by Lisa Harris
You’re the one who needs to save her. He couldn’t do it on his own, that was for sure. This was a big admission for him, as he’d never enjoyed the life of an agent that involved a partner at his side. Will worked far better alone. Except when the operation moved out of his control.
You have control of everything. I remember, and I believe that. So, help Hollis now. Give me what I need to save her.
Athens yelled. Hollis screamed. Her mom dragged her to the door and forced Hollis out first. Too close. A bullet would go through both of them.
Will followed as they stepped outside. A second later, he heard the ratchet of a shotgun. “Get down!” The call out was instinctual, though he didn’t dive to the floor. Will slammed his body low against the outside wall of the restaurant, aimed his gun, and found the source.
The vehicle he’d seen Frankie in.
Will fired a bullet at the front tire. It embedded itself in the quarter panel just above the wheel well. He grunted in frustration, then called out, “Sharleen, let her go!”
The shotgun fired.
Will had to dive out of the way as buckshot sprayed the wall behind him. He fired a shot in reply, and saw Frankie slump down in his seat for cover.
Will fired at the car again, aiming for anything he could hit that would slow them down. Police sirens rang out, and probably an ambulance, as well. Time was running out.
He got to his feet, spread them, and lifted his weapon. Will started to squeeze the trigger.
The door behind him swung open, and Athens barreled out. He slammed into Will, sending his shot wide.
Will fell to his knees. Athens landed on top of him, rolled, and lifted his hand to shoot at the truck.
“Cease fire!” He was going to hit Hollis.
Will got up and ran toward the vehicle as it sped away, praying God would give him the speed to jump on the trunk. They would undoubtedly fling him around. Who cared, when he’d be with Hollis? The cops would see him and follow. They’d help him get her out of Sharleen and Frankie’s grasp.
Athens never stopped firing.
Will pounded two steps toward the vehicle. It was close enough, he knew he’d be able to do this before they got too far away.
A bullet clipped his side. Will took another step and tried to ignore the fire whipping like lightning through his hip.
His leg gave out.
Will tumbled to the ground and lay there listening to the engine roar.
Hollis was gone.
Chapter Twenty-One
Hollis’s heart screamed. The sound emerged from her mouth, until her mom clamped a hand over it.
“Shut up.”
Hollis shoved her hand away.
Frankie was in the front, both his hands gripping the steering wheel. His right leg was nearly useless, so he drove with the left one. It had never seemed safe to her.
“Just stop the car. Pull over.”
Sharleen said, “After all the trouble I just went through to get you out of there? You’re crazy.” She leafed through the bills Hollis had grabbed out of the cash register. “And all for a lousy two hundred forty bucks?” She sighed.
Hollis leaned over and screamed in her face. “Will just got shot!”
Sharleen shoved her away. “I’ll shoot you, too, if you do that again. Ungrateful girl.”
“This is a nightmare. What on earth is going on here? You just robbed the restaurant. Frankie, the kidnapped victim, is your getaway driver. And for all we know, Will could be dead back there!” She gripped the hair on the sides of her head and tugged, determined to pull it out. Only that could compare to the agony rolling through her.
Sharleen grabbed the two front seats and climbed over the center console to land in the front seat, leaving Hollis alone in the back.
She dropped her gun into the cup holder like it was nothing. Like she hadn’t just robbed a restaurant at gunpoint and kidnapped Hollis.
“Let me go.” She screamed the words at both of them, and kicked the back of the seat. Then she sat back, breathing hard.
Sharleen shot her a look. “So ungrateful.”
“Are you trying to insinuate, in your own little way, that you did me a favor? Because I’m not seeing how any of this can be a good thing.” She didn’t have her phone. Was Will okay?
Fear for him rolled through her. That he was hurt. Dead. Injured. Bleeding. Not breathing, no heartbeat.
A whimper escaped her throat.
Now he was gone, and she’d never get to tell the big, rough man that he was everything she’d ever wanted. In a best friend. A husband. A lover.
All the work he’d done was for nothing.
The case would never be closed.
Tears rolled down her face.
“You never did see.” Her mom was on her phone. Muttering her words, not engaging with Hollis any longer. “Always thought more of yourself than the rest of us.”
She wasn’t even going to touch that. Her mom’s opinion of Hollis, and what she thought Hollis’s opinion of her was, made zero sense as far as she was concerned.
“Frankie.” Hollis wasn’t even sure what to say. “Please. Just let me out. Pull over, and I’ll go. I don’t want to be here.”
They’d kidnapped her. Her mom, and the man she’d always considered a father.
“Your mom is right. You should be quiet.” He twisted his grip on the wheel and didn’t look at her.
Because he was ashamed? She didn’t know. “You were supposed to have been kidnapped. Now you’re here. With her.”
“We’re all okay. Things are okay.”
He said nothing else. Hollis twisted to look out the window. If the cops were following, that would be a good thing. But no one pursued them.
They were probably dealing with Will’s dead body. Still laying where she’d seen him fall.
Hollis swiped at her face with her good hand. The other arm, she hugged to her body, trying not to dissolve into uncontrollable tears at the way it hurt. Her mom had grabbed her. Hauled her around. Taken her from Will, who’d been there to save her.
So much for Hollis’s plans. Now they were less than useless, and they hadn’t started out being all that good in the first place. She’d tried to confront Athens. Look how that turned out.
Is he your father?
Will’s words rolled through her head. She squeezed her eyes shut. One thing at a time.
“Why are you doing this?”
Her mom lowered her phone with a long sigh. “You really don’t know? Darlin’, this whole thing is your fault.”
Hollis seriously disliked the way she called her darlin’ with that sneer in her voice. “My fault?”
“Well, you ruined all our plans after you got arrested. So, we had to improvise. Armed robbery makes the biggest statement. With any luck, that FBI agent will think you’re a criminal again and arrest you. Again.”
He’s dead. “Why do I need to be arrested? You’re the one who tried to frame me as West, right?” Hollis leaned forward. “Why pretend you kidnapped Frankie and get me to plant evidence that I’m West? Is it you? Are you West?”
Sharleen rolled her eyes. “Like it’s that simple?”
“Then why don’t you explain it to me. You owe me that much, getting me arrested like that.” Not to mention trying to do it all over again with your shenanigans back there.
“I owe you nothing. Everything I’ve ever done was for you.”
Hollis let out a short, sharp laugh that sounded utterly humorless. “You only ever think about yourself. That’s been clear to me for as long as I can remember.”
“Yeah? That how you remember things?”
Hollis didn’t know what to say.
“Shows how little you pay attention. Or how well I kept you from seeing the truth about my life. Helps that you were convinced you were the center of the universe.”
Hollis pressed her lips together.
Her mom continued, “Turns out you know nothing. Not about me. Not about Frankie, or the diner either
.”
“You mean like how you had those guys beat Will and try to burn him alive in the diner?”
“Sure. That was definitely me.” Sharleen shot her a look. “I don’t have hired thugs that work for me. It was Athens, Hollis. He’s been behind everything.”
“He’s West?”
Sharleen let out a frustrated sound. “It’s not that simple! Athens has been controlling this town for years. He used you as leverage, and he even caused Frankie’s accident because Frankie refused to let Athens launder money through the diner.”
“That was you who wanted to do that.” Hollis had been sick at her mother’s aspirations to be a criminal. Now what was she supposed to believe?
Her mom said, “Athens shattered Frankie’s leg, because we wouldn’t do what he wanted. It was the last straw. I’ve been trying to get out from under his thumb ever since. So that we can finally be together.” She touched Frankie’s leg.
He didn’t seem super receptive to her affection, but Sharleen wasn’t paying that much attention. She said, “Everything I’ve done has been for the diner. For all of us.” She included Hollis in that statement.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve been trying to save us from him.”
Frankie’s jaw clenched. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel.
“Then we’ll be free, and we can finally have the life we wanted.”
Despite the hope in her mom’s words, it appeared that Frankie didn’t necessarily feel the same way.
Hollis sat in the back, aghast, while her mom continued, “You don’t wanna know what he was going to do to you. And I didn’t want you to live my life, so I saved you from him.”
“By pretending that Frankie was kidnapped.”
“Athens is the one who taught me about leverage.” Sharleen said, “Now he can’t get to you, and I’ll destroy everything he has so there are no photos left.”
“Photos of what?”
“Me. Obviously.” Sharleen shook her head. “You don’t wanna know what I did for him.”
“He put you in a compromising position?”
“And made me his mouthpiece around town. Without that, I’d never have been able to raise the cash to finally get away from him.”
“Like armed robbery?” Hollis pressed her lips together as soon as the words were out.
Her mom said, “He runs this whole town. Everything I did was because he forced me to do it.”
Frankie inhaled a deep breath and pushed it out. “You’ve been working for Athens this whole time?”
Hollis couldn’t begin to understand how he felt. The suffering he’d been through. Was there anything left of their relationship? Her mom seemed to think there was. Frankie, though? She wasn’t sure about him.
“Now what?” Hollis really wanted to know. Her mom clearly had a plan. “Where are we even going?”
“Somewhere Athens won’t find you before we get out of here.”
“I have an interview to be at.”
Sharleen shook her head, laughing a humorless laugh. “That “interview” was Athens. So it didn’t look strange when you suddenly disappeared. That’s why I had to intercept you.”
Frankie said nothing.
Hollis didn’t know what to say either.
Sharleen shrugged. “I just want to be free of all this, you know? Start over somewhere else. A place no one knows me, or my history. Where they have no clue the things I’ve done. The person I’ve been.”
Hollis squeezed her eyes shut, her tears dry now. “I was packed and about to leave town when I got the message that Frankie had been kidnapped. I would already have been gone, if it wasn’t for you. None of this would be happening.”
“Except that Athens planned to grab you before you could leave. We had to get in there first to keep you from being taken by him.”
“Is he my father?”
Frankie stiffened. Her mom said, “No. His brother is.”
“And where is he?”
“Dead now.”
Hollis held herself completely still. “And you saved me from Liam Athens.”
Sharleen said, “You don’t wanna know what he’d have wanted from you. Even if you are his niece. He doesn’t care one whit about anyone unless he can use them.”
“You don’t know what he’d have demanded of me?” Hollis wasn’t sure her imagination could think of anything worse than what her mom had already done. And the pain in her arm was getting to be too much. She was having trouble processing all this, and it seemed like Frankie was just getting angrier and angrier at her mom.
“Probably he wanted the diner, and that meant getting you out of the way. So he could burn it down and collect the insurance money. Which he still did, anyway.”
“With Will inside.” Hollis needed clarification. “You’re the one who got me arrested.”
“To get you away from Athens.” Sharleen said, “I knew you’d do whatever to save Frankie, and if you were put in jail, then Athens wouldn’t be able to get to you. Leaving town wouldn’t have been a good option for you. Didn’t matter where you ran. He’d have found you.”
Frankie exploded, flinging one arm in Sharleen’s direction while he said, “So why are we running now?”
“We have to try. Otherwise we have nothing.” Sharleen said, “There has to be better somewhere else.”
There would have been, for Hollis. By herself.
Away from her mom.
But not anymore. Now Will had been shot and was either hurt or dead, and she was back in her mom’s grasp, even though that was the last thing she’d ever wanted. All because of her mom’s bizarre idea of protecting her.
“I can’t believe you did all this. That you can’t just let me live my life and leave me to take care of myself.” Hollis said, “I’m sorry you thought you couldn’t get away from him. But you didn’t tell me anything. You never even gave me a chance.”
The correlation between what her mom wanted and what Hollis had tried to do was far too close for her liking. She didn’t want to be anything like her mom. And here they’d landed on something that almost made them seem like relatives with similar ideas.
Her mom’s accusations might prove true. If she’d been a victim Hollis’s whole life, Hollis hadn’t had a clue. Could it really be true that all her mom’s selfish actions were because Athens was controlling her?
What else in her life had Hollis been blind to?
Sharleen twisted around to face her. Before she could speak, Frankie said, “Don’t bother. She’s right. You should have told us Athens is the one who was behind it all.”
“You didn’t know?” Hollis was incredulous. She’d thought he’d been a party to all of it.
“Your crazy schemes. Giving me half the information. I guess nothing has changed, and I doubt it ever will.” Frankie pulled the car over to the side of the road. “You’ve betrayed me for the last time. Which is what I’m going to tell Athens when I kill him, too.”
“What are you doing? We have to go.” Sharleen glanced around nervously. “Why did you stop? Why are you saying these things?”
“Frankie.” Hollis wasn’t sure what to say, but she didn’t like the look on his face.
He snatched up the gun from the cup holder. Sharleen slammed her hand against his forearm, kind of like the way Hollis had smacked the glass from Sharleen’s hand, causing it to shatter against the sink.
Frankie’s finger pulled the trigger, and the gunshot went wild.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Will hissed. “Ouch.”
Dean huffed out a breath, all his attention glued to Will’s side. “Don’t be a baby. It’s just a graze.”
Will shot him a look he didn’t see while Eric and Conroy grinned. “None of this is funny. What was Sharleen even thinking, coming here to confront Athens?”
Conroy said, “The waitress, Letty, told me Hollis pushed her around. Said she knew from the beginning that Hollis was there for the money. And that she didn’t ca
re who she hurt.” He shrugged. “Hollis fired her a while back, so could be there’s bad blood between them.”
Eric ran his hands down his face. “Lord, save me from small town politics.”
Will didn’t know what that meant.
“Had a problem with someone back in the third grade? Watch out. They’ll boycott your business for life.”
“Okay. But, how does that help us find Hollis?” Sharp pain slashed through his side. Will sucked in a quick breath. “Easy.”
“Like I said.” Dean taped down the gauze. “Baby.”
Will ignored him to pin Conroy with a stare. “So, I gave it to God.” He was aware of the rest of them reacting. Straightening. Body language stilled, as they waited for the conclusion. Will continued. “I mean, what else is there to do? I got shot, and Hollis was kidnapped—by the very people who are supposed to take care of her.”
That was the biggest issue he had with what’d happened.
Not that she’d gone in alone, or that he hadn’t been able to save her—although that hurt. The problem he had with all this was that this was her own mother. Her stepfather—for all intents and purposes. People who should protect her. Care for her. Instead, they’d dragged her into their drama. Implicated her. Left her to fend for herself.
And then, at the end of all that, they’d dragged her back in to do it all over again.
Will continued, “We are not working with rational people here. What can they possibly want with her? Because it feels like she’s just this pawn to be handed back and forth whenever they feel like it. Get out of my face. Oh, no. Now I need you back.”
Dean said, “Sounds like personal experience.”
“It isn’t.” Will knew Dean was a counselor, but he didn’t need therapy. “What it is, though, is my business to watch people.”
He was an undercover agent. If he read people wrong, it could cost him his life, or at the very least, his case or his standing with the group he was supposed to get in with.
But Hollis’s family? They made no sense. There was more to what had been happening than he knew, and he wasn’t much closer to unveiling West now than he had been before. When he’d arrested Hollis, thinking it was her.
