by Lisa Harris
“No. What about on your end?”
“There’s no sign of another boat. It’s like she simply vanished.”
Jack frowned, refusing to believe that. “She’s out there, and we’re going to find her.”
“You’re right.” Adam paused. “I do have an update on the senator. They just took him into surgery. He’s still not out of the woods, but at least they’ve been able to stabilize him.”
“That’s good news.”
“I’m hoping as soon as he wakes up we’ll be able to get more information from him. I have an officer there now waiting to talk to him, but also to ensure his safety in case he’s the target of all this.”
“Roger that.”
He searched the horizon for signs of a boat. He was grateful the senator was safe, but they still weren’t any closer to finding Bree, making his heart battle with emotions he wasn’t sure how to deal with. How could she still manage to affect him? He’d dated other women over the past few years, but any relationship never went further than a handful of dates before he managed to find a reason to walk away. He’d told himself it had nothing to do with Bree and that he certainly wasn’t comparing them to her.
But his feelings toward Bree had nothing to do with this moment. The only thing that mattered right now was saving her before it was too late.
CHAPTER THREE
AUBREY LEANED BACK AGAINST the side of the boat, working to loosen her hands while her captor steered the boat through the narrow inlet. Her head pounded, and she’d sliced her leg on something, but at least she was still alive. She couldn’t say that about Papps. If his family hadn’t found him by now, she knew he would have already bled out.
A sick feeling snaked through her as her mind continued to replay what had happened and what she could have done differently. But they’d been ambushed by a sniper. She’d done what she’d been trained to do—try and neutralize the threat. Having failed that, the only thing she could do now was pray that Papps’s sons had heard her scream. But her captor had timed his dirty deed well. Duck hunting wasn’t like deer hunting, which was more of a solitary pursuit. And for the McKenna family, it had always been a social event. It had been the same every year for as long as she could remember.
She knew exactly what had been going on at the blind. Until the birds landed, there would be no shortage of conversation. They’d watch the sunrise break through the morning fog while Mitchell and Ryan told jokes and started breakfast. Any activity that combined guns, water, and the cold included an element of danger, but they wouldn’t have been listening for the deadly shot of a sniper.
She continued to work to untie the twine securing her wrists as she formulated a plan. They’d been gone at least forty-five minutes, winding their way through the grass flats and channels. She’d spent time in these wetlands, but before long, the scenery began to look the same. Miles of water and vegetation with no idea where they were going. Memories of days spent on the water with Papps teaching her about the ecosystem of where the water met the land flooded through her. A place filled with cattails and other grasses, along with birds, fish, and sea turtles, where she could momentarily forget about the stresses of her work.
But today, she’d walked into a nightmare, and what she didn’t understand was what the objective had been. Papps had been shot, but if he was the target, why grab her? The twine cut at her wrists as she continued to slowly loosen it. Nothing made sense, but she didn’t have to understand the motivation to realize her life was in danger. The only way she was going to survive this was to escape. A search party had probably been assembled by now, but with no clues to know where to look, she couldn’t expect rescue anytime soon. And in the meantime, she needed to get as much information as she could.
“Where are we going?” She shouted above the noise of the motor, making sure she memorized the features of the man who’d taken her. He was Asian—probably Chinese—short and thin, yet muscular, with a one-inch scar running across his temple.
“You’ll find out soon enough. We’re almost there.”
“Where? Are we meeting someone?”
He frowned at her. “Stop with all the questions.”
“I will, if you tell me why you shot the senator. You could have just grabbed me and left him alone. Unless he was the target all along.” She paused, praying for some feedback, but the man said nothing.
“Nico paid you to snatch me, didn’t he?” she asked.
The man didn’t answer.
“Or was the senator the target? If they weren’t able to get him to a hospital, there’s no way he could have made it. And if you’re convicted of capital murder, you could easily be looking at life in prison without parole.”
He caught her gaze. “I told you to stop talking.”
He turned away from her again, but she wasn’t ready to stop probing.
“What I don’t understand is—assuming the senator was the target—why grab me? Who are you working for?”
“Did you not hear me?” He stepped away from the steering wheel and backhanded her across her cheek. “I said shut up!”
She bit back the sharp sting of pain from the blow, irritated that she’d allowed herself to push him too far. Put him across the table from her in an interrogation room where she was in charge of the situation, and she knew she could pull the truth out of him, but she wasn’t going to get anything out of him. Not now. She studied the coastal waterway surrounding her. The truth wasn’t what mattered right now. What mattered right now was getting out of here alive.
She twisted her wrists. She needed a few more minutes to undo the loosened twine, but then she would have to find her way out of the miles and miles of swampy waters without him catching her.
If that was even possible.
More memories flooded her of time spent in the marshlands with Papps and his family and growing up with Adam and Jack Shannon. So much had changed over the past decade. Adam had a family now and worked as a game warden. Jack had moved away years ago. She’d made peace with Adam after their breakup, and while it had stung at the time, looking back she knew it was the right decision. They never would have been a good match. Thankfully they’d finally realized it, and in the end, they both moved on. Adam found the perfect woman, got married, and had two adorable girls.
But Jack . . . Jack was a different story.
She kept working at the loosening cords, ignoring the cramping in her wrists. Something had hurt him, she knew that, but to this day she wasn’t sure why he’d left so unexpectedly. Maybe it was nothing more than a career move, but at the time she’d been convinced there was something else.
Her eyes swept the boat for signs of the rifle. No sign of it, but the man had a handgun holstered on his side. Her captor’s phone rang, and he picked it up off the console in front of him.
She listened in on the conversation, still working on getting loose, as he and the caller tried to communicate with an apparent weak signal. She caught the name Rudy, and after some muffled conversation, him confirming that he’d meet them. But for what? That was the question she couldn’t answer.
Yet.
She shifted in her seat, almost free now, planning her next move because she was only going to have one chance. Her heart raced, knowing that the odds were against her. He was armed and she wasn’t, plus he had at least thirty pounds on her. Which meant she was going to have to outsmart him.
The cord slipped off her wrist.
He dropped the phone into the storage console in front of him, clearly distracted. It was now or never.
She lunged at him from behind. Her left hand covered his face and pulled back on his head while her right hand gripped his right arm. A fraction of a second later, she slammed her knee into the back of one of his legs, shifting her weight into him and forcing him to collapse. He stumbled, momentarily disoriented, then sprang back to his feet. His elbow rammed into her jaw, throwing her back against the metal railing of the boat.
Aubrey ignored the pain and threw her weight
into her next move, sending him over the edge and into the water. Knowing she had only seconds at the most to press her advantage, she glanced around the bottom of the boat for his weapon, hoping it had fallen during the attack. But he must have managed to keep it with him when he went overboard.
She could hear him flailing in the water and shouting at her as she rushed to start the motor that had died. A shot rang out, hitting the console, just missing her. She ducked and tried a second time to start the boat. Nothing. She could barely feel the panic, so strong was the adrenaline pumping through her. Much of the Texas marsh was like a spiderweb, connecting grasslands with areas of open water that spread out all the way to the Louisiana border. All she needed was to get out of here and disappear.
Seconds later, he was pulling himself back onto the boat, trying to keep his gun aimed at her. This time she had to win, which meant she had to disarm him. She charged at him and grabbed his wrist, then quickly spun the gun away from him, breaking one of his fingers in the process. He cried out in pain and tried to regroup, but it was too late. She now had control of the gun, and him. She moved quickly again, tackling him and pinning him to the bottom of the boat with the gun aimed at his head.
“I wouldn’t move if I were you. Turn over onto your stomach. Now.”
A second later he complied. She pressed her knee into his back, unwilling to take any chances as she tied his wrists securely behind him with the same twine he’d used to secure her, then sat him down and secured his hands to the metal handle on the other side of the console.
“This isn’t over,” he said, still struggling against her. “You need me. You’ll never find your way out of here.”
“I grew up around here, so I think I can manage,” she said, trying to start the boat.
“Maybe, but you won’t make it far. And how are you going to manage when my boss shows up?”
“So the plan was for you to take me to your boss?” She didn’t buy that lie. She’d heard him say he’d meet them, but what if they could track him if he didn’t show up? She tried to work through what she knew, but it wasn’t enough. Who were they and why did they want her? If this didn’t have to do with Nico, then maybe they were planning to use her as leverage for some reason, but again, why? She wasn’t worth anything financially, and if they were looking for a ransom payout from the McKennas, it would have made more sense to take a family member.
“Why were you supposed to grab me?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care. I just did what I was told.”
So he’d been hired to do the dirty work. But there was no more time for questions. She needed to get the boat going and out of here, because if he was right, it wouldn’t be long until “they” found her.
She tried to start the engine again. The boat emitted a loud grinding noise, then nothing. Seconds dragged past. Her heart hammered inside her chest. Papps had taught her how to drive these shallow-bottom boats, but dealing with a bullet embedded in the controls had never been in the instruction manual. And, on top of that, there was another problem she had to deal with. Someone out there wanted her, and she needed to make sure she avoided them at all costs. If she couldn’t get out of here now, what was she supposed to do?
She glanced around. To the right was an endless field of marshy wetlands. To the left she could see the ocean. If they had found Papps, the authorities would be looking for her by now, but what if the men after her found her first? Here in the open she felt like a sitting duck.
She grabbed his phone and tried to place a call to 911, but there was no signal. If she couldn’t use the phone to her advantage, she needed to make sure it wasn’t used against her as a tracking device. She ripped off the back, pulled out the battery, to ensure the phone couldn’t be traced, then put them both on the console in front of her, still trying to plan her next move. She could wade a few feet to a small island and wait there. One of her fears was that the phone wasn’t the only thing that could be tracked. More than likely the boat had its own GPS tracker as well, often mandated by insurance companies. Which meant that staying with the boat was just as risky as leaving it.
She caught the flash of sun reflecting on metal and felt her stomach clench. The familiar sound of a motor roared as it sped across the water toward her. She didn’t know whether it was friend or foe behind the wheel. She needed to see them before they saw her. She stuffed a gag into her captive’s mouth to keep him quiet, then used the fiberglass push pole to move the boat deeper into the thick reeds.
Seconds later, she slid out of the boat into the cold water that was almost waist high and started for the embankment, still needing to know if it was a local patrol boat or someone else before she caught anyone’s attention. The drawback of leaving the bad guy in the boat was that there was always the possibility he could eventually get away and she’d lose him as a bargaining chip, but that couldn’t be helped. She held the gun tightly in her fingers, praying that whoever was driving the boat was someone who would help her and not someone who wanted her dead.
CHAPTER FOUR
JACK STUDIED THE TERRAIN around them from behind the helm of the flat-bottom Majek boat, then signaled to Beckett to slow down again. They’d already covered 75 percent of the grid they’d been assigned to, and what scared him was that the longer the search took, the lower the odds were of finding Bree.
A flash of light to the left had caught his attention. Maybe it was just the morning sunlight bouncing off the water again, but he wasn’t going to take any chances of missing her if she was out there.
“Did you see that?” he asked. “Something’s flashing in the water, and this time I don’t think it’s just the sunlight.”
Beckett slowed down the boat. “I think you’re right. I’ll move closer so we can see what it is.”
Seconds later, a woman wearing camo emerged out of the grass at the edge of the embankment. He caught the familiar face in the sunlight as the boat pulled up next to her. Reddish-brown curls spilled over her shoulders, while light brown eyes stared back at him. He’d been right.
Bree.
“Jack!” She untangled a reed from her hair, then made her way through the water toward the boat. “What in the world are you doing out here?”
He caught the surprise in her eyes. “I was about to ask you the same question.”
He took the gun she was holding from her, handed it to Beckett, then hoisted her into the boat. He pulled her shivering body against his chest and wrapped his arms around her, trying not to panic. She was shaking, and her clothes were wet and covered with blood. There was a cut on her forehead, and a bruise was forming on her left cheek.
He took a step back. “Bree . . . you’re injured.”
“It’s Papps’s blood.” She tugged at the red stain at the bottom of her insulated jacket. “They shot him, then took me. Please tell me you found him.”
“They did. He’s the one that gave us a heads-up that you’d been taken. They life flighted him to Corpus.”
“Do you know how he is?”
He shook his head. “The last report I was given was that he was in surgery and was currently stable. I’m sorry. I wish I knew more.”
She blinked back the tears as she pulled off her boots and dumped out the water. “But he’s alive. You’re sure of that.”
“As far as I know, yes.” He took off his coat and wrapped it around her shoulders hoping to warm her up, then dug into the first-aid kit and pulled out an emergency thermal blanket for an extra layer of heat. He needed to get her dry and warm as soon as possible.
“How’d you find me?”
“Mitchell and Kyle went looking for you when they heard a woman’s scream, figuring it had to be yours. They found their dad and eventually pieced together that you’d been kidnapped.” He glanced down at his bloodstained jacket. “Are you sure none of this blood is yours? You’ve got a goose egg on your forehead next to a cut. You look like you’ve been in a fight. If there are other injuries . . .”
“There was a figh
t, but I won. He’s in the boat.”
Jack looked where she was pointing and caught sight of another boat partially hidden in the grass. A man was tied to one of the boat’s metal rails. He glanced back at Bree. He wasn’t sure how she’d done it, but he was impressed. She’d somehow taken the armed man down.
”When I heard your boat, I wasn’t sure if you were the good guys or the bad guys. I decided not to take any chances until I knew for sure who was behind the wheel.”
“That was a smart move.”
He sat her down on one of the seats. They needed to deal with their suspect, but first he wanted to check her for injuries and signs of shock. Clammy skin, rapid pulse, enlarged pupils . . .
“I’m fine, Jack. Really.”
He frowned. All he could see were a few bumps and bruises, but he was still going to insist she get checked out by a doctor, because her physical well-being wasn’t the only thing he was worried about. Not only had she just survived a kidnapping, she’d also witnessed the shooting of someone close to her. And that in itself was traumatic.
Jack signaled to Beckett. “Try to maneuver closer so we can transfer the suspect into this boat.”
“Yes, sir.” Beckett started the engine again. “I’ve just informed our search base that we found her, along with the suspect.”
“Good.”
Bree pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders as the boat started to move. “Whoever he was planning to meet is still out there. He spoke to a man named . . . Rudy. He was planning to hand me over to them.”
“Well, that’s not going to happen on my watch.”
“His phone is in the console of the boat. I’m hoping there’s a good chance there’s evidence on it as to who’s behind this.”
He glanced out across the water, listening for the motor of another boat. He was impressed with how many details she was able to recall. With many victims, details disappeared because of the trauma. But he wasn’t surprised. No doubt it was her attention to detail that had pushed her to the top in her class at the academy and eventually promoted her to detective.
