“You’re wrong. I-I don’t?—”
“Stop. Fucking.Lying!” Beckett’s angry words echoed off the room’s wooden walls. “Don’t you get it? Evelynn is going to die if we don’t find her. Now, she may not share your blood, but for thirty-onefuckingyears, you led her to believe she did.” He got right in the man’s weaselly face. “You say you had nothing to do with her kidnapping, prove it. For once, in your pathetic, miserable excuse for a life, be the father you should have been, and tell us who signed thatgoddamn deed!”
Mitchell’s shrinking form trembled as the bastard cowered beneath Beckett’s wrath. His voice shook as he finally gave up the name of the man likely behind Evie’s kidnapping.
“L-Landy Granger.” His shoulders fell with defeat. “That’s Landy’s handwriting, but…he’s been my partner for nearly thirty years. He loves Evie like a?—”
“Like a what?” Digger asked. “A daughter?”
Beckett’s stomach churned with dread as he processed what his teammate was actually saying. If Landy Granger loved Evie the same way Mitchell did, her life was very much in danger.
“He’d never hurt her, and he certainly has no reason to kidnap her!”
“There’s always a reason.” Digger stared back at the sorry excuse for a man. “Nine times out of ten, it’s money.”
“Then this is the one out of ten because he doesn’t need the money. That guy has plenty of his own. And even if I’m wrong on that front, the Landy I know wouldneverresort to kidnapping for personal gain. Financial or otherwise. And he especially wouldn’t hurt a woman he considers to be his family.”
“Family, huh?” Beckett shook his head in disgust. “See, that word actually means something to me.” His gaze slid to his teammate’s. “To us. But hearing it being spouted off by a lying piece of shit like you lends zero credibility to pretty much anything you have to say.”
“I’m telling you the truth. Landy would never hurt Evie.”
“You’d better pray to God you’re right,” he warned the man quivering before them. “Because if anything happens to her…if I find out you knew what your snake of a partner was planning…” Beckett brought his face almost nose-to-nose with Mitchell’s. “The last thing you’ll have to worry about is being embarrassed in front of your snobby-ass friends.”
He didn’t wait for a response before turning his back on the pathetic excuse for a man and walking away. Nothing elseMitchell could say was worth the time it would take to listen. And every second wasted here was time Evie didn’t have to spare.
They’d just stepped outside and were about to make their way down the massive exterior staircase when a woman’s voice called for them to stop.
“Wait!”
Beckett and Digger halted their steps, turning their attention to the silver-haired woman rushing toward them. Short, mid-sixties, a bit round in the middle. Add in the high-collared blouse, flowered skirt, and frilly white apron, and the woman looked like the quintessential grandma ready to bake cookies with the grandkids.
Only he and Dig weren’t her grandsons, and the look on her face said she had something more on her mind than baking.
“I apologize for chasing you down, but I had to speak to you before you left.”
She spoke quickly, making her Irish accent come out even stronger than he guessed was the norm.
“Can we help you with something?” Beckett forced a polite tone.
They needed to get the hell out of here and find that fucknut, Landy Granger.
“I’ve worked for the Mitchell family for decades,” she shared willingly. “I was walking by his office a moment ago, and I couldn’t help but overhear some of what was said. Was it true, what you told my boss about Evelynn?” Her worried eyes pleaded for him to say otherwise. “Has my sweet girl really been kidnapped?”
Her sweet girl.
“You’re Helen,” Beckett guessed. When she blinked up at him with surprise, he explained to her, “Evie told me about you.”
“Then you know I care very deeply for her.”
“I do.” He nodded. “And to answer your question, yes. Evie’s really been taken.”
“Oh, sweet Jesus!” Tears instantly welled in the poor woman’s eyes. “But you’re going to find her, right?” Helen’s gaze slid from his, to Digger’s, and back again. “I heard you tell Mr. Mitchell you would.”
“I won’t stop until I do.”
They shared a look of two people who cared greatly for a woman they were both terrified to lose.
“Thank you,” Helen offered softly. “Please. Evie is such a sweet, precious soul. Please, do whatever you have to in order to save her.”