Just down the street from Lisa’s house, Jill stopped short, unable to believe what she was seeing. But sure enough, it was Lisa Meador, looking around nervously as she wheeled a bicycle from her backyard toward the street.
Was she looking to see if the coast was clear of reporters so she could stretch her legs and get a little fresh air? No, that couldn’t be it. She kept looking back at the house, not the street, and everything about her body language communicated furtiveness.
What the hell was going on?
Only one way to find out, Jill decided, her law enforcement instincts prickling with anticipation. On leave or not, she was damned well going to tail the woman. Because she would bet her badge that whatever Lisa was sneaking off to do, it had nothing to do with exercise.
* * *
THOUGH THE MORNING WAS cool, Lisa grew warm as she pedaled down the side streets at top speed. With every bump, her upper arm throbbed and her headache pounded harder, but she didn’t dare slow down. Besides, the pain of her healing injuries was nothing compared to her guilt. It was bad enough she’d lied to Cole, a man who’d come to see her when he had every reason to run the other way, but leaving as she had done would scare her dad out of his mind.
As brave a face as he’d been putting on for her sake, she knew it was already everything he could do to deal with the disappearance of his only grandchild. With her mother lost years before to cancer and Devin gone, too, she and Tyler were all the family he had left. Though he sometimes drove her crazy, she could barely stand the thought of hurting him this way.
“I’ll bring Tyler home, I swear it,” she murmured, still wondering how, exactly, she could force Evie to keep her word.
At least Lisa had come up with a plan to get to the meeting place whose location Evie had texted to her cell phone, a plan that didn’t include bicycling across Texas. Even by car, it was going to be a long trip, a good eight and a half to nine hours if she drove straight through. She had briefly considered flying but quickly learned that it would actually take longer, once she factored in that the nearest airport to the remote, mountainous Big Bend region would still put her another four hours away by car. At least Evie had tossed her wallet into the straw bag with the gun, so she had her license and credit cards.
As she stood at the car rental counter ten minutes later, she prayed the rental agent hadn’t seen her pleading for her son’s return on the news. What she needed was a distraction, something to prevent the woman from realizing who she was and tipping off the press—or the cops. After a few desperate moments, inspiration struck. As she handed her license to the young woman behind the counter, she gave in to the tears that were never far from the surface.
“Is something wrong, miss?” From behind the woman’s glasses, blue eyes flicked up from the ID. “Ms. Meador?”
Lisa wiped her hands over her sore eyes. “I—I’m in a hurry. I’m terrified my boyfriend’s going to find me.” She shook her head, silently praying for forgiveness. “The last time I tried to get clear of him, he put me in the hospital.”
The agent’s hand flew to cover a small gasp. “Oh, my goodness. Well, I can certainly hurry things up on your rental.”
“If he comes by, could you please keep it to yourself I’ve been here?” asked Lisa. “You’ll recognize him right away. He’s good-looking, really tall and built. He has short light brown hair, and he can be very charming when it suits him.”
“As a matter of policy,” the woman told her, her eyes sympathetic, “we never give out our customers’ personal information. But I’ll definitely be watching out for this guy. He sounds really dangerous.”
“Believe me, I have the bruises to prove it.” Feeling like the worst sort of fraud, Lisa touched the woman’s hand as she took back the license. “Thank you so much for your help. I can’t tell you what this means to me.”
If it meant saving her son, it would be worth whatever lies she had to resort to, even slandering a man as undeserving, as heroic, as Cole Sawyer.
* * *
“SHE REALLY DID it,” Sid Hartfield said. “She’s somehow got it in her head that she can go out and find Tyler. How she thinks she’s going to manage, I can’t imagine, when the sheriff’s department and the FBI haven’t so far.”
“Maybe there was something in that card that gave her an idea where they’re hiding,” Cole said.
“Then why wouldn’t she tell one of us, or dial 9-1-1, instead of sneaking out like some teenager?”
Cole shook his head. “Threats, maybe? I can’t tell you, but I do know one thing. Wherever Lisa’s heading, she’s not getting there on foot, so we should check nearby rental lots.”
“I’m calling the sheriff right now,” Hartfield said. “Or maybe even those high and mighty federal boys they sent out.”
“I think you should, but in the meantime, I’ll head out and start looking in case I can catch her,” Cole suggested.
Her father frowned, his forehead wrinkling. “I’d rather go myself, but it’s always possible she’ll come back or at least call home, so I should probably be here in case. It’s not like her to let me worry. Not like her at all.”
Unless Cole missed his guess, neither was escaping through a second-story window. “Does she have a cell phone on her?”
Hartfield shook his head. “She hasn’t replaced the one the kidnappers took yet. We think it was destroyed, since the cell phone company can’t pin down the location through the GPS. But she still might call from wherever she’s gone.”
Cole nodded. “Let’s exchange numbers. Then I’m out of here.”
Raking his hands through his steel-gray brush cut, Sid said, “Just promise me one thing, boy. Swear to me you won’t screw things up again.”
Cole was on the road in minutes, wishing like hell he could have given the older man what he most craved: a guarantee that he would save Lisa and her son. But Cole hadn’t made that promise, couldn’t, for he knew all too well that anything might happen, from Lisa changing her mind and returning to apologize, to her murder as she charged into some sort of ransom exchange scenario gone wrong.
As he thought about the latter possibility, he wondered if the kidnappers could know enough about her to realize she had likely received a good-size payout from the life insurance policy nearly every combat soldier opted to take. Though it was possible, her modest home, older car and strictly middle-class job made her an unlikely candidate to catch the attention of a criminal looking for a big score.
Still racking his brain over why her son had been taken, Cole pulled through an open gate and into the only car rental agency within a reasonable walking distance of Lisa’s home. Like nearly everything in Coopersville, this business was small, consisting only of a mostly empty lot surrounded by a chain-link fence, with a hutlike structure at its center and a shed off in the corner, where a uniformed employee was hosing off a hatchback.
Spotting no one else, he walked into the office, where a young woman in thick, tortoiseshell glasses was furiously pecking away at a computer with two fingers.
His first impulse was to blurt out his questions and demand swift answers, but he reminded himself that this was no war zone, even if his need to find Lisa felt as urgent. Deciding on another tack, he pasted on his smoothest smile. “Thought I was the only one who still typed like that, though you’re a heck of a lot faster.”
The rental agent looked up sharply, her round cheeks blazing. “Sorry, sir,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in. May I help you?”
“Pretty morning,” he said casually, though inside, he was thrumming with impatience. “Been busy so far today?”
Eyes the color of worn denim met his, then flicked back down to her hands as her blush deepened. Painfully shy, he decided. Or did she think he was hitting on her?
“It’s been really quiet,” she said, her voice barely louder than a mouse’s squeak. “Um, did you—uh—did you have a reservation?”
“So I’m your first customer?” he asked.
“Is
there something I can help you with?”
Hearing the tension in her voice, he decided he needed to work on his smooth smile, or at least get better at hiding his impatience. “I was just trying to figure out if my girlfriend already took care of the rental for our vacation like she promised, or if I should go ahead and handle it.”
As far as cover stories went, it wouldn’t win him any awards, but he thought it sounded halfway plausible.
“Oh. That’s it?” Despite the forced smile, she still sounded strangely nervous. “No. She definitely hasn’t been here today.” After a brief hesitation, she squeaked out, “Would you like to hear about our upgrade specials? I can offer you a midsize, or even one of our premium vehicles for only the price of—”
“Sorry to interrupt, but maybe I’ll try calling her again in case she went somewhere else,” he said, pulling out his phone. “Thanks for your help.”
Feeling that there was something off about her behavior, he hurried back to his car. As he thought about any other place where Lisa might have gotten a vehicle, he wondered if he had it all wrong. Maybe she’d gone to a friend’s to ask for help.
On the seat beside him, his cell phone started ringing. Praying it was Hartfield calling to let him know his daughter had come to her senses and returned, he glanced at the screen and swore when he saw the name of his attorney.
But Jeff Schulz, a retired army officer Cole had met while working on a Homes for Wounded Heroes project, couldn’t possibly be calling to chew him out already.
“I’m in kind of a rush here, but what’s up, Jeff?”
“What’s up is I’ve scored you a chance to talk with the assistant director of the U.S. Marshals’ Training Division,” Jeff said quickly. “He’s something of a hard-ass and was going to take you off the class list ‘pending a complete investigation,’ which is bureaucrat-speak for something that’ll drag on until you’re sorry you ever bothered with it. Fortunately, I talked him into meeting with you personally. The catch is, you have to go to Georgia, and you have to get there fast.”
“How fast?”
“He’ll see you Wednesday at two-thirty to discuss this. That’s two days from now, Cole, and he’s only doing that much because I’m an old college buddy of a good friend of his. Even then, I had to personally put up my left nut for collateral against the claim that you’ll be worth the trouble. So be there, and be convincing.”
“Roger that. I’ll be there,” Cole said, reminding himself that whatever it would cost to buy an airline ticket on such short notice, the chance of getting himself back on track would be worth every penny. “And thanks for vouching for me. You can tell your wife the family jewels are safe.”
After taking a moment to jot down the address of the assistant director’s office, Cole ended the call and put the car into Reverse. The only other business Lisa could have reached on foot in a reasonable time was a dealership about a half mile distant, though he didn’t think she could have bought a car on the spot.
If she wasn’t there, he would call her father for ideas. Or maybe, by that time, the team assigned to her case would have arrived to step in. They were far better qualified to hunt her down than he was.
Backing from his parking spot, Cole struggled to convince himself that with federal and local law enforcement working tirelessly, Lisa and her son would soon be home celebrating, and that somewhere in southern Georgia, he would be doing the same thing, his conscience clear in the knowledge that he’d done what he could.
But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t quite make himself believe it, so when he caught sight of something odd near the fence line, he hit the brakes to study it more closely.
It was a bicycle, he realized, lying on its side. A woman’s bike, he saw as he climbed out of the car to take a closer look. Could Lisa have ridden it here, then abandoned it once she rented a car? Could she have convinced the rental agent to lie for her?
A flutter of movement nearby attracted his attention, a loose scrap of paper kicked up by the breeze. A picture? He walked over to see what it was.
He stiffened at the sight of the frightened eyes staring out from the image. Tyler Meador’s smudged, or maybe bruised, face, half-hidden behind the front page of yesterday’s paper.
So he’d been right to be suspicious of the rental agent. Lisa had been here, and she must have accidentally dropped this in the parking lot when she claimed her rental. But there was no message on the page he’d picked up, which meant the instructions must have been written on the missing card.
His sense of urgency redoubled. It was imperative to stop Lisa before she left the area. If he walked away now, simply called 9-1-1 and told authorities what he knew, by the time they showed up she would be long gone—and walking into an ambush of the kidnappers’ choosing on her own.
Making up his mind, he left the car and trotted toward the employee who was vacuuming out the vehicle he had been washing earlier. Because whatever Lisa had told the rental agent to keep her from cooperating, he would bet his bottom dollar she hadn’t thought to talk to this guy, too, so he would at least have seen which direction she had taken.
Chapter Twelve
Sick with worry about Tyler and doubting every move she’d made, Lisa was still dimly aware of how lucky she had been to scoop up the rental lot’s last SUV and get away so cleanly.
After swinging by the ATM, she’d made one final, high-risk stop. Things there had gone smoothly, too, allowing her to leave town without any trouble. Unfortunately, her route took her out on Sunset, toward the river, the same road she had traveled three days before with Cole behind the wheel.
Flashbacks flickered across her vision like jumbled still shots from a horror movie, sending her heart rate into overdrive. The pregnant teller’s terrified face. Tyler’s attempts to be brave as he’d clutched at Rowdy and his octopus. Evie LeStrange’s hard glare before she’d slammed her gun into Lisa’s head. The blur of Cole’s dive as he’d fired at her.
Thinking back to Evie, her mind froze on the final image, zooming in on the angry sneer and blazing eyes that seemed almost too blue to be real.
What if they weren’t? What if the color was as fake as the matching streaks in the woman’s unnaturally black hair? Outlandish contacts, some even resembling the eyes of snakes or tigers, were only a click away for anyone with access to the internet.
Alongside a grassy field, Lisa pulled off to the shoulder. Clambering out, she sucked in mouthfuls of cool air, willing herself to drag in enough oxygen to think through the memories threatening to unhinge her, the cold voice repeating the words “Sweet Girl Baby” in her ear.
She forced herself to picture Evie with subtler blue eyes, then brown, then green, then black. But it wasn’t until she thought of a woodsy green-gold hazel combined with sandy blond hair that she clapped her hands over her mouth in a vain attempt to block the scream bubbling its way up from the depths of memory.
* * *
COLE SPOTTED LISA ALONG the roadside, down on her knees with her palms pressed to her forehead. He pulled up behind her, his marrow freezing at the thought that she looked like a woman who had gotten word that the worst had happened.
Impossible, he realized, since she had no cell phone. And no business attempting to drive herself anywhere in the state she was in.
Pocketing his keys, he exited the car and walked up behind her. Though he made no effort to be quiet, she didn’t even turn her head to see who was there. Didn’t acknowledge him in any way.
Despite what should have been a more-than-adequate denim jacket, she was shivering violently, as if she’d been dunked into a vat of freezing water—or a nightmare neither her body nor her soul could bear any longer. When he moved to see her face, her brown eyes were unfocused, the lashes sparkling with a heavy dew of tears.
Her misery breaking down every barricade he’d built, he ached to lift her from the roadside, to haul her into his arms and warm her with his body. But more than that, raw instinct had him wanting to claim the r
ight to protect her, to distract her with his kiss.
The wrongness of the idea jolted through him. What kind of bastard was he, to imagine she would welcome his touch? Or to think for a single moment that the fierce attraction roaring through him—and heaven forgive him, but he couldn’t help the chord that her curves, her scent, her devastated beauty, had struck in his imagination—could possibly distract her from her missing son...
Her son, whose “proof of life” was proof of nothing, really, except that he’d been alive when the kidnappers took the shot yesterday.
Letting out a slow breath, he fought to gentle his voice, to still the raw fury reverberating through him at the thought of the kidnappers he wanted to rip apart with his bare hands. He had to pull himself together to have any hope of helping Lisa—and to remind himself that this was about repaying a debt to Devin Meador, not betraying a dead fellow soldier’s memory by moving in on his widow.
“Hey there, you.” Cole laid his hand on her shoulder. “How ’bout we get you back on your feet, and you can tell me what’s happening? Or maybe we won’t talk at all. We’ll just go sit in the car awhile, okay?”
With almost glacial slowness, her gaze rose to meet his, the misery in her brown eyes giving way to surprise. “Cole? What are you doing here? I—”
“Thought you’d ditched me, didn’t you?” he said lightly as he helped her to her feet. “On a scale of daring escapes, I’d give yours pretty high marks. If the rental clerk hadn’t seemed so freaked out when I found that photo, I’d still be scratching my head.”
She looked at a spot near her feet. “I’m sorry. I’ve put you to so much trouble. But I had to—for Tyler. I couldn’t see any other way.”
Cursing himself for his inability to resist the impulse, he ran his thumb along the smooth flesh of her cheek, then tilted her chin until she was looking into his eyes. Looking, and really seeing him for the first time, judging from her expression.
“You know,” he told her, smiling to lighten his words, “you’ve been causing me trouble ever since I met you. Must be all this excitement that keeps me coming back for more.”
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