Worth the Risk (23 page)

What did that make Kelsey’s death? Collateral damage? Whoever made the file hadn’t even bothered to note her name. How many other innocent people had been killed in the process of self-preservation? And not just that, but preservation of the worst kind of villain—those who were sworn to protect and serve, and instead subverted justice.

And that brought back another, harsher, forcefully buried feeling—utter helplessness. The thing Sam railed against most for the years without his sister. The driving force behind almost every one of his actions since she’d been murdered. And all this time...

“Sam?”

He jerked his eyes toward Meredith. “I’m sorry. It’s just that whoever killed my sister and my ex-partner walked away without ever giving me a reason. They didn’t get the money, and they never asked for more. They didn’t leave a clue, and I’m damned good with clues. So I’ve never stopped wondering why and I’ve always thought somehow it was my fault. But this... I was
right
about Heely. And whether or not he decided to do the right thing in the end doesn’t matter. The responsibility for Kelsey’s death lies at his feet, not mine.”

“You see what this else means, right?”

“I see a lot of things.” Sam knew his voice was rough. “Scumbag cops. Senseless death.”

“I’m talking about for
us
. For
you
. Sam, the men who killed your sister...they’re the same ones who took mine. When we get to Tamara, we’ll get to them, too.”

He stared at her for a long moment, startled that he hadn’t immediately connected those particular dots. For a moment, he was elated. The end of this case could mean the end to a half a decade of wondering. Then he remembered that they were stuck. On Turtle Island, and on the case. Their next move was to hand over the file, and in spite of what he’d said earlier about not going in blind, they still didn’t know where Tamara was being held. Sam exhaled heavily and ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“We need another clue,” he said. “Or we’re just going to be sitting here on our hands—and no, I’m not using that as code for anything.”

“What about that other file?” Meredith replied.

“What other file?”

She pointed. “The actual trash file. It won’t hurt to look, right?”

Sam leaned forward and clicked. The folder only contained one thing. A link to a video site, labeled with a date and Tamara’s name.

Echoing his earlier command, her voice tinged with worry, Meredith said, “Click on it.”

“Chances are good that we won’t even be able to get an internet connection,” Sam replied.

But Worm had clearly thought ahead. When Sam clicked, a free, mobile hot-spot log-in appeared on the screen. He hit the enter key, and immediately a picture of a woman’s face popped onto the screen.

“Tamara?” Sam asked.

She nodded. “This looks like one of her weekly video posts. Every Friday, she puts up a snippet of advice.”

Sam studied the date stamp. “Except this was posted on Wednesday.”

“I know. Press Play.”

Sam did, and the picture faded to a title—Tamara’s Two Cents
—
and then to a live shot of the same girl. She sat at a rustic desk, her hands folded and her eyes on the camera.

Sam examined her face as she issued what he assumed to be her standard greeting. The woman didn’t look much like Meredith. Her hair was dark, her skin more tanned and her face made up. Even though she was seated, she gave the impression of being petite. Her narrow chin rested on a delicate hand with painted nails. Only the eyes gave away their shared parentage. Brilliantly green with an undisguisable hint of sass. Under any normal circumstance, that would’ve made Sam smile. Right that second, though, all he cared about was what the video had to do with their case.

“All right,” Tamara said with a little smile. “Today we’re going to talk about timing. About finding what you seek. Because those two things, combined with keen observation, will help you find happiness.”

She continued on for a bit, her spiel just vague enough to apply to almost any situation, and just banal enough to make Sam wonder how she’d gained such popularity. The video was also clearly recorded on a lower quality device—even he could tell that.

At the end, Tamara smiled again and the camera panned out just enough to show a wood shelf behind her. “I’m Tamara Billing. On location. And that’s this week’s two cents.”

Sam turned to Meredith, a puzzled question on his lips. Her eyes had gone wide with excitement.

“If you’re trying to figure out how
that
sells anything,” she said, “you can stop. Because that wasn’t a real piece. It was another clue. When Tamara does her on-location shoots, she always announces where she is. She calls them her two-and-a-
half-
cent pieces. She does a little bit on why she chose the spot. Like, a lingerie store for a clip about spicing it up in the bedroom. Or a restaurant to talk about date nights. She shows the viewer everything. Plus, her narrative is always smooth. Snappy. Funny but sensitive. None of this...choppiness with weird words standing out. Timing? Finding and seeking? That’s not directed at her subscribers. That’s directed at us. It has to be. We should watch it again.”

Sam hit the replay button. As the video started up for the second time, Meredith leaned forward eagerly. At the forty-second mark, she reached over and froze it.

Her gaze found his. “I know exactly where Tamara is, Sam. She’s
here
on Turtle Island. In the cabin where we stayed when we were kids.”

“I thought you told me it got torn down.”

Her visible excitement didn’t diminish in the slightest. “It did. All of the houses along that side of the beach were declared unsafe and demolished. But somehow, she’s there anyway. I’m a hundred-percent sure of it. See that window behind her, just to the left of the bookcase?”

“Yeah.”

“Look at the sill.”

Sam brought the still to full screen mode. In worn, blurred letters, he could just barely make out two words.
Tami
and
Merri.
It was far more than he needed to convince him Meredith was right.

He looked up and gave her a single nod. “Keen observation.”

“Just like my sister said.”

Sam pushed back the laptop. “Do you know where the cabins were in relation to this one?”

“A couple of miles from the other side of my and Tamara’s cave. If you were standing on the part of the beach that touches that outcrop of rock, you would just be able to see the curve where they used to be. Or where that particular one still is, I guess. All we need to do is get there.”

The roof above the cabin shuddered. Like a warning.

“I guess going on foot is out of the question, and...” Sam trailed off as an idea came to mind, and under his breath, he added, “But will it work?”

“Will what work?”

“Hang on.” He pulled the laptop across the table again. “Let me just send these files over to Worm. Maybe he’ll have something to add. At the very least he’ll make a backup copy.”

Meredith waited in silence as Sam drafted an email, attached the files and sent everything off. When he was done, he stood, grabbed her jacket and tossed it to her.

“Just so you know,” he said. “If, by some miracle, this works, I’m going to go ahead and take two more full points.”

She met his eyes, and he waited for her to argue. Or smile. Instead, her gaze stayed steady and serious.

“I’ll gladly concede those points now,” she told him. “Because I know if you say something will work, it will.”

She snagged the coat from his hands, moved toward the door and tossed him an expectant look. And Sam was more than happy to follow her out into the storm.

Chapter 24

M
eredith gripped the seat beneath her with both hands, her lips pressed together to keep from squeaking at each jagged turn. Even though they were traveling at no more than twenty miles an hour, the going was rough. Every few hundred feet, the snow chains—Sam’s big, two-point idea—caught in the mud beneath them. There was zero visibility beyond the light of the sedan’s high beams. Not that Meredith wanted to see what was out the windshield anyway. The rain had reached torrential status, and Sam’s hands, tight on the wheel, were evidence enough that their journey bordered on insanity.

They jerked and they bumped. But they didn’t skid or slide. Not quite, anyway. Once, the tied-together wires under the steering column came loose, and Sam had to reattach them. But thankfully, they didn’t stray from the road.

The farther they got from their cabin, the worse the conditions became. And when they reached the turnoff that led to the beachfront, Meredith’s arms ached from holding on. She breathed in and out, and she squeezed her lids shut. So it took her by surprise when the car bucked underneath them, then swept violently to one side. And she couldn’t quite hold in the responding shriek as her body slid, too. The sedan came to a stop so abruptly that the seat belt dug into her throat.

Sam reached across the console and grabbed her hand. “Sorry, sweetheart. Log in the way.”

Meredith peeled her reluctant eyes open and followed the glow of the headlights.
Log
was an understatement. An entire tree had come down, exposed roots and all. It completely blocked the road.

“We can turn around,” Sam offered. “Try a different way?”

Meredith shook her head. “There
is
no other way. This is the only road that goes down to the beachfront properties.”

“The morning, then?”

“No. The longer we take to get to her, the more likely they are to expect us, right? The fewer hours we have left and...” She swallowed and peered out the windshield, and tried again. “And I think I might even recognize this spot. We’re not that far. We can walk.”

“Meredith—”

“We walk.”

She grabbed the flashlight, opened the door and climbed out. Then she slammed it behind her so he couldn’t talk her out of it.

And seconds later, she heard the other car door slam, too, followed by the sound of Sam’s feet hitting the soggy ground. He caught up to her, threaded his fingers through hers and pulled her to a stop.

She tried to yank her hand away, and failed. “You’re not going to change my mind. I don’t care if you think it’s crazy or not. We’re five hundred feet from my sister and I’m not about to turn around now.”

“I’m not trying to stop you,” Sam replied.

“You’re not?”

“We couldn’t have driven the car in much farther anyway. It would attract too much attention.” He let out a small laugh. “And besides that, if I
did
try, you’d kick me in the shins and run in the other direction.”

“I would,” Meredith agreed, relieved he understood. “So why are we stopping?”

“So I can give you a speech.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now.” Sam let her fingers go so he could lift a sopping wet curl from her cheek. “I love you, sweetheart. If you get hurt, I get hurt. So I want to be clear. Our odds suck. These guys aren’t going to negotiate nicely. They might even have a shoot-first mentality. And our own gun only has one bullet left. So we need to make sure we go in smart. We take our time. We assess. We don’t take any unnecessary risks. Okay?”

Meredith lifted her chin, knowing she might sound childish and not caring at all. “I’ll risk whatever I have to, to save Tamara.”

Sam lifted an eyebrow at her. “Unless it’s unnecessary.”

She started to protest, but before she could get a word out, he tipped up her face and planted a soft kiss on her lips. Meredith thought she should probably protest against that, too—the unfair use of his perfect mouth to get what he wanted—but the kiss made her pulse race. It drove away the chill in the air. And she couldn’t find a reason to ask him to stop. In fact, when he did pull away, she had to force herself not to drag him back again.

“Remember that kiss,” he said, his voice husky. Then he grabbed her hand, pressed it to his lips and released her completely. “Lead away.”

Meredith moved slowly, careful to keep to the edge of the road, where the mud was least thick, and where they were most hidden. It was funny to her, how well she remembered the path. Fifteen years had gone by, and she hadn’t thought much about the trip to Turtle Island at all. But now that she was back, that summer of walking up and down with Tamara in tow seemed to have brought back some buried recollection.

Partway down, they reached a long, flat patch of grass. Overgrown hedges lined the space, and Meredith recognized it, too.

She pointed. “There used to be a store here. They sold candy by the bag. Tamara and I weren’t allowed to go any higher up the road than that.”

“Let me guess. You went anyway.”

“All the time. We’d dare each other to get closer and closer to the main road. The first one to chicken out had to give the other all her candy.”

“How often did you win?”

Meredith smiled. “Never. Tamara would’ve cried. And then she would’ve ratted us both out.”

“Typical Tamara and Meredith?” Sam teased.

“Pretty much.”

They started walking again, and just below the now-gone store’s site, the road grew abruptly steep, and in several places, the foliage grew out into the middle of it. It was obvious, though, that a least one vehicle had come through recently. The flashlight showed broken branches and tire tracks leading straight down.

And knowing what that meant made Meredith was afraid to breathe. In fact, she was unsure if she
could.
The next curve in the road would put them in sight of the line of cabins.

Number eight. The last house. That was the one where they’d stayed as kids. While the rest of the summer homes all touched the sandy shore, number eight had been built a ways up, nestled into its own little evergreen grove. Like an afterthought. Their dad had told them it was the least desirable spot on the beach, and that’s why they’d received such a steal of a deal on the rent. Both Meredith and Tamara disagreed with whoever had given it the label. Because even though the cabin required a bit more of a walk to actually tuck their feet into the ocean, it had charm and privacy and a uniqueness that appealed to the two sisters. Meredith wondered if that uniqueness was what saved it.

As they rounded the bend, she held tightly to Sam’s hand. “Here we go.”

Even in the dark, it was easy to see why the cabins had been torn down. The ocean had taken over, eroding the shore all the way up to what little of the foundations remained.

Mother Nature’s reclamation,
Meredith thought.

But up the beach, she could see that the central, concrete parking lot still sat in one piece. And three vehicles dotted its surface. She pulled Sam along, studying the cars and straining to place them. Finally, they got close enough to see.

The first, she didn’t recognize.

The second made her heart flood with relief, because it was Tamara’s small SUV.

And the third made her heart want to
stop
. There was no mistaking the flat-black, raised-up truck.

“Worm.” Sam uttered the name like a curse.

And the reply that followed—unexpected and from behind them—was just as dark. “Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”

Meredith dropped Sam’s hand and whipped around. The ponytailed man stood on the road just above them, looking far bigger and far more menacing than she remembered. A second man—who Meredith was sure was the same uniformed cop from Sam’s building—stood beside him. And he held a gun in one hand, pointed casually at Meredith.

“Hola, señorita,”
he greeted them with a wide grin that chilled her.

* * *

Even as stunned as Sam was by the betrayal, his instincts still took over and he lunged forward, his hand reaching for the weapon at his waist. He wasn’t quite quick enough.

“Stop.” The cocking of the weapon emphasized Worm’s one-word command.

Sam lifted his hands. “What the hell’s going on here, Worm?”

“You’re smart enough to figure it out.”

“For God’s sake. I helped you. I kept you out of jail.”

“Put me in league with the enemy,” Worm countered.

“Saving people’s lives? Explain to me how that’s bad.”

“Not the damned PI work, Potter. The cops who always come calling. You think I want to be working with guys like Randy?” He tossed a disparaging look toward the cop with the gun, who seemed indifferent to the disdain. “Because I don’t. Since the day you decided to trade my services for my freedom, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. And every one of my less-than-upstanding friends—which includes everyone in my business circle—has blackballed me.”

“And that’s worth killing for?”

Sam knew he sounded as incredulous as he felt. But Worm just offered a shrug.

“I liked my life on the periphery,” he said. “So when a mutual friend of ours offered me this job, I found it hard to say no.”

“A mutual friend?” Sam repeated.

“Yeah. It was supposed to be an easy job,” Worm said. “Track Tamara Billing. Figure out what the hell she did with all that sensitive information. But the girl was damned hard to pin down. Smarter than I thought. Got her husband involved. All that ’til-death-do-us-part garbage. It was almost easier when you showed up. Gave me a little family insight.”

Behind him, Meredith let out a little cry. Sam wished like hell he could reach for her, but he didn’t dare.

Worm smiled. “Now hand over that gun you’ve got shoved down your pants.”

Sam started to reach for it, but then Randy the cop finally spoke.

“Not you,” he ordered. “Her.”

Meredith inched toward Sam, and he knew she must be wondering if she stood a chance of somehow disarming Randy. Sam shook his head, just enough to warn her that she shouldn’t even try.

Her mouth turned down and he knew she understood. With shaking hands, she drew out the weapon and handed it over to Worm.

“All right,” his former friend said. “Both of you in front. Walk slowly toward the cabin. And you might want to keep in mind that Randy’s a little trigger-happy.”

As they began their descent toward the beach, the only thing keeping Sam from turning around and slamming his fist into Worm’s throat was Meredith. He’d told her no unnecessary risks. Throttling the other man would definitely fall into that category. So he had to hold it in.

You’ll get a chance,
he assured himself.
Worm is smart. A genius, maybe. But for the years you’ve known him, he’s always hidden behind a computer. Just like he’s hiding behind that cop and his gun.

They hit the almost nonexistent shore, and finally their destination became visible. Way back from the beach, a dim glow flickered from somewhere inside a dilapidated building. The closer they got, the worse it looked. A broken window. A rotted porch and beams. Missing stairs. Even the door barely hung on by its rusty hinges.

Beside him, Sam felt Meredith slow. He knew the state of repair would concern her. How long had her sister been held there? Under what kind of conditions? They didn’t have time to wonder. And they didn’t need to anyway—in moments, they’d find out for real.

Sam pressed his hand to the small of her back and urged her silently to keep going. Her pace increased right away, and together, they took the poorly spaced stairs to the hole-filled deck.

“Open the door,” Worm ordered.

With gritted teeth, Sam reached up to push the cracked wood, and what he saw inside surprised him.

A second door in near perfect shape.

“That one, too,” Worm added.

Sam found the knob, turned it, then stepped back, disbelief making him blink. The outside of the cabin was nothing more than a shell. A disguise. The inside had been refurbished into a studio office. The desk and the bookshelf from Tamara’s video sat in front of the same wide window that had the name-carved sill. A couch rested against another wall, and a kitchenette took up a corner space. In the center of it all sat Tamara Billing. Eyes wide. Bound, gagged and tied to a computer chair, and guarded by a tall, wire-thin man wielding a gun.

Meredith hissed in a breath, but when she moved forward, Randy yanked her back roughly. Automatically, Sam stepped in to protect her. But before he could follow through, the man with the gun turned to face them and froze Sam to the spot.

He knew him. Knew now why the voice on the phone had been familiar.

Abel. Goddamned. Heely.

For some reason, thinking the name once wasn’t enough. Sam had to do it again.

Abel.

Goddamned.

Heely.

A bit older. A lot more gray at the temples. But the same cold, calculating eyes that hid something dark and uncomfortable. That intangible thing that filled Sam with distrust five years earlier and filled him with sickness now.

“You’re supposed to be dead.” He spat out the words.

“Apparently I’m not,” the other man said back.

“I saw your goddamned body.”

“You saw what I wanted you to see. Your sister. And the man who told you he loved her.” Heely shrugged. “You were just too damned straight to pick up on the feint.”

“You were dirty. The whole time.”

“Yes.”

So stupidly nonchalant. Disgustingly arrogant.

“Did you kill her, Heely? Did you kill Kelsey?” Sam wished he didn’t have to ask, but he had no choice—he had to know.

“Not because I wanted to.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

Heely sighed. “I dropped enough hints, Potter, trying to let you in. Trying to encourage you to see the good thing we had going, skimming funds from the ransom, setting up the false drops. You never seemed to get it. Took me a long while to figure out you didn’t
want
to understand.”

Furious, Sam took a step forward. But Worm grabbed his collar, stopping him.

“Easy now,” his former friend cautioned. “You’re outnumbered and out-armed, too.”