Shelter for Elizabeth (Badge of Honor: Texas Heroes Book 5) (19 page)

Beth figured they’d found the picture Cade had framed and put on the table in the hallway. She was snuggled up next to him on the couch, smiling at something he’d said. Penelope had snapped the picture just as he was looking down at her, and the look of love on his face was clear.

“No way in hell, Jimmy, would you ever get a chance to tap a chick like that.”

“Well, duh, but who said anything about giving her a choice?”

As the evil laughter rolled up the stairs, Beth’s decision was made. No way was she going to give anyone the chance to rape and torture her again. No fucking way. Not when she had a chance to prevent it.

She tiptoed to the window, knowing that sometimes when Cade walked around in their room she could hear his footsteps downstairs. Beth held her breath as she unlocked the window and prayed it wouldn’t stick. It didn’t. Like everything else, Cade kept the windows in perfect working order, just to be safe.

She hated what she was about to do—and had no idea if she’d even be able to do it—but she didn’t have a choice. She thought about grabbing a couple of Xanax pills, but knew she didn’t have the extra fifteen seconds it would take. She was on her own. It was put up or shut up time.

Peeking outside, making sure no one was around—as if someone would be waiting on the roof to grab her—Beth eased one leg out, then the other. When she was standing with both feet firmly on the shingles, she closed the window quickly but quietly. The last thing she wanted was to be caught on the roof with no escape. It took her a moment to drop her hand from the side of the house. It seemed as though as long as she was touching the bricks, she had a connection to it and would be safe…but hearing something break from inside made a lie out of that tenuous thought.

As if in a trance, Beth hurried over to the tree, which seemed to be twice as big as it was when Cade showed her what to do in an emergency. Knowing she was breathing too hard and too quickly, but not able to do a damn thing about it, she reached out for the limb and carefully began the climb downward.

Before she knew it, Beth was on the ground—and she froze.

On the ground. Oh God…she hadn’t taken her meds that morning and she could totally tell the difference. She probably should’ve taken the time to grab the Xanax. Instead of feeling mellow and able to roll with the punches, she felt panic crawl up her throat and stick there.

The world spun around her as she tried to slow her breathing. She wasn’t safe inside but she certainly wasn’t safe
outside
either. Where should she go? In her panic, she hadn’t even thought to grab her cell phone, or to pick up Cade’s landline and call nine-one-one before she’d fled.

Stupid stupid stupid! Now no one knew she was in trouble—just like California.

Before she had a full-blown panic attack, Beth tried to remember what Dr. Neal had told her. She concentrated on her safe place and tried to think.

The men inside had no idea she was there, otherwise they would’ve come upstairs immediately. If she could find a place to hide, she’d be fine. They’d take what they wanted and leave. Then she could go back inside and call Cade, or maybe his friend Quint instead. He worked for the San Antonio Police Department; he’d come and help her.

Beth took a few hesitant steps forward, frantically trying to decide where the best place to hide was, when one of the men suddenly opened the front door of the house and looked right at her. She’d obviously walked far enough forward that he could see her.

The burglar had Cade’s laptop and some other odds and ends in his hands, and was making a trip to the beaten-up, black, nondescript car parked in the driveway. The tree she’d climbed down was to the side of the house, but Beth was standing in plain view of the front.

“Hey!”

It was all Beth gave the man time to say before she spun and sprinted for the trees at the back of Cade’s house.

He’d told her it was over a mile to the nearest neighbor’s house, but it was mid-morning on a weekday; most people were probably at work. No one would be home to let her in or help.

Beth wasn’t in the best shape. She knew losing herself in the trees was her best bet at escaping—if she could only get there before the men caught up to her. She remembered the story of Corrie climbing a tree to hide from the men who were after her. If Corrie could do it blind, surely Beth could too.

“Frank! There was someone in the house, she saw me! Come on, we have to get her!”

Beth barely heard the words as she ran toward the relative safety of the woods. Reeling at a pain in her foot, she looked down as she ran. Dammit. She hadn’t even put on a pair of shoes, and just realized it after stepping on one of the frickin’ burrs Texas was known for. The damn weeds were everywhere and hurt like hell.

She didn’t even slow down, and blocked out the pain from the insidious burrs that seemed to pop up out of nowhere and imbed themselves into the sensitive soles of her feet. Finally reaching the trees, Beth kept her straightforward course until she looked back and couldn’t see the house anymore. Then she made an abrupt right turn, trying to get as far away from the men as she could before they broke through the trees and saw her.

The robbers weren’t trying to be quiet as they gave chase, yelling threats and warning about what they were going to do to her when they caught her. Knowing she’d lose in any kind of physical altercation, Beth tried to find a place to hunker down and hide until the men gave up. With any luck, they’d think she’d made it to one of the nearby houses and flee.

There were no trees appropriate for climbing and hiding in, so that plan was out. But finally Beth saw something that she thought might work. Knowing she was about to hyperventilate and needed to stop anyway, she threw herself into the ditch and grabbed the nearby logs and dead leaves, frantically trying to cover herself from head to toe with the forest litter. It wasn’t ideal, but she didn’t have any other choice at the moment.

Not letting herself think about how vulnerable she was, and how scared, Beth tried to concentrate on slowing her breathing. She’d never stay hidden long if she kept huffing and puffing the way she was. It was extremely hard to imagine her safe place when all that kept flitting over her eyelids was the memory of Hurst holding her down and hurting her. The images were vivid, the current situation bringing them to the forefront of her mind.

Beth heard the men as they came closer and closer to her hiding place and almost whimpered out loud before biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Bitch has to be here somewhere, she couldn’t just disappear into thin air.”

“Well, where the hell is she then? Do you see her anywhere? And where the fuck did she come from anyway?”

“She must’ve been in the house.”

“I thought you staked it out, Frank! You said the fire guy lived alone.”

“He did…at least he did the last time I followed him home.”

She heard a loud smack and one of the men grunted. “Well, he obviously moved in the girlfriend at some point, didn’t he?”

Beth breathed as shallowly as possible so as not to make the leaves concealing her rustle and give away her location.

“Come on, the bitch is probably well on her way to the neighbor’s by now. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

The two men’s voices faded, but Beth didn’t dare move. She hardly dared to breathe. She had no way of knowing if they’d really left, or if they were just pretending to so she’d come out and they could get their hands on her.

Beth closed her eyes and pictured her safe place, just as Dr. Neal had taught her. If she concentrated hard enough, she could almost picture herself there.

Refusing to let any thoughts of another day and another place seep into her safe place, Beth did her best not to lose it.

“
S
ledge
, how’s Beth doing?” Crash asked between calls while they relaxed in the TV room at Station 7.

“Better. The other day we actually ate dinner out on the patio. That’s a huge step for her.”

“That’s great,” Crash enthused, genuinely pleased. “And I can tell you’re much happier, you son of a bitch.”

The others laughed and Driftwood joined in. “Yeah, she must be taking verrrrry good care of you.”

Cade threw a pillow at his friend’s head. “We take good care of each other,” he returned easily, not embarrassed in the least that his friends knew he was getting some on a regular basis.

Later, Cade texted Beth for the second time that day. He hadn’t heard a response to his first text and wanted to touch base with her.

I miss you. How has your day been?

After twenty minutes with no response, Cade was concerned. She usually responded immediately to his texts. He thumbed in another message.

Beth? All okay there?

He waited another ten minutes, but as the emergency tones once again pealed throughout the station, he didn’t have a chance to worry about it further as he jumped into his bunker gear and into the truck.

Returning an hour and a half later, after getting a fire under control that had started in the laundry room of an elderly lady’s home, Cade checked his phone and saw that Beth still hadn’t responded.

Extremely worried now, knowing instinctively something had to be wrong—there was no way Beth would ignore his communications for that long—Cade headed for the fire chief’s office. He needed to get home. Now.

After getting permission to end his shift early, Cade drove as fast as he dared, Penelope hanging on for dear life as he took the turns that led to his neighborhood. She’d seen him heading for his truck and had jumped in without asking. She’d called both Hayden at the sheriff’s office and Quint at the SAPD, to ask that they meet them at Cade’s house as they headed down the road. Just in case.

Quint had made her hang on for a moment, then came back on the line and said that there had been no nine-one-one call from his house or neighborhood.

That didn’t reassure Cade in the least. He couldn’t get the picture of Beth hurt and bleeding out of his head. She could’ve slipped in the shower and hit her head and was lying unconscious in the bathroom. Maybe she cut herself while making something to eat. God forbid she’d had a setback with the fire thing and she was trapped in his burning house.

The horrifying situations Beth could’ve found herself in that would make her unable to get to the phone raced through his head.

He pulled into his driveway and saw that Quint had beat them there. Cade cut the engine, jumped out of his truck and ran toward his front door, which was standing open. Quint caught him before he could enter.

“The door was open when I got here, Cade. I need to check the house. Stay here.”

“The hell I will. What if it was Corrie in there?” Cade knew it was a low blow, but he couldn’t just stand around if Beth was inside hurting.

“Then I’d want to make sure I didn’t put her in more danger by rushing in without thinking or figuring out what was going on first,” Quint retorted without missing a beat.

Cade sighed, and wanting to hurry the entire situation, impatiently gestured to the door. “Fine, check it out. Hurry. Please.”

Quint nodded and gritted his teeth in determination as he unholstered his weapon and held it at the ready as he eased inside the house.

Cade waited with ill-concealed impatience for Quint to reappear. He paced outside the door, imagining the worst.

“Cade…look,” Pen said, pointing at the ground.

He looked to where his sister was gesturing and saw footprints in the dry, dusty ground near the side of the house. His brow wrinkled and he took a step toward them just as Hayden arrived. “Quint inside?” Her words were no-nonsense and to the point.

“Yes. Look at this,” Cade said, pointing at the set of footprints. There were small ones, but also larger ones. All of them were spaced widely apart, as if the three people had been running. “Those have to be Beth’s.”

“No offense, but would she be outside?” Hayden asked.

“Maybe,” Penelope answered for her brother. “The meds she’s on have done a lot of good and she’s been working on spending time outside of the house.”

At Hayden’s look of disbelief, Cade picked up the conversation. “She wouldn’t be out here for an afternoon stroll.” He looked up at the large tree. “I showed her once how she could climb out of our bedroom window and get down this tree if the house was ever on fire and the other exits were blocked.”

Quint appeared back at the front door. “Inside is clear, although there’s no sign of Beth. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but it looks like you’ve been robbed, Cade. You’ll have to come inside and see what’s missing.”

“That’s it. Jesus. Someone broke in while she was inside, she escaped out the window and ran into the trees. Remember how fascinated she was with Corrie’s story? I’m sure she remembered how she was able to get away from her kidnappers by running into the woods and climbing a tree. That has to be what she did.” Cade refused to believe someone had kidnapped her again, and no other scenario made sense. If someone had broken into his house while she’d been inside, it would’ve brought back memories of being kidnapped. She’d probably bolted, using the tree as a ladder to get out of the house. Cade had started walking before he’d finished speaking, Hayden, Penelope, and Quint hurrying to keep up.

They followed the footprints as far as they could, until the dust ended and the grass began, and then headed into the woods, hoping against hope they’d find Beth waiting for them.

“Beth! Are you here?” Penelope called out.

“Let’s split up. Cade, you and Hayden go that way, and me and Penelope will go in this direction,” Quint said in a quiet voice. “We’ll find her.”

Without taking the time to agree or acknowledge his friend’s words, Cade headed east, calling himself all sorts of names for not being there to protect Beth as he’d promised.

He could hear Penelope and Quint calling Beth’s name as they headed away from them. Hayden also chimed in, yelling for Beth as the two of them combed the dense woods for any sign of her.

“Make sure you look up as well as down,” Hayden cautioned. “It was amazingly effective when Corrie did it.”

The two split up about ten feet or so and combed both the ground and the trees, occasionally calling Beth’s name.

Cade heard Hayden shout something, but didn’t understand what it was. He looked over at her and saw her running ahead. Immediately, he followed, knowing Hayden wouldn’t be running pell-mell through the woods if she hadn’t found something important.

It took a moment, but Cade picked up his pace when he saw for himself what Hayden had obviously seen. Beth. A very disheveled Beth, but she was alive.

They made more noise than a herd of elephants, but Cade didn’t even really notice. All his attention was on the woman he was afraid he’d never see alive again. He and Hayden reached Beth at the same time and Cade put his hand on the middle of her back, relieved to feel her quick breaths.

Beth was standing barefoot in the middle of a grouping of three trees, with her arms around one of the trunks as if she were hugging it. Cade felt as though
he
was the one having the panic attack this time, and he looked at Beth in confusion as she turned to them with a huge smile on her face.

A grin was the last thing he’d expected to see. In all the time he’d known Beth, he’d never seen her looking happy when she was outside. She never really looked unhappy, but concerned and focused was more the emotions that radiated from her. But joy was the emotion written all over her face at the moment.

She was covered in dirt, his Station 7 T-shirt she liked to pilfer was smeared with debris, and Cade could see some dead leaves sticking stubbornly to it. She had a small stick stuck in her hair as well as more leaves. Her sweats were hanging extremely low on her frame, almost mooning them as they stood there.

But it was the smile that was most out of place.

“Cade.” Beth breathed the word.

He could hear the relief in the one syllable as if it came from deep within her. He took a step closer, wrapping his arm around her waist. “Are you all right?”

“Surprisingly, yeah. I think I am.”

He brought his other hand up to her face and brushed his knuckles down her cheek. She hadn’t let go of her death grip on the tree, but was following him closely with her eyes. At his touch, she sighed and he could feel her melt a little into his hand.

“What happened?” Hayden asked, looking around as if the bad guys would pop up from behind a tree at any moment.

Penelope and Quint joined the trio. Penelope ran up to Beth and hugged her awkwardly—she still hadn’t let go of the tree and Cade’s arm was still around her waist—and exclaimed, “Thank God! We were so worried about you!”

“What happened?” Quint asked Hayden.

“Not sure, she hasn’t had a chance to tell us.”

“You’re safe now, you can let go of the tree,” Cade told Beth, putting his free hand on her forearm, ready to take hold of her hand as soon as she let go of the trunk.

“It’s the weirdest thing, Cade,” Beth told him without letting go of the tree. “There I was, scared out of my mind, hiding under a bunch of leaves, knowing if I dared come out, the men would be there waiting to get me…and I realized…I was outside. By myself. No one knew where I was—and I was okay. I was afraid, and panic was right there—is
still
right there—but I’d done it. Without my lighter. Without any drugs. Without you or Pen holding my hand. Me. All by myself.”

Cade got it—and he was so proud of her. “I’ve told you all along how strong you are, Beth. On one hand, I’m sorry this happened to you, but on the other, I’m thrilled that it’s made you see what the rest of us have known all along.”

They grinned crazily at each other for a moment before Cade told her in a low voice, “If you wouldn’t mind though,
I’m
a bit freaked out. Would you mind if you took hold of me instead of that tree? I could use a hug.”

It was as if his words broke her fragile hold on her emotions. Beth let go and turned to Cade. He caught her in his embrace and sighed in relief.

The last thirty minutes had been absolute hell. Not knowing where she was, what had happened, or if she was all right, had eaten at him. It reminded him way too much of the days after she’d fled to Pennsylvania. Beth’s arms went around his waist and the knot that had been in his belly loosened for the first time.

“You’re shaking,” Beth told him without lifting her head.

“Adrenaline dump,” Cade explained, not giving a shit that the others were still standing there witnessing him tremble.

“Can you at least give us the short version of what went on?” Hayden demanded for the third time, clearly losing some of her patience.

Now that Beth was safe in Cade’s arms, she could talk about the events that had led to her being in the woods without any issues. “I was still in bed when I heard someone in the house. They were talking about robbing it and how they’d been watching Cade. They saw the picture you took of us, Pen, and made comments about wanting to ‘do me.’ I realized if they knew I was there they would probably hurt me. There wasn’t any good place to hide, so I went out the window and down the tree. I was going to hide somewhere outside when one of them came out and saw me standing there, trying not to freak out. I ran into the woods and hid. They couldn’t find me and decided to leave. Now you guys are here.”

“How long ago did this happen?” Quint’s voice was no-nonsense as he asked the question.

“What time is it now?”

“One-thirty.”

“Wow, um, maybe around ten?”

“You’ve been out here for three hours?” Cade asked incredulously.

“Probably more like three and a half,” Beth told him, wanting that extra thirty minutes tacked on there. It seemed important to include it in the count, considering how well she’d done.

“I love you,” Cade told her in a soft voice, hugging her to him again.

“We need to get back to the house,” Quint told the group. “Cade, you have to see what was taken, and I need to coordinate the backup officers that have probably arrived by now. They’ll be looking for us, and we need to get a description of the men so we can be on the lookout for them.”

Beth took a step backward and winced, the tiny burrs in her feet making themselves known, now that she wasn’t alone and panicking.

“What is it?” Cade asked urgently, looking on the edge of panic himself.

Beth lifted one leg and showed him. “Have I ever told you how much I hate these damn things?”

Cade didn’t hesitate. He bent and picked Beth up as if she wasn’t only a few inches shorter than him. “Hang on.”

Beth didn’t complain as they headed back to the house—those suckers
hurt
. She felt herself settled even more when Penelope rested her hand on her leg as they walked. Being surrounded by the two people who knew her best made being outside all that much easier.

B
eth sat very still
with her teeth clenched as Crash worked on her feet with a pair of tweezers. Pen had called the fire chief to let him know what was going on and that Beth was safe. Quint radioed for medical assistance when he’d seen the extent of the damage to her feet, and now it seemed like all of Cade’s friends were there.

She winced and tried really hard not to flinch away from the man sitting at the other end of the couch as he plucked the burrs out of her flesh one by one.

“Damn, that hurts,” Beth said in a voice laced with pain.

“Yeah, these things suck,” Crash commiserated. “Of course, I’ve never had over a hundred stuck in my skin at the same time. You’re just an overachiever.”

Beth appreciated his attempt at levity. She turned her eyes to Cade standing on the other side of the room, telling Quint what he thought was missing. Beth had told him the names of the men who’d been in the house, Frank and Jimmy, and had given a rudimentary description of Jimmy and the car. There was now a BOLO, Be on the Lookout, for the men and their vehicle. If there was any chance of catching them, as soon as possible after it happened was the best time.