairs had come into the room. He was watching everything, but staying
     back.
    “Sleeping pills,” he told her in that same quiet, calm voice. “He always takes some at night.”
    That’s why the kidnapper called Max and not this Malone. He knew what Malone did every night. Knew that he couldn’t talk with
     them.
    That meant the kidnappers had to possess an intimate connection to the family, one that had allowed them access to this knowledge.
    “You’re his damn doctor, Donnelley,” Max fired at him. “Get Frank up!”
    Donnelley swallowed. “I-I’ll do what I can.”
    Sam kept her hold on Max. His stepfather’s eyes had already closed. She pulled Max back from the bed, tugging hard and curling
     her fingers around him. His body was tense against her.
    A small chime sounded from her purse, a faint vibration of sound.
    Her breath caught.
Oh, hell.
    Max shook his head. “Beth, has anyone been by tonight? Did you—”
    Beth’s hands were balled into fists. “I don’t think so. I was here, but asleep. I didn’t—”
    “What did he say when he called, Max?” Sam cut in.
A message
. He’d mentioned something about getting another message.
    The phone on the nightstand began to ring. Long, hard warbles of sound.
    Frank flinched, and his eyes opened again, but everyone else froze.
    Max exhaled on a hard breath. His gaze was on the phone. “He said they’d be contacting Frank.”
    The phone rang again.
    “They wanted you to get him up,” Sam breathed the words. “They knew, and they wanted—”
    Beth sprang forward and grabbed the phone.
    Max locked his fingers over hers. “No.”
    Another ring.
    “Answer it!” Beth cried.
    Max glared at his stepfather. “Bastard. He
needs
you.” He shook off Beth’s hold and picked up the phone.
    “We’ve got her location,” the cool voice said in Luke’s ear. “She’s at 1000 Rightmont Lane. It’s the home of Frank Malone,
     the guy who—”
    “I know him.” Everyone knew about Fuck ’em Frank Malone. The guy had made his fortune by leveling the small business district
     just outside of D.C. Luke huffed out a breath. “Frank has a son, right?”
    “Right,” Ramirez told him, seeming way too awake for a guy who was still in the office at three a.m. “His son is Quinlan Malone,
     age twenty-three. Until pretty recently, Quinlan was a student at Georgetown.”
    Now they were talking the kidnappers’ type. “Pull up everything you can on the Malones, got me? Everything.” Luke didn’t know
     how Sam had found out about this guy. Usually the SSD found out too late. With the two survivors, they’d only discovered the
     kidnappings
after
the young men were back home.
    But for this case, if he was right, if
she
was right, and they were on this thing from the start—
    We could take the kidnappers down.
    Max’s hands were sweating when he lifted the receiver. “Hello.” Max didn’t identify himself this time. Maybe he was wrong;
     maybe it wasn’t—
    “You moved fast, Ridgeway,” the same low whisper rasped in his ear. “You moved fast, but you can’t get the bastard to wake
     up, can you?”
    “How the hell—”
    “
This is my game,
” the man grated. “
My show
. I’ve known everything about your family for weeks now.
Weeks
.”
    Max’s gaze lifted. Donnelley had Frank sitting up on the bed, and his stepfather blinked owlishly as he struggled through
     the drugs and layers of sleep.
    “If you knew,” Max snapped back, his rage bubbling over, “then why send me here? Why—”
    “Because I had to see if you could follow instructions. You’re the one who’s gonna make the drop, Ridgeway. You’re the one
     that’s gonna save your brother, and I had to be sure I could trust you.”
    A
test.
    “Didn’t want