Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
And when he picked it up, he let out a small groan. It was shattered and obviously broken, but when he pressed a button, he saw his own name glitching on the screen. She’d been texting him. Right here, right in this spot. What happened?
Cami speaks of you like the hero you are.
He jogged around the pool and did a three-minute search of the grounds. He refused to think about the last time he’d been there.
The house was locked up, and he could have broken a window, but in a neighborhood like this, the police would be there in a heartbeat. And then he’d be detained.
Hell, he could be on a security system right now. The cops might already be on their way. They’d understand why he was here when they questioned him. But he didn’t have time for that.
He stood there for less than the count of two, something occurring to him as he rushed back to Cami’s vehicle. The driver’s door was unlocked, and he leaned in and opened her glove box. When he found it mostly empty, he did a quick search of the entire vehicle. No purse.
He closed up her car and then headed back to his truck. He had one possible option as far as finding her, but he was worried it’d take too long.
God, it might take too long.
Chapter Fifty-Four
Cami pulled uselessly against the rope at her waist, tying her to the wooden chair in an upper office where she was being held. Her hands and feet were still zip-tied, and the chair itself was tied to a large credenza. And she was positioned several feet back, but directly in front of the tinted window that overlooked Hollis’s rally.
She’d strained against the heavy piece of furniture at first, but her muscles had still been weakened and were mostly useless, and all she’d succeeded in doing was giving herself rope burn. She’d regained some strength over the last hour or so but still was nowhere near top form.
The “morally gray employee” Seraphina had apparently bribed had carried her here, a mask on his face like the criminals who’d once terrorized her. She’d attempted to talk to him, but he’d ignored her pleas. They’d traveled up the back steps of what seemed like an empty, after-hours building and to this room across the street and facing a stage where Hollis spoke in front of a gathered crowd. The jumbotrons on each side of the platform ensured she could see him clearly, even from this distance. They desired Hollis’s impending power to be her final view, apparently. They’d positioned her here, very literally a captive audience.
There had been a video of Hollis shaking hands and holding babies across Virginia, and a few other speakers, and a singer with a guitar who’d performed a country song, and then Hollis had taken the microphone.
She could practically see the media swooning. She could feel the energy of the crowd, even from this perch. They were deeply inspired. They couldn’t wait to vote for him.
And all Cami could do was scream.
But no one could hear her, not above the loudspeaker outside or the cheering throng.
A familiar figure parted the crowd, moving through, in the opposite direction of the stage. Oh my God. Is it . . . Cami’s heart nearly beat out of her chest when she saw Rex in the midst of the rally-goers, facing the window where she was. Rex. Rex. Oh my God.
“Rex!” she screamed. Oh God. Oh God, he’s right there. He’s here. How is he here? Her heart felt like it might explode, her desperation skyrocketing at the sight of him. She could only see him enough to know that he was weaving his way through the people, his head moving in all directions.
You’re looking for me. You know I’m here.
But how would he find her? There were tall outdoor lights illuminating the stage where Hollis was speaking, and the crowd in front of it, but this building, and the room she was in, were dark, the windows tinted. Even if Rex looked up, he wouldn’t be able to see her. And Hollis’s rally was wrapping up. Behind the area where Rex was moving, Hollis’s face filled the gargantuan screens, his grin as bright as the spotlights surrounding him.
She might soon be killed by Seraphina or Hollis, or Mrs. Barclay or some hired “fixer” less than a hundred feet from Rex, and he’d never know.
No. No.
The mere idea made the vision of Mrs. Willoughby in her garden just outside the window streak through Cami’s mind.
And it gave her an idea.
Her head whipped to the right, where there was a cheap standing lamp situated against the wall. When she’d first noticed it in the mostly empty room, she’d dismissed it as a weapon or a way to cut the ties at her hands. But it might help her in another way.