Chapter Eight
Samuel
A week earlier
Samuel shoved the box of ammo in his pocket, checked the Glock once more and put it in the back of his waistband. He was going to find Camila. He looked at Morganna and his sister.
“I’ll find her, I’ll bring her home, Morganna.”
Morganna approached him cautiously and reached for his arm. “I know how you feel, Samuel. She’s my daughter. If I thought going off half-cocked without a real direction would bring her home any sooner, I would be out that door. But just knowing he took her ‘Upstate’ somewhere, doesn’t really give us where she is. We need to be smart about this. Call you officer buddy, tell them what you’ve found out. Let them do their job. When we have more information, then we can move.” Morganna gave him a hard look. “Be smart, wait. Because if you get my daughter killed, I will never forgive you. And do not doubt for a second that I would allow that to go unpunished.”
The muscle in Samuel’s jaw ticked. He knew she was right. ‘Upstate’ really consisted of a whole hell of a lot of territory. He rolled his neck and nodded. “Fine. We’ll do this your way. For now.”
* * *
Samuel slammeddown the phone in his study, not caring that he might have possibly broken it. It wasn’t his cell phone, at least. He pulled that out of his pocket and checked to see if he had any updates.
He had gone past impatient a while ago. Instead of just letting others go out to look for Camila while he sat at home, he was out every day himself, looking for clues. Chasing leads. Not that he let Morganna and Bri know that. If he were to find them, he knew he’d kill Adrien without a second thought. He’d do just about anything to have Camila back with him.
Knowing the general direction Adrien could have gone in was incredibly useful, but it had its drawbacks. The territory was too big for the state police to cover, they couldn’t all go out to look for Adrien, they had other crime to deal with in the city. And it wasn’t as if they could go to every home along every road to ask if anyone had seen his psychotic brother. Plus, knowing how dangerous Adrien had become, if any of those people had seen him, they’d probably be dead and that would have been big news. He could see the headlines now… Serial Killer on the loose in Upstate New York. That hadn’t occurred, so he was pretty sure his brother had made it to where ever he’d planned to go. The problem was, he had no idea where that could be.
He had men on every property he’d found in both Adrien’s name and his own, a few that he hadn’t even known about! His brother had been a busy little shit while he’d been in the Army. Setting up properties all over the country. His stomach had turned when he’d found the loft in the city with an entire BDSM playset set up in it. Grey’s Red Room on steroids, according to one of the mercs who’d located it.
The lawsuit from the coffee shop waitress now made more sense. He’d had his lawyers pay her off, but he’d always wondered about the details in the lawsuit. He had thought she’d exaggerated the extent if Adrien’s depravity. Apparently, she hadn’t. It frightened him to think Adrien was doing some of that sick shit to Camila.
Keiko, her name had been. He recalled she was a tiny little woman, Asian, Japanese, if he remembered correctly. There had been pictures of the scarring Adrien had left on her backside, but he hadn’t taken the time to look at them. He’d just cleaned up the mess. He should have done more. He should have had Adrien committed instead of just making sure he’d gone back on his meds.
His psychiatrist had assured him that all Adrien needed were the meds and an appointment with him once a week. He should have known the minute he left his guard down, Adrien would return to his previous behavior. This was entirely his fault.
No, this is Adrien’s fault.He knew enough to put the blame squarely where it should be. Blaming himself wasn’t what was needed. Because if he blamed himself, he’d take the punishment and it wouldn’t be on Adrien’s head. Which was where it needed to be.
It worried him that it had been weeks already. If someone really had seen something, wouldn’t they have reported it by now? Or even if they chose not to, it might be too late to do a thing about it. Samuel knew his brother wasn’t stupid, he wouldn’t bring too much attention to himself with people currently after him.
So, Samuel figured that his brother was hiding out in some isolated area. Homes, they couldn’t check one by one. Even if they did, there were too many in too many directions. He had the man power, but without an idea of where Upstate Adrien had gone, it was pointless. The police wouldn’t mobilize even close to half of their team to go look either, since their people were still needed to in the city. Without going public, he was stuck. He couldn’t ask people for help in looking for Adrien, because they’d ‘find’ Samuel and then it would be a big cluster fuck. Being a twin sucked.
“Things can't keep going like this,” he growled to himself. He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. It had been too long since Adrien had run off with Camila. He could only hope that she was still alive, still okay, but without seeing it, he couldn’t help but worry. He knew it was the same for Morgana and Brianna.
Samuel felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and he pulled it out quickly. It was Chris, one of the mercs who’d given him the ‘Upstate’ lead. Samuel hoped that Chris actually had some news. He answered the call quickly and put it to his ear.
“I’m listening. What have you got?”
He silently prayed they had found more clues. Since Chris and Brandon were the first to have an idea of where Adrien might have gone after he took Camila, Samuel was inclined to trust them more. Not to mention the hefty bonuses he’d already paid out to the both of them.
“We’re not sure. It’s a possible lead though. Or might be. We believe your brother must have had outside contacts. Not just the ones who helped him escape, or he wouldn’t have gotten away with the kidnapping. According to Jacobs, the police didn’t notify anyone about sending a unit to protect your house. There was no internal order, just a verbal one that Jacobs gave to the patrol unit off radio. Also, Adrien knew to find the young woman at your estate. So he likely knew she wasn’t staying in her own home. We believe it’s possible Adrien has people keeping an eye out for him.”
“Still?” Samuel frowned. “You think he’s still having us watched?”
“It’s possible.”
“Okay, so how does this get us closer to finding out where he’s hiding? We know a general direction, so why are we not just going door to door?” Samuel suggested, even knowing it was not the smartest plan.
“Because, as you know, sir, there is too much territory to cover that way. Even the police aren’t having any luck with the search. Looking for his people isn’t much easier, since it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack, but we think we can track them down a lot faster. And if we can find someone who knows something, knows Adrien’s plan, we can… encourage… them tell us where he went with the girl.”
Samuel flattened his lips. He knew it wasn’t easy. The police weren’t actually incompetent; they were doing everything they could through legal channels. If Adrien was anywhere to be found, people would have noticed. Finding him would have been easy once they knew where he was going. The problem was that Adrien had been prepared and had chosen his playground all too well.
Depending on where he had decided to hide himself, Samuel knew they would find him, sure, but would it be in time to save Camila? Or would their searching give Adrien enough time to plan and plot his next move.
And there was always the possibility that they would make the wrong call and tip him off. Samuel sighed, his thoughts a mess in his head. Maybe Adrien didn’t actually stop anywhere in Upstate New York, maybe he kept going, driving up into Canada or further north in the States, since he probably didn’t have his passport with him. Maybe. Samuel frowned. Adrien wouldn’t have gone through an airport or anything public, would he? He had a hostage with him. He’d try to be more careful. Just careful enough not to get caught.