by Janie Crouch
They all nodded.
“I overheard neighbors talking as I was coming out. Ends up that Ms. Snell did not have ex-boyfriends,” Derek continued.
“What, like she was married?” Roman asked.
“Widowed. Basically a recluse.”
Ashton looked more closely at Derek. “Could she have had a boyfriend before?”
“Neighbors have known her for ten years. She’s never had a boyfriend in that time.”
Ashton shook his head. “Why would someone call 911 and report an ex-boyfriend if there wasn’t one?”
“Exactly.” Derek gestured down at Ashton’s phone. “Where are Summer and Chloe?”
“They’re on their way to Atlanta. I didn’t want them going to the airport alone so Tyrone Marcus escorted them. I got a text from him about an hour and a half ago saying she’d gotten on the plane and he was heading back to HQ.”
Derek nodded. “Good. I was just checking.”
Something wasn’t sitting right with Ashton. “But then I got a text from Summer about twenty minutes ago. Asking if I was okay.”
“Shouldn’t she have already been in the air by then?” Lillian asked.
“That’s basically what I said. That it was dangerous to use a cell phone in flight. She didn’t respond.”
Ashton took his phone out and immediately dialed Summer’s number. Straight to voice mail. That could just mean she’d done what he’d asked and turned her phone off.
His second call was to the Omega switchboard, which could connect him to Tyrone Marcus.
“Ashton, hey,” the other man answered.
Ashton skipped all pleasantries. “Did Summer and Chloe get on the plane?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You escorted them all the way to the gate?”
“Yes. I waited until they got on the plane before I left. Ms. Worrall was one of the first people on since she needed extra time to get Chloe settled.”
Right. That all made sense. Ashton nodded at the rest of the team who were watching him.
“Thanks, Marcus. I appreciate you taking them.”
“Any time.”
Ashton knew he should feel better, that this tightness in his gut should go away. Summer and Chloe were on their way to somewhere safe. They hadn’t used any Omega computers to book the tickets, so if there was a computerized or personnel leak at Omega, the perp wouldn’t know about Summer’s plan.
But something about Summer’s text didn’t sit right with him.
I know you probably can’t talk. I just need to know if you’re okay.
Why would she be worried about him? When Ashton had handed her over to Tyrone Marcus’s care, he hadn’t given her any information about the op he was about to go on. Had the text been just general concern?
The truck pulled up at Omega headquarters.
Something wasn’t right. Ashton knew it. Last time he’d ignored his instincts, Tyler Worrall had gotten killed. Ashton wasn’t going to ignore his instincts now.
“Derek, something’s off, man. You felt it, and I second it. That whole situation with Tamara Snell seemed...” Ashton wasn’t sure what the right word was.
“Staged,” Derek finished for him.
“Yes.” That was it. Staged. Ashton pinched the bridge of his nose. “Almost like how we went off looking for Harper across town last night based on an anonymous call, only to find Harper hadn’t been there for hours. Then today, 911 gets an anonymous call about a violent ex-boyfriend only to find out the victim didn’t have any ex-boyfriends.”
Derek nodded. “I agree. Something’s headed our way.” He turned to the rest of the team. “We all stay prepped and ready until Ashton has official word that Summer and her daughter are safe.”
Staying in full SWAT gear definitely wasn’t comfortable but none of the team complained.
“I need to get in touch with someone from the Atlanta Bureau field office to escort Summer and Chloe to Summer’s sister’s house once they arrive. I’m not taking any chances.”
“Got someone you can call?”
Ashton had been working law enforcement long enough to have made friends all over the country. “Yes. It won’t be a problem.”
He was in the process of dialing when another call came through. A local one.
“Ashton Fitzgerald.”
“Hey there, Ashton Fitzgerald,” a mocking voice said. “I’ve been trying to get your attention lately.”
“Curtis Harper.” The heads of everyone in the van whipped around to look at Ashton. “You’ve done more than just try to get my attention.”
Ashton brought the phone down from his head and switched it on to speaker mode so everyone could hear.
“I have to admit, you’ve been more difficult to kill than I thought you would be,” Harper said.
Ashton shook his head. Evidently Harper wasn’t intelligent enough to realize that he’d just confessed to crimes they’d linked him to but didn’t have hard proof. And he’d done it on a federal agent’s phone which could be recorded at any time.
“Sorry to disappoint you.”
Harper laughed. “Don’t worry, I have a new plan now. Wanna hear it?”
“Absolutely, Harper. Nothing I would like more.”
Derek was already up and on the phone. Probably with Omega Sector to see if they could trace Harper’s call.
“How about you come to my father’s house? Or what was my father’s house before it was abandoned and repossessed. Thanks to you.” Harper rattled off an address. Roman wrote it down.
Derek circled his finger in the air signaling for Ashton to keep Harper talking.
“Sure, Harper, want to give yourself up?”
“No. I thought you would come alone and give yourself up.”
“And why would I do that?”
“Because maybe you’re willing to trade your life for Summer Worrall and her daughter.”
Ashton’s grip tightened on the phone. He forced his voice to keep calm. If this was some sort of fishing expedition on Harper’s part, Ashton didn’t want to give him any info. “Ms. Worrall has already headed out to visit friends in Los Angeles. I’m sure she’s already enjoying the sunshine.” He didn’t even hesitate to lie.
“That might have been true if we hadn’t taken her off the plane heading toward Atlanta a little while ago.”
Ashton’s eyes flew to Derek’s. This was bad. Too many details that rang true. One, that Harper knew Summer and Chloe had been heading to Atlanta, and two, that he mentioned getting her off the plane.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Lillian get on her phone.
“If you have Summer, let me talk to her.”
“Sure thing.”
“Ashton?” The dread in his stomach solidified at the sound of her voice. That was definitely her.
“Summer? Are you okay? Chloe?”
“Yes, we’re fine. We’re okay.”
“I’m coming for you, okay? Just hang on.”
“No, Ashton, it’s a trap. It’s—”
He heard the sound of skin connecting with skin before Summer cried out.
“I think that’s enough talking to her.”
“Damn it, Harper,” he roared into the phone. “If you hurt her—”
“You have thirty minutes to get here, Fitzgerald. It’s time for you to pay for what you did to my dad. Come alone. If I see anyone else, she dies.”
The call disconnected. Roman immediately spun the truck around and they were on their way.
Ashton felt stunned. How had Harper gotten Summer?
“You can dump us half a mile out and take the truck in yourself,” Derek said. “We’ll get into position and radio you with what we find.”
Ashton just stared at the tea
m leader for a long moment. Derek reached over and clasped both hands onto Ashton’s shoulders. “I know it’s tough, but you have to focus. She and Chloe are still alive. That’s the most important thing.”
Derek knew from firsthand experience what it was like to have the woman you loved held by someone with plans to hurt her. His wife, Molly, had been kidnapped by a terrorist intent on torturing information out of her.
Ashton nodded. Derek was right. He had to focus. Work the problem. This was what the team trained to do.
But it was so much damn harder when it was the people you loved on the line.
They were all already in full gear. All already situated with comms. Harper had given him thirty minutes, thinking it would be a crunch, causing Ashton to panic and not be able to bring the team with him, but he’d been wrong. They were ready and Harper was going down.
“I just talked to my contact at the airport. Evidently an ‘Omega agent—’” Lillian put her fingers up for quotations “—flashed a badge, stated there was an emergency and got Summer and Chloe off the plane.”
Damn it. That would’ve been after Tyrone Marcus had left. He’d seen Summer and Chloe onto the plane. There was no reason to think someone would dare take her off it afterward.
“Here’s a picture of the agent.” She passed her phone around.
“That man is definitely not Curtis Harper,” Ashton said.
“It could be the same guy Harper met with after the shoot-out on Friday. Different appearance but same height and build,” Lillian pointed out.
“We still have no idea who this guy is, right?”
Lillian shook her head. “Jon and Brandon are working on it, but nothing as of right now.”
“I’ve got the details on the address. It’s a foreclosure property. Been empty for years,” Derek said. “It’s a large, dead-end lot. Shouldn’t be anybody else just hanging around.”
Ashton checked the clip of his sidearm as if he didn’t already know it was ready to go. “Good, we don’t want any friendlies in the way.”
“HQ is coordinating with locals,” Derek continued. “There will be a roadblock on all roads about two miles out from the house. If Harper tries to run, they’ll stop him. Bomb squad and medics are on their way just in case. They’ll come in stealthy so as not to aggravate the situation.”
“He’s got a lot of advantages, Fitzy,” Lillian said softly. “He knows the house. He has this second person. We’re going in blind with little prep time.”
“I know.”
“He could shoot you outright and we couldn’t do anything to stop it,” Roman continued from the driver’s seat, all signs of his usual jesting nature gone.
Ashton shrugged. They weren’t saying anything he didn’t already know. “But you’d be able to get Summer and Chloe out. That’s the most important thing.”
“Alright, people, cut the goodbyes. That’s not what we do,” Derek said. “Everybody stay frosty. Ashton, you get in there and don’t get killed. We’ll get the tactical positions we need and call it in to you.”
“Okay.” Ashton slipped the earpiece into his ear. “But Summer and Chloe are the most important thing. Nobody lose track of that. You see a chance to get them out, you take it. I don’t care what happens to me.”
Years of training were the only thing that kept the panic from swallowing Ashton. He couldn’t let himself dwell on how frightened Summer had to be. And Chloe’s little face—he had to push that away entirely. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to focus the way he needed to.
Summer and Chloe would get out of this.
If Ashton walked away, too, that would just be a bonus.
“You keep your Kevlar and your helmet on,” Derek told him. “If mystery man number two is around with a rifle, we’ll find him. But it will take a little time. Let’s not give him a free shot.”
“Buy us time with Harper, Fitzy,” Roman said. “We’ll have your back.”
“I wish I had some pointers from Joe Matarazzo.” Joe was the best hostage negotiator any of them had ever seen.
“We’ll patch Joe through from HQ,” Derek said. “But you’ve heard him enough to know a lot of his tactics. Just keep the perp talking as much as possible. Listen to him. Give us time to do our job.”
“I’m better with a gun than words,” Ashton muttered. “Always have been.”
The truck stopped and the team filed out. Ashton had been trusting them with his life for years. Trusting them with Summer and Chloe’s was harder, but he knew he could.
“You guys,” he told them as he got into the driver’s seat. “These girls are everything to me.”
Derek and Lillian nodded.
“We’ve all known that from the first muffin, man.” Roman winked. “We’ll get them out.”
Chapter Nineteen
Ashton made no attempts at stealth as he inched the SWAT van toward George Harper’s house. He had to force himself to go slowly, just like he’d had to force himself to not speed immediately to the house once the rest of the team had sprinted off for their tactical positions.
Everything in him screamed to barrel down the road, to burst into the house guns blazing, to make sure Summer and Chloe were safe again. Only the knowledge that his not-so-elaborate plan would do more harm than good stopped him.
Give the team time to get into place. Harper should be glad it wasn’t Ashton positioning himself with his sniper rifle. For the first time in his career, Ashton wasn’t sure he would wait for the green light to take the shot.
His watch beeped. It was now twenty-eight minutes since Harper’s call. Show time.
He pulled the truck up the isolated road and into the Harper driveway. Grass grew two feet tall all around him. There’d been no upkeep at the place for years. A nondescript vehicle was parked in the cracked driveway.
“Got a gray early-model Camry at the front of the house,” Ashton told the team as he checked inside. “Empty.”
Most of the windows in the house had been knocked out by nature or vandals. Some were boarded up. The front door leaned off its top hinges and sat at a canted angle against the floor, barely upright.
Ashton turned off the truck and got out. “I’m about to enter.” Ashton wouldn’t be able to say much once he was inside if they wanted to keep up the appearance of him being alone.
“Roger that,” Derek responded. “Roman is moving in toward the back to check out closer around the house. Lillian is establishing sniper positioning. So far we’ve had no sighting of Harper’s accomplice.”
There was a hell of a lot of empty ground where the other man could be hiding.
“Backup is on the way. ETA five minutes. We’ll have thermal imaging soon, Ashton. Just draw it out as long as possible.”
“Roger.”
Of course, if Ashton walked in there and Summer or Chloe was hurt—or, oh God, he could hardly bear to think about it, dead—drawing it out wasn’t going to be an issue.
As if he could read Ashton’s mind, Roman muttered, “Fitzy, training, man. Not emotion.”
“I’ll try.” But his promise sounded weak even to himself.
He made his way through the overgrown grass, eyes scanning everywhere for anything that might be useful or pose a threat. The porch steps made a loud sound as his booted feet landed on them. That was fine, Ashton wasn’t attempting stealth.
“So you made it,” he heard Harper say, although he couldn’t see the man. “I had wondered if you would make it in time.”
“I’m coming in, Harper.” Ashton slid the broken front door back as far as he could and stepped inside. The interior state of the house—if it could even be called that with the amount of broken windows and doors—wasn’t any better than the outside.
Ashton stepped over a pile of trash and rounded the corner of what used to
be a coat closet that faced the front door. This brought him into what looked like a dining room. A few more steps brought the back room into view.
Harper stood there, grinning like an idiot, gun in hand. Next to him, sitting on the couch, gagged with her arms tied in front of her, was Summer. Chloe was in her car seat on the floor a few feet away from Summer, sleeping.
Something eased slightly in Ashton. They were alive. He would damn well make sure it stayed that way.
“I see Summer and Chloe are alive. Is it really necessary to gag Summer and tie her up?” The info was for the team, apprising them of the situation.
“I’m in charge here, Fitzgerald. You do what I say.” He swung the gun around at Summer. “Or she’s the one who gets dead.”
Ashton held his arms out in front of him. “Okay, Harper, you’re the boss. Whatever you want, that’s what we’ll do.”
“That’s right, I am the boss. Why are you in your SWAT gear?” Harper’s eyes narrowed.
“Because I was at a hostage situation across town when you called. I came straight here.”
“Take out your gun and put it on the ground slowly.”
“Why don’t you point your gun at me? I’m the one you have to worry about.”
Ashton didn’t like how shaky Harper’s hands were, especially with the gun pointed so close to Summer.
“I’m not stupid, Fitzgerald. I know keeping this pointed at her is the only way to keep you in line.”
Harper was correct about that. If Lillian had a shot available, she might take it if Harper had his gun pointed at Ashton. She wouldn’t take the chance if Summer or Chloe’s lives were at stake.
“Alright, Harper. Here’s my gun. I’m putting it on the floor.”
“Kick it away from you.”
Ashton did, but probably not as far as Harper would like.
“Take off your helmet. I want to be able to see your face clearly. I want to know that you wish you hadn’t killed my father.”
