Tremors racked through his hand, and he forced himself to back away for fear of waking her. The kidnapper should’ve made contact by now, given him further instructions or proof of life. His ears rang. He needed to be out there looking for his son, but he didn’t dare leave Olivia here on her own, either. Not after what she’d been through. Heat built in his chest. Someone had broken into his home, knocked him unconscious and taken his children. All because of what’d he found on that construction site.
The fire spread under his skin, and he closed his eyes as the all-too-familiar feeling of instability he’d kept in check all these years clawed for release. Benning unpocketed his phone, the sight of the photo behind the shattered glass immediately drowning the ringing in his ears. His pulse evened as he studied his twins’ smiling faces as they tackled him from behind on the screen. He’d get Owen back. He’d already lost too many people in his life. He couldn’t lose his kids, too.
A surge of awareness hiked his senses into overdrive, and Benning followed it to the hospital room door. Brown eyes ringed with green centered on him, and the world dropped out from under him. She’d come. In the minutes following Olivia’s arrival at the hospital, he hadn’t known who else to call. Or if she’d come back to Sevierville. The kidnapper had warned him not to involve law enforcement before knocking him unconscious, but Ana Sofia Ramirez wasn’t just a federal agent. She’d been everything to him. Before she’d ripped his heart from his chest in the middle of the night without warning.
Her flawless Hispanic heritage intensified the angles of her cheekbones and nose, silky dark hair reflecting the fluorescent lighting from above, just as he remembered. Pressure built behind his sternum—had been for the past seven years—and he wanted nothing more than to close the distance between them in an attempt to release it. “Ana.”
“I came as soon as I heard the news.” She rushed toward him and dropped a duffel bag at her feet. Wrapping her arms around his waist, the woman who’d walked out of his life melted into him, and everything inside him quieted in an instant. The insecurity, the rage, the fear and the failure. Now there was only calm. Clarity. Hints of her perfume—something light and fresh—tickled the back of his throat as he buried his nose against the crown of her head. At five foot five, she fit perfectly against him. Toward the end of their relationship, he’d even believed she’d been made specifically for him. Skimming her chin along his shoulder, she set her mouth at his ear, eliciting a shudder from his spine, and lowered her voice. “The kidnapper could be listening. Pretend we’re two friends randomly coming back into contact, and my team and I will do whatever it takes to get your son back.”
His insides tightened. Right. Her team. The hug hadn’t been personal, simply a way to get her message across. She hadn’t come because he’d called in a personal favor. She’d come to do her job. But given the fact his kids had been targeted in order to get to him, he’d do whatever the hell she instructed. He just wanted his son back. No matter the cost. He increased the space between them, shutting down the internal reaction to her proximity exploding through him, and cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”
“It’s my parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. My brothers and I are flying in to surprise them, but then I heard about what happened, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.” Weaving truth in with the lie. He’d read about that, how law enforcement officials, especially those assigned undercover work, trained to remember their stories by inserting bits and pieces of their own lives into their cover stories. Ana did have brothers. Three of them. But as for the wedding anniversary and wanting to check up on him, Benning was sure she’d improvised. Ana pulled her hair back in a tie and turned toward Olivia still asleep in the bed. Her knees popped as she crouched to unzip the duffel she’d brought. In his next breath she straightened with a small black box in her hand and moved toward the bed with the device raised out in front of her. Pulses of green light strengthened on the screen as she moved around the room. “How is she? Any news about Owen?”
She believed the kidnapper was listening. That was what she’d said. Waiting for him to see if he’d call the police? But unless the man who’d broken into his home knew Olivia would escape the SUV and which hospital room she’d be assigned when she arrived, Benning didn’t see how it was possible after Olivia had been checked in. He’d been by her bedside the entire time, only her nurses and doctors coming in and out of the room. “Nothing yet. Olivia suffered a concussion when she escaped the SUV. Doctors aren’t sure if the damage goes deeper than her short-term memory, but they’ll—”
A red light flashed on the device in Ana’s hand, and she stilled. With a quick glance over her shoulder toward him, she reached behind the faux wood headboard of Olivia’s bed and detached something from the back. Swinging her hand toward him, she stepped away from his daughter and held out the miniature circle-shaped piece of metal. She extended her index finger of her other hand in a spiral motion to signal him to keep talking.
Someone had installed a bug in his daughter’s hospital room. Either they knew she’d wind up in this hospital room or—Benning curled his fingers into tight fists as he ran through a mental list of people who’d stepped foot inside this room—one of the people on Olivia’s medical staff had placed the bug while attending to her injuries. He swallowed, tried to keep his voice even as Ana stared up at him. “They’ll run more tests once she’s awake.”
“How are you doing?” She nodded before maneuvering past him to the other side of the room. Dropping the bug into the glass of water at Oliva’s bedside, she searched the rest of the room, not seemingly interested in his answer.
“It’s been a long night,” he said.
The light on her detector remained green. Physical relief smoothed her expression as she pocketed the black box into her knee-length coat when she was finished, and a hint of the woman he remembered returned. “The rest of the room is clear. They won’t be able to hear anything now. I’ll be sure to get the bug to one of the agents on my team. There’s a chance we can trace it back to its owner and find out who took your son.”
And there she was. The federal agent he’d fallen for the instant she’d walked onto that construction site seven years ago interviewing anyone on his crew who might’ve known about the disappearance of a local teenage girl. Benning latched on to the handrail of his daughter’s hospital bed in an attempt to keep himself in the moment. “Assuming the man who took him is the same one who planted that bug.”
But what were the chances the two weren’t connected?
“Yes.” She nodded toward him, her voice flat, unemotional, and his gut clenched. “You’re bleeding. Has someone looked at that cut on the back of your head? I can stay with her—”
“I’m fine.” It was a lie, but he wasn’t about to leave Olivia’s side. She’d already been through so much; he didn’t want her waking up without him in the room. He tracked Ana’s every move with an awareness he hadn’t experienced since the night she’d left Sevierville all those years ago, noted the slight bulge beneath the left side of her jacket. Her service weapon. He’d imagined confronting her so many times, memorized what he’d say, how she’d react. None of it included him asking for her help, her armed with a gun or one of his children missing.
She’d made her choice. She’d decided her career was more important than what they could have together and had run off to save the world. He’d stayed here, and in the wake of losing her, he’d made the stupidest mistake of his life. He’d rebounded. When Lilly told him about the pregnancy, he’d married her, worked at building a real family together for the sake of their twins, despite the lack of love between them. It’d been nothing more than a one-night fling the night he and his late wife had gotten together, but that one night had changed the course of his life. Benning tucked his hands in his jeans. “Ana, I know why you left, but—”
“All that matters right now is getting your son back.” Moving arou
nd the end of the bed, she hauled the duffel bag into an empty chair, her bangs hiding the dark shadows in her eyes. “That’s why you requested me to work this case, isn’t it? This is what I do.”
Right. He’d read the articles splashed on the front page of The Mountain Press, watched the interviews on the major news channels. According to the media, her recovery rates were the highest in the Bureau. When it came to finding the missing, Agent Ana Sofia Ramirez was the best. Right now he needed the best to find his son. He’d shut down the urge to reach out to her over the years, telling himself she’d left for a reason and he was the last person she wanted to hear from, but as far as he was concerned, she would always be unfinished business. “The guy who broke into my house, the one who took my son. I think he’s tied to one of the construction sites I inspected—”
A red dot centered over her heart, and Benning lunged.
A gunshot exploded overhead.
Broken glass hit the bottom of Olivia’s bed and sliced across the exposed skin of his arm. Pain shot up his wrists as they landed hard on the cold tile. Her sharp exhale rushed across the sensitive skin under his chin and beard, and his heart shot into his throat.
Rolling him off her, Ana pushed to a crouch, her service weapon already in hand.
A familiar scream pierced through the settling silence.
“Olivia.” He crawled toward the bed, trying to keep as low as possible. Sunlight reflected off bright blue eyes matching his own as he leveled his gaze with the mattress, and he wrapped his hand around hers. The bruising along his daughter’s wrists and arms had darkened over the past few hours, but even more terrifying: someone had taken a shot at them. “It’s okay, baby. I’m here.”
“Daddy.” Her whisper tore through him.
Ana pressed her back against the wall beside the window, then straightened to crane her head around the windowsill. “We have to get out of here.”
“I’m not leaving her.” His phone vibrated in his pocket. He extracted his cell as Ana turned hazel-green eyes onto him. The number was blocked. Warning tensed the muscles across his shoulders. This was it, the call he’d been waiting for. Locking his gaze on Ana’s, he tapped the screen to answer, then put the call on Speaker. “Who is this?”
“I warned you about involving law enforcement, Mr. Reeves,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Now your son is going to pay the price for your mistake.”
“Let me talk to him. Let me talk to my son.” No answer. Benning tightened his hold on Olivia’s hand, his breaths coming shorter and faster. “Let me talk to my son!”
The call ended.
Chapter Two
No payment demand or instructions. No proof of life. Whoever’d taken Benning’s son wasn’t following typical patterns for an abduction. Which meant this was more than a simple kidnapping. They wanted to hurt Benning, manipulate him. Or they wanted something from him. The question was why.
Ana scoured the parking lot two more times. A gunman couldn’t fire a shot into a hospital without exposing himself, but there was no movement. Nothing to give her an idea of who’d pulled the trigger, or if they were still out there. She locked her grip around her weapon and turned toward Benning. Either way they were sitting ducks in this room. “Get her out of the bed. We’ve got to move.”
He shook his head. “Olivia’s not going anywhere. She needs rest. Her head—”
“You see these bruises around her wrists? How thin they are?” She closed the distance between her and the side of the bed opposite him. Ana flipped his daughter’s hand over as gently as she could. “There’s not enough skin damage for them to be caused by a rope or handcuffs. These are from zip ties, Benning. Someone bound her wrists while she was in that SUV, and she tried to get free, but she’s not strong enough to get out of them herself.”
He took a step back. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying he let her go.” She steadied her attention on him, tried to keep the warning out of her voice as much as possible. Benning was a smart man, but sometimes the fear of losing a child hazed over a parent’s ability to string reality together. “Whoever took her, whoever took Owen? They wanted Olivia to be found. They wanted you in this room and planted the device we found to ensure you followed whatever instructions they’d given you the first time they contacted you.” She studied his expression for any hint she’d hit the nail on the head, and her heart rate spiked as he flinched against the accusation. She was right, and the phone call he’d received seconds ago confirmed it. The kidnapper had warned him not to involve law enforcement, on threat of harming his son, because they weren’t finished with Benning. “They knew exactly where to find you. Do you really want to put Olivia’s life in more danger by staying here, or do you want to save both your daughter and your son?”
One breath. Two. Benning grabbed the near-empty IV bag, then scooped his daughter gently into his arms. Olivia’s small body fell limp against his muscled chest as she continued to combat whatever sedative her doctors had put in that IV. He rounded the end of the bed, those bright blue eyes settling on her. Warmth shot up her neck and into her face as the veins in his sinewy arms fought to break through skin. He hadn’t changed much over the years since she’d last seen him, but there was a new roughness to him, a strength that hadn’t been there before and she couldn’t look away. “Do whatever it takes to get her out of here. Okay? She’s the only one who matters.”
“I’ll get you both out of here. I give you my word.” The adrenaline rush increased her focus. She’d memorized the layout of the hospital before she’d left Knoxville. There were three exits from the second floor, not including the windows, but they’d take the stairs at the back of the building in case the shooter had stuck around. She headed toward the door and intercepted his path into the hallway. Adjusting her grip on her weapon, she pulled open the door a crack and studied both ends of the hallway. Lucky for them, Olivia’s room was positioned in the corner, the closest to the stairs. Somehow, her kidnapper had gotten access, left the listening device and escaped without notice. Which meant they weren’t dealing with an amateur. “Stay behind me. Use me as a shield if you have to.”
“Okay.” His voice dropped into graveled territory, as though he was fighting to keep the inflection out of his words.
She twisted her chin directly over one shoulder. “As soon as we’re safe, you’re going to tell me why someone would target your kids to get to you and who exactly was on the other end of that phone call.” Because unless he trusted her, his son might not make it home alive.
She moved into the hallway, shouts hiking her nerves into overdrive. The officers assigned to sit on Olivia Reeves until she woke up would’ve heard the gunshot, but she and Benning couldn’t wait around to give their statements. There was no telling how far the abductor would go to ensure they weren’t connected to attempted murder and kidnapping charges. Or how many people they’d hurt along the way. She cleared the hallway, the lights reflecting off the white tile bright. Nodding toward the exit to their left, she maneuvered Benning and Olivia past her. “Stairs.”
She followed close on his heels through the door as uniforms came around the corner down the hall. Carefully closing the stairwell door behind them, they descended the stairs and pushed through the maintenance exit on the first floor until crisp winter air brushed across the exposed skin of her neck. Swinging her weapon up, she swept the parking lot. No movement. Nothing to suggest an ambush, but she wouldn’t let her guard down until Benning and his daughter were safe. “Black SUV five stalls back. Go.”
They crossed the parking lot at a jog, but every cell in her body screamed warning as movement registered off to her left. She had only a moment to react. Ana shoved Benning and Olivia behind the nearest car with everything she had. Gunfire ripped across the asphalt. A bullet cut through the thick fabric of her coat as she fired back at the masked shooter taking cover behind a vehicle two rows over. Once. Twice. Olivi
a’s scream pierced through the thud of her pulse behind her ears, but Ana couldn’t focus on that right now. Both hands around her weapon, she centered herself behind a parked vehicle between her and the shooter and pulled the trigger three more times, but it was too late. The shooter was already climbing behind the wheel of a black SUV. Maybe even the same vehicle used to abduct Owen and Olivia. In the span of two breaths, he fishtailed out of the parking lot and disappeared down the street.
Hijo de...
“I think it’s safe to say my cover is blown.” Her exhales crystallized in front of her mouth as she turned back toward Benning and his daughter, the girl’s hands locked over her ears. Her fingers tingled with the urge to comfort the six-year-old, but Ana chose to reholster her weapon and positioned her coat over the fresh wound in her side before Olivia saw the blood. The girl had already suffered so much. She didn’t need more material for her nightmares. “Let’s get her in the car. We can’t wait around for the shooter to come back and finish the job.”
Hauling Olivia into his chest, Benning straightened and secured his daughter in the back seat of the SUV. His mountainous shoulders and arms were massive compared to the girl’s small frame as he brushed something from Olivia’s chin, his whisper inaudible to Ana less than two feet away. He was careful of his daughter’s injuries, caring, and Ana fought against the sudden tightness in her throat. There’d been a time she’d imagined him treating their future children’s scrapes and bruises like he’d done with Olivia. Her throat threatened to close, and she turned away from the visual to dislodge the string of thought. She’d buried that future the second she’d snuck out of his room that night.
“Are you okay?” Benning closed the door, his focus on Ana, and her entire body heated as though he’d physically trailed a path down across her clavicle bone. He closed the small distance between them, reaching out, but she dodged his attempt to touch her. His expression fell, his hand falling to his side. “I thought you’d been hit.”
Midnight Abduction Page 2
