THE POISONED DRINK WAS ONLY THE BEGINNING: A MOTHER'S ULTIMATE REVENGE

The phone slipped from my fingers, hitting the concrete floor with a sharp crack.

Lena caught my arm before my knees buckled. “Helen? What is it?”

I couldn't speak. I just pointed at the shattered screen.

Lena picked it up. Her professional composure vanished instantly. She pressed a button on her shoulder radio. “Unit 4, secure the safe house! Give me a visual on the boy! Now!”

Static crackled. Then, a frantic voice replied.

“Detective Ortiz... the front door is breached. Two officers down. The boy is gone.”

A sound escaped my throat—a primal, ragged gasp of pure terror. Toby. My sweet, innocent seven-year-old grandson.

Martin began to laugh as the officers dragged him toward the exit. “The deeds, Helen! The cartel doesn't care about my confession! They want their money!”

I lunged at him, but Lena held me back.

“Where did they take him?!” I screamed, my calm facade completely shattered.

“You have twelve hours to transfer the estate funds to the account on that deposit slip,” Martin called over his shoulder. “Or the boy disappears forever.”

The heavy metal doors of the warehouse slammed shut behind him.

I fell against Lena, my vision blurring with tears. “They have him, Lena. They have Toby.”

“We will find him,” Lena said fiercely, grabbing my shoulders and forcing me to look at her. “Helen, look at me. You are the best investigator I have ever known. Do not fall apart now. Your grandson needs you.”

I forced myself to breathe. In. Out. Suppressing the grandmother, awakening the investigator.

I picked up my cracked phone. I looked at the picture again.

“They sent this from a burner phone,” I muttered, my mind racing. “But a photo holds metadata.”

“The cartel strips EXIF data from their photos, Helen,” Lena warned. “We won't get a GPS ping.”

“I don't need a GPS ping,” I said, zooming in on the dark background of the photograph.

Behind Toby’s discarded backpack, slightly out of focus, was a reflection in a glass coffee table. The safe house had a glass table. But the reflection wasn't of the ceiling.

It was the reflection of the person holding the camera.

The lighting was terrible, but I could clearly make out a distinctive, silver-chain necklace with a heavy anchor pendant hanging around the kidnapper's neck.

I stared at it. I had seen that necklace before.

Just two hours ago. At the hospital.

“Lena,” I said, my voice turning into a dangerous hiss. “Who was guarding Evan’s recovery room when we visited him?”

Lena frowned. “Officer Ramirez. Why?”

“Ramirez wears a silver anchor necklace,” I said.

Lena’s eyes widened. “A dirty cop. He leaked the safe house location to the cartel.”

“He didn't just leak it. He took Toby.”

Within twenty minutes, we were speeding back toward the city, sirens blaring. Lena coordinated a silent lockdown of Ramirez’s personal and financial records.

“He badged out of his shift twenty minutes after we left the hospital,” Lena reported from the passenger seat, typing furiously on her laptop. “His personal vehicle is a black SUV. We have traffic cams picking him up heading south on Highway 1.”

“He’s heading for the private airstrips in Half Moon Bay,” I deduced. “The cartel is trying to fly Toby out of the country before the deadline.”

I pressed the accelerator to the floor, the SUV roaring through the night.

We reached the private airstrip just as a small, twin-engine plane was spinning up its propellers on the tarmac.

A black SUV was parked near the wing.

Officer Ramirez was dragging a struggling, crying Toby toward the plane stairs.

I didn't wait for Lena to call for backup. I slammed my car right through the chain-link fence, the metal screeching loudly as we burst onto the tarmac.

I skidded the car to a halt directly in front of the plane, blocking its path.

I kicked my door open, my 9mm drawn and leveled exactly at Ramirez’s chest.

“Let my grandson go,” I commanded, my voice booming over the roar of the engines.

Ramirez panicked. He pulled his service weapon and pressed it to Toby’s head.

“Back off, Helen!” Ramirez shouted. “Or the kid dies right here!”

I didn't lower my gun. I looked directly into Toby’s terrified eyes.

“Toby,” I yelled clearly. “Do you remember the game we play with the heavy groceries?”

Toby blinked, tears streaming down his face. Then, he nodded.

“Drop!” I screamed.

Toby instantly went completely limp, dropping his entire body weight toward the ground.