Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #2 (53 page)

EIGHTEEN

D
aniel felt all the blood drain from his face. “What do you mean Olivia's gone?”

“She was abducted by someone in a cop car.” Chloe's face was grave. “A fake one, judging by what Ricky said about the markings.”

“So he got her anyway!” Sarah said. “Good. I'm glad.”

“Who?” Daniel's limbs fought the urge to shake answers out of her. “Who's after Olivia?”

“My boyfriend.” She grinned. “My hot, powerful, secret, well-connected boyfriend who my stupid guardian didn't know I had.”

The world spun around him. He closed his eyes. He'd tried so hard to steer her in the right direction and her path had ended up even more crooked than he'd feared.

Lord, how did this all go so wrong?

Anger battled inside him, and for a moment he was afraid it would take him over. Then he remembered the fierce determination he'd seen so often burning in Olivia's eyes. She didn't fear her emotions. She harnessed them and turned them into strengths. He took a deep breath and focused on the feeling of the solid ground beneath his feet.

“Who is he?”

“I'm not telling you that!”

He opened his eyes and let her see the depths of emotion burning inside them. “Sarah? Your so-called boyfriend is nothing but a violent criminal who's mixed up in organized crime and used a vulnerable teenage girl to launder money through her family business. He's not here for you now—he left you to get caught and turned over to the police. That tells me he doesn't care about you at all.”

“He loves me!” She was trying to sound so tough, but all he heard in her voice was the wail of the same self-destructive girl he'd spent the past four years trying to keep out of jail. “And he'll come back for me once Olivia is out of the way. He has big plans and really dangerous friends. He was only at Leslie to sell drugs for his boss. But he figured out how we could work together to use the company to launder money. When I get control of my inheritance, he's going to help me run the company. We're finally going to be together and I'll never have to go back to your horrible country house. He says the only person who can link him to Brian's murder is Olivia. He's going to kill her and bury her body and then burn everything down around her so you'll never, ever find her.”

Chloe tapped Daniel gently on the shoulder. He stepped back and released Sarah. Chloe snapped a pair of handcuffs on her. He followed them out. Sunlight brushed the top of the trees, showing him the tears that glinted in the depths of Chloe's green eyes. Eyes that looked just like Olivia's.

Ricky was sitting on the ground leaning against the fence. “Hey, I'm sorry. I let him take her. I should've been able to stop him.”

“It's not your fault.” Daniel crouched beside him.

Trent walked over, pushing Rake in front of him. The thug's hands were cuffed behind his back and his eyes were focused on the ground. The other two members of his Faceless Crew were out there somewhere, and something told Daniel getting Rake to talk wouldn't be easy.

“Vest stopped the bullet from killing Ricky,” Trent said, “but he's probably looking at a couple of broken ribs. Northbound highway's open. Chloe's going to drive Ricky to the hospital. I'm going to drop this joker off at a station. Can you drive Ricky's car? Then we'll all meet at the hospital, loop in our colleagues and strategize a plan for finding Olivia. Don't worry. We'll bring her back alive.”

Daniel walked back to the motel like someone sleepwalking through fog. His brain told him he'd been awake for almost twenty-four hours. His heart ached as though he'd never sleep again.

He drove, barely aware of what he was doing. The highway had been reopened for over an hour, and now an endless stretch of bumper-to-bumper traffic was inching forward slowly. Chloe and Trent had flown up the shoulder with emergency vehicle lights on the tops of their cars.

But Daniel could barely do more than ease his foot on and off the brake.

Lord, I can't remember ever feeling so powerless. I need Olivia to be safe. I need her to be okay.

A morning sunrise filled the sky in a fresh wash of blue. He could barely take it in. His heart felt like someone had burned it out from the inside leaving nothing but ashes. Split trees and downed power lines dotted the forest on either side. Even if his house had survived the blaze from the garage explosion, there could still be a storm-toppled tree or two through his roof.

I'll never have to go back to your horrible country house... He's going to kill her and bury her body and then burn everything down around her...

Sarah's foolish bragging flashed like lightning through his mind.

Then he remembered Olivia's words after the Faceless Crew had blown up the garage.
He said the client might even make them go back and torch your house...

His house.

The Faceless Crew had taken Olivia to his house.

He pulled out of traffic and did a U-turn into the lane heading south. His foot pressed the accelerator. He was heading home. He had no proof that was where she was, no weapons and no way to call for backup. Just the strong, sudden impulse to act, burning through his veins like wildfire. Every synapse of the man he'd always been told him it made far more sense to inch his way to the police station and let the cops form a sensible, practical search plan.

But that could take hours. Olivia didn't have that long.

And he knew without a doubt that she'd have done the same for him.

He flew past the motel and turned onto the road that would lead him home. It was inches deep in water. The spray rose up like curtains on either side of Ricky's car. He passed the small ghost town where he and Olivia had stopped to escape the storm, then continued until he was less than a ten-minute walk from his home. A ramshackle barn appeared ahead on the side of the road. He parked behind it and popped the trunk to see if there was anything in there that might double as a weapon.

Ricky had a toolbox. A small knife went into one front pocket. A screwdriver went into another. He slung two bungee cords around a wrench and a roll of duct tape. He attached them all to his belt. Then he slipped into the trees and started running.

Lord, I've never felt so unprepared and unequipped. I don't even have the cover of darkness to hide me. Help me get Olivia out safe. I really don't want to imagine life without her.

The familiar walls of his house loomed ahead through the trees. It was still standing. His footsteps slowed. There was no sign of movement. Not a single vehicle parked in the driveway. An ugly pile of twisted metal and ash lay where his barn garage and truck had been.

Had he guessed wrong? Was Olivia not here after all?

No, wait. A short faceless figure dressed all in black was pacing the lawn, a gun in his hand. Shorty was guarding the front door. Daniel crept around the side of the house and saw a flash of red in the side window. He raised his head just enough to look in.

Olivia was standing in the pit of his living room foundations. Her head was bowed toward the ground. A man in a fake police uniform with messy blond hair pointed a gun at her. The sight of her was enough to make hope leap in Daniel's chest. Olivia was trapped. She was in danger. He didn't know how to reach her, help her, to even let her know he was there.

But thank You, God. Olivia is alive!

The man moved to the side and Daniel felt the flicker of joy die in his chest.

There was a shovel in Olivia's hands.

Her captor turned.

It was Jesse.

He was making Olivia dig her own grave.

* * *

The shovel shook in her hands. The gun pressed into the back of her head.

“Keep digging.”

She gritted her teeth. Her stomach was still upset from whatever had been on that cloth he'd clamped over her face. But it couldn't match the turmoil in her mind.

Jesse
.

How had she not recognized him before? The angry fake cop with the bushy fake beard who'd tried to stop her from following Brian to the parking garage was the same gravelly voiced man who'd threatened her over the phone, tried to kidnap her outside the diner and demanded the photos over walkie-talkie—and the same fake, charming man she'd fought when she'd caught him alone with Sarah.

The only thing he'd never been able to hide was the hatred in his cold gray eyes. Now they were alone, and the mask was finally gone as he ordered her to dig a hole in the foundation of Daniel's living room for him to bury her in.

The hole at her feet was at least three feet long and almost two feet deep now. She kept digging. Slowly. Buying time. The moment she'd been lifted out of the trunk and felt her feet touch ground, her first impulse had been to run.

I would have done it if not for Daniel's words shooting through my brain. “Sometimes running is what keeps you alive. But sometimes running can get you killed.”

She hadn't taken his words to heart when she'd first heard them. In fact, not long after he'd said them she'd run toward a kidnapper's car thinking it was Ricky's and then pelted into the abandoned strip mall to escape Jesse, without even realizing the headlights ahead of her were Daniel's. Those same words had flashed again through her mind when Ricky had run toward the road and into danger.

So when Jesse dragged me out of the trunk and dropped my feet on the ground, I paused
.
Long enough to think. Long enough to realize her wobbly legs would've dropped her to the ground before she could get very far. Just long enough to spot Shorty and Brute in the shadows and to notice when Jesse sent Brute to watch the road and left Shorty on the front porch. Long enough to remind herself that if Jesse thought she was cooperating, it would buy time for a rescue.
Which might be the only reason she was still in one piece and digging this hole.

“So you decided you needed to kill me when Sarah told you Daniel wanted her to meet a reporter who'd survived the parking garage bombing? You realized I might be able to identify you as the cop I'd argued with just before Brian was killed, right? I might even have a picture of you following him to his death on my camera. Must have scared you to realize someone could link you to Brian's murder. Is that why you used Brian's computer to invite everyone up here for a fake party? To pressure Sarah into helping you kill me?” No answer. She dug a few more shovels full. “No wonder she looked terrified when I walked in on you two in the bedroom. Probably worried what two murders would do to her image.”

“Shut up about Sarah.” The sound of gritted teeth in his voice told her more than any words could about just how accurate she had been. “Keep digging or I'll cuff you upside the head.”

He'd cuffed her a few times already. So many times in fact, that she was now able to sense it coming. The gun would leave her skull. His arm would pull back. Then a sudden blow would snap her head forward, filling her vision with stars.

There was a sound of a voice outside. A muffled syllable. Nothing more. A dull thud of something hitting the ground. Then the slightest tapping sound, like fingers drumming on the windowpane. She pressed her lips together and counted. One long. Three short. Three long.

“Rumor has it that all this links back to organized crime.” Olivia dug her shovel deep into the soil, fighting to keep her body language neutral, not to give anything away. Her hands tightened their grip on the handle. “But let me guess. You're a very minor player in a big operation, which is why you had to hire an incompetent gang of thugs to do your dirty work. Oh, your bosses are into big things—counterfeit bills, money laundering, drug trafficking, illegal gambling. But you, you're a nobody. A loser who got embedded in some minor construction company because he wasn't even making enough money on crime to get by. But you met a pretty and vulnerable teenage girl with a big inheritance coming to her and realized you could use her, her money and her company to really get somewhere. Get her to fall in love with you, and you'd finally be able to make a big name for yourself in organized crime, laundering money and who knows what else through her company. Must have driven you mad when the tiny little woman you were trying to kill managed to pull you off her and get the better of you.”

“I said, shut up!” The gun pulled away from her head just long enough for him to bring his arm back to swing again.

This time, she wasn't about to give him a chance to let him land the blow.

Olivia swung around, ducked under his fist and threw a shovel of dirt in his face. He swore and grabbed his eyes. She brought the shovel down hard on the side of his head. The gun flew from his hands and disappeared into the foundations. Jesse landed on his knees and rolled onto his back, groaning in pain.

Olivia scrambled across the dirt floor.

A tall, broad-shouldered figure stepped into the doorway, backlit by the morning sun.

A cry left her lips. “Daniel!”

“Hello, you.” His hand reached down and grabbed hers. In one swift motion, he pulled her up out of the pit and into the strength of his arms. The smile that filled his eyes set lights dancing inside her heart. “You have no idea how happy and relieved I am to see you.”

“Me, too.” Despite the pain and fear she couldn't stop an exhausted smile from brushing her lips. “Where's Sarah?”

“Safe but under arrest.” His face darkened. “She was working with Jesse.”

“I'm so sorry.”

He sighed. “Me, too.”

Jesse was still down on the ground at the other end of the living room pit, swearing as he searched for his gun.

“Are there more of them?” Daniel asked.

She nodded. “Brute is patrolling the woods. If we're not careful, we'll run right into him.”

“Too bad. I'd have loved to have the time to go deal with Jesse properly. But I don't want to risk Brute coming back shooting while I'm busy knocking Jesse out.” Daniel pulled her out onto the porch and slammed the front door, then used a bungee cord to attach the handle to the railing. “Locking him in will have to do for now. Won't last long. But it should buy us a small head start.”