The Heart of the Jungle, стр. 50
Frank tossed Jason's phone back to him. "Does your client carry a mobile phone?"
Jason's fingers were in action before the sentence was completely out of Frank's mouth. The call went directly to voicemail. He cursed.
"You look like you're about ready to jump out of your skin, kid. Take ten deep breaths."
"If anything happens to him... it'll be all my fault."
Frank patted his shoulder. "I saw you go through this when the Don Gerry thing went down. You have got to stop getting yourself in so deep. Shit, you're just like your father."
"I appreciate the sentiment, Frank, but this is different."
"How is it different?"
"I... I dragged him into this. If I hadn't been so careless, he might not be in this mess right now. I've done nothing but put him in danger right from the start."
"Seems to me, based on what you've told me, like you made the only decisions you could under the circumstances."
"Frank, I should have known we were walking into trouble."
"Our team will be arriving at the Mariano residence any second now. Don't worry. This is all going to turn out---"
Just then, Frank's phone rang, and he answered. He spoke briefly with the caller. With a grim look in Jason's direction, he hung up.
"Fuck," Frank said. "We're too late."
Jason's heart dropped, and he swallowed against a sudden wave of nausea. "What's happened?" He almost didn't want to hear the answer.
From the look on Frank's face, it was very bad.
"Looks like this guy Brunner is a step ahead of us. Two members of the Mariano household staff are dead."
"The girl?"
"No sign. Let's get over there and see how bad it is." Frank led the way.
DESPITE the dire circumstances, Chris was floating in a cloud of euphoria. In his arms, he cradled Brianna tenderly as tears of joy streamed down his cheeks---tears that hadn't stopped since Brunner carried her out of the mansion and deposited her into the car.
She had been shy and hesitant at first. Although he could see recognition in her eyes, it was tenuous and vague, as if she was struggling to recall how she knew him. "Baby, it's me," he'd said. "It's Daddy." Something about the sound of his voice seemed to jog her memory. Her little face lit up with remembrance, and she leapt into his arms. She clung fiercely to him, as if letting go would somehow make his reappearance in her life less real. The only words she had uttered since that moment had been "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy."
A small part of him had been terrified that she would have forgotten him completely, but now that she was in his arms, it was clear that his absence had been keenly felt.
Unwilling to extricate himself from her grip, he examined her carefully. For all that she had been through over the past ten months, she seemed healthy and whole. Other than the desperation with which she clung to him, even her little spirit seemed to be intact. He smoothed her curly mop of red hair and kissed her on the forehead, shushing her and making soothing noises, his heart soaring at the feel of her tiny body in his arms.
He glanced up and happened to notice Brunner's eyes staring at him in the rearview mirror. He briefly met the man's gaze and then looked quickly away. He swiped at the tears on his cheeks and took a deep breath. Pull it together.
They had been headed north since picking up Brianna and were more than an hour outside of Vegas by now. Scant few vehicles shared the long, straight desert road with them, so Brunner could apparently afford to divert his attention from driving.
"She was well cared for," he remarked.
Chris's only reply was a hateful, malicious glare.
"She had everything she needed," he added.
"Except for me," Chris argued. "Except everything that she's ever known. I'm her family, you sick son of a bitch."
Brunner rolled his eyes. "You're as much her family as the people babysitting her were."
"Do you expect gratitude from me? You ripped my child from her home. These people might have fed her, kept her safe, but they are not me, damn you. I was her entire world."
"Yeah, well, if you'd just offed yourself like you were supposed to, you'd have saved us all some time and trouble---including her."
Anger flared anew. If given half a chance, Chris would kill the slimy bastard in the front seat with his bare hands. He would tear him limb from limb, and still, he wasn't sure that the bloodlust would be satiated.
As he struggled to contain his rage, he vowed to himself that he would watch and wait for a time to strike. When Brunner was vulnerable, he'd mutilate him slowly, painfully. That moment would come, he was sure of it. When his guard was down, when Brianna's life didn't hang in the balance---when the opportunity presented itself, he would be ready.
Brunner's eyes returned to the road ahead, and Chris shifted his weight in the seat. His mobile phone pressed uncomfortably into his backside. As he repositioned himself, an idea occurred to him---one he hadn't had time to contemplate before now.
Slowly, carefully, he reached back and worked the phone partially out of his pocket. His hand froze in place when Brunner's eyes darted to his reflection in the rearview mirror. When Brunner's attention was diverted again by a particularly sinuous stretch of road, Chris felt for and pressed the On button.
Now all he had to do was wait and pray that Jason would try to call.
It didn't take long. Several minutes after turning the phone on, he felt it buzzing in his pocket. His heart raced.
Jason.
It was a stroke of good fortune that the road continued to wend through a mountain pass. This forced Brunner to keep his attention on driving. Surreptitiously, Chris snaked his hand into his pocket and fumbled for the button that would answer the