Take Me Under

by Rhyannon Byrd

  Leighton shook his head, his bloodshot eyes panicked and wide. “I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”

  “Any other messages?” he demanded. “Did she send an address?”

  With his feet dangling off the floor, Reese’s ex spoke in a gruff, breathless rush. “She didn’t need to. I already know where the picture was taken. I recognize the cabana.”

  “Then where the fuck is it?”

  “The Twilight Bay Resort down in Islamorada.” Leighton’s eyes closed as he gave a hard swallow. Then he opened them . . . and looked Ben right in the eye. “It’s the hotel where Reese and I stayed on our honeymoon.”

  16

  WONDERING WHAT THE HELL HAD HAPPENED TO HER, REESE carefully cracked her eyes open and looked around. Where was she? The last thing she remembered was thinking that she’d heard a woman calling out for help and then— Oh, God. It started coming back to her in painful, jagged pieces, her brain hurting from the explosion of data.

  Jesus, she hoped Mike was okay. She could remember walking into the living room to ask him if he’d heard anything, only to find him slumped on the floor, blood pouring down the side of his face. With a sharp scream, Reese had rushed toward him, but then everything had gone dark. She didn’t know what had been used to knock her out, but her head was pounding like a bitch and there was a searing pain burning down the back of her neck.

  Taking a deep breath, she tried to study as much of her surroundings as she could without moving her head, not wanting to alert anyone who might be in the room with her that she was awake. She was lying on a bed in the middle of what looked like an expensively furnished, tropical-themed bedroom. There was a low light coming from somewhere behind her, and she could see a lot of swaying, moonlit palm trees through several of the long windows that covered two of the walls. The bed must have been positioned in the middle of the floor at an angle, because the other two walls were behind her.

  There was something vaguely familiar about the room, but she couldn’t quite place it, her thoughts fried by panic and fear. Knowing she needed to calm down, Reese tried to focus and take stock of her physical condition. With a sickening roll of her stomach, she realized her wrists were bound together with strong strips of plastic that were looped around one of the thick slats in the headboard, making it impossible for her to move off the bed. She was still wearing her jeans and T-shirt, though, and was thankful as hell that she hadn’t been stripped. But every ounce of intuition she possessed told her that she was in a seriously bad situation, and a cold, slick wave of terror slipped through her veins, bringing with it a burning rush of tears.

  “Finally,” a man breathed out. “You’re awake.”

  Pain ricocheted through her skull as Reese quickly moved her head from side to side, trying to find the owner of that low, bone-chilling voice. But she couldn’t see anyone.

  “Who are you?” she snapped, her own voice biting and sharp. “Where am I? What do you want from me?”

  “Shh. Don’t be so angry. No one’s going to hurt you. I just wanted us to spend some time together.”

  He came into her field of vision then, and Reese’s fear took on an entirely new dimension. He was probably only around twenty-one or twenty-two at the most; tall and tan and impossibly pretty. He had the kind of face you would see in those Calvin Klein ads, with a body that was big and broad and ripped with muscle. But when you looked in his eyes, you could see that something was . . . seriously wrong. It was like the wiring hadn’t been installed quite right, a kind of blankness in his gaze that made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. And when he smiled down at her, his pale gaze slipping over her trussed up form, she wanted to vomit. It wasn’t hard to see what he was thinking, his body responding swiftly, jeans tented with a massive erection as his attention lingered on her breasts. Beneath her T-shirt, she was wearing a thin cotton bra, the chill from the room’s air conditioner tightening her nipples, and she’d never wished for something to hide under so badly in her life.

  Just like with the room, there was something vaguely familiar about this man, though she knew she’d never seen him before. He gave off such an unsettling vibe, she definitely would have remembered.

  “Who are y-you?” she asked again.

  “His name is Rick. And he’s my beautiful baby brother.”

  Whipping her gaze to the foot of the bed, Reese locked her horrified eyes on Lizzie Jennings. Son of a freaking bitch! Lizzie was dressed in a red halter top and jeans, her blond hair pulled up in a high ponytail, the straps of a colorful tote bag hooked over one of her bare shoulders. She’d have looked like a beach bunny getting ready to go out clubbing, if it wasn’t for the murderous gleam in her eyes.

  “Ben told me that your brother had died,” Reese snarled, nearly choking on her anger. She couldn’t believe this hideous woman was behind all of the crap she’d been through!

  Lizzie laughed. “The authorities think Rick’s dead because that’s what he wants them to think. At the time of that fire, his doctors were trying to keep him away from me, and he doesn’t do well with that. So he found his way back home. Now I take care of Rick, and in return he helps me with my . . . I guess you could call them business dealings.”

  She took care of him? More like used him, from the sound of things. “Exactly what kind of business are we talking about?” Reese asked, cringing as Rick moved a step closer to the bed.

  Lizzie smiled, but didn’t answer her question. Instead, she cast a satisfied look over the room, saying, “I chose this place because you came here on your honeymoon with Drew. I know because the idiot still carries a photo of the two of you on the beach here in his wallet.” Bringing her hate-filled gaze back to Reese, she gave another soft laugh. “It’ll be kinda fitting, don’t you think?”

  “Fitting for what?” she asked, understanding now why the room looked so familiar. “What do you want, Lizzie?”

  The blonde’s wide smile instantly fell, her pretty face twisting into an ugly sneer. The change in her expression happened so fast, it was like a switch had been flipped. “What do you think I want, you little bitch?”

  Licking her lips, she said, “I don’t know. I don’t understand any of this. What did I ever do to you?”

  “It’s not what you did. It’s your entire fucking existence. You’ve screwed everything up!” Lizzie shouted, slamming her hands down on the top of the wooden footboard.

  “I don’t understand,” Reese repeated, realizing Lizzie was damn near as unbalanced as her brother.

  “Trust me, I don’t, either.” Lizzie’s top lip curled with contempt as she looked her over. “I mean, what is it that has them so hung up on you?”

  “Who?”

  “This pathetic brother of mine. And Drew. I had big plans to get my hands on Drew’s money, once you were divorced. But the idiot wouldn’t ask me to marry him because he kept thinking you were coming back. I figured if I could just get you out of Boston, then he’d forget about you once and for all. So I had Rick start watching you.”

  “Ohmygod,” she whispered, sliding her horrified gaze toward Rick. “Are you the one who killed that cat?”

  Rick immediately blanched. “No! Never! I would never hurt an animal.” He turned to glare at his sister. “That was Lizzie. She’s the one who wanted to frighten you away. I wanted you to stay.”

  “In Boston?”

  He looked puzzled when he brought his gaze back to hers, as if he couldn’t figure out why she didn’t understand. “Yes. So that we could be together.” His eyes narrowed, the confusion in them replaced by some kind of chilling, visceral emotion. “But then . . . then I saw you out with that man, and I . . . I lost my temper.”

  “What man?” she asked, wondering how on earth she was going to get out of this. Did Ben even know she was missing yet? And once he realized, how would he ever guess to look for her here?

  Rick’s hands curled into massive fists as he answered her question. “You went out on a date after work one day with some guy dressed
in a suit.”

  Reese cast back, trying to remember what he was talking about. She’d gone for a quick drink one night with Tim Driver, who’d dated Connie in high school. He’d remained a friend of the family over the years and had given her a call when he’d been in Boston for business. But it hadn’t been a date.

  Rick, however, had clearly thought otherwise.

  “When I saw you with him, I lost control,” he told her, the hoarse confession making her skin crawl. “That’s when I found the woman in your building. The one with your hair and eyes, though hers weren’t as beautiful. But I had to let the anger out somehow, and I didn’t want it to be on you.” Reaching out, he ran his moist fingertips down the underside of her arm. “You’re . . . you’re meant to be with me, Reese. I can feel it.”

  “Rick, you don’t even know me,” she pointed out in a quiet voice, hoping to reason with him. But his eyes burned with madness.

  “That’s not true. I know you so well. I’ve watched you. Studied you.” He pulled a chair up to the bedside and sat down. Then he whispered, “I’ve even killed for you.”

  No, no, no . . . Please don’t let him be talking about Ben or Mike. Please let them be safe . . .

  Struggling to find her voice, she croaked, “Who? Who did you kill?”

  Rick cocked his head a bit to the side as he held her gaze. “That criminal father . . . the one you turned in for abuse. He was watching you, too. Wanted to hurt you. So I hurt him first.”

  “You ran him over?” she asked faintly, unable to believe what she was hearing.

  He nodded, and gave her a proud smile.

  “And you . . . you wanted to run me over, too?”

  “What? No!” he shouted, surging to his feet so quickly the chair flew backward, crashing against the wall.

  Lizzie gave a bitter laugh from the foot of the bed. “Poor Rick. He really beat himself up over that one. He saw his chance on Friday and was hoping to pluck you right off the street, but that minivan pulled around the corner before he could make his move.”

  “I told you in my text that I didn’t mean to hurt you,” Rick said brokenly, but Reese was only giving him her partial attention. She’d just caught a flash of something at the edge of one of the windows. A second later, she could have sworn she saw a strong, masculine hand holding a gun, and she knew immediately that it was Ben. He’d come for her! She didn’t need to see his face to know it was him. She could feel it down in places that were too primal and deep for explanation. Rick and Lizzie were both standing with their backs to the window, so she knew they wouldn’t catch sight of him until he was ready to make his move. The thought filled her with terror for his safety. She didn’t want to be in this room with these monsters—but, damn it, she didn’t want Ben putting himself in danger to save her, either.

  Knowing the best thing she could do was keep them talking, so that they were focused on her rather than whatever was going on outside, she looked at Lizzie and asked, “How did you get out of the hotel without being seen by one of the deputies? Ben’s had them watching you and Drew since you left the hospital on Friday.”

  Lizzie rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t hard. I just fucked one of the hotel’s security guards and he let me sneak out a private exit.”

  Well, hell. If Reese managed to make it through this alive, filing a complaint against that incompetent jerk was going to be one of the first things she did.

  She shifted her attention to Rick. “And those texts that you sent me. Did you get my number from Lizzie?”

  “Yeah,” he said thickly, staring at her chest again. She felt a fresh wave of nausea roll through her, the vile idea of his hands touching her in the same places Ben had touched making her want to scream.

  As if he could read her mind, Rick whispered, “Why did you let him touch you?”

  Oh, shit. This couldn’t be good. Thinking a lie was probably the safest option, she said, “I haven’t let anyone touch me.”

  Angry tears glistened in his eyes. “Not true! That fucking sheriff has had his hands all over you!” Sounding like a petulant child, he went on. “I’ve wanted to kill him for days now, but Lizzie said I couldn’t because it would draw too much attention. But I heard the two of you together. Saw you. I was right outside his bedroom window last night.”

  “You were spying on us?”

  He swallowed, sweat pouring down the sides of his face. “It made me so angry, watching you let him come all over you,” he rasped, his gaze unfocused, as if he was going somewhere else inside his head. “There was nothing else I could do. I had to take it out on someone.”

  Oh, God. The woman in the parking lot. He’d killed her.

  A relieved smile suddenly touched Rick’s lips. “I thought Lizzie would be mad and that I’d be in trouble. She got angry about the woman in your building, and the teenager last week. Told me I make too many stupid mistakes. But when I told her what I’d done last night, she said it was a good thing. Said we could use it to get the sheriff away from his house so that I could finally take you.” Staring down at her, he said, “She knew that even if he asked someone to stay with you, they wouldn’t be as careful as he is. And she was right.” The smile fell, and he quickly turned his head to glare at his sister again. “But I’m still angry at her for paying some punk she found in town to trash your car. That was mean and unnecessary.”

  With each word that came out of his mouth, Rick’s psychological issues became more apparent. “How could you do this?” Reese demanded, looking at Lizzie. “He clearly needs help. Are you really so evil that you don’t care about what’s best for Rick?”

  “I’m a survivor. I don’t expect some pampered little snatch like you to understand. But everything I have, I’ve had to fight for. I don’t have the luxury of worrying about his precious little feelings!” she shouted, then immediately took a slow, deep breath, as if trying to regain control of her temper. Some of the angry color in her face faded, a strange smile playing at the corner of her mouth as she purred, “And Rick has all kinds of interesting uses.”

  Oh, sick. Were they lovers? There was something so wrong about this, and Reese didn’t want to dig any deeper for details. This lady was fucking psycho!

  Struggling to clear the lump of disgust from her throat, she asked, “So what happens now?”

  A casual shrug lifted the blonde’s shoulders. “I’ve sent Drew a message letting him know where we’re at. When he shows up for the gallant rescue, you’re both going to die.”

  “No! I told you before, only him,” Rick argued. “Reese lives.”

  His sister gave a long-suffering sigh. “Rick, we’ve been over this. It has to be both. Drew’s never going to marry me and it’s all her fault. Now they need to pay for fucking up my plans. She has to die.”

  “Stop . . . saying . . . that!” Rick shouted, going red in the face.

  Lizzie narrowed her eyes, her voice cracking like a whip. “I’ll let you have your playtime with the little bitch, just like I promised. But we’re not keeping her. End of story.”

  From the edge of her vision, Reese could see Ben signaling at someone outside. She hoped to God they were coming in soon, because the argument between Lizzie and Rick was escalating. They were screaming at each other now, but she recalled there being a lot of distance between the private cabanas here at the resort, and she didn’t imagine anyone other than Ben and whoever he had working with him would be able to hear them.

  “I won’t let you hurt her!” Rick bellowed, the tendons in his neck bulging with rage as he took an aggressive step toward his sister.

  “Fine. If that’s the way it’s going to be, I’m afraid you’re no longer useful.” Lizzie said the words without a flicker of emotion, the look on her face just as empty as she reached into her bag and pulled out a gun. Reese started to scream, but Lizzie was already lifting the weapon. A second later, she fired a bullet directly between Rick’s eyes, and the back of his head practically exploded. The sound of the gunshot was deafening, the window behi
nd him showered with blood as Rick crumpled heavily to the ground.

  With her screams dying in her throat and her jaw quivering from shock, Reese flinched as everything suddenly happened at once, the explosion of action and sound like some kind of climactic movie scene. Ben came barreling through the blood-spattered window, the shattered glass still flying as he hit the floor and rolled. When he came up in a crouched position, he shot a bullet into Lizzie’s shoulder, knocking her back against the opposite wall, the gun falling from her hand and skidding across the floor. At the same time, two other men busted in through the door. Reese didn’t even realize one of them was Drew until he took in the scene with wild eyes and shouted, “You fucking bitch!” at Lizzie.

  “Secure her,” Ben growled at the other man, who was wearing some kind of law enforcement uniform, while he went to work on the plastic ties that were binding Reese’s wrists. He was using what looked like a badass utility knife, and she couldn’t wait to be free.

  Reese could hear the guy in the uniform, who she assumed worked for something like the local sheriff’s department, moving across the room toward Lizzie, but didn’t watch his progress. She’d already tilted her head back, tears of relief streaming from her eyes as she stared up into Ben’s strained, gorgeous face.

  “I was so fucking scared for you,” he ground out, his big hands shaking as he cut through the plastic.

  “Ben,” she croaked, her own voice choked with tears. She started to tell him how happy she was to see him, but was cut off when the other man started shouting.

  “Get down!” he bellowed. “She’s just pulled another gun off her ankle!”

  With overlapping roars of fury, Ben threw himself on top of Reese like a shield, ready to take a bullet for her, just as Drew launched himself at Lizzie. Ben was shouting commands at the guy in the uniform to fire, but the man kept saying he couldn’t get a clear shot. Craning her head around Ben’s broad shoulder, Reese watched Drew and Lizzie roll across the floor, fighting for control of the weapon. It fired once, twice . . . and then a third and final time a few seconds later. For an instant, there was nothing but an awful, weighted silence, and then Drew gave a pain-filled groan as he rolled himself off the top of Lizzie’s lifeless body. He went up on an elbow, trying to get to his feet, but there were two crimson stains spreading across his chest, and he collapsed back to the floor.