Hell Bent

by Arlene Knowell

  Carnal Passions Presents

  Hell Bent

  By

  Arlene Knowell

  &

  Judith Noelle

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Carnal Passions

  A Division of Champagne Books

  www.carnalpassions.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Arlene Knowell & Judith Noelle

  ISBN 978-1-926681-82-5

  April 2010

  Cover Art © Amanda Kelsey

  Produced in Canada

  Dedication

  In loving memory of the greatest Marine I ever knew, this is for you Chris. Special thanks to my many other Marine friends for their service: Mike, Russ, Bert, Mitch, Nick and Richard. To the special group who are now serving in Iraq, thank you is just not enough: Jason, Russell, Brad, Joal, Takashi, Jason, Brian, Mel, Ricky, Christian and Brian. May God bless and keep you all, because our country is nothing without the warriors.

  ~Arlene

  I would like to say thank you to those who have read and critiqued my work; Amy, Lindy and Tonya. My writing is dedicated to my children and in memory of my mother, Judy.

  ~Judith

  One

  Mindy took a deep breath and started her car. It seemed that getting to and from work was like a tense scene from a thriller movie. Pierre, her work assistant, rounded a corner ahead of her and she followed. Parking garages were spooky enough without the threat of a looming stalker. A grey SUV backed out ahead of her but she thought little of it. When the SUV didn’t move, however, her heart stuttered into a faster pace. She scrambled to open the center console. After a tense moment of panic, her hand wrapped around the familiar grip of a gun. Her father had taught her to shoot even before she knew how to ride a bicycle, and if it meant the difference between life and death, she wasn’t afraid to pull the trigger. She blew her horn. Nothing. The pounding in her ears matched her heartbeat as pure adrenalin surged through her veins. She jammed her car into reverse and backed quickly up the lane behind her. If she couldn’t get out through the exit, then she’d damn well take the entrance. She wasn’t about to sit there and wait for someone to take her.

  Her mind flitted back to when she had realized that the eerie feeling of being watched turned out to be true. She couldn’t understand why she, of all women, would have a stalker. She’d only moved to San Diego six or so years ago and she had very few friends. She had even fewer enemies, or at least she’d thought so.

  She backed into an empty space, turned the car around then sped toward the entrance as if her life depended on it, and it may have. Her heart sank when the SUV pulled into the lane and blocked her.

  “Oh, God,” she sighed as her tires squealed to a stop.

  She crammed the car into reverse and disappeared out of sight of the SUV once again. How long would she have to play this cat and mouse game? Would it come down to taking a human life? She wasn’t willing to be a victim.

  She brought her Firebird to a stop and picked up her phone. She punched in Pat’s number. He was closest to her location and she needed a big brother like never before. Of course, it would mean certain death for the person in the SUV if Pat actually caught him in the act of harassing her. Her brothers, Pat and Pete, were her self proclaimed keepers since childhood. When their father had attempted to make her self sufficient, the twins could see that little girls were just different than boys. They knew that even if their father said otherwise, she, six years their junior, would always have two big brothers to turn to. Their protectiveness had only grown more intense when she’d moved in with them a few years ago.

  “Hey, li’l sister.” Pat’s smooth tone flowed through the phone.

  “Pat, I need help.” Her voice wasn’t as fearful as it was desperate.

  She searched the dim garage as mounting fear wracked her mind with wavering apparitions and shadows that disappeared into the dark distant corners. She wasn’t the kind of girl who went screaming into the night at the first sign of trouble. She fought to keep calm. In her family, she’d learned that panic was most often the killer in a dangerous situation.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m trying to leave work. I need you to get here now,” she ordered. “A grey SUV has blocked me at the exit of the garage. I went around to the entrance but it had already moved and blocked me there, too.”

  “I’m on my way,” he said as the sound of boots on pavement filled the phone. “Stay on the phone with me. Don’t get out of the car and if he gets near you blow his ass off.”

  She worked her way back to the exit and wasn’t shocked to find the SUV waiting there. Any other time there would have been twenty people wanting to leave the parking

  garage, but just like in the movies, this time she was alone.

  Logic told her this game could be never ending, but with a little quick thinking she might just make it out in one piece and save her stalker’s life in the process. Pat wouldn’t be an understanding brother if he got within arm’s length of the person in the SUV. Little did the man know that his life depended on her escape as much as her own. She took a deep breath and squinted in thought; odds were good the stalker had returned to the exit to block her again. She glanced at the gun in her lap, took a deep calming breath and turned the car around.

  “Do you recognize the truck?” Pat asked as he ran across the Marine Corp Base parking lot, a few miles away. His sudden voice coming out of her cell phone startled her.

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it before.”

  “I’m leaving now,” Pat informed her as the sound of an engine roaring to life filled her car.

  She remembered the anger on her brothers’ faces when a man had called their home and challenged them to try and keep him from kidnapping her. Pat had just walked in from a week of maneuvers and Pete had returned the day before from another Hell Week.

  “Hello,” Pete had answered.

  “Is this Mindy’s brother?” a male voice asked.

  Pete allowed his eyes to find Mindy sitting on the couch. “Yes, it is, this is Pete. Do you need to speak with her?”

  “No. I called to talk to you.”

  Pete furrowed his brow. “Me?”

  Mindy quirked her eyebrows, put down the magazine she was glancing through and twisted on the couch to watch him.

  The person laughed. “You would want to know that I plan to kidnap your sister, wouldn’t you?”

  “Who the hell is this?”

  Mindy tilted her head in confusion as Pete glared at the phone. “Who is it?” she mouthed.

  Pete shrugged and shook his head, the ferocity never leaving his eyes.

  “It doesn’t matter who I am,” the voice rasped. “Can you keep me from taking her?”

  “I don’t know who you are,” Pete growled, “but you’re talking crazy stuff that’ll get you killed.”

  Pat walked from the kitchen with a banana in hand and looked first to Pete then Mindy. “Who is he talking to?”

  She shrugged, pulled her feet onto the sofa and turned her full attention toward Pete. “I don’t know.”

  “Try me,” the man challenged. “If you think you’re such a bad-ass, come and get me.”

  “You stay away from my sister,” Pete warned, seconds before the line went dead. He turned to his siblings. Mindy twisted
at the corner of a throw pillow and stood up, a thread of anxiety creeping down her spine.

  “What the heck was that about?” Pat asked. He used the banana to point to the phone Pete held.

  “Some guy just threatened to kidnap Mindy,” Pete explained, meeting Pat’s eyes in some sort of twin-like exchange of thoughts.

  “Kidnap me?” Mindy’s voice shot up an octave. “You think he was serious?”

  “Don’t worry,” Pete said, his voice softening. “Surely he’s not that stupid.”

  Her hands shook and fear traveled through her veins like a cold drink through a straw. “Why would anyone want to kidnap me?”

  Pat cut his eyes toward her, peeling the banana and taking a gigantic bite. “Sounds like you might have broken one too many hearts.”

  She scowled at him. Threats of kidnapping had to be taken seriously. Kidnappings rarely had a happy ending, and the last thing she wanted was to end up dead, especially if she didn’t know why. “As if.”

  “He didn’t say why.” Pete checked the screen on the phone. “Private caller. He just said that if I thought I was such a bad-ass to come and get him.”

  “Mindy?” Pat called. “Mindy!”

  She gasped as her mind returned from the memories. “I’m here.”

  “Be careful, and watch what’s going on around you,” Pat advised. “You’ve got to be at the top of your game. Don’t let yourself get distracted, keep your mind on what you’re doing. He could be waiting for an opportunity to walk right

  up to you.”

  Her brothers always spoke of the power of distraction and confusion that could be the difference between winning the battle and licking your wounds. It was strange how the feeling of being trapped made people do strange things. They would spend so much time, effort and thought trying to escape that they would overlook their obvious weaknesses. The problem was that Mindy wasn’t on the battlefield, and something told her that if she slacked for even a moment she’d become someone’s personal play thing.

  She pressed the speaker option on her phone and threw it into the passenger’s seat. “I wouldn’t advise anyone to walk up to me right now.”

  “I’ll be there in about two more minutes,” he said. “Just hang tough.”

  Her nerves were so alert that her skin seemed to crawl. She felt like one of those stupid women in horror movies who would walk weaponless into a basement to investigate a noise, when she should’ve known damn well the killer was there waiting. She’d always said she wasn’t that way, yet here she was trapped in a parking garage as the sun faded more with each passing minute. She drove toward the exit ramp. The SUV wasn’t there. She zoomed down the lane far too fast but her life probably depended on getting out of there. The sound of her front spoiler and bumper giving way when she made contact with the street echoed over the phone in a loud crash.

  “Mindy?” Pat’s voice filled with alarm.

  “I’m okay.” She glanced back to the empty roadway behind her. “But I think I need a new bumper.”

  The relief was evident in his laugh. He wouldn’t have to call his parents and tell them that he, a highly skilled Marine, had allowed someone to snatch his sister. Someone actually making an attempt to take her had also brought the game to a whole new level. It was a level she wasn’t sure the stalker would want to play. When it came to their little sister, the twins would kick ass and ask questions later.

  Mindy stomped the accelerator, leaving the SUV that rounded the corner to deal with the sound of her screaming engine and the smell of hot rubber. Ahead she could see Pat’s truck approaching and he ordered her to call her other brother and make her way to him where she would be safe. Pat was no doubt going to look for the mysterious SUV, and with any luck, he’d find it.

  As much as her two brute brothers got on her nerves, they were dependable. She could count on them. Of course, they were always bringing guys by the apartment in hopes she’d fall in love with a military man. They’d invited her to move to California with them because they knew if she kept dating civilians, she would eventually find one she liked well enough to marry. And to them, that was unacceptable.

  She sighed, then dialed Pete’s phone and explained what happened in the parking garage, and asked him to meet her close by. Leaving her car in a department store parking lot, she climbed into the truck with Pete after he pulled into the parking spot beside her.

  Pete’s cell phone buzzed and he answered it, pressing the speaker option. “Yeah?”

  “I found our boy,” Pat said. Mindy sucked in a breath and pushed her back straight against the leather seat.

  “Who is he?”

  “Don’t know that,” Pat said. “But there is a Navy sticker on the truck. I think he knows he fucked up. He’s headed back toward base now.”

  “We’ll be there in about ten minutes.” Pete pressed down on the gas pedal, speeding through a yellow light. “We’ll meet you at the gate.”

  ~ * ~

  Pete stopped the truck at the base gate and Pat climbed inside. Pat wrapped his arm around Mindy and gave her a squeeze, commending her on keeping a level head while all hell was breaking loose. A warm sensation of pride bubbled deep inside her. A compliment from her brothers, especially for bravery, was the equivalent of getting a silver star and living to tell the story.

  Mindy listened to the conversation between the twins as Pete concluded that he knew the stalker. It seemed that although Mindy was the target, she wasn’t the reason for the attempted kidnapping. Pete, an instructor for the Navy SEAL’s BUDs Training Facility, noticed a weak link trainee by the name of Sanback. When he was convinced Sanback couldn’t handle the strenuous job, he’d pushed him harder, knowing he’d make the crawl of shame up the beach and ring the bell in defeat. Then he would finally head back to his regular MOS with his tail tucked between his legs. Pete had been right and Sanback quit after two hours of surf torture, but not before standing nose to nose with Pete, his mouth spewing obscenities for causing him to lose his life long dream of becoming a SEAL.

  Mindy could sense the tension in the vehicle. Her brothers’ tempers were hotter than the leather seat beneath her. Once her brothers laid eyes on Sanback, he’d have hell to pay. She wasn’t proud that she needed her big brothers as bodyguards, but no one else had ever volunteered for the job. Pete pulled along side the gate's guard shack, shoved the transmission into park and locked his eyes on the Marine on duty. Mindy turned her attention to the young Marine, and listened as he discussed the situation with Pete. She sighed with relief when the Marine called for two extra MPs to assist in the search for Sanback.

  They waited, impatient, until an old Hummer came into sight. Pete and Pat stepped from the truck and stomped toward the MPs. Mindy watched as her brothers explained the situation to the men inside the Humvee. She sighed when one of the MPs motioned her brothers to follow them.

  The twins quickly made their way back to the truck, got inside and closed the doors behind them. The silence was deafening, but it was obvious they weren’t going to let her in on whatever they’d learned from the MPs. Logic suggested that they were headed toward Sanback’s quarters, but her better judgment wouldn’t allow her to ask. Pete advanced the accelerator and the truck jumped forward. This scene reminded her of life on base at Ft. Bragg when she was a child. She hadn’t liked the feeling of being on a military base then, and she certainly didn’t like it now. She wasn’t sure if it was the base itself or the people there that made her so uncomfortable. Military men were too unpredictable, too cocky and too willing to prove themselves through bloodshed.

  She gripped the edge of the seat with both hands and locked her eyes on Pete’s sidearm laying in the console tray between her feet. She swallowed hard and glanced toward Pete. His eyes were locked on the roadway ahead, he seemed set on his mission and that mission was to find the man responsible for blocking her in the garage. She blinked against the cool air that flowed from the vent in front of her, and then turned her attention toward Pat. He sat erect in
the seat, his right leg bouncing with anxiousness as his left thumb drummed against his thigh. His nostrils flared slightly and he reached for the door handle. The truck began to slow and she realized that the Hummer had come to a stop at a housing unit.

  “Stay here.” Pat ordered, his eyes meeting hers in a kind of warning.

  She nodded and took a deep breath when the twins jumped from the truck like a couple of cold blooded crocodiles looking for dinner. She wasn’t sure if she was ready for this, but there was no stopping it. She wanted the stalker to disappear from her life, but she hadn’t been so lucky. She didn’t like needing a hero; her father hadn’t raised her that way. Self-sufficient since she was a child, she could do anything she set her mind to, and that included standing up to the bullies on the school playgrounds. At sixteen, a slight 101 pounds, she’d even fought off a date one night when he wanted more than a kiss. She’d kept that to herself for more than one reason, but then she’d kept a lot of things to herself through the years.

  She recognized the grey SUV sitting in a parking space to her right and her breath caught. She hadn’t really imagined until now that the driver might actually have the capability of taking her. The thought of what might have happened if he’d actually succeeded made her skin crawl. She’d always considered herself a strong person who would rather be killed than abducted. Perhaps there were people who would rather be alive, and face the unknown. Not Mindy. Being kidnapped would mean she’d lost control of her own life, that she’d been weak. Losing control wasn’t an option in her world. No, her choices had been to avoid being kidnapped or die trying. She would rather be found lying dead on the pavement than somewhere no one would ever look for her with an evil stranger.

  The entire stalking episode seemed harmless at first. Someone paying a bit too much attention to her, until it quickly escalated. When Mindy returned home one morning after a mysterious phone call, she found her bedroom window broken and a rose on her bed.