Free The Fourth Victim by Tara Taylor Quinn Page A

risk.”
    â€œWhat could you have told her?”
    â€œNothing. I’ve already given up everything I have, which is why I thought the past was behind me. But if they’ve determined that she could have information that puts them at risk, then they’re going to do whatever it takes to get it out of her.”
    â€œAnd if she tells them she knows nothing?”
    â€œThey aren’t even going to ask her at first. You don’t get your best answers when someone is fully cognitive and functioning at their best. Even when they’re initially scared. They’ll weaken her, physically and mentally, and then they’ll start to question her.”
    Clay got the picture, but asked, anyway. “And if—when—she has nothing to give them?”
    â€œThey’ll keep her alive a little longer. But they’ll step up their attempts to get her to talk. When they’re convinced she knows nothing, she’ll be killed.”
    â€œWe’ve had a ransom call.” Didn’t sound like the people Rick Thomas had dealt with would need extra cash.
    â€œCould be to throw you off track. Or it could be that your kidnappers have nothing to do with me. I’ll pray for the latter.”
    Clay would, too. Meanwhile… “Tell me about this Segura guy.”
    â€œHe’s into illegal arms. He runs things from an island off Costa Rica. He’s got at least eight men that I know of who could get Kelly Chapman out of the country without a trace.”
    Thomas named the men. Clay wrote.
    â€œSegura’s business was brought down by my team, but he walked away because he had a government contact. Since then, he’s built the business back up bigger thanever. The guy we know he was working with is dead, but we could never be sure if there was only one government man involved. We are certain there was a mole in the DOD. Whether it’s the man who died or not is anybody’s guess. All intelligence has gone dark on this one.”
    Scribbling the name of the dead man—a U.S. career military official—Clay rapidly wrote down other details from Rick Thomas’s covert life as the man dictated them and then, thanking Thomas, Clay destroyed the phone as he’d been instructed and tossed the remains in a trash bin on the way back to his car.
    He had more leads than he had time to follow.
    And only one question at the moment.
    How the hell was he going to bring one woman out of this clusterfuck alive?
    Â 
    â€œYou look good, Mags. Nice. No makeup. Your hair in a ponytail. I like the sweater. It matches your jeans. Are they new?”
    â€œThe sweater is,” Maggie said, ashamed. Mom would feel bad that someone else was buying Maggie nice things when she couldn’t ever have. Maggie’d thought about not wearing the soft pink pullover. But Kelly said the new sweater brought out the light streaks in Maggie’s hair and complemented the deep brown of her eyes. Besides, it was Kelly’s favorite and right now, with Kelly missing, Maggie just had to wear the sweater.
    The jeans were new, too. Just not as new. And Maggie had paid for them with money she’d saved from the paper route she’d had over the summer. Money she’d saved in the account Mom had helped her open.
    â€œThey said you asked to see me,” Mom told her now, her eyes all warm and soft-looking, like she got when Maggie had a bad dream or had cramps or was puking or something. It was the Mom she loved more than anything. And missed so much she hurt thinking about it.
    Which was why she tried not to think about Mom too much. Or about what Mom had done.
    Some days it all still seemed like a huge mistake. Someone was wrong. Except that Mom had written it all down. She’d pled guilty so there wasn’t even a trial.
    And she was in here, sitting at the stupid, old, scarred, dirty table wearing an orange suit thing that didn’t look good on her at all.
    â€œMags?