Hot Pursuit (38 page)

She prayed he didn’t see her jump when he fired up the table saw and it roared to life.

It had been wrong to suggest he kill Cortez. She’d been joking, or at least for the most part she’d been joking. Zoey hated Cortez, despised and resented him with every fiber of her being. As long as he lived, she would never be free. But it wasn’t in her to order any human being to their death. All she wanted to do was get him out of her life, not end his life.

But the look Micah had given her. Had he thought her serious?

“No,” she told herself, the fight all the way drained out of her. “He was joking.” Or more than likely picking on her. Which, she admitted, she deserved for making such a callous suggestion after he’d been so open and honest with her.

Zoey shivered, Micah’s story pulling some deep, disturbing emotion out of her. And she had thought her family was messed up. What kind of father would encourage his son to kill, and for profit?

The vacuum was on inside the cabin when Zoey reached the front door. It was open, and over the hum of the machine Maggie was singing an Irish folk song. So much for her temper. Apparently, it didn’t last long. Or maybe Maggie had thought leaving Zoey and Micah alone for a bit would help them defuse any ill will they had for each other and become friends. Zoey knew it would mean a lot to Maggie if she liked her husband. Maybe, for Maggie’s sake, Zoey would try to forget that Micah had a past. At least Micah was being honest with her. Did he think his honesty would make up for his friend lying to her? Zoey shook her head. She would never understand men.

Zoey listened to Maggie sing, never having known how good a voice she had. Maggie even put a bit of the brogue into the words and her voice carried as loud as the vacuum ran. Glancing toward the shed, Zoey could still hear the saw. The rain had slowed to a drizzle. This might be her only chance. Zoey hated feeling as if she were a prisoner, forced to make a dash for it, no matter where she stayed. She was about to put an end to that. Maggie and Micah might feel they had Zoey’s best interests at heart. But Zoey was done being controlled. It was time to start living her life on her own terms.

Zoey patted the keys to the Taurus as she hurried to it. She had made sure to keep them on her at all times, fearing if she left them sitting anywhere, either Micah or Maggie would pick them up and refuse to give them back to her. Sliding into the rental car, she shot one last look at the rustic cabin, then the small shed, turned the car on, and pulled it around. There was no looking back now. Zoey was headed toward freedom, and she would do it all by herself.

*   *   *

Ben scowled at the private number on his cell phone, knowing who it was before he answered.

“What’s wrong?” he demanded instead of saying hello.

“It’s Zoey,” Micah said. “She’s gone.”

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Ben immediately looked around the cabin, found his keys, and grabbed his jacket. “When did she leave? Where is she headed?”

“Slow down,” Micah ordered, his voice cold and hard as he guessed Ben would be flying out the door. “Listen, man, and be smart. Hear me out.”

“I’m listening, damn it. Talk!” Ben looked around the small cabin. Hurrying to the little kitchen, he grabbed the fork he’d been using to turn his steak and pulled the still-raw meat out of the frying pan. He tossed it on a plate.

“She was in the shed talking to me and not five minutes after she left I went to check on her and Maggie. The Taurus was gone.”

“Only a five-minute lead and she got away?” Ben white-knuckled his phone as he pressed it to his ear. His beer was still on the counter. Ben stalked over to it and downed the rest of it.

Micah growled but didn’t comment. There was a strain in his voice when he continued, though. “Maggie and I drove down the road, made it to the highway. It started raining so hard I doubted she could have driven so fast that we couldn’t catch up with her.”

Ben cursed. Zoey had been upset. He already knew that from when she hung up on him. There wasn’t time to compare notes. He listened as Micah continued.

“By the time we reached the highway sheets of water were racing across the road. Coming down as hard as it is now. I thought we’d found her when we spotted her car parked along the highway. She was headed into Zounds by the look of it. But Zoey wasn’t in her car.”

“She took off walking?” Ben demanded, once again heading for the door.

“The hood to the Taurus was still warm. We were only minutes behind her. I don’t think she took off walking, Ben. Are you listening to me?”

“I’m fucking listening to you!” Ben roared, and he didn’t like a thing he was hearing. Why the hell hadn’t he called Zoey back? His damn pride might have caused Zoey to do something stupid. She’d hung up on him, and it had pissed him off. Ever since then he’d been stewing about whether to stay in Zounds or just head back down to L.A. Something kept him from leaving, though, and it sure wasn’t the creature comforts of this small cabin.

“We drove past the Taurus for several miles and then drove back. There aren’t any roads cutting off the highway for the next few miles, and I don’t think she would have headed into the woods, as nasty as the weather is. If she were running from someone, in the short amount of time from when she left and when we followed, we would have seen their car.” Micah paused for only a moment. “Unless whoever forced her to stop caught her. If that is what happened, they were able to snatch her out of her car and leave within minutes.”

“Goddamn it!”

“Ben.” Micah’s voice was annoying with its coolness. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to go fucking find her.”

Ben stomped through puddles to his bike. With the tarp over it, his motorcycle would be dry. But in less than a minute, he was soaked.

“On your motorcycle?” It was as if Micah were standing right next to him and seeing, seconds before Ben did, how preposterous that plan of action would be.

Ben stomped back to the cabin door. “I’ve got to get out of here, Micah,” he said, forcing himself to calm down and think. “I’ll find her and I’ll let you know as soon as I do.”

“Keep your head on your shoulders,” Micah advised. “I know you’ll find her. I’ll wait for your call.”

Micah hung up, but he did so way too easily. Ben knew Micah, possibly better than anyone else other than Maggie, of course. He didn’t just let go of a situation, especially one like Zoey disappearing into thin air. The odds of her father having found her were way too high. Micah wasn’t the type of man to simply wait around for a phone call letting him know everything was okay.

Ben didn’t have time to worry about Micah. He would do whatever he wanted and wouldn’t share his plans with Ben even if he asked. But Micah had been right. Ben needed to focus. He stomped his boots one last time, left a puddle at the entrance of the cabin, and slammed the door closed. Then pacing the length of the suddenly too small living room, he brainstormed before placing his next call.

“Wolf,” he said when the man answered. “I have a problem.”

“I can’t make it sunny and warm, my friend.” Wolf sounded too damn cheerful.

“I don’t fucking care about the goddamn sun. Zoey is gone!” he almost yelled into the phone, and stopped pacing, took a staggered breath, and rested his forehead against his free hand. Wolf would help him find Zoey. Ben didn’t doubt that. But the man was quick and would see through a faulty story in a second. There wasn’t time to repeat himself if Wolf didn’t buy what he said the first time around.

“Gone? What do you mean, gone?” Wolf demanded, then repeated what Ben had just said when Angel asked questions in the background.

“We got in a fight on the phone,” Ben confessed, using as much of the truth as he could without mentioning Micah. Ben’s head was spinning. Time was wasting. But he had to focus, keep his damn head on straight. He’d already made one mistake by not calling Zoey back. He wasn’t going to make another. He amended quickly, “I shouldn’t have let her walk out this morning. I knew it was going to pour and I can’t hunt for her on my bike.”

“She was at the cabin?” Wolf sounded incredulous.

Ben worried a minute that Zoey might have said something to Angel about where she was staying. Angel wouldn’t have thought anything of it to tell Wolf. But Wolf would snatch on to the slightest detail if he thought it would bring him closer to Micah. Ben was fighting to save two lives here, and both of them mattered to him.

“Yes,” Ben confirmed, not hesitating. “Man, I can’t search for her on my bike. Would you give me a lift? She’s been gone too long.”

“I’m already out the door,” Wolf said. “Don’t do anything stupid before I get there!”

Why the hell did everyone think he would do something stupid? Ben got off the phone and found his first soothing breath since Micah had called him. It didn’t help calm his nerves or keep him from wanting to climb the walls as he waited for Wolf to show up.

Ben didn’t like thinking about it, but he was pretty sure he knew what happened. Micah had said as much when he’d called.
She was snatched out of that car.

Already Ben had been going nuts debating whether to stay in Zounds or head back to L.A. Even as he had weighed the pros and cons of whether to leave or not, he’d continued to stay in the cabin. Wolf had stopped by every day. The man was convinced Ben was getting closer to finding Micah, and his questioning had become nerve-racking. Especially when Ben’s thoughts had only been on Zoey. Wolf had stopped by the previous morning but hadn’t been by since. He wouldn’t have known whether Zoey had been there or not. The story Ben fed Wolf would work.

Ben had his chance to find out thirty minutes later, although it had felt like hours as the small cabin closed in further as he continued pacing. The moment he heard the Escalade pull into the drive alongside the cabin, Ben flew out the door. Wolf didn’t have time to get out before Ben was tugging on the passenger door for Wolf to unlock it.

“Now tell me everything,” Wolf demanded, and put his SUV in park. He shifted to face Ben with an intense, focused look. Wolf had recently showered and smelled of something musky. His brown hair was damp and waved around the man’s thick neck. “And don’t leave out any details,” he added.

“We were arguing,” Ben told him, knowing Wolf wouldn’t move until he was satisfied he’d heard everything. Ben had no problem talking fast. He’d had plenty of time to rehearse what he would say. “Trust me, it doesn’t matter about what. What matters is that I hurt her feelings and was a stubborn ass and didn’t say the right thing to prevent her from storming out the door.”

“And you didn’t follow her?” Wolf asked, narrowing his attention on Ben with those beady eyes of his. “You just let her take off and leave?”

“I didn’t know she was going to get in the car and actually leave!” Ben bellowed, having already guessed how Wolf would take his story and ready to paint himself as a complete ass to get the man moving. “I went into the kitchen and grabbed a beer and threw a steak on the frying pan. It was sizzling pretty loud and I was preoccupied stewing about our argument. When I finally walked to the door and opened it, I realized the Taurus we rented was gone.”

“How much time had passed?”

“Not long. Five minutes. But now it has been over half an hour and she isn’t back. I can’t go after her on my bike. She isn’t safe driving around Zounds, especially when I’m sure she isn’t thinking about where she is going, or who might see her driving.”

“All right.” Wolf finally put his Escalade in gear. “We’ll find her.”

Fortunately, Zounds was a small town. Wolf drove up and down the streets, and they didn’t see the Taurus. Not that they would. But the two of them would have to find it together. There would be no viable explanation for Ben already knowing where the Taurus had been left.

“Cortez has her,” Ben blurted when they’d scoured Zounds with no signs of her or the car. It was all he could do not to scream for Wolf to drive to the asshole’s house.

“We don’t know that yet.” Wolf held his hand up, as if the gesture would calm Ben. “She might have driven to one of her friends’ houses.”

“Zoey doesn’t have a lot of friends.”

“Angel is on alert to call me if Zoey shows up there,” Wolf said, and turned at the next intersection. He was headed to the highway that would take them to Micah’s house.

Ben didn’t ask what made Wolf decide to go this way. At the moment he didn’t care. The Escalade’s windshield wipers slapped across the windshield, but still, vision was limited.

“God, I hope she isn’t out this way,” Wolf grumbled, gripping the steering wheel at ten and two.

Ben didn’t want to think about Zoey driving in any of this weather. He might not have much experience on roads like this, but he couldn’t imagine anyone ever being an expert driving through torrents of rain when he could barely see the road ahead of him. And when he thought he saw something ahead on the side of the road, Ben wouldn’t have guessed it was a car if he hadn’t already known the Taurus was parked ahead.

“What’s that?” Wolf yelled, his excitement apparent. He held on to the steering wheel with one hand and pointed but then gripped it again with both hands as he slowed to a stop. “That the rental car? It’s a Taurus.”

“Looks like it.” Ben leaned toward Wolf when they drove by, looking out the driver’s side windshield at the lonely-looking, dark car. “Turn around,” Ben ordered when they passed it.

“I’m going to,” Wolf snarled, glaring at Ben. “Give me a fucking moment.”

Wolf maneuvered the large Escalade around in the middle of the road. Although the SUV was large and the road narrow, within a minute they were facing the other direction with no altercations.

Ben leapt out of the SUV and into a deep puddle. Water soaked his jeans up to his knees. He stared down at himself only for a moment before holding his hand flat over his brows. It did little good in shielding off the rain, and he cursed the day and the weather.

“Not used to weather, are you?” Wolf yelled over the large drops pounding against the highway.

“In L.A.?” he shot back. “Hardly. We have too much sense for such nasty weather.”

He spoke as he rushed to the Taurus, wanting to see for himself what Micah had suggested. With water streaming across the highway, there was no way to confirm if another car had been there. Dark skid marks were behind the Taurus. From what Ben could guess, a mid-sized vehicle, possibly a sedan, left them. That wasn’t a lot of help in narrowing down for sure where Zoey might be.