by Sandra Owens
“I’ll see you soon. I’m sorry, Cody.”
“Yeah, me, too. Call me when you come up with something.” He clicked off before she could say more. When he came to a traffic light, he pulled over. Which way?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Riley shook her head. “I’m not taking that.”
Mrs. Decker had pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse after leaving the clinic, and now held the gun in one hand and a pill in the other. She pointed the gun at Riley’s feet and pulled the trigger.
Riley screamed, and expecting to feel pain, she squeezed her eyes shut.
“Next time, it will be your knee. Take the damn pill, Riley.”
Nothing hurt, and Riley opened her eyes and peered down, shuddering when she saw the hole in the floor not two inches from the toe of her shoe. Given a choice between a bullet and a pill, she’d opt for the latter. “Pills make me gag. I have to have water to take them.” That was true; she’d never be able to swallow it without something to wash it down.
“You always were a pain in the ass.” Mrs. Decker pointed the gun at Riley’s knee. “You have until the count of three to swallow the damn thing.”
Riley held out her hand, and Mrs. Decker dropped a white capsule into it. “What is it?”
“A sleeping pill so you don’t try to jump out of the car.”
Which was exactly what Riley had planned to do—should have already done—when the gun wasn’t pointed at her.
“One . . .” Mrs. Decker said, when Riley hesitated.
“I’m taking it!” She popped the pill into her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut, and forced it down her throat, gagging as she did so. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why hadn’t she thought to stick it under her tongue and spit it out when Mrs. Decker wasn’t looking?
“Who’s Mrs. Napier? Is that a name you made up?” How was Cody supposed to find her if he only had a fake name?
“My maiden name, not that it matters.”
And that, Riley hoped, was her first mistake. Surely Cody and his friends, with all the resources at their hands, would be able to find that out. Although Mrs. Decker might be right. Would it really matter if they did? Unless Mrs. Decker had rented a house in Pensacola under Napier, nothing would show up.
“Now another one.”
Riley eyed the second capsule in horror. Two would knock her out cold, and she wasn’t sure she could swallow another one. At least with only one, she might manage to stay somewhat alert.
“One . . . two . . .”
This time, she put the pill under her tongue, making a gagging sound as she pretended to swallow. When Mrs. Decker pulled the car back onto the road, Riley turned her head toward the window and pushed the capsule out, letting it drop onto the seat to her right. She palmed it, dropping it into her lab coat pocket. When her fingers touched her phone, she wanted to slap her forehead for not thinking of trying to call for help.
At a quick glance at Mrs. Decker to see her gaze was on the road ahead, Riley took a chance and slipped out the phone, keeping it to the side of her thigh.
“What are you doing, Riley?”
Riley froze, hearing the suspicion in Mrs. Decker’s voice. How to answer? Something that would divert attention. “I’m hating you, is what I’m doing. You’re Reed’s mother, and I don’t want to hate you, but I do.” Her eyes drifted closed as the pill began to take effect. She forced them open. “Please don’t make me hate you.”
“You don’t know what hate is, but you’re going to find out.”
Riley couldn’t decipher the woman’s words. Her mind was too fuzzy. When her head fell forward, she realized she wasn’t going to be able to fight the sleeping pill, and only had seconds to call someone before she conked out. Pretending the pill had done its job, she closed her eyes to slits, and with her chin resting on her chest, she went to the recent-calls screen and put her finger on Cody’s name. Her fingers lost feeling and the phone slid out of her hand, back into her pocket. As her eyelids closed, she wondered if she’d actually connected with him.
Cody sat in his truck, hidden among other cars at a strip mall, waiting for Maria to call. He needed a location, some kind of hint for which way he should go. Thirty minutes had passed since he’d talked to Maria, and sitting on his ass doing nothing was killing him.
Be strong, Riley. I’m coming for you.
Just as he decided he’d start driving up and down streets, his phone buzzed. “Talk to me,” he said at seeing Maria’s name on the screen.
“Where are you?”
“Who wants to know?” Was Kincaid getting suspicious? The man wasn’t stupid and would be wondering why Cody hadn’t arrived at K2 yet.
“Logan does. You need to come in, Cody. The team is gathered and ready to help.”
Cody did some fast thinking. If Kincaid hadn’t made the call, demanding he come in, then the boss knew exactly what Cody was up to and was unofficially sanctioning it. “Tell the boss I’m doing what I have to do.”
“He knows,” she softly said. “Kent’s still working on getting a tag number. Says he’s close. But I do have something for you. I hacked into some security cameras in the area of the clinic, found the suspect’s car, and then followed it through other security cameras until I lost it. She appears to be headed to either Pace or Milton.”
Yes! He hit the steering wheel with his palm. He finally had a direction to go. “Thanks, Maria. You’re awesome.”
“I know. I’ll call you as soon as I know more. Be careful, okay?”
“Always am.”
Someone was talking to her, but the person sounded as if they were speaking from the bottom of a well.
“Riley!”
“Leave me ’lone. Sleepy.” She tried to push away the fingers digging into her arm, but her hands felt like they weighed fifty pounds each and refused to work right.
“You haven’t changed, Riley. Still a pain.”
She didn’t like that voice. Never had. Always yelling at her, finding fault with everything she did. If she didn’t love Reed, she’d run away.
“I probably shouldn’t have made you take two pills before I had to get you out of the car,” the voice muttered.
Pills? Was Reed taking pills again? She tried to open her eyes, but someone had glued them shut. Her arm was jerked hard, and she was pulled from her bed. She hit the floor, her hands scraping on gravel. Why was there gravel on her floor?
“Damn bitch. Get up.”
She hated when Reed’s mother was angry with her, which was most of the time. Riley managed to get her arms under her and pushed up. With great effort, she forced her eyes open, only to find herself on her knees, staring down at rocks. Where was she? Something hard and cold pressed against her head.
“You can either crawl or walk into the house. I don’t care which, but if you don’t start moving, I’ll just shoot you here.”
A gun pressed against her back as she walked out of her clinic, then a gun pointed at her as she swallowed a pill flashed into her mind. Oh, God. She wasn’t back living in the Decker’s house, and Reed was dead. She needed to be alert and smart, but the sleeping pill Mrs. Decker had made her take made her mind fuzzy. She needed to think if she were going to survive whatever Reed’s mother had planned for her.
“Move, Riley.”
By sheer force of will, she stood on wobbly legs. Hot tears burned her cheeks as they rolled down her skin. She wanted Cody. He wouldn’t let Mrs. Decker hurt her if he were here.
“Cody, please come find me.”
“What did you say?”
“Don’t know.” She didn’t like it at all when Mrs. Decker put an arm around her and helped her walk, but without the support, she would probably have fallen on her face, so she let the woman guide her into a house.
A few minutes later, she was pushed onto a small bed, and she fell over, snuggling her face into the pillow. How long she had slept, she didn’t know, but when she woke up, it was to see Mrs. Decker sitting in a chair, staring at her with
those hate-filled eyes.
“I didn’t make him take the drugs,” Riley said.
“No, but you introduced him to them. I’ll never forgive you for that.”
She probably was to blame. Yet, how was she, a teenager, supposed to have known there were people who couldn’t take or leave the marijuana as she could, and would go looking for bigger and better highs? If she’d had any clue Reed was one of those, she would have buried her supply of pot in a twenty-foot hole.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. The slap across her face came out of nowhere, and she jerked, putting her back against the wall. Instead of being cowed, though, she got mad. “He could have said no.” Cody had reminded her of that, and it was true. “I never gave him any hard drugs, he found those all on his own. I tried to save him, but he didn’t want saving.”
The gun that had been resting on Mrs. Decker’s leg was suddenly pointed at her. “Shut up.” She swung the barrel of the gun toward a table next to the bed. “There’s a pill there.” One side of her lip curled in a sneer. “And a glass of water so you can swallow it without all the dramatics.”
Riley shifted her gaze to the table. Another sleeping pill? She was still half out of it from the last one. This one had the letters OC stamped on it. “That’s an OxyContin.” She gave a vigorous shake of her head. “I’m not taking that.”
Could she manage to slip it under her tongue, and then into her pocket? Thinking of the pocket of her lab coat, she remembered she’d turned on her phone. At least, she hoped she had. Was Cody even looking for her? Yes, he was trying to find her. She had to believe that.
“Remember what I said, Riley. Your knee will be the first to go. Take the pill.”
Riley considered her chances of getting the gun away from Mrs. Decker. If she could take the woman by surprise, maybe she could, but as out of it and sluggish as she was, she’d probably end up getting shot.
“Do I have to start counting again?”
“You’re really making me hate you, Mrs. Decker.” Riley grabbed the pill and stuck it in her mouth, slipping it under her tongue.
“Do you think I’m stupid, girl? Swallow it.”
With a glare at the woman, Riley pretended to swallow.
“Open your mouth and lift your tongue.”
In trying to hide the pill in the back of her throat, she swallowed it, but it got stuck. She grabbed the bottle of water, and drank as she gagged. “Why are you . . .” She coughed. “Why are you doing this?”
Mrs. Decker sat back in her chair, and although she rested the gun on her lap, she kept her hand on it. “I want to see you suffer the way Reed did. At first, I was just going to kill you outright, thought I had with the rock, but then I decided that would have been too easy for you. When you’re addicted to the drugs I’m going to make you take, when you’re begging me for them, when you no longer care about food or being clean, then you’ll know what my son’s last days were like.”
“I was there. Believe me, I know. He refused to eat or bathe no matter how much I begged.” Her lips trembled. “I was there! It broke my heart to see him like that.”
“Well, I can tell you right now, it’s not going to break my heart to see you slowly die in your own filth.”
Riley pulled the thin pillow to her chest. God, she was sleepy. “Go away. I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”
“Not until you fall asleep. Don’t want you trying to throw up the pill.”
There went that plan. If she didn’t do something, and do it now, she would be too out of it to attempt anything. “I need to use the bathroom.”
“Tough.”
Rage proved stronger than the pills in her body, skyrocketing her blood pressure, and she lunged at Mrs. Decker, managing to take her by surprise. They both landed on the floor, and Riley struggled to get her hands on the gun, desperately fighting against the sluggishness making her limbs feel like they were sloughing through mud.
She had her fingers around the barrel, could see them there, but couldn’t feel them, and Mrs. Decker was able to jerk the gun away. Using the handle, she hit Riley on her head where the stitches had recently been taken out. Pain exploded in her face and skull, and she gasped as she tried to catch her breath.
“Stupid girl. Get on the bed.”
Somehow she managed to crawl onto the mattress, but it felt like her brains were going to leak out of her pounding head. As soon as Mrs. Decker left, Riley reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, squinting at the screen. She wasn’t connected to anyone, which meant she’d failed in her attempt to call for help. With trembling fingers, she found Cody’s number and pressed Call.
“Riley?”
His voice washed over her as tears filled her eyes. “Cody, I-I love you.”
“Talk to me, darlin’. Where are you?”
“Dunno. Drugged. She . . . she gave me Oxy . . . Oxy . . .”
“OxyContin?”
“Yeth.” What was wrong with her tongue? She lost the battle to stay awake, giving in to the lure of nothingness that the drugs in her body were offering. The next time she woke up, she tried to move her arms and legs, but they refused to obey. Squinting her eyes against the bright light coming in from the window, she lifted her head and stared down at her feet, then at her hands. She was on her back, spread eagle, tied to the bed somehow. Funny, she thought that should concern her, but she couldn’t quite seem to get her mind in order.
The door opened and Mrs. Decker walked in, pulled the chair next to the bed, and sat. “I found your phone, Riley. Bad girls get punished.” She held up a needle.
“Wha-what’s t-that?”
“Oh, you’ll like this. It will make you feel wonderful, and then when you learn to crave it, I won’t give you any more. Or maybe I’ll give you enough to kill you. Haven’t decided yet. To answer your question, it’s heroin.” She eyed the needle. “It’s surprisingly easy to get, but I suppose you already know that.”
“Please, don’t do this.” The tears leaking from the corners of her eyes burned. She wanted Cody. Wanted to curl up against him with his strong arms wrapped around her, where she’d be safe. Sad. That’s what she was. So damn sad. She didn’t have Reed or Cody, and if that wasn’t worth crying over, nothing was.
“Oh, it’s too soon to give you a shot of this. You’d probably OD if I did, what with the other drugs already in you. I just wanted you to know what you could look forward to. You’re going to suffer just like my son did.”
“But I love him,” she whispered.
“You killed him,” Mrs. Decker screamed. “You deserve everything I’m going to do to you.”
She’d meant Cody, but even in her drugged state, she knew to keep that to herself.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cody pulled over to the side of the road, got out of his truck, and slammed his fist down onto the hood, not caring that he’d put a dent in it. He’d had her on the phone, but after telling him she loved him, and that she’d been drugged, all he’d heard was her breathing. For fifteen minutes he’d listened to Riley’s labored breaths while begging her to talk to him.
But she hadn’t responded, and the call had been disconnected. He grabbed his phone and pulled up a map of Pace. Milton was about nine miles farther, and both were small towns he’d driven through on occasion but wasn’t familiar with. Since he could see the Pace city limit sign from where he stood, all he could do was wait for more intel.
Riley had said she’d been drugged with OxyContin, and something he’d seen on TV a while back occurred to him. He called Ryan O’Connor.
“Hey, man, where are you?” Ryan said in greeting.
That seemed to be everyone’s favorite question today. “Trying to find Riley. Where the hell else would I be?”
“Easy, dude. I’m not the enemy. We’re loading up, about to head out as soon as we know where to go.”
“Sorry, Doc. I’m a little wound up right now. Listen, I seem to remember hearing about a drug that can reverse the effect of narcotic
s. Know anything about that?”
“You’re talking about Naloxone. Why?”
“Riley managed to call me, but she was really out of it. Said she’d been drugged.”
“With what?”
“OxyContin. Can you get a hold of some Naloxone and bring it with you?”
“I’m on it. See you soon.”
Cody clicked off. Unable to stand around twiddling his thumbs, he decided to drive around some of the streets, keeping an eye out for the woman’s car. Before he could start the engine, his phone buzzed and Maria’s name came up on the screen.
“Got something?” he said.
“An address do it for you?”
“Christ, yes.” He programed the address into his GPS as she gave it to him. “Kent’s a genius.”
“Actually, he’s still working on getting the license plate numbers. He got the first four so far. I took those and went back to the list I’d made of suspect vehicles, using the search words Napier, Sebring, Chrysler, and the four numbers. Bingo. It came right up. The car is registered to a Connie Napier Decker. That name mean anything to you?”
He pulled onto the street. “Not a thing.”
“This is personal, Cody. She’s connected to Riley somehow. I’ll keep on digging. As soon as I give the address to Logan, the team will be headed that way. You should wait for them to get there, you know.”
“Can’t promise that. Depends on what I find.” It would take them about forty-five minutes to catch up with him, and he wasn’t leaving Riley in that bitch’s hands a minute longer than he had to.
“Well, I pretty much knew you’d say that. Stay safe, okay?”
“You bet.”
According to the GPS, he was only eight minutes from the target address. As he left the populated area of the town, he followed a two-lane road into a rural area of older ranch-style houses sitting on what he guessed were one-acre plots of land. The homes were mostly run down, many of the yards overgrown. At one place, an old truck was up on blocks, and at another, chickens busily pecked at the dirt. Several abandoned houses had rental signs posted. It was the kind of neighborhood where people minded their own business.
