Texas Takedown (15 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Tension corded Dylan's muscles with each step closer to the hardware store. They'd retrieved her store key in silence. Samantha deserved an explanation. She was right. He'd been hot and cold with her and it had nothing to do with his feelings. They were always hot. Too much like an out-of-control forest fire for him to be comfortable.

There was a connection between the two of them that he hadn't experienced with anyone else, not even Lyndsey.

Was it because of shared history? Possibly. And something else, too. Something more primal. Something that he didn't have to work at. He just understood Samantha, and it seemed to go both ways.

But he couldn't think about that right now. All he could focus on was getting Maribel back home safe and sound.

His fists curled and adrenaline pumped through him as he thought about the possibility of facing down the jerks who'd taken his daughter. She'd been photographed in the back room of the hardware store, so they needed to enter through the front.

“What about an alarm?” he asked.

“I know the code.”

“The noise will give us away if someone's inside, and we don't want that.”

“Good point.” She stopped and he took her hand in his. Her fingers went still, then wound through his.

Dylan led her around toward the back of the building. A single light fixture stood sentinel over the metal door. The back parking lot was completely empty.

Gravel crunched underneath their shoes as they moved to the side of the building. Downtown, stores were linked together by a common wall. The hardware store sat at the mouth of the alley and anchored the strip.

He leaned his head at the crack of the door, listening for any sounds coming from inside the stockroom.

All was eerily quiet—the kind of quiet where even the air felt stale.

After ten minutes, Dylan was certain that if anyone was in the building, they weren't awake.

He took Samantha's hand again and moved down the side of the building toward Main Street and then turned right. The windows were dark. There was no sign of movement inside.

Samantha squeezed his fingers and then angled her head toward a blinking red dot on the wall.

“The alarm isn't armed,” she said.

There were no signs of forced entry, either, in back or in front.

“I want to go in first.” He didn't admit his worst fear that her father and his Maribel might be inside, dead. Anger burned in his gut. Dylan blocked out the possibility.
They're safe. They'll be home tonight.
Those were the only two thoughts he could allow in his head. He couldn't afford to think any other way.

Samantha unlocked the wooden door that was half-glass. The hours of business were posted on the top half. Other than that, the hardware store had two bay windows with
Turner Hardware
etched in white letters on one side.

A bell tinkled as Samantha opened the door. She winced. “Shoot. I forgot about that.”

If there was someone inside, he'd know they were coming now. So much for stealth.

Samantha stepped aside so Dylan could go first.

“Wait here,” he said, and then stopped. He pulled out his Glock and let the weapon lead the way. Anyone who jumped out or tried to surprise him would get a bullet between the eyes.

First he checked the aisles. Behind the counter came next. The front of the shop was clear.

He turned and waved Samantha inside.

She closed the door behind her.

The damn bell tinkled again.

There was no metallic smell in the air, and that was a relief. If anyone had been killed and brought to the stockroom, it would've had to have been recent. Bodies wasted no time starting to decay. Clean air was a good thing. In fact, it smelled like the inside of any hardware store. And it was neat. Everything seemed to have a place.

He moved toward the stockroom. Samantha was right behind him. He started to argue, to tell her to wait, but she deserved to know just as much as he did. His protective instincts had him wanting to shield her. Samantha was strong. No matter what happened, she could handle herself and then some. She'd proved it time and time again. He respected her for it.

The door to the stockroom had no lock. It was the kind that swung loosely on its hinges for an easy pass-through.

Samantha squeezed his shoulder, so he stopped.

She disappeared down an aisle and returned with a hammer in her left hand.

He smiled at her and hoped she could see him in the dim light.

As he turned, the door smacked him in the face. His body acted as a doorstop but he held his footing. The person on the other side was weaker, so Dylan braced himself and pushed back.

The battle between them held until Dylan counted to five. Then, picturing his little girl, he grunted and gave a shove so hard the other side buckled. The door swung open and Dylan used the opportunity to rush the guy.

Out of nowhere, Dylan's right knee buckled and he landed flat on his back. By the time he popped to his feet again—which took all of two seconds—the guy had pushed past Dylan and knocked Samantha down. She recovered a second behind Dylan.

Both ran after the mystery guy, who bolted through the front of the store and outside, Samantha a half step behind. Those powerful legs of hers kept her within spitting distance, even though she had to be in considerable pain, but the guy in front had a couple of seconds' advantage and could keep pace with both of them.

Dylan kept running, pushing through burning legs until his lungs felt as if they would explode. He had no doubt that if he'd been 100 percent, the guy in front of him with a medium build wearing jeans and sneakers would have been knocked out flat by now. Even a burst of adrenaline couldn't overcome the gap, because the runner had a rush of his own slamming through him.

He hopped a fence and Dylan was right there on his heels.

For a solid ten minutes, they ran.

After a good five more, Samantha dropped off.

“Keep going,” she said breathlessly.

If Dylan hadn't been so close, he'd have given up. The guy was just out of reach, and Dylan wanted more than anything to close his fingers around his neck and choke the bastard. He'd talk first, though. This guy would sing as soon as Dylan applied the right...motivation. And Dylan would have an address. Maribel would be home.

He felt torn between catching this guy, the only viable link to Maribel, and stopping to hang back in order to protect Samantha. That momentary hesitation cost him another two seconds between him and his target.
Well, hell on a roller coaster.

The runner darted between trash cans, knocking them over. Dylan jumped in time to avoid them. It cost him another second. At this pace, no way could he make up five seconds of delay.

After the guy cut right at the next house, Dylan followed.

The first dog barked, and if Dylan was lucky, that would be the extent of it. He'd lost visual with the runner and that wasn't good. A couple more dogs sounded off, seeing which one could yap the loudest.

If he woke up the neighborhood, someone would end up calling the police. This whole situation would get even stickier.

More dogs weighed in. Was he on Maple? Wasn't that where Samantha had said the dogs were?

He kept running for at least another ten minutes, well aware that he was moving farther from Samantha and no closer to his target. She was there at the hardware store, alone.

When Dylan rounded the next house and the guy was nowhere to be seen, Dylan released a string of curse words under his breath that would've made his grandmother wash his mouth out with that deodorant soap she'd bought for him as a teenager.

Dylan stopped in the alley and listened.

He'd completely lost the runner, so he circled back and jogged toward the hardware store with a bad feeling. What if there had been another person waiting in there?

That person would have complete access to Samantha and then it would be game over. The guttural cry begging for release inside Dylan was more than just frustration that he'd never find his daughter. It was also for Samantha. And he didn't want to feel that way about anyone.

Why?

Being a parent made him feel exposed enough already. He didn't want people to have any additional ways to hurt him, and especially not in the way he'd been hurt when Lyndsey had died. It was immature to feel that she'd abandoned him because she'd died, and yet that was exactly how he'd felt.
 
Abandoned.

Frustrated and defeated, Dylan picked up the pace. If anything had happened to Samantha—and he'd never forgive himself if it had—he needed to know, like, now.

With every forward step, his heart grew heavier in his chest and it was harder to breathe. Ignoring the pain in his calves from bursts of running, he pushed ahead, harder, faster. Getting to Samantha, knowing she was all right, was suddenly more important than air.

The hardware store was two blocks up on the right. It felt like the longest stretch of his entire run even though he ate up the ground in record time. No way could the guy have circled back and beaten Dylan to the store. And yet every possibility started roaring through Dylan's brain.

Samantha wasn't out front. Dylan wasn't sure where he'd expected her to be but maybe he'd hoped that she'd be standing on the sidewalk, waiting, so he could see her first thing.

That would be stupid, though. She'd become pretty darn good at keeping herself alive. Only an idiot would stand out in the open, exposed. Samantha was much smarter than that. It was her intelligence that had first attracted him.

Sweat dripped down his face, his eyelids, his nose by the time his hand closed around the door handle. He turned the knob but it clicked instead. It was locked.

A few light taps on the glass and he caught sight of her silhouette moving toward him in the darkness.

Instantly, his heart filled with warmth and light. His need to hold her hit as swiftly and as piercingly as a lightning bolt straight through him.

The door swung open and she launched into his arms.

“You're back. I was so worried.” She burrowed her face into the crook of his neck.

“I wouldn't go anywhere without you.” He didn't want to admit just how absolutely freaked out he'd been. Not to her. Not to himself. Because needing her opened up a whole new can of worms he wasn't sure he was ready to deal with. And what he'd felt running toward the hardware store felt a whole helluva lot like need.

He walked her backward into the store and closed the door behind them.

The smell of her lilac shampoo filled his senses as her body pressed hard against him, giving him other ideas he needed to control.

For now, he'd give in to weakness and hold her.

“Did you catch him?” she finally asked, still nestled against him.

His pulse raced. His breathing was ragged. And he noticed the instant he went from heaving air to breathing in her scent. The air in the room thickened and tension coiled low in his gut. This time he needed a different kind of release. Dylan's feelings for Samantha were getting more difficult to maintain. He had to remind himself they were friends. And he didn't want to do anything to jeopardize that bond. More than anything, he wanted to be with her. And he appreciated whatever kind of connection was growing between them.

“No. He got away. I couldn't get to him in time. He was too far ahead.” Dylan took a step back, frustration eating at his stomach lining.

“It's okay. We can figure out who he is anyway.” Samantha held her left palm out flat, a cell phone sitting on top. “I found it here on the floor when I came back. I stepped on it, actually, and that completely freaked me out because once I realized what it was, I thought I broke it.”

She pushed it toward Dylan. “It's password protected. I tried but couldn't get anything. I bet your friend can.”

* * *

T
HE
 
LOOK
 
OF
 
relief
 
that washed over Dylan created a seismic shift on his hard features. Hard lines softened. His lips, which had been permanently formed into a frown, relaxed. His intense eyes lightened. Giving him the break he so desperately needed sent ripples of warmth and happiness through Samantha.

“We need to get this to Jorge for analysis,” he said. “He'll be able to give us the name and address of the owner.”

“And hopefully more than that,” she agreed, starting toward the front door. She stopped when Dylan didn't follow. “I checked the back room. I didn't find anything. The computer's been tampered with, though.”

Dylan nodded and they moved to the front door together. “Covering their tracks.”

“I assume so.”

“Where does your friend live?”

“In Garland.”

“That's almost an hour away.”

“I know.” Dylan walked, glancing up occasionally from the phone. He pressed combinations of numbers. “It'll lock me out soon. Might have already taken our pictures.”

“Cell phones can do that?” she asked, stopping at the truck.

“Some are set up to snap a shot the first time the password fails.” Dylan opened the door for her.

“Maybe we'll get lucky and find pictures of who's behind all this on that phone.” She climbed into the cab.

“Not with my luck, we won't,” Dylan said under his breath.

 

Chapter Fifteen

Dylan knocked softly on the door of the small ranch-style house in the suburban Garland neighborhood. It was dark as pitch outside, but a glow came from inside and the porch light was on.

The door opened quickly.

“Thanks for remembering not to ring the bell. The kids are sleeping.” Jorge wasn't at all what Samantha had expected based on his voice. He was taller and his skin was too pale for someone who lived in Texas. He had sunken dark eyes. Then she remembered what he did for a living and realized his appearance must be from staying inside so much to work on computers.

“Thanks for seeing us so late,” she said, and introduced herself.

“I'd do just about anything for this guy. What happened to your face?” he asked Dylan.

“Walked into a wall.”

“That was some wall,” Jorge said. He turned to Samantha and stuck his hand out. “Nice to meet you. Come on in.”

He stepped back and opened the door wider for them but then bear-hugged Dylan as he entered.

She followed Dylan inside.

“We need to know who owns this phone.” Dylan handed the device over.

The front room had two sofas facing each other, a fireplace to the right of them. Kids' toys were scattered around, but everything else had a place. A quilt was folded over the back of one of the couches. Small frames with pictures of little kids lined the mantel.

The place had a warm feeling to it.

“Step into my office and we'll get to work.” Jorge led them down a hall, practically tiptoeing past rooms with crayon drawings taped to the doors.

He didn't speak again until they'd gone into the last room on the right and he'd closed the door behind them.

“Welcome to my humble abode.” He spread his arms out. The office, which was really a back bedroom converted, had a desk on which she couldn't see the top. Papers were stacked a foot high at a minimum, and where there wasn't paper, there was a manual of some type.

A cream-colored futon was positioned across from the desk.

“Take a seat,” Jorge instructed. “Where'd you get this?” He hesitated, then held up a hand. “No. Don't answer that. Never mind. What I don't know, I can't testify to in court.”

“I appreciate what you're doing.”

“You know I'd do anything for you, bro.” Jorge popped out the SIM card and stuck it into another device. He plugged that into his computer and then turned the screen around so they could see.

“He most likely had security set up on his phone if he went to the trouble of locking it,” Dylan said.

“Most people do.”

Not Samantha. She'd only scratched the surface of her iPhone's capabilities.

“Bingo.” Jorge popped back in his chair and looked at Samantha. “That's a nice pic of you.”

Samantha's face was right there, as obvious as the nose on his face, staring straight into the camera. Dylan filled the screen next. Jorge put both up side by side on a split screen.

“You two sure make a nice-looking couple.” His gaze immediately bounced between them.

Neither spoke, but Samantha was pretty sure Jorge picked up on the red flush in her cheeks.

Jorge pulled up another pic, loading it onto the screen. He continued, “Does this guy look familiar?”

Dylan shook his head before turning to Samantha. “You know him?”

“Afraid not.”

There were half a dozen other faces, none they recognized.

“No luck there.” Samantha shrugged.

“Yeah, well, luck has never been my thing,” Dylan said quietly. She tried not to notice the hurt in his voice when he spoke. She wondered if he was talking about Maribel's mother. He seemed to blame himself for everything that had gone wrong in their relationship. Samantha wondered whether, if Lyndsey had given him a chance and told him the truth—if she'd asked him point-blank what he'd intended to do—things would have worked out differently.

Knowing Dylan, he would've figured out a way to get his head around the surprise and done his level best to be there for her every step of the way. Being robbed of that chance had taken away so much from him. He'd mentally placed himself in the same boat as the parents who'd abandoned him.

When this was all over, she had every intention of telling him just that. And not because she expected anything to turn out differently between them. She realized he couldn't give her what she needed. His daughter was his focus, and that was the way it should be anyway.

“I got something here,” Jorge said. “I got a number, which led me to a name. Wait a minute. Here it is. This phone belongs to...Troy Michaels.” He looked up at them expectantly.

Samantha shrugged at the same time as Dylan. She figured they were repeating the same swear word in their heads, too. Neither said it, but they'd both most likely believed this guy would somehow be connected to the game. See his face and everything might finally make sense.

“Okay, we have another route. If you don't recognize the name of the guy who owns the phone, I can tell you it's a 214 number.”

“That's a Dallas area code. That much I know,” Samantha said.

“Okay. And he doesn't seem familiar to you at all?”

“No. But he messed with my father's computer equipment in the hardware store that he owns. This guy wanted something in the files.”

“That the same system I've been running?”

“Yes,” Dylan said. “You get anything?”

“Just the money connection. Deposits started being made fifteen years ago and they haven't stopped.”

“They started in the summer, right?” Dylan asked.

Jorge confirmed with a nod. “I heard about that crazy stuff that happened in Mason Ridge. This is connected?”

“It would seem so,” Samantha confirmed.

“Okay. Okay.” Jorge rubbed the day-old scruff on his chin. He looked as though he hadn't had a good night of sleep in weeks. “Let's see who this guy's been calling, then.”

He punched keys on the keyboard, then sat back.

A string of numbers showed up on-screen.

One repeated quite often recently.

“Let's just do a reverse number lookup here on Google.” More keystrokes. “Private number.” He laughed at the screen. “You want to play hardball, then. Okay. Let's try this.”

His fingers danced across the keyboard again.

“Looks as if this guy has been calling Charles Alcorn.”

Samantha looked from Jorge to Dylan. “We have proof the two are connected. People have to believe us.”

Tension radiated from Dylan. “Beckett played the game with the older boys fifteen year ago, remember? Alcorn must've known his son was involved and used it to his advantage. Plus, we already know he's the only one with enough resources to pull off what he did to us in Austin.”

“That's right. I didn't have much contact with Beckett, so I didn't even think about him being involved.”

“Can I see that phone?” Dylan asked, his back teeth grinding.

Jorge put the SIM card back in and handed it over.

There was a missed call.

The number was Charles Alcorn's—the end to which all roads led.

“Let's see what he has to say.” Dylan placed the call.

“He's probably wondering where his contact is. Maybe our guy from earlier was supposed to take the computer drive to Alcorn or check in,” Samantha said.

Dylan put the phone on speaker and held it out as the line rang. “Guess he's about to get a surprise, isn't he?”

“I've been expecting your call,” Charles Alcorn said.

“Or maybe not,” Dylan said through clenched teeth.

“If you want your daughter back alive, you'll agree to an exchange. You know who I really want.” Alcorn should sound shocked. He seemed to be expecting the call from Dylan on this line.

The runner must've let his boss know that he'd lost his phone when they'd given chase.

“Fine. Tell us where,” she interrupted, knowing full well Dylan would never make that trade.

The look he gave her could've shot daggers right through her. His lips thinned.

She gave him a pleading look in return even though she knew no one would get out of this alive if Alcorn had his way.

“Tomorrow. Noon. At the fork in the road between Benton County Road and Oxford on the way into Dallas. People will be watching, and if you bring in anyone else, the girl dies,” Alcorn said.

“Fine. Bring my father, too, or there's no deal.”

The line went dead.

Dylan was already shaking his head. “This is a no-win situation, Samantha. I can't allow you to do this.”

“How else do you plan to take him down and get your daughter back?” She sat there boldly waiting for an answer. “That girl needs to be home in her own bed. Not spending another night with those creeps.”

“You can't go. They get to you and it's over.” Dylan was already on his feet, gripping either side of his head with his hands. He looked at his watch. “We only have ten hours to figure this out.”

“For now, we know your daughter's safe. That's all that matters.” She put a hand on his arm.

“You're important, too. Can't you see that?” Standing at his full height of six foot two with muscles for days, he was a strong physical presence in the room. The man took up a lot of space and she could see how that might be intimidating to anyone who didn't know him. To her, he was Dylan. Bold and brave. Honest. Forthright. All the characteristics she respected in a man.

Jorge slipped out of the room as if aware the energy had taken on a new form, something more intimate.

“If they get to me, it's all over. I know that,” she responded quietly, suddenly aware of being alone with Dylan.

“That's all you think this is about?” His face looked thunderstruck. “We've been friends a long time, and you mean more to me than just a...a...pawn to get my daughter back.”

What was she supposed to do with that? Of course they were friends, but she felt so much more for Dylan than that. If that was how he classified their relationship, there wasn't much she could do about it except try not to embarrass herself again.

The way his eyes darkened when he stalked toward her and stopped not more than a foot away almost had her believing there was so much more there than friendship.

And that was just wishful thinking on her part. Dylan didn't know what to feel. He kept emotions like that under lock and key. It didn't matter how hard her heart beat with him this close or that she knew his beat hard, too. He was stubborn. He'd never allow himself to indulge in his weakness for her or anyone else. She tried not to take it personally.

“Dylan, we have to do something. You said yourself that they'll get desperate if we don't. That could lead to bad things.”

“We could march over to Alcorn's front door and kick his—”

“You know he's not stupid enough to be home.”

“Then, we'll get the law involved,” he said.

“That won't work, either. He won't keep them where they can be connected to him. He's not that stupid. He has too many places to hide people.”

“Fine. Then I'll put that bastard under surveillance.” Dylan's anger was a third physical presence in the room and it obliterated all other emotions on his face.

She needed to let him talk this out before he'd be able to see reason. She could see his wheels spinning behind his eyes.

“Good idea. Call Brody. He and Dawson can do that. Or Ryan,” she said. “Have people watching him that he's not expecting.”

“I'll think about it.” Dark circles cradled his eyes and she'd never seen him look more tired.

She walked over and stood toe to toe with him. “Even if Alcorn was keeping Maribel and my father at his house, he won't be now. He knows we're onto him and the stakes have been raised.”

“Are you saying it's not worth the time to watch him?”

“No. Not exactly. I think it would be good to have someone track his movements,” she clarified. “But let's not walk into a trap here.”

He seemed to really consider her ideas. The pulse at the base of his throat had returned to a reasonable beat. “You're probably right.”

“We should go back to your place or mine. Actually, now that I think about it, my place is better. I have security in the building. At the very least we'd be safe while we figure out our plan. We'll be twenty minutes from the meet-up spot. I have food there. All we've been eating so far to keep us going is power bars, other than the little bit of pasta I ate in the barn. We need something more substantial.” She didn't feel like eating but was pulling out all the stops to coax Dylan to go to her place. Going home was something she hadn't believed possible before. Not when she'd taken off days ago with her car and a little cash. It seemed almost a lifetime ago now.

“Now that I have proof Alcorn is involved and this operation has to be bigger than just a couple of local kidnappings spaced years apart, I don't trust the sheriff, either,” Dylan said, rubbing the scruff on his chin.

“I've seen them around each other quite a bit, too, when I visit Dad. It does make me suspicious of our law enforcement.”

“What if they're all on Alcorn's payroll? What then?” Dylan asked.

“I don't think that's true. I could see the sheriff not wanting to rock the boat any more than he had to, maybe even looking the other way from time to time, but the FBI would've figured out if those two were in league years ago. Don't you think?” Samantha didn't want to believe that Brine could be covering for Alcorn.

“You're right. Sheriff Brine isn't smart enough to fool the FBI. So we can be relatively certain that he didn't know who was really involved fifteen years ago. Do you think he suspected his golfing buddy?” Dylan asked bitterly.

“I doubt it. If you remember, Alcorn was out there volunteering to search for Rebecca and Shane just like everyone. I think he even donated a hundred thousand dollars to the search. I know he hired private planes to watch from the skies.”