Page 111 of Night Hawk
“Wait,” Toni said. “Why bring me here? Why didn’t you just kill me?”
“You don’t have a clue, do you?”
“Clue about what?”
“Zack Wilshire. The fifteen-year-old boy you put into juvie for bank robbery not more than six months ago. He was innocent. Got shanked in juvie. Died. He was my son.”
Toni had to work hard not to gasp. She remembered the boy. He’d been part of a group of boys who terrorized a local bank clerk and nearly left her for dead.
But she’d said his last name was Wilshire. Could he be Nolan Wilshire’s child? A child no one mentioned until now. Toni had to know. “Nolan Wilshire’s child?”
“You know about him, do you?” A self-satisfied smile crossed Ursula’s lips. “We were lovers once, but he couldn’t handle losing his other children. Didn’t even complain when I left when Zach was a baby. I don’t think to this day he thinks of him as his son. And now he’s gone. So I’ll take your niece as payment. But don’t worry. I’ll let her live. She’ll service my clients for years. Then, who knows. I might let her go.” Ursula laughed and backed out of the room, her gaze wild and unfocused.
Toni suspected she was half mad and half evil. There would be no reasoning with her. She stepped out, and she heard the bar slide into place, and the chain jingling.
Lisa ran to the door and jerked on it. Pushed frantically. It didn’t budge.
“I have to get to Rachel.” Lisa shot a look around the room. There was only one exit and no window. A sob wrenched from her throat, and she fell to her knees on the hard ground. “Oh, God, no. Not Rachel. Please.”
Toni put her hand on Lisa’s shoulder to comfort her.
Lisa jerked back, her gaze that of a captive animal afraid for her life. “Don’t touch me.”
Toni raised her hands and backed off. She needed to get Lisa talking. Maybe then Toni could figure a way out of there. “I can’t believe you’re alive after all these years.”
“I always hoped Dad would find me. He was DEA, after all. But he must’ve given up. Thought I was dead.” She lifted her chin. “Maybe when you were born. He had a replacement. He didn’t need me anymore.”
“No, don’t say that. He never gave up. He died a year ago still trying to find you.”
“Richey showed me his picture in the paper in a story about him being killed, but he wouldn’t let me read the details. And he never told me I had a sister.” She ran her gaze over Toni. “If you’re telling the truth. This could be one of Ursula’s mean jokes. She likes to punish me because Richey took me out of the rooms and made me exclusively his.”
So Hibbard had taken a liking to Lisa. Likely fathered these children. As much as Toni was grossed out by the thought, it was better than years forced to abide the touch of hundreds of men.
None of that mattered anymore. The only important thing was escaping with the girls. “I don’t see a way out of here.”
“There isn’t one. They make sure of that. No windows. No daylight unless we’re chained and cuffed and paraded outside for fresh air so we don’t look so pale.” She shuddered and wrapped her arms around her waist. “And now they’ve taken Rachel.”
“What’s her full name?”
“Rachel Sarah Long, though she has no birth certificate. She’s eleven and Henry David is five. I had her and Henry in places not fit for animals.” She ran a trembling hand over her hair.
“Rachel left her initials on a paper in the high school and at the beach house.”
“She what?” Lisa’s eyes got wide with fear. “If they’d caught her, they would’ve killed her.” She jerked on the door handle again. “Maybe it’s better than what they have planned for her. Oh, God, I have to get to her.”
A hint of smoke snaked into the room. Toni had seen a large firepit in the yard.
“Do you smell that?” Toni asked, trying hard not to panic.
“The firepit,” Lisa said.
Toni looked at the floor. Smoke seeped through the crack.
Toni pointed under the door. “Not with this much smoke. Ursula’s set the building on fire.”
Seemed like fire was Ursula’s thing. She could very well have set the fire at the school and hotel.
Toni had to figure out how to get out alive. How to get a bunch of girls, her sister, and her nephew out before the smoke or flames overcame them all.
