Texas Girl Grit: Sequel to Texas Hellcat (Texas Series Book 2)

by Shelley Stringer

  Tana winced as she watched him hold his chest, wary of upsetting him too much. “She didn’t want to put you against your grandfather. She was thinking about telling you, I think, but then she got the last threat.”

  “What else could it possibly be? They’d already tipped the press about the abortion with that reporter, and the abortion was her most painful secret.”

  “I wish that were true, Liam. But they played it like knowing Senator Reeves was the one who raped her might be a motive for you to have murdered Reeves. They were threatening to leak the rapist’s identity to the press. And they created something even more damaging to Kelly. You know her even better than I do. What’s her greatest fear, Liam?” she urged.

  “That she’s not good enough for me. She thinks she’s damaged, and she’ll hurt my campaign. She doesn’t see herself the way I see her. I thought we’d gotten past all that,” Liam blew a frustrated breath out.

  “She almost did. Until they sent her a copy of a sex tape, supposedly made by her. They threatened to leak it, to destroy her reputation and your political career. She got it after Tex’s warning. They kept sending her warnings to leave you even while you were in the hospital.”

  Liam sat, stunned. “How in the hell could they make it look like Kelly…MY Kelly…had made a sex tape?”

  “Because they used video footage of her in the bedroom. And since her old college boyfriend and you are the only two men she’s been with since what happened to her when she was fourteen, it had to be you in the video. But whoever took it was good. They even had ME believing it was someone else. The background was blurred, and they made your voice sound lower…your skin darker. But after Kelly watched it several times, she realized she remembered when it was taken, and it was you. Someone planted a video recorder in your hotel room before you got engaged. They taped you having sex. But all you saw in the video was her.” Tana’s breath caught, her voice wavering as she continued, “And Liam, she was devastated.”

  Tana watched him carefully throughout her explanation of the video. He shook his head and dropped his head in his hands. After several moments, his shoulders squared, his hands rubbing his face and then, frustration apparent, dragged them through his hair.

  “You saw it? Do you have a copy of it, too?”

  Tana shook her head forcefully. “No, Kelly would have never shared that. She asked me to come over the day Scott and I called you to come home early. She totally broke down after she showed me the video on her phone.”

  Liam was angry. The kind of angry that results in murder charges. “She felt violated all over again, didn’t she?”

  Tana winced.

  “They put her through that, made her miserable while she was working two jobs, campaigning for me…PREGNANT…and then tortured her with threats while I lay in the hospital. And my grandfather knew. My own grandfather had something to do with this!”

  The room fell deadly quiet. The only noise to be heard was the antique clock ticking away on the large mantle on the limestone fireplace. Sean watched silently as Tana’s eyes filled with tears, the pain her best friend had gone through dawning as Liam relived it.

  “Babe,” Sean whispered, causing Tana to look back at him. “Come here,” he commanded. He couldn’t stand to see the hurt in her eyes without comforting her. It was a new emotion for Sean. He didn’t do the comfort thing. He’d never done it before, and it scared him shitless. But he couldn’t help himself now. She rose and moved into his arms, where he stroked her back as he watched his friend struggle with the new developments.

  Liam rose and strode to the entry hall where he retrieved his phone from the table. He dialed a number and then began to pace, waiting for the party to pick up. When there was no answer, he hung up and dialed another number.

  “Hello? Who is this? Allison?...What are you doing there? Is Tex there?” he asked, turning to look at Tana and Sean who joined him by his side.

  “Liam! I was about to call you. Please don’t be mad at me,” Allison half sobbed, half whispered.

  “What’s wrong, Allie?” Liam asked, his tone softened.

  “I…I don’t know what to do.”

  “Calm down and tell me what’s wrong,” he urged.

  Tana and Sean stood close, able to hear Allison’s voice through Liam’s end.

  “I told Kelly, but she said she wouldn’t tell. But I didn’t tell her who did it. I should have told her. I didn’t know she’d be alone with him, and now I’m scared for Kelly! I told Grandpa Whelan! I told him because I was scared for Kelly, and I told him she helped me! I love her like a sister, Liam…and now Papaw hasn’t come back! He’s been gone for hours!”

  Liam turned concerned eyes toward Sean. “Slow down, Sis, and start at the beginning. What did you tell Kelly?”

  “That someone hurt me. He hurt me the same as her mother’s boyfriend hurt her. I knew she’d understand, and that’s why I told her.”

  The color drained from Liam’s expression, replaced with pure fire and ice. Sean put his hand on Liam’s shoulder, guessing what the hurt might be.

  Liam closed his eyes. “Who hurt you, Allie?” he whispered.

  Her answered sob broke all their hearts. “I couldn’t tell Kelly. I was afraid he’d hurt me again. Then I found out she left you, and he was her bodyguard at the farm. I had to get someone to go to the farm and get her!”

  “Scott,” Liam ground out, his eyes snapping open and radiating fire.

  “Yyyes,” Allie whispered.

  Tana swayed, grasping Sean’s arm for support.

  Liam’s calm stillness was terrifying. “Allie, honey…I love you. I’d come for you right now, but I need to get to Fredericksburg and get Kelly. I’ll find Tex. You call and ask Momma to come and get you. I promise when I’ve got Kelly safe, I’m coming to you. No one will ever hurt you again, you understand?”

  Allison hiccupped into the phone then whispered a soft “Yes.”

  Liam looked at Sean, who clutched Tana close to him. “I love you, Allie. You did the right thing telling Tex and me. You did the right thing, and you’re going to be okay. You get me?”

  “Yeah. I love you too,” she whispered, then disconnected.

  Then Liam was on the move. “Aaron! Come on, I need you,” he shouted, moving to the front door.

  “We’re with you, Liam,” Sean said, moving Tana with a hand to the small of her back.

  When Liam opened the front door, they were surprised to find a frantic Sunni and Colton. Sunni ran into Liam’s arms.

  “We’ve called and called, but got only your voicemail,” she said, turning to Tana. “We’ve just left the hospital. We found Jen this morning,” she began.

  “What? Found Jen where?” Tana demanded.

  “At our apartment. I haven’t been there in several days,” Sunni began. Tana’s face paled.

  “Neither have I,” Tana answered, glancing guiltily back at Sean. “What…what are you saying?” Tana demanded, her voice rising.

  “Jen was unconscious. She’d been badly beaten and left for dead. But the police said there was no sign of forced entry,” Sunni said shakily. “I think it was Scott.” She finished on a whisper, as if she were afraid to utter the words.

  “Son-of-a bitch!” Liam roared. “And I’ve left my wife alone with him! Come on, we’ve got to get to her.”

  “If he did this, he might be dangerous. We’d better go prepared,” Colton answered. “Do you carry?” he asked, looking to Liam and Sean. They both nodded.

  Without further conversation, they all loaded into Sean’s and Colton’s trucks, with a determined Aaron and Bud following.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Kelly

  S cott dragged me through the scrub, cactus, and mesquite trees. The rocky terrain would have been hard to walk through in warm weather, but the icy sleet made it slick and treacherous. The second time I fell, jarring Masen awake, he began to wail.

  I cringed, knowing Masen was cold, the blanket and his clothes not providing nearly
enough warmth to combat the ice and freezing temperatures.

  I’d never felt more helpless.

  Or more afraid.

  With every wail, every cry, Scott became more agitated, his inebriated state adding to the tension.

  “Shut him up! We should have left the little bastard in the car!” he yelled, painfully jerking me up from my knees.

  “Please, he’s freezing. Please, let’s go back to the car,” I pleaded, not caring anymore if I set him off.

  “Shut up!” he screamed, drawing his hand back to strike me. I drew back, stumbling into a large outcropping of limestone.

  He shook his head, trying to clear it, then jerked me up into his body.

  “You wouldn’t resist if it was your precious Liam, would you?” he growled, his breath sickeningly sweet with the smell of the alcohol he’d been drinking. “You’d be all over me, like you were doing to Liam in the sex tape. You want it,” he said, spit hitting me as he drew me near. Then his mouth was on mine. I struggled to avoid him, but my strength was no match. His mouth bruised my lips already numb from the cold. Twisting my arm painfully, he sneered as I cried out.

  “Only a bit further now. You can see where I dive.”

  It didn’t make sense. He was dragging me, with my baby, through the scrub and cactus in sleet and freezing rain to a swimming hole in winter.

  He was going to kill me there.

  I ran over and over in my head the ways I could try to overpower him…out run him…trick him into letting us go. Was there no one else in the State of Texas close enough to hear me scream?

  Evidently not. We’d seen no one since we drove through Wimberly.

  Scott came to an abrupt halt. “We cross here.”

  I peered around him and caught sight of the water. It was a quaint swimming pond fed by a creek. Someone had placed a board across from the rocky area where we stood to a man-made partition-type wall of rock. It was narrow, and appeared to delineate the water-way from the well.

  Scott pulled me in front of him and forced me out onto the board. With his hands on my shoulders, he walked me out to the wall.

  I gasped, my heart beating out of my chest.

  It wasn’t a fear of heights.

  It wasn’t a fear of water.

  It was a combination of those fears, with claustrophobia and the fear of dark places thrown into the mix.

  I silently wondered if there was a phobia for the fear of deep, purgatory watery graves of hell.

  It was silently beautiful. Even though the skies were cloudy and it was still the dead of winter, the algae growth around the top and sides gave the water an eerie green glow. The water was clear and you could see hundreds of feet deep, another cavern opening to the side every ten or so feet. It was like looking down the throat of hell.

  Scott shoved me and I screamed. My equilibrium was affected by the adrenalin flow and the fact I was shivering uncontrollably. As terrified of him as I was, I clutched his jacket at the shoulder as if my life depended on it, drawing us as close as I could.

  “You can’t see all the way down from here. You have to get closer,” he growled.

  Keep him talking, Kelly. The only weapon you have is time.

  “Yyyou…you dddive here?”

  “Yeah. Took lessons, Reeves paid. Got good. Banned this for diving a couple years back…said it’s too dangerous, divers get trapped down there. A body could get hung in one of those passages, not get found for months. Be down there forever. Watery grave,” he whispered.

  I choked back a sob.

  “LLLet’s go back to the farm now and rest,” I urged him. “You can bbbrring me bbback when it’s warmer and tttteach me to dive,” I suggested, my teeth chattering from the cold and my nerves. He stood, staring at me…staring through me, I couldn’t tell. He didn’t move a muscle.

  My eyes filled with tears. “Please.”

  His hand went in his jacket, and pulled out the gun. He placed it to my head.

  I shut my eyes.

  * * *

  Liam

  Liam’s door was open and his feet hit the ground before Sean had the truck in park. Slowing to peer into the driver’s side door on Tex’s Lincoln Town car and finding nothing inside, he rushed to the front porch. He paused, turning to let Sean and Colt catch up with him, but they were already at his back. Tana stood back with Sunni, close to the truck with her cell in her hand.

  Liam looked back at Sean, who’d already drawn his gun. Colt had done the same the minute they’d left the vehicles. Aaron and Bud moved, one on either side of the house, rounding to the back in case Scott bolted with Kelly.

  Drawing his own gun from his waistband, he nodded at Sean and then reached with his free hand to rap his knuckles against the wood frame.

  “Kelly! Kelly, Baby…open up! It’s me, Liam,” he called, peering through the glass in the door. It only took seconds for him to take in the overturned port-a-crib and someone’s boots lying in the hallway.

  “Call nine-one-one,” he shouted over his shoulder at Tana as he pulled the screen door open. “We need police and an ambulance!”

  He turned the knob and shouldered the door. It swung open easily, unlocked.

  “TEX!” He called, rushing to his still form visible around the corner in the hallway. “Tex,” he then whispered.

  He sensed his friends at his back as he reached to turn his grandfather over. Lifeless blue eyes, eyes the same Caribbean blue as his own, stared lifelessly at him, a large pool of blood surrounding him on the floor.

  Graham “Tex” Whelan, who’d always been larger than life to him, was only a legend now. Liam fell backward, his grandfather’s shirt clutched in his hands, his heart sick with conflicting emotions.

  How could one person feel so many emotions at once? Madness was, at once, understandable…even palpable.

  Eyes shut tight, Liam felt them all.

  Gut wrenching sickness from the knowledge his own flesh and blood could be so cold and calculating.

  Fury at knowing this man he’d trusted had hurt the woman he loved.

  Sadness in the knowledge the man he’d loved as a child was gone.

  Grief certain to wound his mother and Allison to the depths of their souls.

  And a thirst for revenge. He was going to kill Scott with his bare hands. He wouldn’t need his gun.

  “Hey, Bro, you’ve got to let go,” Sean said softly, his hand firmly on Liam’s shoulder. “He’s gone, man. Let these guys tend to him.”

  Liam had no idea how long he’d sat in the floor, his grandfather’s torso cradled in his lap. He slowly released him, moving him gently back to the floor where he’d been.

  The paramedics moved around him as a sheriff’s deputy snapped photographs of the crime scene.

  Voices entered his conscious. Aaron and Bud stood in the kitchen doorway, talking with another deputy. Sean had backed away, now holding a trembling Tana in the foyer. For the first time, as Liam rose from the floor, he noticed the cellar door ajar, and Masen’s red sock laying on the first step.

  “Senator, may I ask you a few questions?” The deputy called from the kitchen doorway.

  “My wife. He’s got my wife and my son, and we have to find them.” He pushed the door wide and reached to click the overhead lightbulb on. He ran down the cellar stairs, terrified of what he’d find below.

  He circled the empty cellar. They hadn’t been down here. As he jogged back up the steps, he noticed blood on the wall around the third or fourth step, as if someone leaned their head there.

  “Aaron!” he boomed. “Get on that equipment of yours and get your GPS working!

  He ran his hand over the stains as he passed on his way out.

  “Liam, sorry. But Kelly left her cell phone here,” Aaron said, holding her phone up for Liam as he rushed into the kitchen.

  “Shit,” he swore. He ran his hands through his hair. They couldn’t catch a break. And they didn’t have a tracking device in the vehicle Scott was driving. Kelly’s was in the drive
way.

  “Boss?” Aaron called. Liam looked up at him. “We can track Scott’s,” he said, grinning.

  “Do it,” Liam growled, stalking back down the hallway toward an anxious Tana.

  Sean moved her out of the way as he kissed her forehead. “Stay here,” he began.

  “No freakin’ way. I’m coming,” she said, following the men out on the front porch.

  Aaron and Bud beat them from the back of the house, and were already in their vehicle and messing with the surveillance equipment by the time Tana got to the truck.

  “Got him. They’re in Wimberly,” Aaron said, his brow furrowed. “Do you think they are on their way back to your house?” he asked Liam when he and Sean rounded the truck.

  “No,” Sean said after a pause. “He’s taking her…shit,” he exclaimed, his eyes widening as they met Liam’s.

  “Jacob’s Well,” Liam whispered.

  * * *

  Kelly

  A moment stretches into forever when you feel a gun at your temple. Your brain sifts through the clutter of thoughts and memories to focus on what’s in your heart. In the moment, I focused on my baby boy, shivering on my shoulder, his face pressed into my neck, his whimpers now barely audible as he fought to stay warm--the tiny life inside me, waiting for her turn to come into the world--and Liam.

  I wanted Liam to save me. I wanted to hold him and tell him how much he meant to me. I wanted to tell him how sorry I was for leaving him and nothing else mattered to me--the sex tape, the threats, his campaign, Texanne. Nothing mattered to me but my love for him.

  “On your knees,” Scott rasped, his voice grating.

  I complied shakily, the adrenalin coursing through me making me unsteady as I balanced on the narrow rock walkway.

  He pressed his lips to my ear, the gun right beside his mouth at my temple. I wanted to shut my eyes, but instinct wouldn’t allow it. I instead gazed apprehensively into the massively deep watery cave carved into the ground below us.

  “Diving, Kelly. The water closes around you, shuts out the world. It shuts out the voices. You’re focused, in control. He can’t get to me down there. I rule down there,” he growled, making me shiver harder. “I’m taking you with me.”