The Viper

by Velvet Vaughn

  “Redmond.”

  “Tyler, it’s Kellan. I need you to run a trace on my phone, ASAP. I need the location of the call.”

  “On it.” Buttons clicked a rapid staccato and Kellan imagined Tyler’s skinny fingers flying over the keys. “Got it. I’m sending the deets to your phone as we speak.”

  “Is it okay to disconnect the call? I don’t want to lose the connection.”

  “It’s all good. I’ve got the location.”

  “Thanks, Tyler.”

  “Let me know if you need anything else.”

  “Will do.” He hung up and read the screen on his phone. The signal wasn’t too far from his current location. Tyler had pinpointed it to a nearby motel.

  He jumped in his SUV and careened into the motel parking lot five minutes later, traffic and stop lights delaying his arrival. He bounded out and gripped his Sig Sauer as he approached her room.

  The door stood open a crack, but there was no sound from inside. He eased the door open, already knowing he’d find the room empty. He cleared it to make sure and then flipped on the lights. An overturned chair was the only sign of a struggle.

  He spotted Angela’s phone on the floor beside the bed. He picked it up and pocketed it. He’d remove the SIM card so it couldn’t be traced after he checked it out. It was the most likely way they found her. He just wished he’d told her so before she answered the door.

  Her purse rested on a dresser, along with a shopping bag bearing the name of a trendy hotel. He gathered everything, surprised at the weight of her handbag, and turned out the light before closing the door. He scanned the area for cameras, hoping they might be able to hack into the feed to get a license plate number of the people who took her, but there were none. Except for a truck parked close to the office, and one car that looked like it hadn’t been moved in a decade judging by the flat tires and a cracked windshield, the rest of the lot was deserted.

  Angela thought the manager had been knocking on her door. After stashing her purse and bags in the passenger seat of his SUV, he headed to the lobby. A bell tinkled overhead as he pushed through the glass door. A middle-aged man with a long ponytail of gray hair sat behind the desk, diamond studs in his ears reflecting the light. A smidge of coffee remained in a pot on a side table and crumbs on a plate indicated cookies had been offered at some point. Mounted on a wall was a television currently tuned to a game show. The man eyed him warily. “You a cop?”

  He got that a lot. “No, but I have a few questions for you.”

  “I got rooms available if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “No, I want to know about the occupant of room twelve.”

  “Oh yeah, the fugitive.” The man chuckled. “Those bounty hunters tracked her down but good.”

  “Is that what they told you? They were bounty hunters?”

  “Sure did. Said she was wanted in two states for cashing bad checks, credit card theft and jumping bail.” The man scoffed. “Glad she paid me with cash.”

  “Did you see their credentials?”

  The man scratched his head. “Well, now that you mention it, I don’t think I did. They had papers though. Looked official.”

  “Did you get their names?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “The company they supposedly worked for?”

  His mouth pursed grimly and he shook his head.

  “You took the word of two men without checking for the proper identification, you gave out customer room information that should be private and you allowed them to abduct a woman.”

  The man rolled his chair back and waved his hands. “Woah, woah, I didn’t allow nothing like that.”

  Kellan slammed his fist on the counter, causing the man to jump in his seat. “Yes, you did. Those men were the criminals and that woman was kidnapped tonight.” He leaned closer and bared his teeth. “I guarantee you that if she is harmed at all, even one hair on her head, I’m holding you personally responsible.”

  All the color had drained from the man’s face and his eyes darted around nervously. “Y-you can’t come in here and threaten me.”

  “No? Well, I just did.” He pushed from the counter to leave but turned around and said, “You might want to watch your back. Those men have killed at least ten people already.” And you saw their faces was left unsaid.

  He walked out as the man choked on a gasp. Pulling out his phone, he dialed Tyler. “Can you hack into the traffic cameras around the motel. Look for any cars that arrived or left in the last half hour.”

  “I’ll see what I can do and hit you back in a few.”

  Kellan shook his head. The kid was weird. He slid the phone in his pocket, climbed in his SUV and returned to his hotel. His cell rang as soon as he turned into the parking lot. He hit the speaker. “What have you got for me, Tyler?”

  “A black four-door sedan, dark windows, arriving at the motel and leaving five minutes later. I tracked it for a few blocks, but it went out of camera range and I couldn’t pick it back up.”

  “Did you get a license number?”

  “Yeah, but the plate’s registered to a nineteen-ninety-eight Ford Taurus and was reported missing two weeks ago.”

  He figured as much. “Okay, thanks.”

  “I’m here if you need anything else.”

  Once he was back in his room, he dumped the contents of the purse on his bed. With a low whistle, he fingered the stacks and stacks of crisp bills. There had to be at least twenty grand, probably more. Things weren’t adding up. She told Moody at Cable Security that she couldn’t pay a retainer, yet she carried around enough cash to buy a new car outright. Plus, if she had so much money on hand, what was she doing staying in a low budget motel?

  He opened her wallet, his eyes widening at the driver's license on display beneath a plastic window. Annabelle St. John. Not Angela Johnson. Her long hair was light blond, almost white, accentuating her blue eyes. Gorgeous was the first thing that came to his mind. He noted the address and pulled it up on a map program on his laptop. His jaw dropped. It wasn’t a house. It was a freaking mansion. Surrounded by equally impressive and substantially colossal dwellings much like the one he and his coworkers called home the last few weeks.

  Digging in his pocket for her phone, he powered it on. The battery was low, so he plugged it into his charger. He scrolled to the photos first. There were only a few of an older man in a hospital bed. He looked ill and incredibly frail, but his smile was genuine. In a couple of the shots, Angela—no, not Angela, Annabelle—was at his side, her smile wide. He wondered if it was her father and if he’d recently passed away. He was about to do a check on her name when he noticed a video file and clicked on it. The video was shaky and there were a few branches and green leaves in the way. It looked like it was shot from behind a potted plant. She’d recorded one man approaching another.

  “What are you doing here?”

  The man who spoke had his back to the camera so Kellan couldn’t get a look at his face. He had a clear shot of the other man and he looked shady and disreputable.

  “Just making sure my investment is repaid.”

  “It will be. I told you it would be repaid with interest.”

  “The latest shipment arrived and I covered the cost. Again. Last chance, Singleton. My patience is running out.”

  The shady guy strolled away, replaced with a buxom blond who rushed to the other man’s side and grabbed his arm.

  “Robert? Who was that man? What was that about?”

  “What? Nothing. Keep your mouth shut and come-on.” He jerked the woman’s arm and she squeaked as she stumbled after him. Kellan felt the overwhelming urge to pound the obnoxious sleazebag. If a man treated a woman that way, there was no telling what he was capable of doing.

  Was this video the reason someone was after Annabelle? Maybe this Robert Singleton found out she recorded him. And what kind of shipment had they been talking about? Humans? God, he hoped not.

  He forwarded the clip to his email and then unplugged
the phone, powered it off and popped out the SIM card. He was positive that’s how she’d been tracked so easily. Just in case, he accessed the app Tyler added to his cell that detected electronic surveillance bugs and scanned her belongings. They came up clean. The phone it was.

  Grabbing his laptop, he did a search on the name Robert Singleton and clicked on the top link, which turned out to be an obituary. Robert Singleton was dead? He zoomed in on the picture. Not the same man. This one was older—and looked suspiciously similar to the man in the photos with Annabelle. He skimmed the article and locked on the mention of survivors. Robert had a son from a first marriage, Robert Junior and his wife Vespa. Vespa? What kind of name was that? Who named their kid after an Italian scooter? The obit described Annabelle as his beloved stepdaughter and caregiver. Robert Singleton’s second wife proceeded him in death several years ago. Annabelle had been young when she lost her mother, now her stepfather had passed away. He wondered about her real father and if he was still in the picture. Kellan hoped she had someone she could count on. A few minutes later, he realized she didn’t after he found the obituary for her mother. Annabelle’s biological father had been killed in action in the military when she was young.

  He now knew one of the men Annabelle clandestinely recorded was her stepbrother. The other could be Junior’s business partner or maybe a bookie. He talked about an investment being repaid, so that made Kellan think more along the lines of a loan shark. He typed in Robert Singleton Junior in the search bar and waited for the results. He currently owned an import/export company and served on the city council. Oh, look at that, he was now running for Congress. A politician. Kellan shuddered.

  Accessing the video Annabelle recorded, he fast forwarded to the clearest shot of the loan shark and highlighted his face. He sent the clip to Tyler and then called and asked him to run the man through his facial recognition program, which was comparable to the one the FBI used to identify suspects. Probably better. Tyler was a freaking genius. Then he asked him to dig for information on both Robert Singleton Senior and Junior.

  After he disconnected, he read a few more articles on Junior but didn’t turn up anything interesting. Seemed like quite a leap from city councilman to Congress, but what did he know? He stayed as far away from politics as possible. The articles on Senior were a different story. He’d owned several automobile dealerships, sat on numerous boards and committees and he’d been heavily invested in his community until his passing. He appeared to be well-liked, as there were many letters of tribute, including one from the mayor.

  He typed in Annabelle’s name again, but there wasn’t much out there. It looked like she’d worked for a graphic design company in Seattle until about a year ago. He was guessing she quit to take care of her sick stepfather.

  A look around Annabelle’s house would be a logical place to look for clues. He’d pay her stepbrother a visit next, feel him out to see if he was behind her disappearance.

  After digging out her keys so he could access her house without resorting to breaking and entering, he locked the purse filled with thousands of dollars in the room safe and headed for his SUV.

  #

  After speaking with Kellan for a few minutes, Annabelle’s gut told her she could trust him. He was easy to talk to and he seemed genuinely interested in helping her. How she desperately wanted someone to lean on, if only for a little while. It felt like the weight of the world had been sitting on her shoulders for a year now. During Rob’s illness, she’d been the strong one, keeping a brave face while seeing to the tasks that needed to be done. She refused to let tears fall, knowing that once she started, she might not be able to stop.

  How many times had she wished for someone to share her burden? Here was a man offering to do just that. She’d be a fool to turn him away. She opened her mouth to ask him to meet her when a knock sounded on the door.

  “Ms. Johnson, it’s Frank, the motel manager. I overcharged you for your room. I have your refund right here.”

  “Oh wait, there’s a knock on the door. It’s the motel manager. Be right back.”

  She thought she heard Kellan saying something as she tossed the phone down and hurried to the window. Carefully tugging the curtain aside, she spotted the man who signed her in staring back at her. She slid the chain from the track but before she could fully turn the knob, the door slammed against the wall and she screamed. She stumbled back when one of the men she recognized from the airport reached for her. She batted his hands away and fell against the bed. Her phone thumped to the floor and she heard Kellan yelling her name. The man wrapped a meaty paw around her arm and jerked her to her feet. She tried to resist, latching onto a chair, but he was much stronger. The chair tumbled over as he forced her out of the room.

  Her frantic gaze landed on the motel manager and she pleaded for help, but he just stood back with his arms crossed, his lips twisted into a sneer. The other kidnapper held a needle in his hand. She jerked away as he jammed it in her neck. Except for a small poke, he missed, and the liquid dribbled down her throat. Still, the small jab was enough to cause her head to swim before blackness consumed her.

  Chapter Four

  Annabelle was jarred awake when the car she was riding in hit a pothole and she bounced in the seat. She landed on her side and discovered her arms were bound in front of her. Keeping her eyes closed, she tried to assess the situation. She didn’t want the men who abducted her—Thug A she named the tall, skinny one, and Thug B, the shorter, stockier one—to know she was awake. She was sure they meant for her to be unconscious for an extended amount of time.

  The car was slowing. Were they at the destination already? She assumed they were taking her to her stepbrother, but bright lights lit up the interior of the car and then they stopped. The engine shut off.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t gas up before we left.”

  That explained the overhead lights. They’d pulled into a gas station.

  “Shove it, asshole. Go inside and get me a Coke and a pack of smokes.”

  “Get them yourself. I have to take a piss.”

  Hope flared to life and Annabelle’s heart pounded. If both men went inside, she might be able to escape. She waited for the car doors to open and then close before she popped up to assess the situation. Thug A and Thug B were indeed headed towards the convenience store attached to the truck stop. As soon as they were out of sight, she jerked upright and opened the door. Using her hip, she closed it before taking off with an awkward gait for a line of big rigs parked in a row.

  Her gaze darted around, trying to decide the best place to hide. An auto transport truck hauling several new cars was her best bet. She climbed up to the closest car and muttered a harsh curse when the door was locked. Feeling eyes on her, she jerked her head up to see a young boy, either eleven or twelve, she wasn’t sure, standing close. His dark eyes watched her intently as he munched on a potato chip.

  “You didn’t hear that,” she insisted, knowing that he did, judging from his amused grin.

  Footsteps pounded on the concrete. She held a finger to her lips and ducked behind the car.

  “Hey, kid, did you see a woman come by here? Blond hair, skinny. About yea tall.”

  She peeked around the vehicle to see Thug B standing in front of the boy. The kid was still munching on his chips, but he held one hand out, palm up. She closed her eyes in disappointment. He was going to rat her out for money. B sighed but reached into his back pocket to extract his wallet. He yanked out a couple of bills and slapped them in the kid’s hand. When the kid just stood there, B groaned and added a few more bills.

  “Yeah, I saw her.”

  Annabelle’s heart dropped to her feet.

  “She hitched a ride on a Walmart truck that drove out of the lot a few seconds ago. Went that way.” He pointed.

  Relief flooded her and tears sprang to her eyes. He hadn’t ratted her out. He’d saved her life.

  “Thanks, kid.”

  The boy watched him run off and t
hen tires squealed as her kidnappers shot out of the lot.

  “Coast is clear,” he told her.

  She climbed down and wanted to hug him, but her bound hands wouldn’t let her. He fished in his pocket and pulled out a knife, slicing through the plastic tie to free her.

  “Thank you so much.” She did pull him in for a hug this time. “You saved my life.”

  He shrugged and glanced away in embarrassment.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Andre.”

  “Nice to meet you, Andre. I’m Annabelle.”

  “Did that man kidnap you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thought so. You need to call someone? The police?”

  She instantly thought of Kellan. “I do.” That was assuming she could remember his phone number.

  “My mom manages the pancake restaurant. Come on inside and you can wait in there.”

  Tears pricked her eyes again at his gentle caring. He was young and didn’t know her at all, but he’d saved her life. She wanted to do something for him, give him some money for his college fund or something, but her purse was back at the motel…her steps faltered. Her purse! It would probably be gone by now. What would she do with no cash, no car? And how did her stepbrother’s thugs keep finding her?

  #

  Kellan pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the SUV. He was just about to climb inside to head to Annabelle’s house when his phone buzzed. He grabbed it out of his pocket thinking it was Tyler but he didn’t know the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Kellan?”

  His head snapped up, recognizing the voice immediately. “Annabelle? Are you okay?”

  She exhaled a breath. “Yes. Thank goodness this was the right number.”

  “Where are you? Are you with the kidnappers?”

  “I escaped, but I’m afraid they’ll come looking for me.”

  He launched into the SUV and jerked his seatbelt into place. Putting the phone on speaker, he asked, “Where are you?” as he started the engine.

  “I’m at a truck stop.” She paused and he heard a voice giving her the address. She repeated it and he entered it into the GPS.