“Did you see where she went when she left?” Both men watched expectantly, waiting, hoping she had seen something else.
“I had to use the ladies. I went straight there after I checked her out.”
Damn. Randy nodded and thanked the woman for her time and they left. As soon as they got in the car, Joe was scrolling through his phone looking for any clinics in the area that were open on Sundays. “I’m going to start calling.”
“No you’re not. We are going to go to the station and wait for Heath. Then we’ll go from there. We have to be methodical.” A light turned red and the car came to a stop. The officer looked at him. “We will find her.”
“I know. I just want to find her before something bad happens.”
Randy nodded silently and turned back to the road.
‘Bad’ didn’t need to be explained. Both men had enough experience with the kind of people they were dealing with to know what it meant.
The closer they got to the station, the more Joe knew she wasn’t at the doctor. For a minute, he’d let himself hope that maybe it was true. Maybe she did call a cab and go to the hospital. Deep down he knew it wasn’t the case, but at least for a minute or two, he let himself hope that maybe she was safe.
But she wasn’t safe. She was who knows where with the worst kind of men he’d ever met. He hoped she was as strong as she seemed and smarter than she acted this morning. She should have told him what was going on. They could have made a simple call and been safely at the doctors getting whatever she needed to feel better. Instead, she was suffering and alone and probably scared.
And he was terrified.
Heath beat them to the station and was already set up in a room, writing on a white board surrounded by uniformed and plainclothes cops. He looked just as bad as Joe felt. “You tell Gabbi?”
“Let’s just say you’d better watch your back the next time you see her.” Heath scribbled across the board as Officer Quaid filled him in on what they found out from the cashier. When he was done Heath turned to stare at him.
“Since we’re friends, I won’t tell her that part.”
Joe threw his hands in the air. “I didn’t know that could happen!” He slumped down in a chair at the front. “Just find her. If you don't Gabs will kill you second.”
Joe half listened as the group decided to call all area clinics open today, knowing they wouldn’t find her. He was right. They didn’t.
Next came the decision to map out places someone from the club might take her. He gave addresses and anything he could remember about their contacts and friendly clubs in this area. A few of the cops in the room were familiar with the group and had some informants they thought they could pressure for information.
It was after lunch when the group split up to start checking out their list. Joe went straight to Heath. “Who am I going with?”
Heath looked up from the notes he was scanning. “Nobody. You’re staying here.”
“There’s no way. I can’t just sit here while she’s out there. I gotta do something.”
Heath dropped his pencil on the table before leaning forward, elbows on the table as he rubbed his eyes. “Fine. I’ve got to run home real quick and change these damn contacts. You can come with me and then we’ll swing past your house and get you a change of clothes, then we’ll see where they are and head out.”
Joe looked down. He hadn’t paid attention to what he threw on this morning as he ran out of the room to look for Gwen. His short sleeved shirt left his remaining club tattoos on full display.
“That’ll take too long. You go to your house and I’ll go to mine. I’ll meet you at your place when I’m done.” He tugged his keys out of his pocket. Thank God he’d remembered to grab them as he ran out of the room.
Heath shook his head. “Not a good idea. You’re like a freaking beacon in that van. It’s got your name on it for Christ's sake.”
“Give me your car then.”
Heath shook his head again, but didn’t say no meaning he was mulling it over. Joe decided to help the process along. “If you show up with me, Gabbi is going to go bezerk.”
Heath tossed his keys across the table. “Just be careful. If anyone follows you call me and come right back here. If anything at your place looks the least little bit suspicious, leave and-"
“Come back here. I got it.” He grabbed the keys off the table and turned to leave the room, stopping at the door to look back at his best friend. “Hey. Thanks man.”
“Don’t thank me till we find her.”
Twenty-Five
If she couldn’t figure out a way to get away from these two, she deserved to die.
“How ‘bout you stay here while I go?” Skrag was doing his best to stand up to his bigger cohort, but was clearly out weighted, out heighted and out smarted. Not that it would take much.
“Cause you got a big fuckin’ mouth and you’ll tell everybody you see what we got.” Cooter waved his hand in the corner of the barn where Joe had a makeshift gym set up. “Maybe you can get some fuckin’ cardio in.”
He laughed as he walked to the opposite corner where they’d propped Gwen in a corner after wrapping duct tape around her wrists and her ankles. He ran his fingers down her cheek before grabbing her hard by the hair and yanking her face forward to plant a kiss across the swatch of tape they’d stuck across her mouth.
“You be good girl and when I get back I’ll show you what a man I really am.” He stood, hovering above her and used his grip on her hair to hold her head as he thrust his crotch against the side of her head. He released her forcefully.
Unable to use her hands, she toppled to her side, the rough gravel of the floor digging into her temple. He crouched beside her and pressed the muzzle of a small revolver under her chin. “If I get back and you ain’t been good I’ll have to put a hole in you instead.”
Given the option, she would pick the hole over any part of him in any part of her. Good thing they’d taped her mouth shut or she probably would have told him that.
He pulled the gun away and tucked it into his waistband as he walked away.
“Aren’t you gonna leave that here? What if she tries to get loose?” Skrag looked her way. “What the hell am I gonna do then?
“That’s exactly why you ain’t got a gun. She’s taped up like a freakin’ hog. That bitch ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Cooter headed to the front sliding door of the barn. “If you’re gonna be such a pussy about it, I’ll hook a stick through the latch so that even if you fucking let her go she can't get nowhere.”
“How in the hell am I gonna get out then?” Skrag kind of reminded her of a Chihuahua. Buggy eyes, scrawny body, and yappy. Probably a biter too.
“You don’t need to get out. You just sit your ass down right here and wait for me to get back.” The big man grabbed the heavy door and slid it open. “Don’t fuck this up for me Skrag.” He pulled the door shut behind him.
Gwen listened as he barricaded the door. Shit.
Duct tape she knew she could get off. The squirrely driver, she could handle, especially now that she knew he was unarmed. But none of that mattered if she couldn’t get out of the damn barn.
The gravel grinding its way into her skull made it tempting to try to sit back up, but she had much better access to her back pocket when she wasn’t sitting on it. She closed her eyes and tried to will away the pain in her head so she could think clearly and figure out a way out of here.
“That’s a good idea.” Skrag's footsteps were light as he crept across the barn.
She opened her bottom eye just enough to see his boots as he moved to the matted area where Joe had his workout equipment. “We was up all night hopin’ we’d see you.”
She lay as still as she could until the sound of heavy snoring came from the direction of the mats. Clearly he didn't consider her a flight risk. His mistake.
Gingerly, she slid her fingers into the pocket holding the razor she’d snatched from the car, trying her best to get it out without
too much collateral damage. At least she knew it was sharp.
Once it was free, she began twisting her hands around as much as she could, trying to loosen the tape and un-stick it from her skin. She needed as much space as she could manage so she didn’t accidentally slit her own wrists.
Slowly and carefully, she started to work her way up the tape, the blade pinched firmly between her thumb and finger. It was easier to negotiate than she’d expected and in just a few minutes, her hands were free.
Keeping her ears on the snoring biker in the corner, she leaned slowly up and worked the razor through the tape around her ankles. She scraped her fingernail under the corner of the tape across her mouth and slowly pulled it off, feeling it take every little hair and the top layer of her skin with it making her eyes water as she tried to rub away the sting.
She looked around. There had to be something she could use as a weapon around here. Picking her way through toilets and bathtubs, she snuck to Joe's makeshift storage area and started looking around.
A work bench across one wall looked promising. Along the back she found a blow torch. Sitting next to it was a lighter. She grabbed the lighter and moved down to a large shelf filled with jars and cans of random stuff with various oily rags that stunk of chemicals, stuffed between the cans. She carefully moved the cans and rags around reading the labels. She needed something that sprayed and was flammable.
Turns out she had plenty of options. Spray paint, Wd-40, brake cleaner, the shelf was stocked full of accelerants. Joe's homeowner's insurance wouldn't be too thrilled at his collection.
She pulled off a few cans of brake cleaner. It seemed to have the biggest warning about keeping it away from open flames. Choosing the heaviest one she started to move down the line to see what else she could find.
The sound of a car door stopped her dead in her tracks. She could hear the blood rushing through her ears as she searched for a place to hide.
How was he back so soon? She’d expected to have more time. She searched frantically, her heart pounding in her chest.
Getting up to the loft was out of the question, there would be no way down. It had to be down here. And she had to get there fast. She could hear boots crunching up to the barn as she scrambled to squeeze behind a large rack clutching the lighter and brake cleaner tightly to her chest.
She held her breath as the barn door slid open.
“Skrag! Where the fuck is she?”
She listened for more footsteps, more voices. If he’d brought more men with him her odds went down significantly.
Nothing.
So she only had to take on the two of them. With an aerosol can and a lighter. Gwen suddenly felt much less confident in her plan, but there was no going back.
She could hear the gravel flying around as the two men darted around the barn. She was tucked away in a spot that would be hard to find. Hard, but not impossible. Eventually, they would find her.
She had to do something before that happened. It would probably take a couple tries to get the spray lit, so she would need to time it perfectly.
Their voices were getting closer.
Just as she was about to slide out enough to get her makeshift flamethrower going, another car door slammed outside. Her stomach dropped. More bikers. Tears filled her eyes as she tried to think of something, anything that might help her get out of this alive.
“Who the fuck is that?” She peeked through a slit in the boards that made up her hiding spot and caught a glimpse of Cooter peeking out a window. “It’s him. Fuckin’ hell, it’s the motherfucker himself.”
“What are we gonna do?” Skrag ran up behind him, almost bouncing in place with excitement.
“We’re gonna let him come to us. Then we’re gonna have a two-fer.” Cooter was giggling like a school girl.
“We ain’t got the girl though.”
“Oh she’s in here. She’ll come out when we tell her what we're gonna do to her man if she don’t.” Cooter shoved the skinnier man toward the side of the door and both hunkered down together in wait.
It was Joe. She bit her lip to keep from screaming for him to run. It was already too late. He was too close. She could hear him just outside. They could shoot him before he made it two steps.
Why didn't he call Heath when he saw the car and wait for help? Tears streamed down her cheeks. She knew why. Joe would do whatever it took to save her even if it meant his life.
She blinked, trying to keep her vision clear as she fought the fear that could ruin everything. She was the only thing that could save him. Save them. She had to keep it together or everything that was finally within her grasp would be gone. She would never be a wife, a mother, and Joe would never know how she felt about him.
Her eyes narrowed as her tears disappeared along with the fear. Jarod was wrong. She could stop bad things from happening. Her second chance at happiness was not going to die like the first. Not today motherfuckers.
Joe's footsteps stopped. She held her breath. If he was looking in the window he wouldn't see anything. Dumb and dumber were tucked out of sight. She listened as Joe slid open the door. “Gwen?”
She wanted to call to him, tell him she was okay, everything would be okay, but she couldn’t. Not yet.
“You talkin’ about my new pretty little girl Tarzan?” Cooter was out of her line of sight through the crack, but she could see Joe. Slowly his hands went into the air. “We been hopin’ you’d show up.”
“I aim to please.” Joe’s voice was calm and cool and he looked relaxed even with his hands up facing down the barrel of a gun.
“Fuck you Tarzan. I always knew you was a traitor.” He stepped behind Joe.
The sight of the gun pressed in between Joe's shoulder blades made her heart skip a beat. All it would take was one wrong move and he’d have a bullet in his back.
“Skrag, shut that door.” Gwen heard the grating of the door as it slid back closed.
Cooter shoved Joe forward with the muzzle of his gun and in two steps the men were out of sight. Panic swirled in her gut as she strained to hear their movements, trying to make out what was happening.
“Girl! You better come out now or I’m gonna put a bullet in your boyfriend’s head.” The biker's voice came from the far end of the barn.
“Gwen don’t.” Joe’s voice was strong and confident, a command. “Do what you need to get out of here.”
“Shut the fuck up!”
She heard a metallic thump and a soft thud. No, no, no.
“Get over here and help me get his big ass in the chair so we can tie him up. Them boys’ll be here soon.”
“What about the girl?” Skrag's voice faded as he ran across the barn, a brief flash of his body all she was able to see through her crack.
“She’ll come out when they start in on him.”
It was now or never. She couldn’t risk more of these pricks showing up.
Gwen quietly slid out of her hiding spot and crouched low as she looked for the men, finding them struggling to pick up Joe’s dead weight off the floor at the far end of the barn. There was about fifty feet between where Joe lay and the spot where shit would be hitting the fan. She prayed it was enough.
Picking her way through the bathroom graveyard, stepping around toilets and sink bases, she stopped beside an old cast iron bathtub turned on its side.
The two men were so focused on getting an unconscious Joe into a beat up metal folding chair, they didn’t notice her standing watching as the chair folded and all three men collapsed into a pile on the floor, the pistol Cooter dropped during the struggle sitting about three feet away. Hopefully they would be caught off guard and forget it was there. If not, she was dead, but it was a chance she had no choice but to take.
“Pussies.”
Both men stood up and turned to face her, their cheeks flushed with exertion.
“What’d you say bitch?” Cooter took off running in her direction.
Shit. She was hoping he’d be a little more winded from
the struggle with Joe. His pace left her no room for errors.
Pointing the can of brake cleaner at the floor, she pressed the nozzle and struck the lighter. She almost pulled her finger off the sprayer when a burst of flames shot from the can.
Skrag was right on Cooter’s heels and they were within ten feet of her when they saw the fire. Pressing firmly on the top, she slowly lifted her arm to point her MacGivered flame thrower their direction.
Please don’t clog. Her whole plan rested on this can. If that flame went out, it was over.
The men stopped. For a second. Cooter started to laugh. “Bitch, that can’s gonna run out sooner or later.” He took a step closer. “Then you’re fucked.” He took another step.
The men were just outside of the reach of her fire. She couldn’t get them any closer. Hopefully they didn’t have time to run far.
In one steady motion, she swung the flame to her left. Both men took a step closer until they realized what she had done. She stood for one last second, just to see the looks on their faces before they tried to beat the explosion.
She heard popping and hissing behind her as the clean-up rags Joe had stuffed all over the shelf caught fire, the heat building quickly. There was time for one last look as the men tried to run for their lives before she dropped to the ground and pulled the bathtub over her body. As can after can exploded, the roar behind her growing louder and louder, she prayed. Prayed that Joe was far enough away to be okay. Prayed that the tub was enough to protect her. Prayed that those two assholes were in no condition to go hurt Joe more.
Sweat ran into her eyes as the heat from the fire raging just a few feet from her made it feel like she was in an oven. The tub was keeping out the flames and the smoke, but the heat was becoming overwhelming, making her feel sick and dizzy. She needed to get out.
She tried to tuck her fingers under the lip of the tub, but the iron had absorbed so much heat from the fire, it was too hot to touch, even for a second.
Black dots clouded her vision as she laid her head back onto the gravel. She just needed to rest while she figured out what to do. She could close her eyes for a second and then she would feel better and come up with a way out of this.
Out Bad Page 20
