by Sosie Frost
But even Josie knew better than to leave it wide open.
I stepped inside. Her lights were on. Chinese food containers cluttered her kitchen—usually pristine and orderly. Papers and plans littered every available surface—anything and everything pertaining to her shop.
Josie wasn’t in her bed. She wasn’t home, but her purse hung by the door. I searched her bedroom and found her phone tossed under the nightstand. I scanned through it, reading texts I never answered. Plenty from Delta. Some from Willowbend.
One text from Nolan.
Something was wrong. Her reply was hostile and accompanied with a sound clip. I listened to it, my stomach churning as I realized she threatened a man who would murder to protect his reputation.
This wasn’t about revenge anymore. Anger and rage no longer consumed me.
A new terror threaded my veins. Nolan Rhys had taken Josie.
And if I didn’t kill him first, Josie would die.
Chapter Nineteen – Josie
“We need to talk.”
The voice blurred in my ears. Could a voice blur? He didn’t slur it. The words just sludged together in my head. Wavering. Bouncing.
Leeching into my thoughts.
I knew that voice. It was one that required the restraints on my hands and legs.
Mayor Nolan Rhys bound me to a chair with ropes, and hid me in a dusty, flickering cabin.
No, barn?
And he wanted to talk?
“I never should have baked cookies for you,” I said.
My tongue felt fat, like someone made bananas foster in my mouth. I didn’t let him see me tremble, and I didn’t dare get enraged. I needed a clear head for this. Needed to stay calm. God only knew what he used to knock me out, but it wasn’t confectioners’ sugar or cocoa powder.
Would it hurt the baby?
Nolan knelt before my chair. His three piece suit was as impractical in the streets of Saint Christie as it was kneeling in his barn—even if he refused to let his pinstriped slacks touch the weathered floorboards. Not like he ever did a day of hard work here.
Except when he torched his campaign signs and framed Maddox for the crime.
“Josie? Are you awake?”
I was now. I didn’t want to imagine what he did while I was out. I still wore my tank top and panties, but that was it. Not my most modest moment or anything I trusted around Nolan. His gaze lowered one too many times. The shivers slithered over me, one wave after another.
“You kidnapped me,” I whispered.
“I hope you’ll forgive me once we’re done.”
“Done doing what?”
“Negotiating.”
I tested the ropes on my wrists. They strained. Too tight. “Negotiating my freedom?”
He didn’t smile. “Negotiating mine, if you please.”
I never thought I’d be in a position of power over Nolan. “You don’t like the recording I have of you threatening Maddox.”
“It’s not admissible in court. We live in a two-party consent recording state.”
“Says the man who kidnapped me and tied me up.” Adrenaline helped to push the drugs out of my system. “I don’t care about the court. The media though…”
“This sound clip won’t help my election campaign.”
“I thought so,” I said. “You have an image problem, Mayor Rhys.”
“Not yet.”
Liar. “Your image is dishonest. You act like you’re perfect. The best name, the most money, the greatest education, the spotless record. You’re a mayor of a wholesome, small American town, and you think you deserve something bigger.” I stared at him, at his playboy hair and dazzling blue eyes. “Only I know the real you.”
“No. You bring out something in me, Josie.” He stared at my chest. “I don’t know if it’s something natural or just what you do to me.”
“Don’t blame me for your perversions.”
He tensed, almost angry. “I offered you everything.”
“And I wanted nothing from you.”
“Are you so sure?”
“You can’t give me what I want.” I didn’t trust him as he started to pace. “I hoped you’d go to jail.”
“I told you. I didn’t burn down your shop.”
“I know.”
“But I can get it back for you…”
I kicked my ankles. The ropes were looser around my feet, but I couldn’t get free. Nolan straightened his tie and tried to hide the frustration in his voice. He was willing to bargain even though he hated the offer.
“You have a sound clip in your possession that will damage my career,” he said. “Something that will end my campaign before it begins.”
I wished I had some water. My mouth dried, but that wasn’t as bad as my twisting stomach. It wasn’t a good time for morning sickness.
I faked confidence. “I thought we had an agreement. You stay away from Maddox, and I wouldn’t reveal to every media outlet in the state that you threatened to kill him.”
“Right.” Nolan sneered. “Because you love him.”
“More than anything.”
“I could have given you more than him.” He snickered. “You think my little threat is bad? Do you even know the type of man Maddox is? If you knew the things he’s done, you’d regret denying me.”
“But he’s never kidnapped me,” I said. “Never threatened anyone I love. Never hurt me when I refused him. Never presumed to know what was best for me.”
“I’m in love with you, Josie.”
“Then untie me. Let me go.”
Nolan swore. The hair on my neck rose. I didn’t like this side of him. He was bad enough in public, forcing me into meetings and conversations, but at least there we had a reputation to maintain.
Here? Isolated? Alone? The drugs he used to knock me out were potent, and my head still ached. I had to get away from him before he did something worse than kidnap me.
Before his love turned into lust.
“I want the recording you made of me. Delete it.” Nolan ran a thick tongue over his lip. “And maybe I can offer you something that will put all this unpleasantness behind us.”
“What deal?”
“I’ll help you rebuild your shop.”
“Will you bring a hammer and nails?”
He unfolded a paper from his pocket and held it up so I can see. “This is the original property deed and survey to your land. Bob Ragen was right. The land was subdivided improperly, and the county never recorded it. Technically…” He smiled. “You own both lots. Bob has no case against you.”
I leaned away in the chair. Nolan only stepped closer. “You kidnapped me to show me a clerical error from fifty years ago?”
“I thought you’d be happier.”
“I’d clap, but I can’t move my hands.”
Nolan liked that. “You’ll need money to rebuild. It’s yours.”
“Are you bribing me, or am I blackmailing you?”
“Call it a loan, no interest for the first ten years,” he said. “I’ll become the primary investor in your property and refuse my share of the profits. You get your shop back, your customers, your livelihood. Perhaps that would give you reason to forgive past indiscretions.”
“Nothing will forgive what you’ve done.”
“That’s your part of this arrangement, Josie.” Nolan brushed my cheek. His touch chilled me, rotten and vile. “I need you to control Maddox. Can you do that?”
No. “That’ll be hard to do. You kidnapped me.”
“He doesn’t have to know that.”
“You want me to pretend you didn’t force me from my home in the middle of the night, drugged up and half-naked?”
His hand drifted lower, teasing the hem line of my shirt. He tugged it up, up, up, revealing a sliver of dark skin just over my navel. I hoped he didn’t see me tremble.
“I could have done worse.”
“No doubt.”
“You would have liked it.”
“You’re di
sgusting.”
His slap was hard, fierce against my cheek. “We still have an opportunity to try, Josie. Don’t tempt me?”
“Pity I don’t have my phone here to record that.”
His second slap struck harsher than the first. The chair teetered, and I fell on my side.
My stomach heaved. Nothing came up but only because I had nothing left in me. I hadn’t eaten. My head throbbed. I was naked, cold, and Nolan’s compromise was looking less and less like something that would benefit me.
Nolan hauled me up from the floor, slicing through the ropes binding me to the chair with a knife I didn’t know he concealed in his pocket. He kicked the chair away and held me up for his inspection. I danced on my tippy-toes while he leered at me.
Whatever defiance I showed before, whatever challenge I issued only pissed him off. I had to rein it back, take some sort of control.
If not for me then for the baby I carried.
“Okay,” I said. “You give me a loan to rebuild my shop, and I won’t release the recording of you. I’ll delete it. No one has to know it happened.”
“Maddox will know.”
I swallowed. My toes barely scraped the ground, and the ropes tugged too hard. “In case you haven’t noticed, you are the reason he left me. I haven’t seen or heard from him in two weeks.”
Nolan’s smile widened, an opportunistic slide of his jaw. “I noticed, Josie.”
“So you don’t have to worry about him.”
“Are you worried about him?”
No need to lie. “Yes.”
“Are you worried about you?”
No hesitation. “Yes.”
“Why?” Nolan gentled, and a strange and unsettling tone shadowed him with mania. “Just once, Josie. Let me prove how much I love you.”
I squirmed. He liked that. “We made our agreement. I trust you. Isn’t that enough?”
“No.”
The ropes bound my arms and legs, but he only needed one hand to hold me still. His other tickled low, cupping my behind and forcing me close to his waist.
Something hard struck my thigh.
This time, I wasn’t so sure he’d give me a chance to argue.
I kept my voice soft, as non-confrontational as I could manage. “Nolan, I’m pregnant.”
His grip released. I dropped to my feet again. He stepped away.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Josie.” He ran a hand through his hair. “You let that brute—”
“I’ll take the deal. I’ll get my shop. You can do your campaign. I agree, okay?”
He grunted, forcing me against one of the barn’s load bearing pillars. The wood scraped my hand. He forced a new rope over my waist that strapped me to the beam. I wiggled as his phone buzzed. It distracted him before he tied the knot as tightly as the others.
He glanced at his cellphone’s screen before flashing it at me. It wasn’t a call or message. Just a blip from an app I didn’t recognize.
“This place looks like an abandoned old barn, but the security on it…” He pocketed the phone. “Top notch.”
“Nolan?”
He walked away to inspect the equipment on an old work bench. “I know you think little of me. It confuses me. I’ve never had to prove myself or earn anyone’s respect. You? You’re a challenge.”
It didn’t sound like such a compliment now.
Nolan continued, talking mostly to himself. “My grandfather worked this land and made his own fortune. My father was the best damn lawyer in the state and raised his family here. I took that money and name and reputation and thought it would impress you. What else can I do to make you look at me the way you look at him?”
My mouth dried. “It’s just…how I feel. You can’t control that.”
“You don’t want this deal any more than I do,” he said. “Sure, it’s good publicity. Local hero offers help to restore community landmark. I’d work it into my campaign. But here’s the problem.” He picked up a heavy tool from the bench and tested its weight against his hand. “I know you. I know the kind of person you are.”
“What kind of person?”
He smiled. “You won’t blackmail someone…even if you hate them. Sooner or later, the guilt would eat at you. All those sweet little candies would taste like ash in your mouth. You’d have to come clean…and you’d ruin me by clearing your conscience.”
“I won’t.” My words stuck in my throat. “I just want my shop back. I won’t talk. I promise.”
“A promise is worth nothing from an honest person doing wrong. No matter what I do, you’ll become a liability.” Nolan stalked to the door, edging into the shadows. “Just like Maddox.”
The door burst open, splintering under a shattering kick. I shouted as Maddox crashed inside, his gaze too focused on me to recognize the danger lurking in the dark.
I shouted his name. Nolan swung the tool in his hand. It struck Maddox by the ear.
He dropped, hard.
My heart stopped. Maddox moved, but not quickly. Dazed. He was hurt. He needed help.
And Nolan replaced the wrench only to approach me with duct tape. He ripped a piece and slammed it over my lips.
“Sorry, Josie,” he said. “I really hoped this would end differently.”
I twisted in the ropes, but Nolan moved away, cell phone in hand. He dialed a number and taunted me with a finger pressed to his lips. I screamed into the tape anyway.
“Chief Craig?” Nolan kicked Maddox’s ribs as he tried to stand. “Look, I got a problem. Josie Davis and I were spending the night together, and her ex showed. Yeah, Maddox. He came after me.”
Nolan shouldered the phone and reached for his knife. He grimaced and slashed his own palm.
“Chief, he’s got Josie, and I don’t know what he’s gonna do. You gotta send someone up here before it’s too late.”
He ended the call. What the hell was he doing? His wound splattered blood everywhere, and he made sure to bleed over Maddox.
“Know that I do love you, Josie.” Nolan studied me, as if for the last time. “But I need to protect myself and move on from this obsession.”
A lighter flashed in his hand. I stiffened, searching the barn. Old wood. Barrels of oil and gasoline. Boxes and crates. The place was a tinderbox.
And we were trapped inside.
Nolan lit the edges of an old newspaper. He tossed the crumpled sheet onto a bundle of straw in the far corner. Flames immediately danced along the dried bale.
He was going to burn the barn to the ground.
Nolan pulled and antique lamp from the wall and pitched it into the fire. The glass shattered, and the fire eagerly lapped at the leaking oil. It billowed into a ferocious curtain of flame that seized the barn and everything inside.
He dropped the lighter into Maddox’s coat pocket. Maddox gripped his arm, but Nolan’s punch dropped him again. Nolan turned before he opened the barn door.
“Goodbye, Josie.”
Oh god. I screamed as Nolan slipped into the night, and screamed again as the door slammed shut, feeding the fire a burst of oxygen before trapping us within.
The ropes sliced my hands.
Maddox stopped moving.
I shouted his name, but the tape muffled everything the fire hadn’t obscured in its roar.
I never thought I’d be surrounded in fire again, but the smoke roiled over the barn. I twisted the rope enough to loosen it, but I could only drop to the ground.
The flames ruptured through the floor, aiming for Maddox.
I could do nothing to stop it.
We were going to die.
Chapter Twenty – Maddox
Smoke coiled in my lungs.
Was this Hell? I didn’t smell sulfur, but her screaming would haunt me for all eternity.
My eyes didn’t want to open, but something in my brain kicked to life. I hurt now, but I’d hurt a hell of a lot more if I didn’t move my ass.
That heat crept closer. I remembered getting trapped in flames before. A year
ago I ran into Josie’s burning shop absolutely terrified, not for my own safety, but because Josie might have been hurt. I sacrificed myself then to save her. I’d sat in jail, bandaged and in pain, waiting for her to come to my side.
She didn’t, so this time I’d come to hers.
I rolled over. That was a mistake. The violent, acrid smoke thickened the air. The night was dark, but ash and embers blackened the barn. My head ached. Blood dripped from above my ear. Whatever the fuck he hit me with was hard enough to nearly crack my teeth.
I shouted. The sound ripped through my head. Everything hurt.
I couldn’t see Josie.
My cell phone flashlight did nothing. I crawled, hand over hand, deeper into the barn. Away from the heat. At least I remembered the layout from when I rewired the lighting. Two exits, two doors, a shit ton of windows. None that would help me now as the flames consumed everything. The walls and roof lashed with fire, and all the scrap parts and seed and straw fed the inferno.
Christ, and I even did him a favor. Nolan’s barn was so badly wired a single spark would have burned the son of a bitch to the ground. I thought I fixed it.
Instead, I got the front-row seat.
And so did Josie.
Something muffled her screams. I clawed toward the sound, praying it was her and not a figment of my imagination, a hallucination from the smoke and head trauma.
The fire moved too fast, and I shuffled by inches, not feet. Where the hell was she? Why couldn’t she move?
My hand struck her bare foot. She kicked, and the muffled cry wavered.
I got her.
And she was alive.
But not for long. We were surrounded by too much smoke, too much heat, and the hungry flames that licked the floor. I reached for her, ripping the tape from her mouth.
“Just go!” Josie struggled against the ropes that bound her to the support beam. “I can’t get out. Save yourself.”
“I’m not leaving you.” I coughed through the smoke. “I’ll untie you.”
“Maddox—”
“I’m not leaving you!”
Josie squirmed, but the ropes didn’t release their hold. I searched my jacket for my knife, but the movement was too quick and my fingers too dulled by the blow to my head. I dropped the blade into the darkness.
