Hide From Evil

by Jami Alden

  Her vision tunneled and she fought for consciousness and felt herself thrown over a hard shoulder. She wanted to fight, but she couldn’t seem to get the message to her legs and arms. Her head throbbed and she realized the warm tickling sensation on her cheek was blood. His shoulder dug into her stomach so hard she thought she was going to be sick. Maybe if I throw up he’ll drop me.

  Maxwell threw her onto the deck of a huge yacht and dragged her into a stateroom. She was thrown on the bed like a duffle bag, the impact jarring her head hard enough to make her vision start to waver again.

  “Nosy bitch,” he muttered. Krista held her breath. What was he going to do now? Kill her? Rape her?

  Bile rose in her throat at the thought.

  But to her shock, Maxwell quickly bound her hands and feet with zip ties, pulling them so tight they dug into her wrists and ankles, and sealed her mouth with a strip of duct tape. Had he fantasized about doing this while he practiced his golf swing at the country club? A bubble of hysterical laughter lodged in her throat at the thought.

  Nadia landed on the bed beside her and Karev’s thug bound and gagged her too.

  Maxwell leaned over Krista, his leering face penetrating her fog. “I have some things to take care of before we go. But don’t worry. We’re going to have a lot of fun together.” He reached out and covered Krista’s breast with his hand and gave it a painful squeeze, smiling at the way she whimpered behind the duct tape. “I’ve had my eye on you since you were sixteen, Krista.” His voice was rougher, the cultured tones giving way as he shed the final layers of civility. “I’m gonna enjoy every second. And when I’m finished with you, thanks to Karev I know some guys in Turkey who will pay me good money for you. You know Middle Easterners and their taste for the white women. Even the ones who are all used up.”

  Chapter 21

  Sean paced the conference room that had become the center of operations. Though it was nearly ten p.m., the Homicide wing of the Seattle PD was humming with activity as they worked to track down Maxwell and Krista before it was too late.

  Though there was still a statewide APB out on Sean and a warrant for his arrest for the shooting of the police deputy, Cole wasn’t about to turn him over to the authorities in Chelan County. Fortunately, no one else present seemed inclined to challenge him on that, especially after Cole made a few well-placed phone calls to some of the subjects of Maxwell’s lurid videos.

  As expected, Maxwell wasn’t at home, his office, or any of the other obvious places. Petersen had been sent to pick up Margaret Grayson-Maxwell for questioning.

  Maybe she could shed some light on where her husband had taken Krista. Sean wasn’t holding his breath.

  They’d been back at the station for half an hour, and still nothing. Sean tried not to dwell on the fact that half an hour was plenty of time to rape and kill a woman. “This is ridiculous. There has to be a way to find this asshole,” Sean said. “Traffic cameras.”

  “City hasn’t installed them in that area.” Cole shook his head as he looked at the map they had posted. There was a red dot that represented where Karev’s driver had picked them up, and concentric circles outward to show the radius they might have traveled. “If they head this way,” he said, indicating the south end of the city, “we might be able to pick them up on the cameras. I have an APB out on them. Every cop in the city is looking for that car.”

  “And in the meantime that fucker is doing God knows what to her,” Sean bit out. “We have to do something. I can’t just wait around here.” He started for the door, but Cole caught him by the shoulder.

  “Believe me, Sean, of all people, I know what’s going through your head right now.”

  Sean met Cole’s dark stare. Right. Just a little over three months ago, Cole had been going out of his mind trying to figure out where that sick fuck Nate Brewster had taken Megan. He of all people knew how it felt to know the woman you loved—

  His brain slammed into that word like a brick wall. No way. It was just the insanity of the last few days combined with a burst of a psychotic amount of chemistry. And now wasn’t the time to go all Dr. Phil on his feelings for Krista.

  “Do these windows open?” Sean asked as he stalked to the ones that lined the wall across from them. He needed air. He needed to think…He managed to get one cracked open a few inches. “What about in-dash GPS, cell phones—”

  “We’re trying to get in touch with all the service providers—”

  “Do you mind?” Ibarra, who along with Brooks had remained mostly silent other than to answer questions from the other cops brought in on the case. “This kind of thing is right in my wheelhouse.”

  “What are you going to do?” Cole said. Ibarra pulled a laptop out of his bag and flipped it open.

  Ibarra started typing. “Probably best if I don’t give you all the details. Let’s just say I’m bending a few rules and leave it at that.”

  Cole shrugged. “Whatever it takes.”

  Within minutes Ibarra had a hit. “I’ve got an outgoing call, about four hundred meters from the warehouse at ten oh two. ” Ibarra said and ran off the number. “Another call five minutes later.”

  There was a commotion outside the room as Margaret Grayson-Maxwell arrived. “This is a travesty,” she shouted. “I refuse to speak to anyone until my attorney arrives.” For a woman who had been dragged out of her house in the middle of the night, she was remarkably put together.

  Then again, Sean thought as he felt disgust curl his lip, she was probably wide awake waiting to hear from David that the delivery had gone as planned and she was about to receive another infusion into her campaign fund.

  “I’m here, Margaret.” A tall, athletic-looking man in his late fifties hurried in carrying a briefcase. The guy looked familiar and suddenly Sean realized why. It was John Slater, Krista’s father.

  “John, thank God you’re here,” Margaret said, confirming Sean’s fears and offering her cheek to kiss.

  “Of course,” he said, and then spun to pin Cole with a cold stare. His eyes were a familiar shade of grayish green. “What’s the meaning of this, detective? You drag my client down here in the middle of the night for no reason.”

  “We need to ask her some questions about her husband,” Cole said.

  The guilty flash in Margaret’s eyes was immediately hidden by indignation. “David is away on business. He left right after the fund-raiser tonight—”

  Rage bubbled up in Sean’s chest at the lie that came so easily. “He’s in town. His goons killed Karev,” Sean snapped, ignoring Cole’s warning look.

  Slater turned at Sean’s words. His head snapped back as he recognized Sean. “You! Where is Krista? What did you do to my daughter?”

  “I didn’t do anything to her. Your fucking slime-bag client Maxwell has her. He kidnapped Krista after we interrupted the delivery of their truckload of girls.”

  Margaret’s face went white. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who’s Karev? I have no idea—”

  Sean ignored her and turned to Slater. “He shoved Krista into the trunk of his car. That would be an interesting trial, watching you defend the man who kidnapped your daughter.”

  Slater’s golf-course-tanned face went gray. “Where did he take her? Where is she?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Cole said. “Maybe you two can shed a little light.”

  Slater looked like he’d been kicked in the chest. For all that Slater was a sleazebag, it was clear he still cared about his daughter. He didn’t seem to hear Margaret’s loud protests as she was led to an interrogation room, and his hands shook as he fumbled with the clasp of his briefcase. “My files—he has several properties in the area that he didn’t want traced to him. I can get you a list—”

  “Did you help him buy a boat?” Ibarra broke in. “Because the last call I traced was fifteen minutes ago at the Corinthian Yacht Club.”

  “That place is huge,” Brooks commented. “Could take us hours to locate if we don
’t know what we’re looking for.”

  “The Eva Marie. I helped him with a transfer of ownership from a business associate who wanted to keep it quiet.” Sean understood why when Slater named a well-known software company executive whose name was included on Maxwell’s list. “If it’s still at the yacht club, it hasn’t moved from the original owner’s slip.”

  Slater quickly passed on the information. “I had no idea…I thought I was just helping David move money around…” he said, his voice tight. “Please don’t let her be hurt.” He said it like it was a prayer.

  “I’ll do everything I can,” Sean vowed, though as he waited, muscles coiled tightly, for the cops to move out, he feared it wouldn’t be nearly enough.

  Cole was barking orders, calling in requests for a helicopter, a hostage response team, a dive team, and assistance from the U.S. Coast Guard if needed.

  But everyone seemed to be gearing up in slow motion. They didn’t know if Krista was dead or alive and they were all acting like they had minutes to spare.

  He looked around the room and caught Ibarra’s eyes, then Brooks’s. All it took was a slight nod, and Sean made a grab for Cole’s keys on the table and the three went sprinting out of the building, ignoring Cole’s warnings to stop.

  “If this goes wrong, it will be on you,” Cole said as the three flew out the front door.

  It had been on him since the second he’d ignored his instincts and let Krista out of his sight, Sean thought as they jumped into the car. And now he just prayed he’d make it to her in time to set it right.

  The stateroom where Maxwell had put her and Nadia was nearly pitch black. The lights along the docks had been shut off for the night, offering no illumination through the portholes.

  Nadia was next to her, and Krista could feel the tremors of fear racking her body. Or they could have been her own. Krista was tight as a spring, every muscle tense and quivering.

  She tried to stay present, to not let her fear-fueled imagination spin out of control. But bound and gagged in the dark, her only company a terrified, whimpering girl, it was hard not to think about what was likely to happen when Maxwell decided to return.

  According to the glowing red numbers on the digital clock, they’d been on the boat just shy of forty-five minutes. Long enough for her legs to cramp and for her hands and fingers to swell and throb from the tight bindings.

  She wondered what Maxwell was up to, but in the time they’d been here, all she’d heard was a lot of stomping around and unintelligible conversation. At one point she’d heard him shout, and then what sounded like people on the docks outside. Someone going? Someone arriving?

  Maybe by some miracle, Sean and the others had figured out where Maxwell had taken them and were here to stage a rescue.

  She let herself indulge the fantasy of Sean charging in like her personal knight in shining armor for about five seconds before allowing it to slip away. Sean. Her eyes stung with tears at the thought of him, his shadowed eyes that couldn’t hide the sparks of humor and passion that lurked beneath that hard surface.

  His warrior’s soul and protective instincts that wouldn’t die no matter what had been done to him.

  And the anger, too, bubbling inside him. She would never begrudge him a second of his rage, even though it had felt like a knife to the chest when it was finally aimed straight at her.

  Now she was desperate to see him one more time and tell him she understood his anger. That she loved him whether he could ever forgive her and love her back or not.

  A low rumble jerked her from her thoughts of Sean. Was that the engine? Every cell in her body went cold as she realized that, yes, they were moving.

  The door flew open and Krista shrank back from the glare of the overhead light that was switched on. Her stomach rolled when she saw Maxwell in the doorway, a glaze of lust in his icy eyes and a smirk on his face. She couldn’t believe this leering monster was the same man whose ruggedly handsome face had graced the pages of the local society pages.

  There was another man with him, not the thug who had grabbed Nadia. Maxwell stepped into the stateroom and shrugged out of his jacket to neatly drape it over the back of a chair.

  He nodded at the thug, who grabbed Nadia around the waist and pulled her off the bed and out of the room.

  “Now let’s have some fun.” He closed and locked the door behind him.

  Sean could hear the wail of sirens in the distance as Ibarra screeched to a halt in the marina’s parking lot. There was Maxwell’s yacht, exactly where Krista’s father said it would be. The main cabin was illuminated and from here he could see lights on and dark figures pacing around, but he couldn’t see Krista.

  Sean, Brooks, and Ibarra jumped out of the car to gear up, and Sean heard it immediately. The unmistakable rumble of an engine. The yacht was already pulling away from the dock.

  He didn’t stop to think. He just ran. He didn’t know if the others were behind him or not as he scaled the gate and thundered down the dock. The boat was already several yards off the dock.

  Brooks and Ibarra shouted, catching the attention of one of Maxwell’s men who was on the deck. Shots rang out on both sides, but the bodyguard was shooting at Cole’s car and didn’t seem to realize there was a third man in pursuit.

  Sean did a shallow dive, gasping as the frigid water hit him.

  He didn’t have time to be cold. He forced his arms and legs to churn through the water as he chased the boat. It was traveling fairly slowly now as it maneuvered through the crowded marina but once it got past the docks it would pick up enough speed that Sean wouldn’t have a chance in hell of catching it.

  One more stroke and he was even with the stern. He could see the gleam of the chrome ladder hanging down and he reached for it.

  At that second, the yacht cranked into higher gear, jerking through the water as it picked up speed. Sean’s fingers, stiff from the cold, threatened to slip their grip. He threw his arm over a rung, hooking it with his elbow as the yacht sped past the end of the docks.

  He hung there for a minute to catch his breath, listening to see if he could hear any footsteps over the engine noise. When no one appeared above him to shoot him in the face, Sean was satisfied his desperate grab had gone unnoticed.

  He hauled himself up the ladder as quietly as possible and became aware of a new snag, one he hadn’t considered in his desperate dive into the frigid waters of the marina.

  He was cold. Shaking, shuddering, fingers stiff, he was in no shape to take on Maxwell and at least one, but probably more, of his men. He thought longingly of the arsenal he’d left in the trunk of Cole’s car. Sean hadn’t even taken the time to strap his knife to his calf, not that he would trust himself not to drop it right now, the way his hands were shaking.

  Fuck. He’d never considered himself an impulsive person. He had gone into each mission with every move planned out and contingency plans to deal with the snarls that inevitably emerged.

  But when it came to Krista, all bets were off and the rules went out the window. Trampled to dust by his overpowering need just to get to her, protect her, and keep her safe.

  And make sure the fuckers who dared to go after her paid dearly.

  All of which might be tricky in the situation he found himself in now.

  He closed his eyes and cleared his head. As much as he wanted to go busting in on them and send some heads rolling, in the condition he was in, he’d be dead in an instant. First, he needed to get his body warm so it could do what he needed it to do. He could already feel his brain getting muzzy as all his energy was channeled into shivering.

  How? He kept himself flat on the deck and to the right of the door that led into the cabin. He couldn’t just stroll in and ask for a blanket. He found his answer in the rumble underneath his body.

  The engine room. The engine itself would throw off plenty of heat. He might even find something to use as a weapon.

  It would also be dark and enclosed. His heart started to pound and his breath sh
ortened as every cell in his body rejected the idea.

  But he didn’t have a choice. Odds of saving Krista were already slim. If he didn’t warm up and get his shit together they’d dwindle to zero.

  He forced his body into action, ignoring the screams of protest in his head. It was like he pulled out of his body and was watching himself with dread as he opened the hatch to access the engine room.

  He climbed inside and pulled the hatch down, enclosing himself in absolute darkness.

  It was worse than his cell. The noise from the engine was deafening, the vibration so strong it shook his teeth.

  The smell of diesel fuel made his stomach roll and his head pound.

  But that was nothing compared to the suffocating pressure in his chest, so strong he felt like he was going to die.

  He couldn’t do this—he couldn’t stay here. His hand was reaching up through the darkness when he heard the footstep above him and froze.

  Krista. He had to think of Krista. He couldn’t let this stupid phobia get the best of him. Not when it would cost her life. He closed his eyes and imagined her, the way she’d been in Maxwell’s office, how she’d been in the crawl space. Pulling him close, wrapping her arms around him, tangling her fingers with his and sending a calming wave through him that blew all the relaxation exercises his therapist had given him out the window.

  The sound of the engine faded as he replayed her voice in his head, telling him to calm down, that everything would be okay. The smell of the diesel fuel disappeared as he summoned up the scent of her hair, her skin.

  Within moments, the panic receded and Sean felt the heat from the engine penetrating his wet clothes, easing the stiffness in his hands and limbs. His shudders slowed, his mind cleared, and he waited impatiently for his body to get back up to speed.

  Forced to wait, he used the time to prepare any way he could. He felt around in the darkness, smiling when his hand brushed across what had to be a toolbox. He opened it up and searched around until his hand closed over a screwdriver. He tucked it into his waistband, reached around some more, and experienced a burst of satisfaction when he found a good-sized wrench as well.