by Lexie Davis
Blake sat the gun against her thigh. “I don’t know. I don’t clean my own game and I don’t bait my own hook. It grosses me out. I can’t go if you make me do either.”
Ryder chuckled. “I’ll do it for you.”
* * * *
“It took him long enough,” Ryder said when McKenna pulled into the complex. “I’m going in the front to make the arrest. You sit tight.”
“He’ll run.” She met Ryder’s eyes. “Bet you twenty bucks Robert will run.”
“If he does, let him go. You’re a citizen today. Not a cop.”
Ryder glanced around the area, checking both the front and back locations. There wasn’t much he could do other than post uniforms along the sides with their guns drawn. It wouldn’t help that much though.
Ryder leaned over the console and kissed her lips. “Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”
“I’ve got your back.” She grinned and kissed him again. “And your front.”
He climbed out of the SUV and met up with McKenna. He handed Ryder the arrest warrant, and they filed inside. The building looked like everything else in Robert Stevens’ life. Large, extravagant, and worth tons of money. He flashed his badge to the people at the desk and requested the penthouse code before heading to the elevator.
He stepped inside the box and drew his gun, waiting as each of the floors passed by. Robert chose floor thirty-three for his penthouse suite, and it seemed to take forever to get there. The cell phone at his hip buzzed, and Ryder glanced down with a frown. Who could be calling him now?
He reached down and answered. “James.”
Blake’s frantic voice nearly screamed into his ear. “Get out now, Ryder. He’s rigged the place with a bomb set to explode when the elevator doors open.”
Before Ryder could respond the elevators opened, and a red light came on directly in his line of view across the room. Seconds later, the place exploded.
Chapter 9
Two of Robert’s men stood before her, talking about what a scene the explosion would be. She’d made the warning call to Ryder right before the condo above her exploded. She ran toward the mass of people trying to escape. People ran in all directions creating considerable chaos all around. Blake the mess, bumping into others running away from the building. She barely stood on her own two feet as she moved toward the doors, trying to get inside.
“Uh-uh.” A hand grabbed her arm and halted her, the barrel of a gun poking against her back. “You’re coming with me.”
She cocked her head to the side, immediately recognizing the tall man dressed in a perfect Armani suit. Robert Stevens. She knew better than to struggle. Too many people surrounded them and Robert Stevens was probably stupid enough to open fire in the uproar ,potentially harming innocent bystanders. A small child ran to its mother’s arms, and Blake took a deep breath. She cooperated.
He led her to the far side of the parking lot, forcing her toward the awaiting limo. She noticed his quick glance around as sirens sounded at a distance. Within seconds, he effectively disarmed her, taking away the gun she put in the small of her back.
“Get in.”
The back door to the limo opened. It wasn’t smart for her to leave with him. Everything she learned in her training and over the course of the past few years told her she needed to plead and beg, trying to gain an advantage to get away.
“I said get in.” He shoved Blake inside and climbed in after her.
The smell of burning marijuana filled the tiny space within the car. Curtains covered the windows making the inside virtually black. She tried not to breathe in the secondhand smoke.
A light clicked on, and Robert’s face came into view. “How did you know about my bomb?”
She glanced at the gun. He didn’t look like a guy that spent time perfecting his aim or the art of using a firearm. He looked more like a threat, hoping to use it to his advantage against the little weak woman. He didn’t scare her. Even with the gun in his hand and probably seven rounds of bullets loaded with the safety off, he damn near shook. What was he so afraid of? With all the smoke filling the short supply of air in the limo, he had to be a bit stoned. She needed to stall.
“Your people have big mouths.” She narrowed her eyes. “Part of my job as a detective is to listen. And your people made it easy for me. Especially when they’re standing in front of me talking about how big of a scene it would be. If you listen long enough, and give the suspect enough rope, the guilty hang themselves.”
Robert’s eyes darkened. “Is that so? Did you hear that? The guilty hang themselves.”
The window divider slid down, and Blake couldn’t hide her surprise. Her jaw dropped in shock as Levi came into her view. He took a puff off his blunt and blew it slowly into the back of the limo.
“Surprised to see me, sweetheart?” Levi asked. His pupils dilated, his eyes a bit red. “I have to say when I landed a job at Stevens Enterprises this past summer, I never expected to see you again.”
“You.” She tried to remain in control of her anger.
Levi chuckled. “I knew you’d be happy to see me.”
Blake’s jaw clenched. He stole information from the files and leaked it to the media. He harassed her. He set her house on fire. All of these things only fueled her anger even more the longer he sat in front of her enjoying his pot.
“You burned my house down.”
“Drastic times call for drastic measures.” Levi shrugged. “I told you I wanted to talk. Instead, you pull your gun on me and tell me to leave and never come back. Needless to say, you pissed me off.”
“So this is your sick and twisted payback? Kill me?” She snorted. “That’s rich.”
Levi moved slightly. “It wasn’t my plan until I seen that other jackass feeling you up outside the police department. And after you shot Seth, you stayed in his bed, in his arms. That is a huge disappointment, and your actions only confirmed my plan. And Mr. Stevens, well, he and I had a common goal.”
Blake diverted her attention to Robert. “You killed her, didn’t you?”
Robert sat quietly, pointing the gun at her. He looked saddened by the mention of Sophie’s death. He aimed the gun at her. His hand shook slightly, though it lessened somewhat since she first entered the car. His eyes glossed over with tears as she stared at him. If he hadn’t kidnapped her, held her at gunpoint, and thrown her to her ex, she would have considered he had true remorse.
“Accidentally,” he whispered. “I planned for Rick to have the accident. Ice covered the roads he took. I made sure of it. With no brakes, plenty of trees and nothing to stop him when he skidded. I took the time to perfect my plan but I didn’t expect my Sophie to get behind the wheel.”
A tear escaped his left eye, and he didn’t bother swiping at it. Robert Stevens continued to surprise her today. He stared at a spot on the floor, his eyes unfocused as he relived that night. Blake waited.
Sophie did happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Blake couldn’t imagine the motive. Robert had planned to kill Rick, making it look like an accident.
“I loved her like she was my own, but she couldn’t marry that bastard. He used her. I saw it with my own eyes. He’d take overnight business trips and bring back bills from entertaining a different woman each night. All at the company’s expense.” He paused. “She claimed she loved him. I tried to understand. I tried to push aside my own feelings toward Rick, but I didn’t buy their relationship. He showered her with attention and used her for money—my money—and left her crying at night because of what he did.”
Blake inhaled reluctantly, her mind starting to ache from the smoke. “So you paid someone to cut the brake line?”
“Yes. Jean Perez.” The valet. Blake swallowed hard to keep her emotions down. “Seth Cameron took care of the evidence. He erased the tapes and filmed over them while Jean cut the brakes. He made sure to drive the car slow when he brought it around front so nothing seemed out of place, using the emergency break to stop. He also was in
structed to hose down the parking lot so the evidence disappeared.”
She thought back to the evidence they collected. She found the last piece of their puzzle. They couldn’t link Jean Perez to anything, and now she knew why. Her mind drifted to the explosion, and she immediately pushed the thoughts away. She wished she’d called him seconds earlier. When the guys spoke, it took her a few minutes to realize what they meant. Robert set a bomb at his condo to deter the police from finding him. She and Ryder just happened to show up sooner than planned. She knew Ryder reached the floor about the same time as the place exploded. She needed her strength to get her out of this alive. And get back to him.
“Where are you taking me?”
“To the airport. I’m catching a flight out of the country, and you’re staying behind to have a little fun with Levi.” Robert gave her a malicious grin.
Over my dead body. Blake considered her options. She’d lost her firearm, held captive, and a bit buzzed from her surroundings. Robert had her gun. She couldn’t let him out of her sight until they arrested him. And he couldn’t be arrested if the police didn’t know where they went.
She stared at the curtained window. She needed a miracle. Close to breaking down, she thought back to what Ryder said on their way to the condo. He wanted to take her hunting at his family’s cabin. He even promised to bait her hook so she didn’t get grossed out by the worm guts. The thought brought up an array of emotions that she really couldn’t deal with.
She loved him. It was the worst moment to realize it, but she fell in love with him at some point over the course of this case. He didn’t seem to mind her family too much, and made a noticeable effort to be there when she needed him. She assumed in the beginning it had little to do with her and everything to do with him losing his partner. But she saw it differently now. He cared for her. Truly. And she wanted to tell him how much she cared for him too.
He could be hurt, or worse, dead. She was stupid and a coward to run from what she knew she wanted. She wanted him. In every way possible. And when she made it out of this alive, she would have him. No excuses.
“What’s wrong, Princess?” Levi asked. “Missing Prince Charming?”
Blake pursed her lips. He knew his words annoyed her. When his fist punched her stomach or his foot kicked her back, he followed it up with some insolent remark about her looking and being like a princess.
“You do, don’t you?” Levi mocked her. “Aw. Isn’t that sweet, Mr. Stevens? Her little boyfriend is dead, and she misses him.”
He pouted his lips. “You didn’t get to say that last goodbye, did you? You worried too much about alerting him of our misdeeds that you didn’t get to say you’re I-love-yous. You didn’t even get to have one more kiss or one more round between the sheets.” He raised the gun and pointed it at her. “Too bad you won't get to see one more day.”
* * * *
Ryder came to with a groan. McKenna knelt beside him, poking at his shoulder. Smoke filled the room. Flames licked the walls high and bright, reminding him abruptly of what just happened. Every muscle in his body felt ripped from his bones as he tried to sit up. He coughed instead, inhaling a lungful of smoke.
“Come on, James!” McKenna yelled over the roar of the fire. “We need to get out of here.”
Ryder forced the smoky air into his body and coughed. “I think I broke my arm. It’s killing me.”
The other detective helped him stand. He grunted in pain and limped along with his partner. “The fire will kill you if we don’t get out of here.”
They made their way to the stairwell and started descending down the thirty-something floors. He barely remembered what happened, and the harder he tried to, the worse his head hurt. He coughed and sputtered. McKenna’s strength kept him from collapsing as his legs carried him down the flights of stairs. He had to get out of here. He had to find Blake.
He stumbled around floor twenty-three, barely catching himself before he fell to his ass. People started entering the stairwell, clogging it with frantic movements and a rush to get outside. They moved with the frantic people, finally making their way to the tenth floor. He couldn’t stop, no matter how bad his arm hurt, or how bad his legs and lungs burned. He finally made it to the fifth floor, panting with breaths as he coughed. He stopped a moment as his head swam.
“You okay? We need to keep moving, James. I’m sure there are medics outside. They have oxygen for us. But we have to keep going.”
Ryder groped at his hip, looking for his cell phone. It’d disappeared. He remembered speaking with Blake right before the explosion, her warning him not to go inside the penthouse. He rubbed his forehead as people shoved at him. Blood smeared across the back of his hand.
They finally made it to the ground floor and entered into even more chaos. McKenna’s grip never faltered as he led him out of the building. Ryder watched as he helped others as well. Firemen scattered about everywhere, escorting people out of the building while the police cars filled his line of view outside. An EMT rushed over to him and ushered him onto a stretcher. He reached for an oxygen mask and covered Ryder’s face. Ryder took a deep breath and coughed, his body jerking off the gurney with the force.
“Relax and take a deep breath,” the medical technician said. “We’re going to take you to the hospital.”
The tech examined Ryder’s hurt arm. He didn’t even remember what happened to cause the break. When the explosives detonated, he remembered the bright red light on the trigger. Then he woke up, his face pressed into the floor, pain shooting through his right arm. It almost seemed as if he blacked out.
“I need to find my girlfriend.” Ryder pushed the mask off and tried to sit up on the stretcher, grunting with the effort. “She’s in danger. I need to find her.”
The EMT gently pushed him back against the gurney. “Sir, I’m sure the police are on it. Right now, you need to go to the hospital and have your arm looked at.”
Ryder pulled out his badge. “No. I need to find my girlfriend.”
The EMT nodded and grabbed a sling. “You might have a break in the bone. Use this.” He handed the sling to Ryder. “As soon as you find her, you need to see a doctor.”
“I will,” Ryder promised.
Ryder put his arm in the sling and moved across the parking lot to where he’d left Blake. His lungs still burned, and his arm felt like someone pulled it in fifteen different directions at the same time. The SUV was empty when he reached it, and Blake, nowhere in sight. With the madness in the parking lot, she could be anywhere. He stopped a civilian and commandeered his cell phone. He punched in her number and waited for her to answer. He got her voicemail.
“Shit.” He hung up and dialed Lou. Got his voicemail too. Ryder gave up and climbed in the SUV. He pulled her computer out of the bag. After a few clicks, he had her GPS system up, and the little red dot tracked the movement of her cell phone toward the Minneapolis-St. Paul International airport. “I’m so glad you’re a computer geek, Blake.”
He tore out of the parking lot heading into downtown traffic. He followed the flow of traffic maneuvering his way around town. He may have grown up in St. Paul, but he chose to live in Minneapolis. He knew both cities like the back of his hand, and that information came in handy when he joined the force a few years back.
And moving at a decent pace through downtown at rush-hour seemed nearly impossible. He cut through the side streets while keeping an eye on the computer screen. The stupid thing flashed “low battery,” only adding to his troubles as he cursed a blue streak. The cell phone rang, and Ryder answered it.
“Blake?”
“No. It’s Lieutenant Nelson. Where is Warren?”
“Her GPS says she’s heading toward the airport.” Ryder turned down another street. “I think Stevens has got her, sir. Or maybe Levi Holmes.”
“You think?”
“I went in to arrest Stevens, and the condo exploded. Blake warned me a few seconds before it happened so she had to find out somehow. I doubt she’
d go willingly, so there’s a chance she could be hurt or in danger. I need some backup.”
“You’ll get it. I’m closing the airport and sending my men. Who is Levi Holmes?”
“That’s a long story.” Ryder turned down another road, weaving through the streets of Minneapolis. “He’s tied into her past, but I think he may also have something to do with the case. I have reason to think he’s been messing with evidence and could possibly be associated with Stevens Enterprises.”
Lou sighed. “Please bring me back a suspect alive, James, if at all possible. I want to convict someone, not have another body to process through the morgue.”
Ryder hung up. He wasn’t more than twenty minutes away from her, if they kept her there. He glanced over at the GPS and noticed it stopped at the main entrance. He waited. He didn’t breathe for a full five seconds. Enough time had passed and he really didn’t want to go inside the airport to take down this scumbag by himself with a broken arm.
The past flashed before his eyes faster than a bolt of lightning. His former partner stood before him, ready to arrest the suspect. Nick didn’t listen to reason or follow the rules. He left, entered the suspect’s territory, risked the entire case, and died because of it. For the longest time, Ryder couldn’t feel remorse for him. For a long time, Ryder blamed himself for what his partner went through.
He knew Nick, the know-it-all rookie cop, didn’t have a clue. He should have kept a closer eye on him but didn’t. And when he found out what Nick did, he didn’t even bother going to the hospital. He regretted it now. Blake is smarter and more experienced than Nick. She’ll be okay.
The GPS dot started moving again, away from the airport. His instincts told him that Blake still had the phone. His gut feeling said that she wouldn’t leave the GPS phone because she knew that he would find her. He followed the beeping red dot, spotting a black limo up ahead as he neared. He dialed his superior and gave him his location.
