“Wren?” As I wait for her to respond, I page to the end of Cara’s notebook and start writing down all the various banks I can remember.
“Go,” she says.
“There’s a name in Cara’s notebook that might be something. She got a call from a Leland Steel a couple of days ago. It spooked her. I started looking into the guy, but then everything went sideways.” After I rattle off this Leland’s number, I disconnect without signing off and keep writing.
I have to remember. Everything. If I don’t, Cara’s dead. And I can’t let that happen.
West brings back burgers and fries at 5:00 p.m. Cara’s been gone for six hours now, and every minute that passes, my anxiety climbs higher.
I remember now. Most of it, anyway. All the women I made disappear. All the shipments of guns, heroin, opium, and cocaine Faruk financed.
Three hundred million and change. That’s all I’ve been able to account for, but every few minutes, I find another cache. I can do this.
“You managing, Rip?” West asks as he sits across from me and unwraps a double cheeseburger.
“Haven’t offed myself yet.”
“Say anything like that again, I’m calling Ry.” With the burger halfway to his mouth, West pins me with a stare that could melt glass.
SEALs are the scariest fucks in the world. There’s something that happens to you in BUD/S. Had a few friends who were SEALs before Hell. I don’t know if they’re even still alive, but they all got that same look in their eyes.
“Calm down, frogman. It’s a joke. You remember those, right?”
West raises a brow at his shirt. “If I didn’t, do you think I’d be wearing this monstrosity?”
“Good point.” Reaching for my own burger, I pause. Are they feeding Cara? Why would they? I give serious thought to tossing the whole thing in the trash, but she needs me to be at my best.
“So?” He’s not going to let this go. I can hear it in his voice.
“You want the truth? If I had a time machine, could go back six years, and find a way to kill myself before Faruk started in on me, I would. But since no one bothered to invent something like that while I was being drugged and brainwashed and beaten, the only thing I can do is try to make up for all the bad shit he had me do. And get Cara back so I can tell her how fucking sorry I am that I ever got her into this.”
The burger tastes a lot like dust, but it’s fuel. And once Cara’s back with me—and feels up to it—I’m taking her out to the best fucking restaurant in Seattle.
West stares off over my shoulder as he chews and swallows, then meets my gaze again. “I watched that fucker die.”
“Faruk?” I don’t even want to say his name, but if I don’t, it gives him more power in death than he should have ever had in life.
“Yeah. Graham and I were on Alpha Team. Infiled with Ry. He headed for a barn. Some dog trapped inside.”
At my feet, Charlie’s dreaming, and I reach down and give his chest a rub.
After a swig of water, West continues. “We killed twelve of his men. I took down ten. Graham got the other two. Kid never saw much combat. I try to protect him when I can.”
“He’s the one who looked like he was eighteen?” I don’t remember a lot from the first couple of days after they rescued me. Faces. Panic. Pain.
West grins. “Yeah. He’s twenty-six. But you’d never know it.”
“Holy shit, really?” I’m starting to feel every one of my forty-two years.
“Really.” The light leaves West’s eyes—not that there was much there to begin with. “When we found Faruk’s office, he was holding a kid hostage. Maybe eighteen? Twenty? Had a knife to his throat. Told us he’d kill the boy if we took another step.” West shakes his head. “And for a second…maybe two…we hesitated. The kid looked terrified. But as Graham lowered his sidearm, the kid pulled one of his own.”
West runs a hand through his hair. “I put a bullet through his heart. And Faruk didn’t even flinch. He was one sick-ass son of a bitch. Whatever he made you do, Rip, it wasn’t your fault. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you’ll get your life back.”
Cara
It’s been hours. At least with the music playing, my brain isn’t totally useless. My heart races, I can’t breathe easily, and everything hurts, but a few of the thoughts playing tag in my head slow and solidify from time to time.
I fell asleep for a few minutes, and when I woke up, I was half-bent over, my fingers totally useless. But my lapis pendant was dangling from my neck, and it was all I could see. The blue stone and the wire wrapped around it.
“You need to be able to protect yourself, Caro,” Leland says as he pours rubbing alcohol over the bullet wound to my thigh.
I took his advice to heart. Learned how to shoot, how to find the prescriptions I need on the streets, and how to pick locks.
It takes me forever to rock up to my knees so my neck and hands are close to the same level. My legs are numb, as are my fingers. But if I do nothing, I’ll die here. Seconds after I manage to grab the pendant and pull hard enough to break the clasp, the door across the room bangs open.
Shit. No.
I scramble to hide the pendant and chain in my fist.
Jessup stalks over to me, Parr on his heels. “Lover boy hasn’t given us more than a quarter of what we asked for,” he says with a sneer. “Time for a little motivation.”
Oh God.
Clenching my hands as hard as I can, I brace for whatever they’re going to do to me. Jessup flicks open his pocketknife, while Parr holds my phone. I swear, regret swims in his hazel eyes. Just a hint of it. But maybe I’m so desperate to believe my death will be quick that I’m searching for any shred of decency.
“Smile for the camera, Caroline,” Jessup says as the light on the back of my phone turns on. “Richards, you’re running out of time. Your girl here only has four hours left, and she’s not going to be happy about how she’ll spend them if you don’t get a move on.”
Wrapping his fingers around my upper arm, Jessup deepens the earlier cut, and I whimper through the gag as the blood soaks into my shirt. And then he grabs my hair and slams my head into the pipe.
My vision swims, and it takes everything I have to keep my fingers curled tightly around my pendant. My moan doesn’t travel far, the gag muffling the sound, but when Jessup wraps his hand around my neck, panic takes over and I gasp for air, thrashing to try to get away.
“Enough,” Parr says as he taps the phone and the light turns off. “Can’t kill her yet. He’s going to want proof of life before he sends the last bit.”
“Fine. You’re too fucking soft, Parr.” Jessup stalks back out of the room and slams the door behind him.
“More water?” Parr asks as he loosens the gag.
“Y-yes,” I croak. It’s so hot in this place, I’ve sweat through my t-shirt, and my heart still feels like it’s going to explode out of my chest, even with the music playing.
I suck down the other half of the bottle as Parr holds it to my lips, and when he pulls it away, he stares down at me. “You know we’re out in the middle of nowhere, right?”
“Figured.” My hands ache from being clenched so tightly, and I just want him to leave me alone so I can try to get out of here. But that regret I thought I saw earlier? It’s stronger now.
“I won’t gag you again. Don’t scream. If you do, Jessup will cut out your tongue.”
“No screaming.” I nod, which is a terrible mistake, as the whole room starts to spin. Parr steadies me with a hand on my shoulder, and I flinch, but then lean into him.
Work him. You can use his pity.
“Can you change the music?” I rasp. “There’s one for…meditation.” Letting a few tears escape down my cheeks, I peer up at my captor, letting him hear the desperation in my voice. “I need to find some peace before the end.”
Parr sighs. “So you know.”
“That he won’t let me live? I’ve always known.” I don’t have to pretend to cry now
. If I can’t get out of these cuffs, I’m dead. And I’ll never see Ripper again. Never get to hold him. Never get to tell him how very much I care about him.
Parr’s whole face softens, and he trudges over to his phone and picks it up. “You want to say anything to Richards before the end? I can record a message for you. Nothing about us. If you try, I’ll have to hurt you. But if you want to say anything personal?”
“Please…?” Keeping my gaze locked on the phone, I watch as he enters his passcode.
Eight-seven-two-one-three-seven-nine.
Eight-seven-two-one-three-seven-nine.
Eight-seven-two-one-three-seven-nine.
I say the numbers over and over to myself as many times as I can before Parr launches the video app and nods at me.
“Rip? I should have told you from the beginning. Who I was. You made me feel so safe. Normal. And I ruined it all. I think I could have loved you. I wanted the chance to try. You’re not broken. You’re perfect. I’m so sorry.”
My sobs make any other words I might want to say impossible, and Parr stops the video, then shifts the music to the meditation track I asked for. After he returns the phone to the table, he stares down at his feet. “It’ll be quick. I’ll do it myself. That’s all I can give you.”
The door slams a moment later, and I’m alone.
Eight-seven-two-one-three-seven-nine.
I did it. I remembered. Relaxing my fingers, I look up at the pendant clutched in my hands. “Please,” I whisper as I start trying to unwind the metal wrapped around the stone. “Please let me live.”
By the time I have the wire broken into two distinct pieces, my entire body’s shaking and the sun’s mostly down. The single bare bulb in the room doesn’t help chase away the shadows from the pipe that falls over the handcuff locks, and I have to contort my entire body to be able to see what I’m doing. Not to mention manipulate the two pieces of wire with my wrists bound.
More than once, I give in to despair. This was a stupid idea, and if they catch me, my death won’t be the quick, painless one Parr promised me. But then I think about Ripper. How he looked when he admitted what had happened to him. When we made love. When he left to take Charlie for a walk.
Relieved. Accepted. Happy.
I want to see him again. See all those emotions and more. And now that he’s learned who I am, I want him to know the real me.
Wedging the first piece of wire into the lock, I hold my breath. Moment of truth. The second piece slides in next to it, and I whimper through a painful hand cramp, but manage to keep the makeshift lockpicks in place until it passes. Slowly, I maneuver them back and forth, hoping the constant tingling running up and down my fingers doesn’t hamper my ability to feel the tiny tumblers move.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. And then…there’s a click, and my right hand is free.
The pain of my arms falling to my sides after so long stretched over my head almost makes me cry out, but I bite my lip hard enough to draw blood. After I shove the two pieces of wire into the cup of my bra, I go to work on the rope around my ankles. I don’t know how much longer I have before one of them comes to check on me, hurt me, or kill me. It’s dark outside, so it has to be after nine.
Crawling over to Parr’s phone, not confident my legs will support me yet, I enter his unlock code. Now what? I can’t call the police. Who are they going to believe? A fugitive? Or two government agents? And I don’t know Ripper’s number. It’s in my phone.
Parr’s texting app is the only thing I recognize besides the app he downloaded for me, and I launch it.
There are dozens of messages. Mostly to Jessup. Oh, crap.
Parr: I’m tracking her phone. She’s at an apartment off of Latona.
Jessup: Send me the address. I have a sniper on standby.
Then, half an hour later.
Jessup: Got her. Some fucking dog almost took my arm off. She’s still alive. Headed to the rendezvous point. She means something to Richards. We can use her to get our money, then kill her.
I take a bunch of screenshots, find Parr’s email app, and send them all to myself. If I don’t get out of here alive, though, they won’t help me.
Think, Cara!
It’s too hard. My head aches, the throbbing getting worse every time I try to move. My heartbeat, so high for so long, starts skipping. Shit, shit, shit.
Using the wall for support, I stagger to my feet. There has to be a way out of this huge room besides the door Jessup and Parr keep using. Heading in the opposite direction, I stumble more than once, almost losing my grip on the phone.
My eyes don’t want to focus for more than a second or two. The world around me pulses and shifts every time my heart goes into arrhythmia. The only other time this happened, I passed out and woke up in the hospital four hours later. If I lose consciousness here, I’m dead.
There! Up high on the wall, there’s a vent I think I can fit into. The cover’s gone, and cobwebs stretch across the space. Another angled pipe runs from the ceiling to a few feet below the vent, and if I can get up there, I might be able to pull myself into the ductwork.
Sliding the phone into my pocket, I put one foot on the pipe. My stomach lurches, but I force myself to take a slow, deep breath, and step up.
Another breath, and I reach up, sliding both arms, my head, and shoulders into the duct. It stinks like a dead animal—even more than the room below, but I can stand it if it leads me to safety.
Using the last remaining strength in my legs, I jump and wriggle forward. I want to cry when I feel my feet slip over the edge, and I start to slide on my stomach, only a couple of inches at a time, until I come to a bend.
This is harder. Contorting my body around the ninety degree angle leaves me panting, and I have to stop for a minute or I’ll pass out. As I lie there panting, one thought pings in my head. Parr called Ryker. How many Seattle numbers would there be in his call log?
I can’t reach the phone in this tight space, but if I can get out of the ducts, maybe I can find out.
Ten, maybe fifteen minutes later, I find another room, this one smaller than the one they kept me in, with a broken window that looks out over water. Lights from the city provide the only illumination, but it’s enough to tell me I can get out. I just don’t know how high up I am.
Carefully, I lower myself down, but fall the last few feet. I’m not far enough away. Jessup and Parr could have heard me. This might be my last chance. Running for the window, I climb over the sill and fall onto a corrugated metal roof five feet below.
A door bangs several rooms away, and I pull out the phone.
Eight-seven-two-one-three-seven-nine.
Thank God my broken brain remembers something. There’s only one Seattle number. “Please…” I whisper as I tap it and start to creep along the roof, hoping to find somewhere I can hide where they won’t find me.
“McCabe.”
“Help me,” I whisper, but before I can say anything else, I hear Jessup. Too close.
“Find her! What the fuck were you thinking leaving your phone where she could get a hold of it?”
“Caroline? Cara?” Ryker asks. “Where are you?”
“There’s evidence. In my email,” I gasp as I stumble along the roof. I rattle off my email address and my password, but then my foot lands wrong on the uneven metal, and I go down, hard. The phone slips from my grasp and tumbles off the edge and onto a grassy slope that leads down to the water.
“No. God, no.” I can’t go after it. I’m more than twenty feet up. Instead, I crawl, as quickly as I can, until I see a long, sloped greenish pipe that looks like it angles almost down to the ground. It’s at least ten feet across, fifty feet long, with huge, curved ventilation shafts at the end that look out over the water. The only problem? It’s a ten foot drop to the pipe.
“Find her!”
The voice is too close, too angry, and if I don’t move now, I might not get another chance. Saying a quick prayer, I squeeze my eyes shut and call up Ripp
er’s face in my mind.
“Find me, soldier. Please.”
And then I jump.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Ripper
“Grab your tech and let’s go,” West says as he hefts two large bags, one for each shoulder. His Hawaiian shirt is gone, replaced with a full complement of tactical gear.
I shoot him a look of disbelief. There’s less than two hours left until Jessup and Parr are going to kill Cara, and I’m still more than twenty million dollars short. Each transaction is taking me twice as long as it should because I won’t let them keep a cent of the money in the end. Not if Ry can find them and get to Cara. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Suit yourself.” He cracks a half-smile. “Just thought you might want to be there when we take down those fuckers and save your girl.”
I’m out of my seat, the laptop tucked under my arm, in half a second and racing after him as he heads for the back of the warehouse. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Apparently, she got a hold of Parr’s phone and found Ry’s number. They’re on Harbor Island. Ten minutes away.” West bursts through the rear door of the warehouse and out into a parking lot, where he heads for a black van. “Get in the back and gear up. If the dog’s coming, he better damn sure stay quiet.”
I didn’t even notice Charlie at my side, but the German Shephard is in the van before I am. “I don’t have any gear.”
As the engine rumbles to life, West turns from the driver’s seat with an amused grin. “What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing for the past five hours? Everything you need is in that go bag.”
Shit. He’s right. Black fatigues, a black t-shirt, boots, a tactical vest, and enough weapons to take down a small army. Charlie lies down under one of the bench seats while I change, and West taps on the in-dash display. “We’re on our way. Where are you?”
“Five minutes ahead of you,” Ry says.
I pull a chest harness from the go bag and strap it on. “You have Cara on the phone?”
Fighting For Valor Page 20
