“Stuffy old white men,” Steve said. Then he laughed. “That’s according to Melinda.”
“Right, and how long have you known her?”
“Five years,” he said. “My brother was on a mission in Afghanistan and got his foot blown off. I met her through his treatments and the process of getting back on his feet with some state-of-the-art technology. He was part of a military program, testing out new stuff for Melinda’s company.”
“So Trident has defense contracts?”
“No, they have military contracts,” he corrected. “Nothing defense-related about it.”
“Ah,” Gavin said. “Interesting. So keep talking. What do we need to know?”
Steve filled him in on what he knew about the family, but it was all cursory boyfriend and peripheral stuff.
“Enemies?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Corporate enemies?”
At that, Steve shrugged. “A couple competing companies, sure.”
“Anybody competing for the same contract?”
“Not that I know of.”
“We need to find out,” Gavin said, looking at Shane, who was busy texting and sending messages. He nodded at his partner, then turned to Steve again. “Does anybody have a line on the men who grabbed them off the street?”
“No. We initially thought it might have been a terrorist group. But nobody’s recognized them.”
“Ransom note?”
“Nothing,” he said. “And no one has claimed responsibility either.”
“Which a terrorist group definitely would have. But, in this case, we’d also have bodies to show for it,” Shane chimed in.
“So, a private problem then?” Gavin asked Steve.
“It’s possible. The father has a brother, and the mother has two sisters. They’re all friendly enough. I can’t see anybody kidnapping them over something personal.”
“So, you are the fiancé of the one woman, but what about the other woman, Rosalina?” Gavin asked. “What about her relationships?”
“She was married to a doctor for a couple years. They divorced. She’s been single ever since,” Steve replied.
“Amicably divorced?”
“I believe so,” he said. “The ex-husband remarried and has a two-year-old.”
“So not still longing for her?”
“No. The divorce itself was a bit difficult, as I think all divorces are wont to be, but there didn’t appear to be any lasting impact.”
“Interesting,” Gavin said. “Are they designing anything new? Anything different or unique? Do they have a million patents pending on something that the world really wants and that people are trying to get their hands on?”
“Not a million, but they do have over a dozen patents pending,” Steve confirmed.
“That’s fairly standard for any R&D company,” Gavin said.
“They don’t believe corporate espionage or anything along those lines is a part of this,” Steve told them.
“They?” Gavin pounced. “Who is they?”
“The police,” Steve said. “I’m in contact with them because I’m related, of course, as Melinda’s fiancé.” With that, his voice dropped. “Jesus Christ, I hope you can find them.”
“We’ll find them,” Gavin promised, with a long exhale. “I just can’t guarantee what shape they’ll be in.”
Rosalina Rennert woke up and looked around the small room she was in. She was seated on a chair, her hands tied behind her back, and both her feet were tied to one leg of the chair. Her sister faced her from across the table. The two of them stared at each other, wide-eyed and terrified. No sign of their parents. Rosalina wasn’t gagged; her sister was.
“I have no clue what’s going on here,” Rosalina whispered. “Do you?”
Her sister shook her head emphatically.
“Have you been threatened or blackmailed?”
Her sister shook her head again.
Rosalina closed her eyes, trying to think. She knew she had a lot of brainpower, but this kind of stuff was beyond her. She did much better with numbers, equations, formulas. Human machinations and betrayal were beyond her ability to comprehend. She liked things simple and clear-cut. Not this bullshit.
If the kidnappers had wanted something from them, why hadn’t they just said so? Instead, the two of them were sitting in this room for hours now. Her parents’ safety worried her the most. They were older, and her dad already had a bit of a sticky ticker. Not good. Stress was something he was told to avoid.
That was a joke. This trip to Hawaii was supposed to be a chance for the family to reconnect after the diagnosis on his heart condition. Her father, being a little bit more solemn these days, had decided it was time to cut back. And look what happened. They all decided to cut back and to take a holiday to bond as a family; instead Melinda had been separated from her fiancé and her children, kidnapped along with Rosalina and their parents.
At least their parents had each other, assuming they were even together.
This room was more like a detention center, with cement walls, a table, and a single door. No windows at all. She expected a two-way mirror, but there wasn’t even that.
They had barely arrived in Hawaii and had just started to destress and to spend some time with each other. Rosalina hadn’t really ever connected with Melinda’s kids before, so this was a chance to do that. They were from her previous marriage, though their father hadn’t been in their lives for a couple years now. Rosalina really liked Melinda’s fiancé, Steve, and was happy for her sister and proud of her for starting all over again. It was a really shitty time for something like this kidnapping to happen. But when would be a good time for a kidnapping, right? Though Melinda and Steve had been a couple for five years, they had just recently gotten engaged. Talk about a new beginning getting blown up in their faces.
“Did you recognize anybody?” she asked Melinda.
Again Melinda shook her head.
Rosalina wondered why she hadn’t been gagged, yet Melinda had been. No point in asking, as her sister could only nod or shake her head.
Studying the ties on her ankles, Rosalina noted they were zap straps or zip ties but slightly different. They were effective, and it would be hard to get free, short of cutting them. So she wasn’t going anywhere. She could jump and bounce her chair to maybe free her bound feet from the chair leg, but, even so, the door was probably locked anyway. Groaning, she glanced around and said, “A window would be nice.”
Just the sound of her own voice was helpful, but it wasn’t that helpful. She twisted her hands behind her, noting they were tied together but not tied to the chair. To get free, she realized that she could stand and slide her hands up over the back of the chair, but that wouldn’t help much. Her hands remained tied behind her. She could get them under her butt, in theory, but, with both her legs tied to one of the chair legs, that additional maneuver wouldn’t help her further.
Then she stared at her legs tied to the one chair leg and laughed. Now that she had her hands behind her back, she sat on her palms immediately and slid them through to the back of her knees, and then, in a swift movement, dumped her and her chair backward, then slid her feet and the ties on them down and over the chair’s leg. They were tapered, so it got easier as it went down.