by Cassie Miles
“For the bachelor party, are you planning to have a stripper? There’s a tavern in Carbondale where they have a lot of stag parties, and you might want to check with them.”
This was one relentlessly bossy female. He muttered, “I can find my own stripper.”
“I bet you can. And I wonder what’s your favorite type, the French maid or the naughty schoolgirl? Wait, I know. You’re a dominatrix man.”
“Are you volunteering?”
“I have my very own riding crop.”
If she was trying to distract him, she’d succeeded. Though he kept his focus on Kovak’s taillights, Blake’s mind had wandered far away, visualizing long legs in fishnet stockings and a tight leather vest crisscrossing Sarah’s breasts. His vision was an act of pure imagination. He hadn’t seen enough of her body to know what she’d look like naked.
He yanked his thoughts back to the present situation. They were driving toward a potentially dangerous confrontation. He needed to have his wits about him. “Jumping in the car with me was a mistake, Sarah. A big mistake. I’d call it a third strike.”
“What do you mean?”
“You disobeyed my order to drive into town. That was strike one. You followed me into the B and B, that’s two. Then you sashayed out the door and into that passenger seat.”
“I never sashay,” she said.
According to his imagined version of her, the sashay was only one of her moves. He cleared his throat. “I need your cooperation. When we get to Farley’s cabin, you stay in the car. Got it?”
She nodded. “And when it’s time to talk to Jeremy, what are you going to tell him?”
“I like your B and B as a location for the wedding. The house is secure and easily defensible. The location makes it difficult for anybody to sneak up on us. However, if there’s a clear danger, we’ll have to change plans.”
“I really hope that doesn’t happen.”
On the road ahead of him, Kovak cut his lights and parked. Blake did the same. Before he left the car, he said, “Stay here, Sarah.”
As she leaned across the seat and touched his arm, a glimmer of starlight touched her face. Her lips parted as though blowing a kiss. “Be careful.”
She could look real sweet when she wanted to, but he wasn’t fooled by her petal-soft lips and her long eyelashes. She was tough, determined and—like him—usually got her way.
He joined Kovak and his men. With a minimum of discussion, they had a plan. The officers would deploy around the front and rear of the one-story cabin while Blake went onto the porch beside the front door. Kovak would negotiate. Hopefully, Farley and his men would surrender without a fight.
Moving quickly, they got into position. Blake flattened his back against the wall between the front door and a window. He wanted to be close in case the guy with the assault rifle took it into his head to come out firing.
Kovak yelled, “Tyler Farley, this is Deputy David Kovak. We have your cabin surrounded. Farley, we know you’re in there.”
From the window to Blake’s right, he heard a shout. “What do you want, Deputy?”
“Throw out your weapons. Raise your arms and come out one by one.”
“Can’t do that. One of my men can’t walk.”
“Drag him out,” Kovak yelled.
Inside the cabin, they were arguing. Blake couldn’t make out the words but knew from the tone that they disagreed. He suspected that the wounded men were ready to give up. The others might want to make a stand.
“Let’s go,” Kovak yelled. “You’ve got five seconds.”
Blake silently cringed. If he’d been negotiating the surrender, he wouldn’t have issued that ultimatum so quickly. Farley needed a minute to understand that it was to his benefit to cooperate.
“Hands up. Weapons down.” Kovak started his countdown. “One...two...”
Beside Blake, the door swung inward. The guy who charged through and stood on the porch was still wearing his ski mask and held his assault rifle in one hand. He didn’t notice Blake standing just behind him. Though the weapon was pointed down, his finger was on the trigger.
“Drop the weapon,” Kovak yelled.
Red dots of light from the rifle sights of Kovak and another officer danced on the chest of the masked man. He didn’t have a chance. Before he could lift his rifle, he’d be shot. The smart decision would be for him to surrender, but Blake guessed that this guy was operating more on impulse than intelligence.
In a well-practiced move, he knocked the masked man off his feet and onto his belly, facedown in the crusted snow. Blake took the rifle away from him and threw it aside. Straddling the other man’s back, he aimed his handgun toward the house. “The rest of you, get out here.”
Two others, unmasked, came onto the porch. One of them had a clumsy dressing on his upper arm. His face contorted in pain. “I need a doctor.”
“Where’s the fourth guy?”
“He can’t walk.”
Kovak and the other officers rushed forward. In seconds, they had taken Farley’s ragtag crew into custody. While one of the sheriff’s department’s SUVs drove the wounded men to receive treatment, Kovak and Blake questioned Farley.
Blake sat beside the handcuffed man in the back of Kovak’s police cruiser. “Who hired you?”
“I don’t know his name.” Tyler Farley was a skinny guy with bad teeth. The permanent scowl etched into the lines of his thin face made it difficult to guess his age. “He told us it was a joke.”
“How did he contact you?”
“On my cell phone.” Spittle appeared in the corners of his downturned mouth. “He paid me three thousand bucks up front. Nobody was supposed to get hurt.”
Blake didn’t believe Farley was foolish enough to think their stunt at the drilling site was innocent. “What were you supposed to do?”
“Grab the girl. Emily Layton.”
Kidnapping Emily could be leveraged into a threat against the general. “Then what?”
“When we had her, we’d make a call. The guy would tell us where to bring her, and he’d give us the rest of our money.”
“Have you made that call?”
“Not yet.”
Blake checked his wristwatch. Though a lot had happened, it had been less than two hours since he surprised Farley and his boys in the clearing. If he was going to get his hands on the person who hired Farley, he had to move fast.
Chapter Four
Sarah blamed her impulsive leap into Blake’s SUV on an overdose of adrenaline racing through her veins. Her usual behavior was practical, and she didn’t take unwarranted risks. But the successful escape from the clearing and the equally successful search of the B and B had blinded her to how violent the situation could become.
Sitting quietly in the passenger seat, she’d had a chance to calm down and regroup. While she’d watched Blake and the other men approach the cabin with military precision, she’d been tense. The yelling, the guns and the terrifying moment before Blake tackled that armed thug in the ski mask had turned her blood ice-cold. Even though the bad guys had been apprehended without a single shot being fired, the potential for danger was as obvious as a lit fuse that hadn’t yet ignited the powder keg.
She owed Blake an apology. After seeing him in action, she understood why he didn’t want her to interfere. He had a lot more to worry about than hiring a stripper for the bachelor party.
He yanked open the driver’s-side door to his SUV and slid behind the steering wheel. Before she could apologize, he said, “I need your help.”
“Me?” After the scene she’d just witnessed, she figured he could handle anything.
“Farley was hired by an unknown person to kidnap Emily. He’s supposed to call his employer and arrange a meet. I’m going to make that call. If this guy wants to talk
to Emily, can you play her part?”
“But I don’t sound like her.”
“I don’t think he actually knows Emily. You can disguise your voice.”
“Like this?” She changed her alto to a soprano and said, “Hi, I’m Emily and I’m getting married.”
“Nice Minnie Mouse impression.”
She tried again. “Hi, I’m Emily.”
“Close enough.” He started the engine for his rental vehicle and turned up the blower for the heater. “This background noise should disguise our voices.”
“Why are you pretending to be Farley? He’s sitting right over there in Kovak’s car.”
“I don’t trust him to say the right thing. Are you ready to do this?”
Impersonating someone else was out of her comfort zone, but she wanted to help. “Okay.”
As he punched in a phone number, he explained, “This is Farley’s cell phone. I’m putting it on speaker.”
A male voice answered on the fourth ring. “Do you have the package?”
“Hey, there,” Blake said. “How’d you know it was me?”
“The caller ID, you idiot.”
“I got the girl right here.” Blake’s smooth, deep voice had transformed into a thin drawl. “Where’s my money?”
“You don’t get paid until she’s with me. You didn’t hurt her, did you?”
“She don’t like the handcuffs, but she’s fine. Real fine and real pretty.”
“Is she blindfolded? I told you to blindfold her.”
“You bet she is,” Blake said. “You want to talk to her?”
“Yes.” The response was terse, almost a reprimand.
Blake held the phone toward her and said, “Go ahead, Emily.”
Sarah tried to imagine how her friend would feel if she’d been captured. Emily wouldn’t be crying; she was tougher than that. But she would be frightened. Putting a quiver in her throat, Sarah said, “Please, please, help me. If it’s a ransom you want, my father will pay. He’ll pay anything.”
“Are you injured?”
“I’m scared,” Sarah said. That wasn’t a total lie. “You’ve got to help me.”
Blake gave her a thumbs-up sign as he pulled the phone back. “Now you’ve heard her. Where do I bring her to get my payoff?”
“Come to the parking lot behind the Laughing Dog Saloon on the Bridge Road outside Carbondale. And make it quick. I expected to hear from you an hour ago.”
“Well, ain’t that too bad. Me and the guys had a little drink to celebrate.”
“Don’t bring your crew. Just you and the girl. Keep her blindfolded.”
Blake disconnected the call, opened his car door and signaled to Kovak, who came toward them. Then he turned back toward Sarah. “Come with me.”
“There’s something I need to tell you first.”
“What’s that?”
In the overhead light from the car, she noticed his dark stubble, a smear of dirt across his forehead and the glittering intensity in his blue eyes. The sleeve of his parka was wet from his struggle with the armed man. “I’m sorry for getting in the way,” she said. “I didn’t take the threat seriously enough.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a half grin. “I appreciate that. You did a good job talking to that guy.”
His compliment warmed her, and she had the irrational notion of doing whatever it took to please him. “I won’t cause any more trouble.”
Blake left the SUV to join Kovak, and Sarah followed. Standing in the forest between these two tall men, she felt as small as a mouse.
Blake filled Kovak in on the phone call and continued, “I was hoping Farley’s employer would give us a specific place, like a hotel room, where we could walk up to the door and arrest him. Instead, he’s treating this situation like a hostage exchange, probably because he doesn’t want to take a chance on Farley getting close enough to get a good look at him.”
“What about Emily?” Sarah said. “If he took her hostage, she’d be able to identify him.”
“Bad luck for her,” Kovak said.
“Maybe not,” Blake said. “He seemed concerned about her well-being and wanted her blindfolded. It’s hard to believe he intends to hurt her.”
“Kidnapping is a serious crime,” Kovak said. “Even if the kidnapper isn’t a pro, he won’t want to leave a witness.”
Sarah shuddered to think what might have happened if she and Emily hadn’t gotten away at the clearing. They hadn’t been prepared for danger. As trusting as Hansel and Gretel—or Gretel and Gretel—they’d followed a text message into the forest. Though she’d told Blake she was sorry, she couldn’t help blaming him for not warning them.
“We need a plan,” he said. “This might be our only chance to catch this guy.”
“I can call for more backup,” Kovak said.
“Not enough time. He expects Farley to show up soon.” Blake gave a decisive nod. “And that’s what we’ll do. I’ll take Farley’s van and wear a ski mask. Kovak, you follow at a distance in my SUV. We’ll keep in touch by phone. When I get close to the Laughing Dog, I’ll put in another call to this guy. I’ll distract him. You approach from behind. And we’ll take him into custody.”
“What about me?” Sarah asked.
“You’ve done enough,” Blake said. “The other deputy is taking Farley to jail to book him. You can ride with him.”
“Hold on,” Kovak said. “What if our kidnapper wants to see Emily? Sarah could impersonate her.”
“No way,” Sarah said. “We don’t look anything alike.”
“She’s right,” Blake said. “They both have light-colored hair and are close to the same height, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Emily is pale and dainty. Jeremy says she’s like a perfect white rose.”
And what did that make her? A big, old, prickly cactus?
Kovak squinted at her. “From a distance, Sarah looks kind of like Emily, especially if she’s got a blindfold covering half her face.”
She muttered, “Or I could just put a bag over my head.”
Blake ignored her and spoke directly to Kovak. “How well do you know Sarah?”
“Pretty well.” He shrugged. “Why do you ask?”
“Most cops hate to have civilians involved, but you don’t seem to have a problem with pulling Sarah along.”
“We’ve worked together before.” Kovak clapped her on the back. “Sarah regularly volunteers for mountain rescues. I’ve seen her in action, and she knows how to handle pressure.”
“Thanks.” She gave him a grin.
“To tell the truth, I’d rather have you setting the belaying lines for a descent than most of the guys in the sheriff’s department.”
“Good to know,” Blake said as he headed toward Farley’s van. “Sarah rides with me.”
With Kovak’s praise ringing in her ears, she strode along beside Blake. Maybe she wasn’t a delicate flower like Emily, but she was the first woman the deputy would pick to play on his team. She’d always been “one of the guys.” Not homecoming queen. Not the girl with tons of dates on Saturday nights. But men were comfortable around her and trusted her.
The interior of Farley’s van was, predictably, cluttered and grungy with a gross smell of stale bread, gunpowder and sweat. In addition to the litter—crumpled wrappers from fast-food places, empty ammo boxes and discarded clothes—there were filthy, blood-soaked rags, reminding her of the wounded men who had been arrested. She remembered her jolt of fear while watching the armed men and Blake circling the cabin.
She glanced over at him as he got behind the steering wheel. If she mentioned that she’d been scared, she knew he wouldn’t want her to come along on this ride. With a shake of her head, she dismissed her nerves and concentrated on what needed to be done. “Wha
t should I use as a blindfold?”
“There must be something in here.”
“Excuse me?” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not touching anything in this van, much less putting it against my skin.”
“See what you can figure using your clothes.” He started the engine and pulled away from the cabin. “Do you know where the Laughing Dog is located?”
“Go left, then take a right at the main road.” She unzipped her parka and looked down at what she was wearing. Her baggy sweater, jeans and underwear didn’t provide much of a selection. “Instead of a blindfold, I could pull my cap down over my eyes.”
“I don’t expect to get close enough for this guy to make out details, but you heard him on the phone. He wants Emily blindfolded.”
“Don’t you have a scarf?”
“Don’t you?”
There was an item of her clothing that might work. “I suppose I could use my bra. It’s black.”
“Is it lacy? Does it have those cups that poke out?”
“It’s a sports bra.” She couldn’t believe she was discussing her underwear with him. “A cotton and spandex blend.”
“Let me take a look at it.”
Glaring at him, she took off her parka and pulled both arms inside her sweater. She wriggled the strap off one arm, pulled the bra over her head and took off the other strap. Though she hadn’t exposed an inch of flesh, she felt exposed, and she was glad the lights from the dashboard weren’t bright enough to reveal the heat she felt rising in her cheeks. At least she wasn’t scared anymore.
Plunging her arms back into the sweater sleeves, she dangled the bra in front of him. “Ta-da.”
“The perfect blindfold.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not going to have a bra wrapped around your face.”
“It won’t be for long,” he promised. “This maneuver needs to happen fast before the guy figures out what we’re doing. It goes without saying that you’ll stay in the van.”
“I understand.” She slipped back into her parka. “I have a question for you. If this person is trying to threaten the general, why kidnap Emily?”
