“Sure.” But that didn’t work either, since Nina had to face away from the couch and Paige was unable to twist around enough to get a grip on it.
“I know,” Nina finally said. “I’ll kind of hug the end of the couch and you can go all the way to the back. You can push from there, and I’ll pull with my leg.”
They managed to bump the couch forward a few feet before Nina fell backward on her butt.
“Are you okay?” Paige peered over the top of the couch. Nina curled on her back like a roly-poly bug, her whole body shaking.
“Ye-es,” she gasped, and Paige realized she was laughing. “It’s just . . . so . . . silly. All these years we’ve been so afraid of the Wachowskis and what they would do if they found us. Well, ta-da! Here I am. Handcuffed to a . . . a supercomfy couch. And look! I think I see some spare change under the cushions.” She laughed even harder, her face turning as pink as bubble gum.
“But . . .” Paige didn’t want to get swept into the gale of laughter overcoming Nina. “It’s not funny. This could be really bad. What if no one finds us up here? We aren’t planning any redecorating this year.”
That just made Nina laugh all the more. “Redecorating!” She pounded her free fist on the floor. “Redecorate . . . we got kidnapped and you’re talking about redecorating . . .” Tears of laughter flowed down her face.
“Wait! That’s it.” Paige scrambled to her feet, using her free hand to leverage herself against the back.
“What is? Redecorating?”
“No. Pounding. Let’s lift the couch up and drop it. Just a few inches, not enough to hurt your ankle. If we do it over and over, we should get someone’s attention.”
Nina’s face lit up. “You’re a genius! What’s underneath us?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but some part of the front office. Someone will hear.”
“Do you think they’re looking for us?”
“Absolutely.” She remembered Trevor making her promise to come to the games. “I guarantee that Trevor knows something’s wrong and that he notified someone.”
Nina rolled herself back into a sitting position and gave a wistful sigh. “What’s it like to have someone be so in love with you, like Trevor is? Especially someone as amazing as my big brother?”
Paige bit her lip. “He is pretty amazing, isn’t he?”
“Do you think all baseball players are like Trevor?”
“Nina.” Paige jerked her wrist to get the younger girl’s attention. “Can we address your not-so-secret crush another time? I don’t want Trevor or anyone else to worry longer than they have to.”
“I wonder if Jim Leiberman knows I’m missing. Do you think he’s worried too?”
“Nina!”
“Sorry. Okay, let’s try this.”
Paige came back to Nina’s side of the couch and sat tailor-style next to her. Together, they lifted the couch two inches off the floor and then dropped it. It made a very satisfying thud. They grinned at each other.
“Again.”
With the audience confined to their seats and the press box in a frenzy, the Catfish players and security team divided into teams assigned to search different quadrants of the stadium. Even the Storm Chasers volunteered to help, after word reached them that the game had been forfeited and there might be a criminal at large in the ballpark. The Kilby police were already on their way.
As the searchers split up, Trevor followed Crush upstairs to the management wing, now virtually deserted. They hurried down the aisle to Crush’s office, where a man in casual business attire tapped at his smartphone. Trevor hadn’t met him before, only spoken to him on the phone.
“Special Agent Manning.” Crush shut the door behind him. “This is Trevor Stark.”
Trevor wanted to clock the man in the jaw but restrained himself. “You said nothing would happen,” he growled at the agent.
“No, I didn’t. I said they weren’t planning anything big. It doesn’t look like this is big. We’re thinking one guy, two max.”
The man had a cool and cynical air about him that rubbed Trevor all wrong. “Screw you. How many does it take?”
Crush gripped his forearm. “We’ll find them, Trevor.”
“Not standing here, we won’t.” Trevor turned his back on the two and stalked toward the door.
“Hang on,” the agent called after him. “I have a few more questions for you about what Dean Wade said to you.”
“Now? How can you guys waste time like this when Paige and Nina are in danger?”
“We don’t think they’re in any real danger,” said the agent, much too casually for Trevor’s taste. “The Wades are probably using the girls to get to you. Or maybe simply to be disruptive. They won’t inflict any harm, there’s no margin in it.”
Sharp fury coursing through his veins, Trevor stormed back to the agent and went nose-to-nose with him. “Do you know that for sure? Can you guarantee one hundred percent that Nina and Paige aren’t experiencing even one millisecond of pain or suffering?”
“Back off, buddy.”
A strong arm wrapped around his chest from behind and dragged him away from the agent. “Do you really want to add attacking a federal officer to all the other missteps in your history?” Crush growled in his ear.
“I don’t fucking care. I need to find Nina and Paige.” A desperate need for action ripped at him. “I can’t just stand here and do nothing.”
“You already did the most important thing. You told me what was going on. We can nail the bastards.”
“You think I care about that?” He rammed his elbow into Crush’s gut and felt the man’s grip relax. “I care about Paige. That’s all that matters now. And if you don’t see it that way, you’re even more of a fuckhead than I thought. Leave me be, or you can both forget about my testimony.” He was out of the office before anyone could even try to stop him.
“Trevor!”
In the hallway, Trevor turned to see Crush burst out of the office. He braced himself for battle, legs apart, poised to respond to whatever came next. “Bring it on, Crush. I don’t want to hurt Paige’s father, but I’ll do whatever it takes.”
Crush stopped a few feet away, just out of swinging distance. “Every inch of this stadium is being searched. We’ll find them. Answer me this. Do you love Paige?”
The question threw him even more than a punch would have. “That’s not your business.”
“I’m making it my business. I screwed up last time. I thought I could hardline it, make her back down from her plan to marry that asshole. Instead I drove her away and didn’t see her for three years. Then she hooked up with you and I had to learn my lesson all over again. She’s a grown woman who knows her own mind. But I’m asking you as a father, just tell me. Do you love her?”
Trevor straightened, his hands falling to his sides. He’d never imagined seeing that much raw vulnerability written across Crush’s cynical face. It disarmed him. He could imagine the torment of losing three years of Paige in your life. He didn’t want to lose three minutes. “I love her,” he said quietly. “And I will never let her down. I’ll never hurt her. Her happiness is everything to me.”
Crush narrowed his eyes as if he could bore right into Trevor’s soul. “You’re starting to convince me.”
“I’m not aiming to convince you. I love Paige, and I believe she loves me. What we do about it is our business.”
Crush nodded thoughtfully. “That might be true. But there’s a part of Paige that knows I was right about Hudson. Do you want to make her defy her father all over again?”
“No, I don’t want that.” Trevor ran his hand across the back of his head, every nerve ending screaming in frustration. Someone was pounding on a door somewhere and it was making him nuts. “I know I’m not what any parent would want for their daughter. I’ve been to some dark places. But I’ve tried to do my best. I have plenty of money, and I’ll have even more if the Friars call me up.”
“What was that book you were reading ba
ck in Lansing?”
The question was so far out of left field that it made Trevor dizzy. “What?”
“First time I saw you play. You were playing left field and reading a book half the time. Never missed a play, and hit the seams off the ball, but you had a book out there. What was it?”
Everything went still, except for that damn knocking. “You saw me play back then?”
“Grizz Walker called Buck O’Neil, who called me. Said I had to see you, so I went. I sent my report to the Friars and here you are.”
“You’re the one?” He scanned Crush’s face for signs he was making this up, but the owner’s hazel eyes met his levelly.
“Yeah. I’ve been watching you since you were a sprout. I always say you can tell everything you need to know about a man from the way he plays.”
Trevor swallowed hard. “I play hard. I play to win.”
“You play cold.”
Rage flashed through him, tightened all his muscles into one long high-tension cable. “Who’s the one who let Paige leave for three years? Who’s the one standing around while she’s missing? I’m not cold. You don’t know anything about me. I love Paige. I’ll take care of her.”
Crush gave a sneer as he hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “You think Paige needs taking care of? Maybe you don’t know her all that well.”
“That’s not how I mean it.” Trevor inhaled deep breaths, forcing himself to calm down. “I want to be the one in her corner, the one she always knows she can turn to, the one who’ll love her no matter what. She wants to be a counselor, and I think she’d be great. I’ll support her all the way, whatever she needs or wants.”
The pounding . . . or maybe more of a thumping . . . stopped. Trevor whooshed out a breath of relief.
“You really do love her,” Crush said slowly.
“That’s what I’ve been telling you.”
“Are you willing to put it all on the line?”
“What do you mean?” The pounding started up again, or maybe it was the blood in his head, the urgency to act, to do something.
“On the baseball field. The way everything ought to be settled.”
“What?”
Crush’s walkie-talkie blared. He listened to the crackling static for a moment.
“They found a woman’s cowboy boot in the staff entrance, along with the broken pieces of a cell phone.”
Trevor’s heart squeezed. “What does the boot look like?”
“Blue, with embroidered flowers.”
“That’s Paige’s boot.” He’d know those boots anywhere. Every time he saw them he wanted to strip off the rest of whatever she was wearing. “God. Did they find anything else?”
“No. There were some signs of a struggle, a plant knocked over, the crushed cell phone, but no blood. Bob thinks they got on the elevator.”
“Which comes to this wing.” Trevor whirled around, ready to search inside every vent duct if need be.
But Crush stalled him with a firm grip. “Manning searched this area already. Every office, every cubicle. They must have moved on to somewhere else.”
“Then let’s go.” Trevor’s patience with this conversation was long over, and that irritating thump-thump just made it worse and—
He stopped. Grabbed Crush’s elbow. “What’s that noise?”
“You mean that hammering from . . .” He trailed off, and they both looked up. An especially emphatic thump made them both jerk to attention.
“Upstairs,” Trevor choked.
As one, they ran down the hall toward the elevator. “I forgot there was an upstairs,” Crush said. “There’s nothing but junk up there.”
“And something banging around.”
“Manning!” Crush called to the agent as they passed his office. “We could use some backup.”
Trevor reached the elevator door first and jabbed at the button.
“Stand back,” said Agent Manning, joining them with his gun raised as the door slid open. The elevator was empty. He ushered the other two men inside. “Same routine when the door opens. You two stand out of the line of fire.”
Trevor nodded tightly as the elevator whooshed upward. Adrenaline was racing through his body. What would they find up there? Paige and Nina held hostage by some unknown number of Wachowski gang members? Or a few redneck Wade cowboys? Maybe a combination? Would they be hurt, unconscious, bleeding? It was incredible how many scenarios raced through his mind in the short time it took the elevator to rise from the second to the third floor.
But not even his wildest imagination could have conjured up the sight that greeted him.
Paige and Nina seemed to be wrestling with a broken-down couch. They were sweaty and dusty, and a pair of handcuffs linked them together. Nina slid to the floor at the sight of the men.
“About time!” his sister said accusingly. “Do you have any idea how heavy this couch is?”
But Trevor had already locked gazes with Paige. Everything else faded away. With a smudge on her cheek and that wild bird’s nest of hair, her smile shone brighter than a torch in the wilderness.
Chapter 29
PAIGE COULDN’T STOP smiling at the sight of Trevor Stark in his baseball uniform stepping out of that elevator. His eyes were wild, as if he’d walked through a fire to get to them.
He rushed toward them, reaching the couch in a few short strides. Crouching between them, he hugged them both to his chest. “Are you okay? Any injuries?”
“Just another day at the gym,” Paige told him. “If by gym you mean lifting heavy furniture over and over again.” In fact, her body was throbbing from the exertion of manhandling that stupid couch. “That man went down the back stairway. I don’t know his name but he was definitely connected to the Wachowskis.”
Crush strode to the rear door and peered down the stairway. “I see footsteps in the dust. Christ, I’d forgotten all this was up here. Gotta send a note to the cleaning crew.”
An efficient looking man in a business suit squatted down next to Nina and took out a knife. He sliced through the zip tie as if it was butter.
“Who are we looking for?”
Paige gave him a description of the kidnapper, but she had a feeling it was a waste of time. “I think someone was going to pick him up.”
“We’ll take you to a sketch artist,” the agent said. “We’ll find a dummy key for these cuffs too. I’m going to need detailed statements from both of you.”
“Of course.” Paige leaned to give Nina enough slack so she could scratch her ankle. Trevor had his arms around his sister and one warm, reassuring hand firmly placed on Paige’s back. She hoped he never took it off.
“How long have you been cuffed together like this?” Trevor gently slid a finger under the steel circlet around Paige’s wrist.
“Paige did that,” Nina said proudly. “He was going to cuff her to the stair railing so she couldn’t make trouble, but she didn’t want to leave me alone with him. She got herself cuffed to me instead.”
Crush paused in the midst of striding back to their group. “You’re telling me Paige crashed your kidnapping?”
Nina giggled. “I guess so. It was a lot less scary that way. Sometimes it was even fun, like when we started trying to move the couch and kept falling over each other . . .” Paige didn’t hear the rest because Trevor fixed his crystal green eyes on her with a look so intense it nearly set the room on fire.
“You put yourself in danger for my sister.”
“Well . . .” She hadn’t really thought of it that way. “I didn’t want her to be alone. And he was going to stick me in the foyer where no one would ever hear me. I figured we’d have a better chance together.”
Turbulent expressions chased themselves across his face. Gratitude, fury, amazement . . . love. Had he ever looked icy? Impossible. “I love you,” he said in the softest voice imaginable, as if he felt too much emotion to speak more loudly. “You are the most incredible person I’ve ever known.”
“Hey,” interr
upted Crush. “Family members present.”
But Paige and Trevor were already deep in the kind of soul-searing kiss no external words could penetrate. As she closed her eyes and let a sweet, strong river of happiness lift her up and away, she forgot they had an audience that included her father, Trevor’s sister, and an FBI agent. None of that mattered. This kiss was a public claiming, an announcement to the world, loud and clear. Paige and Trevor, Trevor and Paige. Just let someone try to pry them apart. It would take much more than a handcuff key to accomplish that.
The Wachowskis and the Wades turned on each other right away. The nervous man who had so briefly kidnapped Paige and Nina was pulled over by the Texas State Troopers just outside Kilby city limits. Special Agent Manning got plenty of opportunity to question him. Manning learned that Dean Wade had contacted the Wachowskis and offered a deal. He told the syndicate where to find Trevor Leonov. In exchange, they sent a bottom-rung operative to Kilby with instructions to use Nina as leverage against Trevor. When the entire team walked off the field, the Wachowskis pulled the plug.
Both the Wades and the Wachowskis offered to testify against each other, but the Wachowskis were a much bigger catch, so the Wades got the deal. Crush was disappointed, but not Trevor. He looked forward to telling the FBI every single thing the Wachowskis had done to him and his family.
But amazingly, it turned out that he and Nina were already safe from the Wachowskis. Nina’s confession had changed everything. Once Dinar Wachowski discovered that the person who had injured him was also the kind girl who’d been sending him gifts and cards and drawings over the years, he put his foot down. No more retaliation against either of them. Not Trevor, not Nina, not anyone. It was over. Once and for all.
Trevor was free. Free to love Paige, free to play ball.
Since the Catfish had forfeited Game Four, the series was now tied. Whichever team won the next game would earn the right to compete in the Triple A National Championship. With all the off-field drama, the game garnered national attention. How often was a team owner’s daughter kidnapped and a stadium put under lockdown? How often did an entire team spontaneously walk off the field and forfeit a game? A thousand baseball analysts couldn’t find any previous instances of such shenanigans.
Drive You Wild: A Love Between the Bases Novel Page 29
