by Jill Sanders
Riley sighed. “Oh, she’s going to love that.” She held onto him as they walked back into the building. “I’m just going to get my bag,” she told him.
“Need any help?” he asked.
“No, I’m okay.” She giggled, feeling very light-headed. “I’ll have to say goodbye to my family too.”
He nodded. “Your dad is waving me over.” He motioned to where Iian and Todd Jordan and Aaron Stevens were standing near a table.
“Go.” She nudged him. “Talk to them. I’ll be a minute. I’ll take my bag out to your car and meet you back here.”
He leaned down and kissed her again. “Here are my keys.” He turned and glanced over at her father. “God, I hope your dad doesn’t read it in on my face that I’m looking forward to spending our first night together.”
She smiled. “It doesn’t matter. Nothing can stop me from falling asleep in your arms tonight.”
“God,” he groaned softly. “I’ve been dreaming of it for a while now.”
“Me too,” she said softly, then she pulled away. “See you in a minute.”
He nodded and moved across the room as she watched. Seeing the smile on her father’s face, she turned and disappeared into the women’s changing room.
She grabbed up her overnight bag, which she’d disguised as a bag of extra clothes and shoes in case the weather changed, tossed it over her shoulder, and stepped out the hallway door towards the side parking lot.
Since most everyone had taken off shortly after Lilly and Corey, the parking lot was dark and empty. The only remaining people in the building were the employees, the sisters who ran the place, and some of her family members.
She always joked that it took forever for her family to break up after a party. Setting her bag down next to Carter’s trunk, she had just found the right button to hit to open his trunk when she heard a noise behind her.
Chapter Nineteen
“You’re family now.” Todd Jordan shook his hand. “No matter if you want it or not.” He laughed.
“I think that I can handle it,” he joked back. “At least now I know that I won’t be killed for dating Riley.”
The two men chuckled. “We would have never killed you,” Iian added softly. “Maybe roughed you up a little.”
Todd laughed and slapped him on the back. “We reserve maiming for non-family members.”
“Don’t worry, I would have patched you up either way,” Aaron added with a chuckle.
“We just wanted to let you know, if you need anything, you can come to us now,” Iian added.
“You could have come to us before now, but now you’re guaranteed to get us.” Todd laughed.
He could tell that the men had enjoyed themselves during the party.
“Are you three done torturing Carter?” Lacey Stevens walked over and wrapped her arms around her husband. The mayor of Pride not only warranted respect among the townspeople but earned it with her family as well. Carter thought of her as the monarch of the clan.
“We were just welcoming him to the Jordan clan.” Todd wrapped his arms around his wife Megan when she moved across the room to them. Riley’s mother had followed the other women over as well.
“I think it’s time we went home,” Lacey said to her husband, tugging him towards the doors. “They want to clean up and go home themselves.” She motioned to the workers standing around waiting for them to leave.
“I’d better go as well. Riley is probably waiting for me.” He glanced towards the door and frowned when he didn’t see her.
“We’ll walk out with you.” The three couples followed him towards the front door.
When they stepped out into the warm summer night, he glanced towards his car. He froze when he spotted her bag sitting behind his car near his trunk.
“Riley?” He moved faster than the other couples. Picking up her bag, he glanced around, thinking she’d found someone else to talk to. But the only cars left in the lot belonged to her parents and aunts and uncles.
“What’s wrong?” Todd and Aaron rushed towards him after he’d called her name loudly several times.
“Riley.” He held up her bag. “She was going to put her bag in my car and then meet me inside.”
“Maybe she went back in for something?” Allison suggested. “I’ll go check.” Lacey and Megan followed her quickly.
“Riley?” Todd called out. “I’ll go check around the front.”
“I’ll take the back,” Aaron suggested.
“What’s going on?” Iian asked when he approached them. Aaron paused long enough to fill him in by signing to him.
“Riley?” Iian called out and Carter could hear the worry in his voice.
“She’s not inside.” The woman rushed back out. “I’ll try calling her…” Her mother pulled out her phone, but when a ringing came from a few feet away from his car, they all searched until they found her phone sitting on the pavement.
“Shit.” Carter heard a loud buzzing noise in his head.
“I’m calling Robert,” Lacey said quickly. “We need some light in this parking lot.” She motioned towards the building. “See if they have some flashlights,” she said to Todd.
While her family rushed around searching the parking lot for more clues and making phone calls, he stood there, holding Riley’s cell phone and bag in his hands, feeling light-headed.
“Come on back inside,” a soft voice said to him as a hand rested on his arm.
He looked down at Robin, the younger of the sisters who ran the wedding venue. “There’s a pot of coffee on, or I can get you a cup of tea while we wait for the police.”
He blinked a few times as if he was in shock. “I need to help look for Riley.”
“We will all help, but for now, come on inside. You look like you could use something to warm you up.”
He allowed her to drag him inside but stopped the moment he stepped into the lights.
“Carter?” Riley’s mother Allison rushed to his side. “Robert’s here and wants to talk to you. He’s going to come inside.” She glanced over her shoulder.
“Where could she be?” He still held her phone and bag. “I… she was going to meet…” Suddenly, as if a light had switched on, he knew. All of the blood drained from his face. “My parents.”
“Robert guessed that as well. He followed them to a hotel just outside of Edgeview,” she assured him. “He’s sent a trooper down there to check… things out.”
He nodded and took a deep breath. “If anything happens to her because of me…”
Allison wrapped her arms around him. “Nothing’s going to happen to her,” she assured him and herself as she held onto him. “They’re out looking now.”
“I should be out there.” He started to move, but she stopped him.
“No, stay here with me. Please.” She motioned towards Kara and Robin, who were bringing a tray of coffee over towards them.
For the next hour, every minute seemed to crawl by. At one point, he did step outside and walk around the parking lot himself, searching with his cell phone’s flashlight for any clues around his car.
His car keys had been found directly under his back tire. Which meant that whatever had happened to her, she hadn’t even gotten a chance to fight back.
For now, all they could do was wait and search.
When his brother and Lilly returned, still dragging the streamers and beer cans that had been tied behind their car, it hit him for real.
“Lacey called us,” Lilly said, rushing to wrap her arms around her. He could tell that she’d been crying and held onto her while he searched his brother’s eyes.
“I…” He didn’t know what to say. It was his fault that they’d had to come back. It was his fault that Riley had been in danger in the first place.
“Hey.” Corey moved closer and laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’re going to find her.”
Just then Robert walked up to him. “If you two don’t mind, I’d like to enlist your help. I have everyone driv
ing around looking for clues. I have road blocks going up along the highway. We’ve circulated pictures of Reece and her brother. If they’re anywhere near Pride, or in Oregon for that matter, they won’t get far.”
“What can we do?” Corey asked.
“I need your brother to take me to his place. It’s a long shot, but I’d like to swing by there to mark it off the list.”
“And us?” Corey asked.
“Lilly is wanted inside to help make calls. They’re waking everyone in Pride up, asking them to get out and search.”
“I’ll go.” She touched his arm and kissed Corey before disappearing into the building.
“And me?” Corey asked.
“You can ride with David. He’s taking his truck to check out some of the trailheads,” Robert answered. “Keep in touch,” Robert called to him after he followed the other trooper to a large truck with huge muddy tires
He left his car and rode with Robert to his house to check and see if Reece had somehow ended up there. But his place was dark and empty. Still, they went through every room, looking for any clues that she had been there.
“Is there any place else you can think of to look for her?” Robert asked.
“Her place.” But he knew they had already searched the apartment. He’d overheard her mother telling everyone that she hadn’t been there.
Robert turned on the patrol car and started heading back towards town.
“Have you checked with my parents yet?” he asked.
“I sent Simon to check and see that they were still there,” he answered. “Is there anything Reece’s brother mentioned during the attack in the alley?”
Carter thought back. “He thought Corey and I were harassing his sister and believed that she was in my grandfather’s original will.”
“Was she?” he asked.
“No. After that day in the alley, I went through my grandfather’s possessions and paperwork that his lawyer had sent us. I found three older copies of his wills. None of them had either Reece or my parents on them.” He remembered seeing all three versions of the paperwork that had everything their grandfather had going to Corey and Carter. The only changes had been that the assets had grown with each new version. “My grandfather never planned to leave her or my parents anything.”
“Anything else? Anything that could clue us in to where they are?” Robert sounded desperate at this point. Carter had never seen the man act anything but professional, which had his worry level spiking. But he thought back to every time he’d interacted with Reece or Nick.
“No. I first saw them at the bed and breakfast,” he remembered, suddenly excited.
“But they weren’t staying there,” Robert broke in. “I had Todd and Iian go to each cabin just to make sure. They all checked out clear. Besides, Megan gave me the guest logs for when you were staying there. They haven’t stayed there,” he said again, but then he spun the car around. “But there are other rentals nearby. Maybe they were staying at one of those.”
Carter would do anything at this point. Look anywhere for Riley. He couldn’t imagine why Reece or, for that matter, his parents would kidnap her short of revenge, which meant… they were past the point of caring if she was alive. He knew that whenever he found who had taken her, Robert wouldn’t be able to stop him from hurting them if they had harmed her in any way.
Riley froze the second she felt the barrel of a gun press against her temple. Hearing a woman’s voice, she immediately remembered hearing it before. “Drop it.”
“Reece,” she’d whispered.
“Drop it,” the woman had hissed again in her ear.
Riley was holding both the keys to Carter’s car and her cell phone.
Hoping to get away with dropping one while holding onto the other, she held up the keys and dropped them onto the ground while trying to hide her phone in her palm.
“The phone too, throw it.”
Riley closed her eyes and tossed it aside. Then she moved her eyes towards the building without turning her head.
Please, someone come outside, she silently begged. But no one came, and Reece had pushed her towards a dark sedan at the edge of the parking lot.
She’d started walking towards the passenger seat but was shoved towards the trunk instead.
“Oh no, you’re riding first class,” Reece joked. “Get in.” The trunk popped open and Reece planted her palm in the middle of Riley’s shoulders and pushed her until she fell headfirst into the trunk.
When the trunk slammed shut, Riley instantly reached around for the release handle. Feeling the spot where it should be, she cried out when she realized the emergency release handle had been broken off. The entire trunk had been cleaned out. Even the section underneath a flap for the spare tire had been emptied.
The car started moving and all Riley could do was hold on, wedging her body in the space so she wouldn’t fling around.
Knowing most back seats flipped down, she even tried to figure out how to lay them down from back there. But no matter what she did, she couldn’t get out of the trunk.
It didn’t take long for the car to come to a halt, and she braced herself to rush Reece when the trunk was opened. But Reece had prepared for it and had the gun pointed directly at her chest.
“Get out. Slowly,” she ground out between clenched teeth.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, remaining in the trunk.
She moved the gun’s aim to her forehead. “I said out. Now.”
Riley climbed out of the trunk, purposely ripping her dress on the latch. If she was going to die today, she would fight until the end, even if that meant leaving clues everywhere.
Reece would never get away with this.
“What do you hope to gain from this?” she asked as she followed Reece’s directions to march down a dark pathway on gravel.
“Don’t talk,” she hissed.
Glancing around, Riley realized she had no clue where she was. She’d thought about making a break for it, somehow getting away and running into the woods. After all, she wasn’t wearing heels, but flat sandals since Lilly’s wedding had been on the sand.
Riley stopped walking. The gun shaft pushed in the middle of her back.
“Keep going.”
“Not until you tell me why you’re doing this,” she answered, glancing over her shoulder.
“You know why.”
“Money?” Riley had laughed. “You think you can get Carter’s grandfather’s will changed like this?”
“No.” The gun nudged her forward. “I could care less about the will. Carter and Corey have enough money to pay me off. For your… safe return.”
“Seriously?” Riley almost laughed. “Carter’s parents have most of the money tied up with all of the lawsuits.”
“They’ve gotten their hands on enough.” She nudged her again.
Riley could see a dim light in the distance. Was that a cabin? She squinted, trying to see past the darkness and the trees.
“They’ll know it was you,” she said, trying to stall the woman.
“Who cares. With enough money, anyone can disappear.” Reece laughed.
When they approached the cabin, Riley knew instantly where they were, and her heart sank. There was no way anyone would find her.
When they stepped into the cabin, Riley scanned the sparse room for anything she could use as a weapon. Instead, what she found was a cot in the middle of the floor with a pile of rope laying on it.
“Lay down,” Reece said.
“No.” Riley took a step back. “I will not die here.”
“You’re the bitch who tackled me,” Reece said. “Don’t imagine you’re strong enough to take me down again. You caught me off guard the first time. It won’t happen again.” The gun nudged her again. “Besides, it’s not like I would have to drag you far.” Her voice lowered. “Either you lie down or I knock you out again and drag you onto the bed myself. You are very small.”
Riley closed her eyes and took a deep br
eath. Screw this. She’d tackled the woman once, she could do it again if the right moment arrived.
She moved to walk towards the bed, but just before reaching it, jerked sideways and swung out.
The blow to the side of the head was quick and unexpected. She landed on her hands and knees as the world spun around her. Before she could gather enough strength to fight back, she was being pushed onto the mattress and ropes were being secured around her wrists and ankles. She was being tied to the bed. Which meant the gun was no longer in Reece’s hands.
Carter held onto the handle in the car while it bumped down the dirt road.
“I didn’t want to take the main road going in. Not since we’re trying to be stealthy,” Robert added.
When they came to the base of a large tree, Robert turned off the engine. “Just checking one last thing,” he said before picking up his radio.
Carter listened as Robert contacted his other troopers to make sure Riley hadn’t been found. When Simon informed Robert that his parents had already checked out of the hotel, Carter wondered again if they were somehow involved.
It had to be Reece and her brother. After all, Nick had confessed to being in his house. He’d attacked him in the alley and had accused him of hurting his sister and lying about the will. Could they have gone this far? Why not? They had attacked Riley and shot at him in his own home, not to mention held a knife to his throat and threatened him.
“I’m at the old Jones place, the one just down the beach from the B and B. I’m going to check it out.”
“We’re going to,” Carter added, earning a nod from Robert.
“Right, I’ve got Carter with me. We’re going to check it out. If we don’t get back to you in fifteen, you know what to do.”
“Right boss.”
“Ready?” Robert turned to him.
“I am.” He got out of the car.
“Not yet.” Robert stopped him from heading through the brush. “I need to make this official.” He pulled out a badge from the trunk, then held up a side arm. “I’m deputizing you. At least for tonight.”
