by Lori Ryan
“Get me a credit card statement and his computer, if it’s there,” Samantha said.
“We’ll call you with his credit card info,” said Jax over his shoulder.
Luke and Chad followed. “Keep us posted, Samantha,” Luke said, as he shut the door behind them and they all fanned out to follow leads that could be absolute shit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Prentiss turned another rock on its side and leaned it against a stick, then kept moving. Her breath sounded loud in her ears, but she didn’t think Murphy had followed her. She brushed at the snot and tears coming down her face, but kept moving. She knew enough to know she needed to keep moving, even if she wasn’t able to stop crying.
When she saw a cabin in front of her, she slowed, being sure to mark the spot where she exited the woods with a large pile of rocks. She piled three, four, all the way up to ten, making sure she could easily spot it again when she left the woods and turned back to look.
Then, she ran forward, letting the tears stream down her face as she made a fist and hit the cabin door as hard as she could.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Naomi closed her eyes and hummed. Christopher Robin and I walked along, under branches lit by the moon. In her head, she heard her Uncle Luke’s voice singing to her as they lay in her bed, looking out the window at the moon.
She ignored the hands on her body, focusing on the words that had become part of her heart and soul growing up. So, help me if you can I’ve got to get back to the house at Pooh corner by one.
The sound of duct tape being pulled from the roll broke through her thoughts and she squeezed her eyes shut tighter. His hands moved, pulling the tape around her rib cage. She wouldn’t think of the wires and equipment she’d seen him lay out when he’d barked at her to raise her arms out to her sides. He didn’t have the gun in his hands right now. If she were going to try to fight him, to try to run, now was the time.
Naomi opened her eyes. She couldn’t pretend this wasn’t happening any more. It was real. It was very much happening. Chase all the clouds from the sky…
They were in the back of an SUV. The man her uncle had called Damon seemed to know the area. He’d pulled off, following several side roads until they came to what seemed to be a broken down industrial area. There wasn’t anyone around and many of the buildings boasted broken out windows.
The gun he’d held on her was next to his thigh on the seat, wedged with the handle facing up. He could grab it quickly. But right now, she’d rather fight and die than wear the bomb he was strapping to her. Once he got those wires connected, she didn’t know if she could fight the panic of knowing he could trigger it at any moment.
Until then, he’d kept her bound in the floorboards of the car as they’d travelled for what she was sure was hours.
Naomi thought to the many self-defense lessons Luke had insisted on over the years. She felt shame she hadn’t employed them earlier when Damon grabbed her. She’d just let her guard down at school. If anything, she should have been more on guard, but she’d been on guard to things like a frat guy slipping a drug into her drink at a party or getting caught walking back to her dorm alone after dark.
It hadn’t dawned on her that someone would shove a gun in her ribcage in the middle of the day on campus. To her, everyone at college was simply a friend she hadn’t met yet. When she’d heard her name, she’d turned to see who was calling her without giving a thought to how close someone was getting to her personal space or whether she was in a good bladed stance to have the balance to fight off an approaching attacker.
No matter. She needed to focus now. Naomi steadied her breathing as her captor twisted two wires together at their frayed ends.
She focused on relaxing her body before bursting to life with one swift move. She brought her hands up and raked her nails over his eyes with all her might.
A howl broke loose from him and she shoved hard as his hand clutched for the weapon by his side. She tossed him off balance, then kicked with her feet before reaching behind her for the door handle.
Time seemed to drag in slow motion as she fumbled for the handle, then she was pulling it and she was half falling, half throwing herself out of the vehicle.
She found her footing as he screamed and she ran, toward one of the abandoned buildings.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Luke and Chad were making good time. They’d traveled more than an hour, mostly in tense silence, when Luke’s cell phone rang. His heart kicked into gear when he saw a phone number he didn’t recognize. In fact, he didn’t recognize the area code of the number, for that matter.
“Hello?” He gave Chad a sidelong look as he answered.
“Hello, is this Luke?” The voice on the other end of the phone sounded like the person was older. A man.
“Yes, this is Luke. How can I help you?” Luke made sure his voice sounded even and steady before shaking his head at Chad’s questioning look, giving him an I got no clue shrug.
“I’ve got your niece here. Says she’s lost.”
Luke’s gut churned. He opened his mouth, prepared to tell the man to put Naomi on the phone. He didn’t know how she’d gotten away, but he didn’t care. If she was safe, that’s what mattered. He didn’t have time to speak when the man began talking again.
“Prentiss, she says her name is, but she didn’t tell me much more than that. Just raised up her shirt and showed me her Uncle Luke’s number written on her back.” The comment held a question and Luke didn’t blame the guy.
He paused a beat before answering, putting the phone on speaker, so Chad could hear the conversation. Chad pulled off to the side of the highway and hit the hazard lights as he pulled out his own phone.
“She’s safe?” It wasn’t hard for Luke to put the right tone of relief in his voice. There was nothing fake about it. What was hard was trying to come up with a story that would keep the guy from getting the police involved right away. Luke needed to get to Lyra and Alyssa and give Zach a chance to free Naomi before they went after Damon. “Where is she?”
The man sounded relieved himself and Luke flicked through a few stories in his mind before settling on one as the man replied. “She wandered right out of the woods up to our vacation cabin. Been coming here for twenty-six years and we never had a child wander out of the woods like that. She says to us, ‘I’m Prentiss. I need you to call my uncle.’ Then she lifts her shirt and shows us your number right there on her back.”
Luke forced a chuckle but it sounded choked. “It’s a precaution we take whenever we’re camping with the kids. Never needed it until today. Thank you so much for helping her,” Luke said. “We’ve been worried sick.” Not a lie.
“Well, we’re over near Mount Monadnock. On the property on the west side of the pond.”
“The pond?” Luke echoed. Chad was pulling up the map app on his phone.
“Rockwood pond.” The man rattled off an address and Chad plugged it into the phone, tilting the screen toward Luke. The map showed they were over an hour away, but they were closer than they would have been had they stayed in New Haven.
“I can’t believe she made it that far,” Luke improvised. “We’ve got a search party out but we thought she’d gone off the other way. I need to hike back out to my car and drive around to you. Might take me forty-five minutes or so. I also need to call off the search, let everyone know she’s safe. Can she stay with you for that long?”
“Oh, you bet,” the man said, and Luke prayed her captor didn’t pursue Prentiss to this man’s doorstep and hurt him. “My wife is making her something to eat right now. We’re happy to keep her here with us.”
“I don’t know how to thank you, sir. Can I speak with Prentiss for a minute? I’d like to let her know I’m on my way.”
Chad had already pulled back out into traffic and begun their altered route when Luke heard Prentiss’s voice. He could hear her voice break a bit when she said hello, and the thought of what she’d been through speared him straight t
hrough the heart.
“Hey, sweet girl.” He softened his voice for her. “Are you all right? I’m on my way to you right now, but I don’t want you to say anything to these people about the men who took you for now. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes.” She didn’t ask why and he didn’t want to explain that the last thing he needed was the police getting involved. If that happened, Damon would kill Naomi. It wasn’t a risk he could take.
“Are you okay? Are you hurt at all?” He asked again.
“I’m okay.” She paused and he could almost hear the gears running as her brain worked. She was crazy smart for her age. Hell, for any age. She amazed him. “I marked a trail where I walked, Uncle Luke. When I realized I was lost, I marked a path so you could see where I had gone,” she said, and he understood her message.
“You marked the path from the cabin you’re in to where your mom and ’Lyssa are?”
“Yes,” she said. “A cabin.”
“They’re in a cabin also?” he asked.
“Uh huh. With Murphy.”
Luke’s gaze shot to Chad’s. She’d just named Damon’s partner. “Okay, baby. You hang tight. I’m coming. Just hang tight, okay.”
“Okay, Uncle Luke.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“Damnit!” Zach hit the wall as he spun. They’d talked to Naomi’s roommate and tracked down several of her friends. No one had spotted her and no one reported seeing Damon on campus.
Logan’s phone rang and he lifted it to his ear. “Hey Sam, anything new? We haven’t found any trace of Naomi here. However he got her, he did it in a way that didn’t draw a whole lot of attention.”
Zach began counting as he tried to calm his frustration. The detectives in his precinct all made fun of his counting, but it was what kept him sane half the damned time when a case got the better of him. Right now, he didn’t know if he could ever count high enough to calm the anger building in him. He’d vacillated back and forth from anger to fear and back again on the drive up, but right now he was in full-on anger mode. He was more than ready to take out some of his emotions on the asshole who’d dared to grab his niece.
He made it to three hundred and eighty-eight before Logan hung up.
“Prentiss got away and made it to a cabin to call Luke. Apparently, Lyra was able to write Luke’s phone number on Prentiss’s back before she got away. Luke says Lyra and Alyssa are being held in a cabin. They’re an hour out but headed that way.” He went on to summarize the lead Chad and Luke had been working on when they’d gotten the call from the man who’d found Prentiss.
“So, they think we should head that way? See if Damon is taking Naomi to this friend’s house in Newton?” Zach looked around at the campus. He hated the idea of leaving the area if Damon and Naomi were still there. If he was a television detective, he’d call his partner and have them run Damon’s financials, see if the guy had used his credit card recently and track where he was that way. In real life, he’d need a warrant for that, not to mention more time than they had. Sometimes, real life sucked ass.
Logan seemed to be weighing their options as well. “No one’s spotted her here. Could be he’s headed south with her. Might be planning to meet up with Murphy where he has Lyra and the girls holed up.”
“Or he could be headed to Newton.”
“Or he could still be here.” Logan gave the last possibility.
Zach stared at the campus green a moment longer, then looked back to Logan. “Let’s head out. They’re not here. We can head south and decide which way to go on the road.”
Logan grunted as he turned to the car, and Zach knew what he was thinking. They were heading onto six hours missing and they had nothing. Without more to go on, they might as well flip a coin to decide where to head next.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Naomi’s feet tripped as she heard a shot behind her, with a resulting ping that sounded like Damon’s shot had hit metal. She veered, trying one door and finding it locked. The industrial park was isolated. She had no hope of running to someplace where she might find help. She needed to find a way to hide, then she’d come up with a plan. Maybe she could find a weapon.
Her breath came in panicked gasps as she turned and ran again, hearing footsteps closing in behind her. A window to her right was broken out and she dove for it, thankful it was low to the ground and large enough for her to wedge herself through. The packs of explosives he’d taped to her torso caught and she pulled and cried out as panic struck and pain sliced through her belly. The glass was cutting into her, but she ignored it and pressed forward, her legs following her through the opening.
With no time to let her eyes adjust to the dark room, she stumbled forward, banging her shins on something hard before dodging around it and heading toward a flight of wooden steps.
She heard a curse behind her and the sound of her attacker attempting to follow. She prayed the opening in the window was too small for him to fit through. It might slow him down if he had to find another way into the building.
The stairs creaked and moaned as she rose, and Naomi smelled urine. The building must be used by transients. She wondered if any of them might be here now. If they’d help her. If they’d fight off Damon and help her get to safety somehow.
At the top of the steps, she found a heavy door. Her hand closed on the knob and she tried to turn it, but it was locked.
A guttural cry escaped her and she shook the door, shoving at it. She needed to get out of the basement. Tears streaked her face as she threw her shoulder into the door.
Pain shot through her with the hit but the door didn’t budge.
“Naomi.” The voice came from further down the length of the building, a singsong taunt that told her Damon had gotten into the building and was coming for her.
Naomi pressed her lips between her teeth, clamping down on the sob that built deep within her. She couldn’t afford to make any noise.
Her eyes had adjusted to the dark. She slowly descended the stairs, praying none of the stairs would squeak and give away her position.
He dropped the singsong and called out to her in the deep, threatening tones he’d used so far with her. “When I fucking find you, I’m going to make you wish like hell you hadn’t done that. You and I are going to play, but I’ll be the only one having fun. I’m going to make you fucking pay, bitch.”
A shiver rocked Naomi’s body as she crept through the dark. There were doorways at the end of the room. She headed toward them, wanting—needing—to put a barrier between her and Damon. Maybe she could find a weapon. Or maybe they’d lead to a way she could get out of the building. If she could get to another building, if she could hide or lock herself away from him long enough, he’d be forced to give up and leave.
He was on a timeline. She knew that much. He’d kept them moving. He was trying to get them someplace, though she didn’t know where.
She reached the first door and moved through it. There was a small room and another door beyond that.
Locked.
Naomi’s eyes swung wildly around the small space she was in. She couldn’t risk going back out into the other room and running into him. He was too close.
Her heart sank as she realized she had blocked herself in. She was trapped. Everything in her screamed to sink to the floor. To curl up in a ball and close her eyes, squeezing them shut until this nightmare ended.
She couldn’t do that.
The room was strewn with old desks and shelves, turned on their sides. She scanned for something to use to defend herself with. Her heart raced as she heard something fall in the outer room. It was close. Too close.
She moved to the door and crouched behind it, waiting as her breath sounded in her ears.
“I’m coming, Naomi,” he called. “And then we’re going to really play, you and me.”
Naomi held her breath, straining to listen to his movements. She watched through the crack between the door and the wall as his shadow crossed in front of her.
> Her heart beat in her chest and she counted the beats as it slammed hard against her ribs. Three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine…
He stepped into the room. “Come on, girl, don’t leave me hang—”
Naomi shoved the door as hard as she could. Damon went flying, his gun going down. She came around the door and ran for the opening but his arm shot out, grabbing her ankle, and she pitched forward.
A sickening crack sounded as her wrist hit the floor and pain shot up her arm and twisted her gut.
She scrambled, crawling forward, reaching. Trying to stand, to move, to run.
He was on her, hands fisted in her hair as he swore at her, slamming her head into the concrete floor again and again.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Lyra jumped when the door to the cabin slammed and she heard Murphy swearing a blue streak in the room below them. Alyssa’s eyes went wide, but she remained quiet and still. They’d removed the duct tape from their mouths as soon as Murphy had left. Lyra wasn’t sure why he thought they wouldn’t be able to take it off, but the man wasn’t all that bright.
Of course, he’d been bright enough to tie their hands so tightly she hadn’t been able to get loose. In fact, her hands were numb and tingling from the pressure of the ropes.
Murphy was storming below them and she took a deep, smooth breath. He hadn’t found Prentiss. She could tell. Her heart kicked and stumbled back into the right pattern again at the thought. Prentiss had gotten away.
Lyra took a deep breath and steadied herself. So far, she’d been trying not to remind Murphy that she and the girls could identify him, that they knew who he was.
But it was clear now he needed to change tactics. She needed to appeal to him and remind him that he knew her. That he knew her and the girls well. That they weren’t nameless, faceless captives to him. She had no idea why he was doing this, but this wasn’t like him.
