Chapter 23

Chapter 23
“Mr. Fontenot, can you get someone to track this number that my daughter called from?”
“I’ll get right on it ma’am. Carl, get the number from Mrs. Lexington and begin tracking the location.”
“Yes sir.” Carl replies before getting the number and heading to a computer on the other side of the room. I turn back to Mr. Fontenot.
“We’re running out of time. I need to find my little girl now. Tell me what new information you have for me.”
“Actually I don’t have any new information, but with your daughter calling you this morning, I have hope that coupled with whatever information we get out of our little guest, we can have your daughter back very soon.” That wasn’t what I really wanted to know, but it was better than nothing.
“Well I guess all we can do is wait and see what Carl finds out while we also wait for our guest to arrive.” There’s a little noise and Mr. Fontenot looks down at his phone.
“We may not have to wait long for our guest. I’ve just received a message that they are parking the car and then they’ll be escorting her inside in a moment.”
“That’s great news! It’s time for us to get some answers. I’m not above torture at this point, so do whatever you have to do to get the information out of her.”
“I will do as you wish Mrs. Lexington, though I’m really hoping that it doesn’t come to that, I don’t particularly like torturing women but in this case I will make an exception.”
“I hope we don’t have to resort to that as well. I’m going get breakfast started for my son, and then I’ll be back later to see what progress you’ve made with her.”
“Yes ma’am.”
I walk up the stairs leaving the basement and head to the kitchen. Nicholas will be up soon and I know he’ll be hungry. I laugh to myself because I already know what he’ll want for breakfast. He never changes it is always waffles, bacon, and eggs. After making his breakfast, I head upstairs to see if he’s ready to come downstairs to eat. Like clockwork, he is already dressed and in the bathroom brushing his teeth and washing his face. I comb his hair for him and we head downstairs together. He sits at the table and starts eating and slowly the rest of the family starts making their way downstairs. We all say good morning to each other, and then they help themselves to some breakfast. While they eat, I call the hospital to check on the status of my wife. They tell me that she’s still stable and there have been no further changes. I thank the nurse and hang up. Since there is nothing else for me to do for a while, I ask them if they can watch Nicholas for about an hour
while I go work out in the gym. They agree and I head upstairs to change into my workout clothes before going to the gym located at the back of the house.
An hour later, I am back in the main house and taking a shower, Nicholas is downstairs playing with his grandma, and everyone else are occupying their time doing various things. When I’m done showering and getting dressed, I head back down to the basement to finally meet the mole and see what progress they’ve made since I’ve been gone. As I reach the bottom of the stairs my eyes grow wide as I see the person in the cage, and her eyes grow wide when she sees me as well. There must be a mistake. The person partially responsible for all of this can’t be her. She is one of my most trusted employees and has worked for me for years. Someone has to be playing a trick on me. I look at everyone else in the room and realize that they are staring at both of us. I walk over to Mr. Fontenot and ask him point blank if he’s sure that she is the mole in my organization, and he answers me without hesitation saying, “Yes, I am absolutely sure that she is the one”. I take a deep breath before walking closer to the cage and I stare at her for a moment before speaking to her. She averts her eyes from mine and has the nerve to look ashamed.
“Alissa, how could you of all people do this to me?” She looks as though she doesn’t understand the question at first before replying.
“It is simple she said that she would kill my family if I didn’t help her.”
Three hours later and she still hasn’t told us anything new. I really didn’t want to have to resort to torturing her especially after what she told us, but she was leaving us no choice. After three hours of trying to plead with her to do the right thing and promising her that I wouldn’t report her to the police she still wasn’t budging. I even told her that I could protect her and her family from this person, but she has to help us. She just laughed and said, “With all due respect Mrs. Lexington, you can’t even protect your own family, so how can you promise to protect me and my family?” That statement stung, but I shrugged it off for the moment and just focused on trying to get the information that I needed to get my daughter back. I’m going to try to plead with her one more time before I have no choice but to let Mr. Fontenot and his team take over.

“Alissa, I am going to ask you one last time to cooperate with me. If you can just tell me the name of the person that is doing this then I can let you go and I’ll even pay for you and your family to disappear somewhere. I need you to help me get my daughter back. She’s just a little six year old girl and I’m sure that she is scared. Who knows what they are doing to her right now. Do you really want to be responsible if something happens to her?”
“I’ve already told you that I can’t help you. I’m sorry but I’m not putting my family’s life in jeopardy just to save yours.” There was sadness in her eyes and I can tell that she wants to help me, but she really doesn’t believe that I can protect her. That makes me try again with her.
“I really can protect you and your family, but you have to help me. If you don’t then I don’t know what will happen to your family, but I can tell you that you will go to prison for accessory to kidnapping and whatever else this person has been up to that I don’t know about yet. How are you going to protect your family from prison?”
“Mrs. Lexington, I really can’t help you. I wish that I could but I can’t risk my family being hurt or killed. I’ll go to prison if I must for the crimes that I’ve committed if that keeps my family safe.” I see that offering to protect her won’t help so I decide to take another tact with her. She’s so adamant about keeping her family safe, so I’ll use them.
“Well, I can tell you this much Alissa, yes you will go to prison for the crimes you’ve committed against me and my family and I’m going to make sure that you stay in there for a very long time, but that isn’t all that you have to worry about now.”
“What do you mean?” She looked at me questioningly.
“Well, if you don’t help me and something happens to my daughter then you won’t have to worry about the person you’re working for hurting your family. You’ll have to worry about me.”
“What are you saying to me exactly Mrs. Lexington?”
“You can call me Jay since you no longer work for me, and I am holding you prisoner so we don’t need to be so formal. Now to answer your question, what I am talking about is that your family will not have to worry about being hurt by anyone because….” I let the sentence hang there in the air hoping that she would get my meaning.
“I still don’t get what you mean.” I really wished she had understood because now I actually have to voice it out loud.
“I mean that I am going to kill each and every one of your family members and make sure you hear about it in prison. If my daughter is hurt in any way or even killed then your family’s fate is sealed and you can blame yourself for that for the rest of your life.”
I honestly don’t know if I would kill her family but I would definitely make her pay for it in some way. After all, her family is innocent in all of this just like my daughter, but I’ll say whatever I have to say to get this woman to cooperate. I keep my face blank of any emotions as I sit there staring at her. She has a shocked look on her face and then tears start to form in the corner of her eyes.