Love Inspired Suspense January 2014

by Shirlee McCoy

  Josh flashed him a bitter look and kept pacing.

  “Man, I know being benched is no fun, but wearing a hole in the asphalt isn’t going to bring her back any faster.”

  Josh shook his head and stalked back to his rental car, where he wouldn’t have to look at the officer’s sympathetic gaze. This kid didn’t know a thing about what being benched was like. He was probably barely out of the academy, and here he was trying to feed Josh platitudes. “Don’t need a bodyguard. Or a babysitter.”

  “You sure about that?” Josh opened his mouth to speak, but the officer held up his hand. “I know you’re a smart guy. My guess is, at your rank and with your combat tours behind you, you wouldn’t still be breathing if that wasn’t the case. But men do crazy things when the woman they love is in danger. Somebody keeping an eye on you might be smart.”

  Josh sank against the front of the car. The woman he loved. He was late to the ballgame. Last night, as they talked, he should have told her. Now it was possible he’d lost the chance forever.

  The officer’s radio crackled and he listened, then stepped away from Josh to speak, preventing him from making any more comments that would fuel Josh’s ire. If he said another word, Josh was liable to haul him to the counseling center and stuff him into that ceiling that Cameron was so fond of hiding in.

  The counseling center. Something dug in his mind, something that happened there that didn’t fit. He played back their morning visit in his mind, each word, each face, each event.

  It’s a good thing we had eyes on the building, so we were able to move in fast, otherwise, we wouldn’t have known there was trouble. Detective Simmons’s words melded with an image, one of Mr. Miller shuffling away from the scene, cell phone to his ear…

  Not calling the police.

  Josh straightened. If Mr. Miller didn’t call the police, then who was he so intent on reaching at that moment? When they were out in the open and vulnerable?

  It was the slimmest of threads, thinner than a spider’s web, but like that web, he couldn’t shake it. If Miller was involved, was working against Andrea, would he risk taking her anywhere near his business? Would he take her back to the place where this all started?

  To his knowledge, not a soul was at the counseling center. If the people behind this truly were afraid that Andrea knew something, they’d still go after Cameron’s file and anything else that might be at the center. It was a slim chance but it was better than no chance at all.

  Josh yanked the keys from his pocket. Before Andrea vanished, Simmons had said they were free to go. Nobody had since told him differently.

  He eyed the handful of policemen in the parking lot. If he told them his suspicions, would they sit him on the sidelines again, making him wait until they went to the counseling center to check things out?

  That wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.

  Without a word of explanation, he slipped into his car and eased out of the parking lot, hoping not to attract anyone’s attention. If they wanted to follow him, fine, but he couldn’t have them calling a halt. He had to save Andrea, even if that meant following a wild hunch on his own.

  SIXTEEN

  Andrea ran through her rapidly deteriorating options. From her prison in the backseat of the SUV between two considerable walls of muscle, there was no discernible way out. Aside from the driver, Miller and the two men obviously assigned to her, two more tough guys sat in the third row. Even the president couldn’t be this well guarded.

  It hit her like a line drive to the forehead. Whoever Mr. Miller really was, whether he was the ringleader of the whole operation or just the head of the hired guns, he was afraid of her and of what she might know. The only thing she couldn’t figure out was how to parlay that into more time on the clock of her life.

  Mr. Miller’s cell trilled, and Andrea jumped so suddenly she cleared the seat.

  The man on her right chuckled.

  The call ended quickly, with very little said on this end, but Miller clicked it off and pocketed it, the slightest smile on his face.

  “They got the stuff?” It was the first time the driver had spoken since they left the church parking lot.

  “It was all just sitting there on a pallet in the middle of the storage unit. They’re on the move now.” Miller shook his head and glanced back at Andrea. “That’ll make a nice little nest egg in case we really do have to shut down the operation and move.”

  Andrea dredged up every ounce of bravado she had left. “Good thing you didn’t have to kill them. If you wipe out all of your men, who would be left to protect you?”

  “Who says I need protecting?”

  “You don’t look like the healthiest of men to me. Without your guns here, probably I could take you one on one. Where are you moving if we shut you down here?”

  Miller arched an eyebrow and glanced at his counterparts on either side of her. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” His amusement wasn’t lost on her, or on every other man in the car. They all laughed at the joke.

  “You’re going to kill me, anyway.”

  “I was genuinely hoping to avoid killing you or your undercover cop friend because murder, especially when it’s a cop, makes people take a little too much notice.”

  “Looks like we’re way past that now.”

  “Surely we’re better friends than that. If I really wanted you dead, I would have spiked your coffee weeks ago. Why so cynical?”

  She shook her head, shocked she could remain so calm. “Not cynical. Just a realist.”

  “You watch too many movies.” He flicked another loaded look to his companions, then turned to the front as the car veered onto 185.

  Miller might not tell her where they were going, but he was already talking too much, and each bit of information he dropped was one more nail in Andrea’s coffin. He’d never say names or speak so casually about their plans if he were simply going to drop her by the side of the road and leave town forever.

  Andrea held her breath as they blew down the highway, aware that Miller leaned forward, as well, as though he could get them to their destination faster by doing so. She’d welcome the sight of white police cars blocking the lanes more than she’d welcome her next breath.

  They were past the airport before Miller relaxed and Andrea felt her last hope deflate. If they hit 280 and headed into the country on the other side of post, there were too many places for her to be lost forever.

  “You sure this is where you want to leave her?” The driver’s eyes met her impassively in the rearview mirror, as though she were a bag of rotting garbage that needed to be disposed of sooner rather than later.

  “Yeah. But first take us back to her office and see what’s going on there. If it’s still quiet, we may have some work to do.”

  The SUV swung onto the Victory Drive exit and roared toward the counseling center.

  “What work?” Andrea’s heart beat faster. Nothing good could come from going back to the center. Nothing.

  “We’ve been through your apartment and didn’t find anything, but you have to have notes on us somewhere. You have a fairly secure facility in that office. Any notes you’ve been keeping on us, seems like they’d be there. And Cameron was fond of leaving clues behind, as well. The way he was writing his own insurance policies, there’s a high chance some of them name us. The problem is, we don’t have time to search for them.” Miller kept his focus on the passenger window, never diverting his attention, even as the vehicle slowed to turn into the counseling center parking lot. “Any thinking man will tell you the best thing is to make sure nothing in there is recognizable, just in case there’s any more evidence to point fingers our way. I’m thinking we might need a little bonfire.”

  *

  By the time Josh hit the parking lot of the gas station, the sun hung high in the sky, rippling waves off the asphalt. Behind the glass front of the attached convenience store, four people moved among the aisles. A large energy drink poster blocked his vi
ew of the cashier, who may or may not have been Mr. Miller himself.

  Nothing moved at the counseling center next door. Not even a discarded plastic grocery bag blew across the asphalt.

  Any hope he’d had deflated, as if he’d made the third out in the bottom of the ninth. It was his last good swing, and he’d totally missed the ball.

  Think, Walker. Think. Where would they take her? They could be anywhere by now, even halfway to the other side of the world. God, where is she?

  The sound of tires crunching over gravel stopped his self-condemnation. A late-model SUV crept into the counseling center parking lot and disappeared around the back of the building.

  Andrea. It had to be the men who had Andrea.

  He eased his window down and tuned his ears to the faint sounds coming from the back of the building. One. Two. Three. Four doors slapped shut on the vehicle. With no way to know how many people climbed out those doors or how armed they might be, he didn’t dare move to investigate.

  This was a familiar sense of helplessness. Once again, here he sat possibly only feet away from a woman in danger, and he was paralyzed by circumstances beyond his control. A dozen tactical scenarios played out, but none of them would help a man with no weapon and no idea who his adversaries were. Josh gripped the steering wheel. If only there was a way to know she was definitely with them, that rushing in and putting his life in danger had a purpose.

  As if on cue, a scream cut the air. “Somebody—” The rest of the words were muffled and choked.

  His feet hit the pavement before his brain knew he’d moved. Andrea. She was still alive. And only feet away. Close enough to reach yet a million miles distant.

  He stopped himself and let his eyes scan the building, trying to formulate a plan. Years of training kicked in, forcing him to seal his emotions into a box and to view the scene with calm pragmatism.

  First he had to know what he was up against. That required a recon of the back of that building. As he ran back to the car, new sounds erupted. Doors slammed, tires squealed and the SUV roared around the side of the building, blasting onto Victory Drive toward the highway without stopping for oncoming traffic.

  The activity shattered his plans. Was Andrea in that vehicle? He swung his attention back to the counseling center. Or was she inside, possibly…

  No. He couldn’t believe this was over, that he’d found her only to lose her.

  A flicker of movement in the lobby pulled him closer. Somebody was in there. He scanned the parking lot and made a dash for the building.

  The sickly sweet aroma of gasoline wrapped around Josh’s throat and dragged him back in time, tried to incapacitate him, to remind him of his weakness. Instead of the building, his memory raised a car engulfed in flames. Shaking his head as if to erase the haunting memories of the long-ago nightmare, he focused on the counseling center. Flames rolled out of the storage room off the lobby, licking at the floor, leaving blackened slashes to autograph their territory. The window nearest the fire cracked, a streak running like lightning across the glass before it shattered into jagged pieces.

  Nausea roiled his body in racking waves. God, anything but this. Anything. He wasn’t even sure she was in there. How could he even contemplate diving into that hell?

  But somewhere, something deep inside told him he had to. This wasn’t about proving himself or atoning for a past that was long forgiven. As well as he knew his own name, he knew Andrea was in that building, and dead or alive, he was the only one in the position to bring her out.

  “Hey! You need help?” The shout came from behind him.

  Josh whirled to find several people at the gas pumps next door, watching with growing interest. “The building’s on fire. Call 911.” He ran for the broken window and stepped forward with cautious urgency. Could he do it? With an aching arm to remind him of last time, could he step into that burning building?

  “Don’t do it!” The voice came again, frantic this time. “Don’t try to be a hero, dude!”

  Hero. The word tried to trip him up and belittle him. No, he wasn’t any more of a hero than the next guy, but he knew what he had to do. It was incongruous, the thoughts in his head in the face of a living nightmare, but it was true. He’d worn failure like a warped badge of dishonor. It was past time to rip that thing off and replace it with the truth.

  That was it. If the situation he was in didn’t hold so much urgency, he’d stop right now and drop to his knees. All along with Andrea, he’d done exactly what he could do, pushed himself to the limits of his human ability. It was up to God to do the rest.

  Just like with Lauren. Just like with Brendan. Saving them hadn’t been up to him. He hadn’t been given the gift of knowledge and opportunity.

  This time, he had both.

  He pulled straighter, standing tall against the weight of gasoline-fueled failure.

  Sucking in a breath tinged with the blackened smoke of history, Josh turned his good shoulder toward the smoke roiling out of the window and plunged into the unknown.

  *

  Mr. Miller kept a firm grip on Andrea’s wrist. She balked at being dragged into her windowless office, away from all hope of being seen. He jerked her arm and she stumbled into the room behind him, crashing into the chair in front of her desk. He shoved her into the seat and looked down, all pretense of kindness evaporated. “What else do you know?”

  “I didn’t know anything in the first place.” She kept her voice defiant. He might kill her, but she’d never let him believe he’d gotten into her head, and he’d sure not destroy her soul. The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?

  “I’m running out of patience.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door at the popping sound of the fire, then yanked the gun from his side and held it to her forehead. “Where are your notes? I want everything Cameron told you. Everything you passed on to the detective. Now.”

  “They’re not here.” That part was true. Since they didn’t exist, the notes sure couldn’t be in her office. If she could lead these men on a wild goose chase, maybe it would buy Josh and the police the time they needed to find her.

  “Where?”

  “I’d have to take you.”

  “We don’t have time for this.” Miller shook his head and yanked the cord from the phone on her desk, his eyes never leaving hers. “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for.”

  For a second, Andrea thought he was going to wind the cord around her neck, but he forced her hand down to the chair and wrapped the thin cable around her wrist.

  Andrea kicked and fought, trying to land a knee or a foot anywhere she could, but Miller braced his shin across her thigh and worked faster. “I was going to shoot you, but you know what? I can’t. It must be that I’m getting soft, but I got too attached over coffee to look you in the eye while the life bleeds out of you.” A thin sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead as Andrea continued to fight. “Still, as much as you’d like me to, I’m not taking you out of here with me.”

  Andrea yanked her wrist, but the cable only pulled tighter, cutting into her flesh. “And you’re not going to let me walk out of here alive, either.”

  “Good guess.” He threaded the cord around itself and tested the tightness. “You’re right.”

  As he said the words, something in the lobby exploded, and the smell of gasoline assaulted her nose. “You’re going to burn this place down. With me in it.” She couldn’t stop the panic from cutting into her voice this time, her nerves as tightly wound as the binding around her wrist. The trembling set in, knocking her knees together. “I’d be better off if you shot me.”

  “Probably. But you can’t always get what you want, and I have to get back to my gas station next door so I can call the fire department and report this tragedy.”

  The brutality of the man in front of her stunned Andrea as all options dwindled. This was it. No one was coming. If she had realized this morning that this would be her last day, she wouldn’t have censored herself in f
ront of Josh, would have told him she loved him, even if the feeling was only in the immature, first-blush stages. He’d have at least had that after she was gone.

  A figure materialized in the increasing red glow of the doorway. Josh. Shoulders squared, fists clenched, he stared hard into her eyes, then deliberately slipped his gaze to the gun in Miller’s hand.

  Andrea drew in a deep breath and lashed out with a foot that caught her captor square in the kneecap. The gun clattered to the floor as he staggered back.

  With a roar that tore the air, he shed the facade he’d worn since the first moment he met her and drew back his fist.

  The impact hardly registered as Andrea slammed head-on into overwhelming darkness.

  *

  The white-hot anger that hit Josh’s veins rivaled the heat building behind him.

  As Andrea slumped forward and Miller pulled his fist back to strike again, Josh dipped low and charged, his shoulder catching the older man in the back.

  They hit the floor with a crash, the bulk of Miller’s body landing hard at an angle that forced Josh sideways against the chair holding Andrea prisoner.

  The impact rattled Josh’s sinuses and whipped his head backward into the desk, blowing dark spots across his vision. While he tried to pull his world back into focus, Miller rolled away.

  He moved with surprising agility for a man of his size as he scrambled for the gun. He was nearly on his feet when Josh shook the last of the stars clear and lunged low, striking Miller in the hip and driving him into the ground.

  Above the older man’s labored breathing, the crackling flames filtered into the room, pulsing a new urgency through Josh’s consciousness. If the fire reached that door, they were done. No window. No way out. As soon as this was all over, he was ripping a hole through that wall himself.

  “Where did you come from?” Miller choked out the words as he struggled to gain traction on the low pile of the carpet.

  Josh drew in a deep breath. He wanted to respond, but the burn of fire and smoke was growing hotter by the second. He glanced at the door. It was still clear, though smoke filtered in along the ceiling. Dialoguing was out of the question.