by Maddie Wade
The paramedics pushed him out of the way gently and set about quickly stabilising Nate as he watched on, praying to God and anyone else who would listen that his friend would make it and Lauren would be okay until he could find her. And he would find her!
Lucy and Drew pushed through the door and Lucy looked in horror at Nate.
“Is he?”
“No, but it’s gonna be close.” Dane said matter-of-factly as he crossed to her and enfolded her in a hug.
“Where’s Lauren?” Drew asked looking round the room, and sounding panicked. Dane’s voice shook slightly as he said,
“Griffiths has her!”
Drew went pale and then stormed outside. Lucy went after him and found him punching a wall and swearing.
“We’ll find her Drew,” Lucy said softly, rubbing his back in a comforting gesture.
The paramedics raced past with Nate on a gurney, he looked pale and still.
“Come on let’s go to the hospital, and see if Nate’s gonna be ok.”
Drew shook his head.
“You go, I’m gonna find my sister,” and he walked off.
“Let him go,” said Dane behind her, “he needs to let off steam.”
“Lucy, can you please go and speak to Mr. Aden and reassure him everything is okay, I’m not sure I would sound very reassuring right now.” He motioned to the old man who stood at his door looking frail and worried. “Yes, of course,” she said walking towards Mr. Aden.
Dane texted Sly to meet him at the hospital. Lucy was back a few minutes later.
“He’s fine-a little shaken, but resolute. He’s going to stay with his son for a few days until things settle down.
~~~
That had been easier than he thought, all the hours he’d spent watching Claire’s friends had paid off. He’d bugged her phone on Saturday while she was out with that security guy. It had been so easy, and they called themselves a security company, ha, none of them were a match for him. He had just had to wait for the right moment.
When he had heard her order pizza all he’d had to do was intercept the delivery guy. He was now dead in an alley behind the houses. He did regret killing an innocent, but he was collateral damage in the war he was waging, and so he had made it quick and painless.
The goon looking after her had gone down like an elephant; brawn did not beat brains this time. Griffiths knew Lauren would be out for a while. After that chokehold had put her out he’d given her a little something to keep her that way for a while. When she came round, she would have an awful headache. Ah, well that was just the start of her suffering and nothing compared with what his Claire had gone through, alone except for him. Yes, this was just the beginning of the pain they would all feel at his hands.
~~~
At the hospital Dane watched as they wheeled Nate through to resus, he’d tried to follow, but was stopped by a nurse.
“You can’t go in there; just let the doctors do their jobs. Can you give me some details please?” She put a hand on his arm and steered him in the direction of the reception desk. He wanted to ignore her, but knew the only way he could help Nate was by giving them as many details as he could.
~~~
Lucy sat down in the relatives’ room to wait for news; she looked up as the door opened.
“Jace what are you doing here?”
She was the only one to call him Jace except his mum, but Sly liked it when Lucy called him by his name, in fact, he liked everything she did!
“Dane called me, for some back-up. Is there any news on Nate yet?” She shook her head no. He grasped her hand as he sat next to her and as if that opened up a damn Lucy burst into tears.
“Hey,” he said putting his arms around her and letting her cry, “he’s gonna be fine, it’ll take more than a couple a bullets to kill Nate.” She sniffed and pulled herself together. Shit, she even looked beautiful when she cried-he was done for.
“I know it’s just he looked so pale and still, and there was so much blood and I’m so worried about Lauren. I’m okay, really,” she said sitting up and moving away from him slightly. Jace hadn’t realised Nate and Lucy were so close, but Lucy hardly ever cried and he felt jealousy burn in his throat at the thought, but it was his own fault-he should’ve made his move, not fucked anything that looked like her, just to try and get her out of his system.
Nate was a good guy and if God willing he came through this Jace couldn’t think of a better man for Lucy, even if it did eat him up inside.
Dane walked in and sat next to them, he leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and put his head in his hands-he looked completely shattered. They sat like that for a few minutes before a nurse came in and said the police were here and wanted to speak to them.
“Okay,” said Dane visibly pulling himself together, “just give me a second please.” To Lucy he said, “Call Zack and let him know what’s going on please, see if he can get the locals off our backs.” Lucy nodded.
“Sure, I’ll do it now.”
“Afterwards I want you and Sly to go back to Fortis, and see if you can start running the CCTV and facial recognition software around Lauren’s flat. Also, hack into the ANPR cameras and see if you can get any details on the vehicle used. It’s been thirty minutes since she was taken,” he said looking at his watch, “there must be something, and we can’t afford to waste any time on this. Sly, can you contact your cousin and see if he can lend us some manpower?”
Sly nodded.
“Of course, I already texted Jack to give him notice that things were heating up.”
“Thanks.”
~~~
He got up then to go and explain what was going on. This was not gonna go down well with the locals, luckily Zack had some contacts in high places that could hopefully pull some strings. Walking into a side room, he was greeted by two detectives. He put on his professional persona and stuck out his hand to shake the hand of the closest officer.
“Detective, I’m Dane Bennet from Fortis Security.” The older detective took his hand.
“I’m Detective Rogers and this is my partner, Detective Parry. Can you tell us what’s going on please from the start?”
Dane explained nearly everything, leaving out the bit about the Divine Watchers and their Earth cleansing plans and finishing with Lauren being missing. The detective looked shocked. “Well, that’s quite a tale.”
He was getting pissed this was not a tale. Just as Rogers was going to start giving him the ‘let us handle this spiel’, he got a call. Dane observed as the man straightened to his full 5ft 10 inches and sucked in his rotund belly.
“Yes, yes sir... oh okay sir, yes of course, yes we will.” He hung up looking beetroot red and like he was gonna blow a gasket.
“That was the police commissioner, we’ve been told that you are handling this and we will supply back up and support as necessary. Please let me know if we can be of any assistance,” he said offering his card. DS Parry looked like he was going to argue, but Rogers cut him off with a glare.
“Thank you detectives, we will.”
Dane returned to the relative’s room and called Lucy. “Lucy-updates?” he asked curtly.
“I spoke to Zack he said he should be back by next Friday and to keep him in the loop.” Lucy told him. He was glad his boss would be back soon.
“Thanks Luce.” He wanted to be out there looking for Lauren, but it was his job as Team leader to wait for Mr. and Mrs. Jones to arrive so that he could explain in part what had happened to their son. This is why he fucking hated being in charge. The wanted to go “Hulk” and start smashing things up until he found Lauren, but he knew that a calm head would be what got him his girl back.
“Put the phone on speaker so I can speak to Sly, please Luce. Sly, have you started checking the surveillance in the city? See if we can pick up Griffiths. Start from Lauren’s place-he must have had a vehicle to move her in. Can you call the rest of the guys and ask them to come back, we need them on this, no point watchin
g Marcus, it’s not like he can get near her right now.”
“Sure, I’m already on it.”
“Don’t you want to leave them on Marcus, so that you can put that plan we talked about into play? Maybe he can find her quicker than us?” interrupted Lucy. Dane nodded.
“Yeah good call, leave Smithy and Tuck.”
“Let me know as soon as you hear anything, okay?” Lucy said quickly
Dane agreed and hung up when a harried-looking doctor walked in
“Are you the family of Nathan Jones?” he inquired.
“Yes,” he said, not bothering to explain that Nate was not blood but was definitely family. “His mum and dad are on their way they live in South Wales, so won’t be here for a while.”
“Well, Mr. Jones has been very lucky. We’re taking him into surgery now. It looks like both the bullets missed all the vital arteries, but he’s lost a lot of blood and this has made things very tricky. He is AB-and that blood type is not held in the hospital, so we had to wait for some to be sent over before operating. Mr. Jones did come round and was adamant that he did not want to receive anything but AB-as he is scheduled to be tested to be a bone marrow donor, and didn’t want to jeopardise that. That said, he’s fit and strong and should make a full recovery baring no complications in surgery. But he’s going to need to rest.”
“Don’t worry Doctor he’ll get rest,” he said thinking of the formidable but lovely lady that was Mrs. Jones. The doctor nodded gruffly and turned to go, but stopped.
“What regiment are you son?” he asked. Dane looked at him appraisingly, they didn’t talk about this. The Doctor eyed him seriously and held up a hand.
“Don’t worry I understand. My son is in the parachute regiment and you Special Ops boys pulled his regiment out of the mire more than once, so for that I thank you.” He stepped forward and shook the doctor’s hand.
“Our pleasure, Sir. Nate is ex-parachute regiment.” he said.
“We’ll take very good care of him, I promise.” With that, the doctor smiled, turned and left.
Dane sat and waited for Nate’s parents, and wished now that he had taken the time to find out what Nate had wanted to talk to him about that night at Lauren’s. He’d been so wrapped up in things, he’d forgotten. He was going to apologise and find out what Nate had wanted first chance he got, and apologise for the incident earlier.
God, just thinking about how scared she must be, twisted his insides. He had to find her and fix this. She couldn’t be dead, he just wouldn’t accept that. He would find her and fix the mess he had made of things. Resolved, he phoned Lucy to see how things were going.
Chapter Twenty-four
Oh, hell why did her head hurt so much? Lauren tried to roll over and realised that her hands were secured tightly in front of her. Opening her eyes, she slowly blinked and tried to remember where she was, and then it all came back to her. Oh god Nate, he’d shot him. Was Nate dead?
Tears burned her eyes as she tried to remember. Terry Griffiths had grabbed her. She struggled to sit up but her hands were cuffed to some sort of post and the movement caused nausea to roil through her stomach and bile to burn up her throat.
Moving slowly she realised her ankles were bound with rope, but not bound to anything. She wiggled her toes trying to get the pins and needles feeling to go. She could just make out through the small high window in the top of the wall the light from the full moon, and realised that she was in a large cellar with just a bed and a side table.
Wriggling as best she could to sit up, she looked behind her. She could see a door up some steps, and on the walls, she could see pictures, but couldn’t make out whom they were of, but there seemed to be hundreds of them. Oh, how she wanted Dane, he might not want her but she would give anything to see him and tell she loved him and that it didn’t matter if he didn’t love her, she just wanted him to know.
She lay there feeling so scared and sorry for herself for a minute. He would find her; she knew he would, even if he didn’t love her. He was a warrior and he’d take it as a failure personally.
Taking some deep breaths, Lauren tried to get control of her fear; she was no good to anyone if she just lay here and didn’t help herself. She had never needed a man to fight her corner before and she wasn’t gonna start now!
“Ah, you’re awake.” She turned towards the sound of the voice and blinked furiously when a light came on. Her eyes adjusted and she watched with her heart banging as Terry Griffiths came down the steps. He was dressed in chinos and a purple paisley shirt and had a black armband on his upper arm.
He stopped as he got nearer to her and she felt the hatred coming of him in waves, he was truly a very twisted and sick man and she needed to get away from him as soon as she could.
“Are you hungry?” he said suddenly. “You missed dinner,” he said with a sinister laugh. She said nothing, knowing that whatever she might say could set him off.
“Don’t look so worried Lauren, I’m not going to hurt you ... Yet! We are going to get to know each other first, and you are going to tell me all about my Claire, and why you neglected her and let her suffer all alone.” He said the last with so much anger and menace that she shrank back as spittle flew from his mouth. He had gone a puce red as he looked at her and then he turned and fled up the stairs, muttering as he did.
She heard the door lock and her shoulders slumped. She needed to get out of here, he was unstable and she was not gonna die in some damp cellar at the hands of a madman. Wriggling back onto her other side, Lauren drew in a shocked breath as she faced the wall with all the pictures, every picture was of Claire, and all taken without her knowledge by the looks of them, and on every one was a cut-out picture of Terry Griffiths. She felt sick and could feel bile burning her throat again, she dry-heaved for a few minutes while trying to get control of herself by taking deep breaths.
She had to get out of here, she looked around for something to help her break the cable ties on her wrists, but there was nothing. Feeling defeated, she slumped back down to conserve her energy, she would rest up and wait for an opportunity.
~~~
Terry walked around his kitchen trying to get control of his temper; he hadn’t meant to snap at her. He planned to be nice so that she relaxed her guard, but seeing her there alive and breathing while his beautiful Claire was dead and buried just made him lose his grip for a short time.
He pulled out the picture of Claire in the park, he’d taken it two weeks before she died. In it she was looking up at the sky with a beautiful smile on her face and he’d known that she was thinking of him. He felt the first stirrings of desire as he looked at the picture and rubbed a hand along his erection. He quickly stopped and put the photo away, now was not the time and unlike some men, he could control his body’s animal urges.
He decided that he would leave Lauren alone overnight and take her a nice breakfast in the morning to gain her trust, and then maybe she would tell him all about his Claire. He gave an evil twisted smile as he thought about what fun he would have with her over the next few days.
~~~
Drew really didn’t want to do this, but they needed all the help they could get to find Lauren, and his father had contacts everywhere. His connection to Terry Griffiths would give them even more of an advantage. If it meant a beating from his father then so be it, he would take anything his father dished out, if it meant getting his sister back safely.
It wasn’t the thought of the beating that made him apprehensive, no he’d had so many of those he’d stopped caring, but going behind Dane and Lucy’s back when they were just starting to trust him bothered him a lot. Oh, well if it meant helping Lauren he would do it anyway. Calling the familiar number for the hundredth time this week he waited to see if his father would pick up. He doubted his luck would turn now but it was his only hope.
“Drew, what can I do for you, my traitorous child, are you calling to apologise for your betrayal, or are you going to help me find my daughter?” Drew was so
shocked that he’d answered that he paused before stating,
“Lauren’s gone!”
“What the fuck do you mean, gone?” His father bellowed down the phone.
“Terry Griffiths took her; he shot the man guarding her and took her. I need your help!”
“So let me get this straight, first you try and hide her from me, and now that she is gone, you want me to help?”
“Yes, I do.”
“And what do her friends think of this?”
“They don’t know.” Drew replied. There was silence on the line while Marcus thought; Drew knew there was no point in rushing him it would only take longer. He bit his tongue to stop his impatience from causing him to say something he shouldn’t.
“Well, I am going to help, but by help I mean I will get my daughter back safely with me where she should have been for the last 26 years. I will need all the information you have on what happened. Meet me at her house; I want to see where she lives. Text me the address.” Marcus said thoughtfully. He wanted to know everything about her gift and maybe her home would give him some clues.
“Fine,” Drew said, “when?”
“I should be there by midnight,” and then he hung up before Drew could answer him. Drew had serious reservations about this, and knew Dane was going to kick his ass but if they could use Marcus’s connection to Griffiths to find Lauren, and then maybe they would be in a position to capture Marcus too. Well, time to face the music and tell Dane and Lucy what he’d done.
~~~
Marcus punched the dashboard of the car, how could he have been so stupid? He’d known that Griffiths was a psycho, but how had he found Lauren? It must have been the Thompson woman, everything kept coming back to her.
“Michaels, Griffiths has my daughter,” Marcus stated without emotion, “I don’t think he will kill her straight away, but eventually he will and I still need to deliver her to the Watchers in one piece. Have everyone, and I mean everyone, checking Griffiths’ background. I want every rock uncovered.” Michaels nodded like the dutiful little minion he was. “Do a good job and I will reward you later.” Marcus said running a hand along the bulge in Michaels’ trousers causing the man’s hands to tighten on the steering wheel. He loved manipulating people and he always found Michaels worked better with an incentive.
