by LENA DIAZ,
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
He reached for his gun.
“Wait, wait. I remember. I had it with me up in the mountains. It was in my duffel bag, the one...” She swallowed, trying to force words past the anguish tightening her throat. “It’s in the bag...Dillon...tied behind the mare’s saddle.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “I remember the mare. He let it go when you two raced off on the other horse.” His hand relaxed away from his gun, as if her mentioning the mare had lent credibility to Lauren’s made-up story. “Where’s the mare now?”
She hesitated. Dillon had said the mare was trail trained, that she’d go right back home to the farm. But there were people at the farm—Griffin, the farmhands. She couldn’t put them in danger by leading him there. All that would do was buy a few more minutes, or however long it would take to get to the farm. Once he realized she didn’t have any special access codes, she was as good as dead anyway. She couldn’t trade a few more minutes for the lives of innocent people.
“I don’t know.”
He whipped his gun out and pressed it against her forehead again. “Rethink that answer.”
She swallowed hard. “I don’t know where the mare is.”
He grabbed Lauren by the hair and yanked her to the opening at the back of the van. Lauren whimpered and grabbed his hands, blinking against the rush of tears that flowed down her cheeks. Iceman pressed the gun against her temple. “Tell me where the mare is, or she dies.”
“Ash, please,” Lauren pleaded. “Please don’t let me die.”
“Hold it, wait!” she yelled, hating herself for the choice she was making, but she couldn’t let him kill Lauren. She would just have to pray she could somehow do something to alert Griffin and the others before they fell prey to the Iceman. “The mare would have gone home. She should be at Dillon’s horse farm by now, Harmony Haven.”
He must have seen the truth in her eyes, because he shoved Lauren away and slammed the doors shut.
* * *
DILLON STARED UP at Chris, Donna and the chief and tried to make sense of why he was lying flat on his back on the grass and the three of them were on their knees, bending over him. Black smoke billowed into the blue sky above him and the acrid smell burned his nostrils and made his eyes water. Sirens sounded far off in the distance.
A violent cough racked his body and set his head to pounding as if a herd of horses were galloping around the inside of his skull. He cursed and raised his hand to cradle his head, but Chris grabbed his arm, stopping him.
“Be still, John Wayne. You’re bleeding all over the place.” As if to prove it, he held up what appeared to be a shirt. Dillon couldn’t be sure, because it was covered in blood. Chris turned it and pressed it back against the side of Dillon’s head.
Dillon sucked in a breath at the sharp pain that lanced through his skull. “What happened, Billy Bob?” he asked, his voice coming out a thick rasp.
Chris exchanged a surprised glance with the others. “It’s Billy the Kid. Get it right, partner. And as for what happened, we were hoping you would tell us that.”
The chief squatted down beside him. “Miss Parrish called nine-one-one. She explained that Luther Kennedy murdered Special Agent Kent and you two were holed up in your parents’ house and needed backup. When we got here, half the house was on fire and the rest of it was full of smoke. Chris, fool that he is, raced inside. Lucky for you, he found you and got you out in time.” He cleared his throat and looked away, as if he couldn’t bring himself to say the rest.
“What?” Dillon demanded. His stomach knotted and his heart slammed in his chest as the sickening realization hit him. He didn’t see Ashley anywhere. He grabbed the chief’s arm. “What happened to her? Tell me!”
Chris pulled the shirt away from the side of Dillon’s head as if to inspect the cut, then shook his head and pressed the shirt back. “The fire was too intense. I barely got you out before the rest of the house went up. If Miss Parrish was inside...” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, man. We got here too late.”
Images slammed into him. Ashley beside him in his mother’s sewing room, watching him open the floor safe. Movement out of the corner of his eye. Too late, he saw Iceman, swinging one of those damn swim trophies at him. Ashley screaming, trying once again to help him instead of running to safety like she should have. A deep, burning pain in the side of his head. Falling to the floor. Pain shooting through his head, making everything foggy. Unable to move even as he heard Ashley scream and he realized Iceman was taking her away. Then nothing, until now.
He tried to sit up, but Chris and Donna both pushed him back down.
“For God’s sake, Dillon,” Donna chastised him. “You’ve got lumps the size of Ping-Pong balls all over your head. And if I’m not mistaken, a bullet grazed your scalp. You’ve probably got a concussion, and if you get up you’ll start bleeding again. Lie down and wait for the ambulance.”
Dillon shoved Chris’s hand away. “Iceman has Ashley. I remember him pulling her down the hall. He has her. I have to help her.”
“What makes you think he didn’t kill her and leave her in the house?” the chief asked.
“He could have killed her several times over already, but each time he didn’t. He wants her alive. Whatever he wants her for, he still hasn’t gotten it. He took her. He’s got her. Let me up, Chris. Or I’m going to knock some teeth out.”
Chris frowned but pulled his hands back.
Dillon scrambled to his feet, then wobbled as the world tilted and spun around him.
Chris swore and grabbed his arm, steadying him.
Dillon drew several deep breaths and the spinning stopped. For the first time he realized exactly where he was—the edge of the front lawn of his parents’ house, or what was left of it. Flames still ate at the wooden structure, but the second floor wasn’t even recognizable anymore. His chest tightened and for a moment he couldn’t seem to draw a breath. All those memories, his mother’s quilts, the trophies she’d treasured...all gone, including Harmony’s. He dropped his head to his chest. He just couldn’t watch his parents’ dreams going up in smoke anymore.
And that’s when he saw them.
He bent down, studying the dirt where the yard ended and the road began. “Fresh tire tracks. Wide apart. And he must have turned the wheel right here,” he said, pointing. “That marks the wheelbase, longer than a car. Iceman took Ashley away in a small truck or a van of some kind. Did you pass any vehicles on the road when you came here?”
Chris shook his head. “No. This isn’t exactly a high-traffic area around here. I suppose he could have gone down a side road if he heard our siren.”
“Since there’s not much traffic, that should make figuring out what he was driving and where it went fairly easy,” Dillon said.
The sirens were much louder now. Lights flashed on an ambulance about a half mile down the road, racing toward the house. Behind it, a tanker truck turned onto the long road.
The chief stepped closer, as if to make sure he could be heard over the noise. “I bet if we make a few phone calls we’ll pinpoint exactly what type of vehicle drove through here and we’ll be able to track it at least until it reaches a major highway, if that’s where Iceman...Luther went.”
“I’m on it.” Donna took out her cell phone.
Five minutes later, Dillon was sitting on a gurney in the back of the ambulance having his head sewn up. He refused to go to the hospital until Ashley was found, but he’d compromised and agreed to a quick repair while Donna worked on figuring out exactly where Iceman’s vehicle—which she’d determined from eyewitnesses on the road was a white panel van—had gone.
Firemen worked to put out the blaze, even though Dillon didn’t see the point anymore. The house was a total loss.
“Let’s talk it out,” Dillon said, not
willing to put all his hopes on Donna being able to figure out where the van went. “Maybe we can figure out where Iceman would take Ashley and why. What did you find out while we were holed up in the mountains?”
“Random stuff,” Chris said. “We don’t have much.”
“Start with the Dunlop family and their business. What do you know about them?”
“Okay. Todd Dunlop had three kids, a girl and two boys. They’re all grown adults now. Patricia Dunlop, the woman who came to the station, is his third wife.”
“You mean Cruella de Vil’s not related to any of the children?”
“No. Why?”
“Just thinking out loud. What else, what else?” He winced when the EMT pressed gauze against his head.
“They had a prenup agreement, so if anything happened to the husband, the wife got nothing.”
“What about life insurance?”
“Everything is going to charity. The wife, the kids, they don’t get anything.”
Dillon stared at Chris. “Nothing? He was a billionaire and he didn’t provide for his family upon his death?”
“Not that we’ve been able to tell. The family plans to ask for an injunction while they fight in the courts. But what difference does it make? Todd Dunlop wasn’t murdered.”
“I know, I know. I’m trying to figure out how Iceman, Luther Kennedy, fits into all of this and why he wants Ashley alive. We know he was a thug, but that Todd Dunlop trusted him. Why would he trust a shady guy like that?”
The chief hooked his fingers into his belt loops. “Maybe he was afraid of Luther. Maybe Luther blackmailed him into giving him a job.”
Dillon glanced at Chris. “Any evidence of that?”
“No. None.”
Donna ended her latest call and joined them. “I’ve got a call tree going like wildfire. If anyone knows anything, they’ll let us know.”
Dillon nodded his thanks. “We need more information on Luther. Donna, would you place a call to the Knoxville FBI office? Don’t tell them about Kent yet. That will bog down the conversation and we don’t have time for that right now. Tell them Kent is unavailable and we need everything they have on Luther right away.”
“You got it.” She pulled her phone out again.
The EMT finished bandaging the side of Dillon’s head. “I highly recommend you go to the hospital, sir. You might have a concussion.”
“I’ll go later.”
The EMT glanced at the chief.
The chief sighed and nodded. “Go on back to town. He’s not going to change his mind right now.”
Dillon eased himself off the gurney and out of the ambulance and stood with Chris and the chief as the ambulance headed back up the road. “Todd Dunlop essentially committed suicide by cop at Gibson and Gibson. He wanted to kill the person he felt was responsible for embezzling funds and ruining his company. Before Kent was killed, he told me he had evidence that indicated Lauren Wilkes, Ashley’s best friend, was the one who stole her identity. By Ashley’s own admission, her friend wasn’t that good as an auditor, barely even passed her classes. That reinforces Kent’s theory that Lauren teamed up with people at the companies to get them to embezzle in some kind of blackmail scheme. What we need to know is who she teamed up with at Dunlop Enterprises.”
Chris frowned. “But we already know—Luther embezzled the money.”
“Are we positive?”
The chief shook his head. “It seems the most likely scenario, but no, I haven’t seen any real proof yet.”
“I don’t think he did,” Dillon said.
“Why not?” Chris asked.
“Because Luther is so determined to keep Ashley alive. He doesn’t strike me as the type to go after someone that hard unless there’s a benefit to him. And he’s taking tons of risks—shooting at cops, killing a federal agent. If he’s got millions stashed away, why not take the money and run? Why risk being killed or sent to prison?”
Chris shook his head. “Son of a... He doesn’t have the money. That’s the only reason he would take those risks.”
“I agree,” Dillon said. “Somehow, abducting Ashley is the key to him getting the money. We know he had it at one time, or at least access to the money. If he was partnering with Lauren Wilkes to embezzle the money, she was the only one with access to it. Somehow she has the money and he can’t get to it. And he believes Ashley is his key to getting the money.”
“Lauren Wilkes is the key,” the chief said. “Find Lauren—”
“And we find Ashley,” Dillon finished.
The chief folded his arms. “We still don’t know Miss Parrish’s role in this. Maybe she was colluding with her friend in the embezzlement.”
Dillon gritted his teeth. “No. She wouldn’t do that.”
“You sure about that? Willing to bet your life on that?”
“Yes.” And suddenly, he knew it was true. He trusted Ashley, with no reservations. “I’m not sure why I’m so sure, but I am.”
Donna hung up her cell phone again. “You’re not going to believe this.” She joined their circle by the road. “Luther Kennedy wasn’t just an errand boy for Todd Dunlop. Luther was Todd’s illegitimate son. And that’s not all. Interviews with the Dunlops’ household staff indicate the marriage was on rocky ground and that Patricia Dunlop had contacted a lawyer about breaking the prenuptial agreement. She was told it was rock solid, no chance that it could be broken.” Her face broke into a wide smile. “Ask me what else I found out.”
“We don’t have time to make guesses,” Dillon said.
Her smile dimmed. “Okay, okay. With the Dunlop family being billionaires, their children’s escapades tended to catch media attention. Which means a lot of their actions get caught on camera by paparazzi. And one of those camera hounds snapped pictures of one of the sons, David, with his latest girlfriend, about a month before Todd Dunlop’s death. Guess who she was?”
Dillon stared at her. “Lauren Wilkes?”
“Yep. And guess who was killed in a car accident, a one-vehicle accident with no witnesses, a few days before the Gibson and Gibson shooting?”
Chris, Dillon and the chief all exchanged glances. “David Dunlop,” they said in unison.
“Yep.” Donna looked very pleased with herself.
“So what the heck is going on?” Dillon scrubbed the stubble on his jaw. “Did David know about the embezzlement? Do we have a love triangle here? Lauren played Luther and David against each other and tried to skip town with the money? And Luther killed David?”
“It all comes back to the money,” the chief said. “But I still don’t understand how it all fits together.”
Donna’s phone rang. She grabbed it while all eyes focused on her. “Yep, yep, right. Got it. Thanks.” She hung up, her mouth flattening into a tight line. “I was able to confirm sightings of the van up to the Youngbloods’ farm ten minutes west of here as the crow flies. But I haven’t gotten anything after that. I’m sorry, Dillon.”
Dillon gritted his teeth and gave her a crisp nod.
The chief gave him a sympathetic look. “Donna and I will go back to town. I’ll get everyone looking into this case whether they’re a detective or not. We’ll find out everything there is to know about Luther Kennedy. We’ll figure out where he went. Chris, take Dillon to the hospital to get checked out.”
“I don’t need to go to the hosp—”
“That’s an order, Detective Gray. An order you had better follow this time.” He motioned to Donna and they got in his car and headed down the road.
“Come on,” Chris said. “As soon as the doctor checks you out, I’ll take you back to the station so you can help with the investigation.”
Without a word, Dillon swung himself up into the passenger seat of his friend’s four-wheel-drive pickup. But when the truck rea
ched the end of the road and Chris was about to turn right toward town, Dillon grabbed the steering wheel.
“Turn left,” Dillon ordered.
“Left? Why?”
“Because that’s the way to the Youngbloods’ farm.”
“No way. You heard the chief.”
“Fine. I’ll hitch a ride or steal a car, whatever it takes. But I’m not going back to town when I know Luther has Ashley, and he drove west.” He jerked the door handle and opened the door.
Chris grabbed his arm. “Hold it, hold it.” He sighed heavily. “I guess I can always drive a tractor for a living if the chief fires me. Shut the dang door.”
As soon as Dillon shut the door, Chris wheeled the truck west and floored the accelerator.
Chapter Fourteen
A short, bumpy ride later, the van jerked to a stop, its brakes squealing in protest. Lauren grabbed Ashley’s hand, her terror-filled gaze latching onto hers.
It hurt Ashley even to look at the woman she’d grown up with, knowing all the death her selfishness had caused. But Ashley also knew the next few minutes might be their last. She didn’t want to die with all this anger and resentment inside. She closed her fingers around Lauren’s and squeezed, giving her a small smile of encouragement.
Shoes crunched on gravel, coming around both sides of the van toward the back.
“We can’t outfight these men,” Ashley whispered. “Our only chance is to drag this out as long as we can. Hopefully the police are looking for us. It’s our job to outsmart these guys and buy the police the time they need. Or until we can figure out a way to escape. Okay?”
Before Lauren could answer, the doors jerked open. Iceman stood in the middle, flanked by his two thugs. He drew his gun and pointed it at Ashley.
“You. Out. The other one stays here.”
Lauren’s hand squeezed painfully tight around Ashley’s, and Ashley knew exactly why. The man on Iceman’s left side had a predatory gleam in his eye as he stared at Lauren, as if he had plans for her.
“No, I can’t do this alone. I need her help,” Ashley stammered out.
