by Kait Nolan
Ty squinted at her, desperately hoping the gesture didn’t make his eyeballs pop out of their sockets. “You’re going to help me?”
“Well, I didn’t drag you awake just to yell at you.”
“Thank you.”
She pointed toward the bathroom. “Go!”
Because he needed more shock to his system, he cranked the water to icy cold and stepped into the tub. Absorbing that fresh agony, he stood for a moment under the punishing spray, trying to logic his way through the situation and find the answers that had eluded him at the bottom of a bottle.
She’d had all night with his harsh words echoing in her head making her think…what? That he blamed her? That he was a weak, cowardly shadow of a man who couldn’t protect her? That he wasn’t even going to try anymore? That he didn’t love her?
None of it was actually true, but he’d said or implied all of it. Of course, she’d want to leave. What the hell had he expected her to do? Just sit around being biddable until he pulled his head out of his ass enough to apologize? In all reality, he hadn’t been thinking. He’d been reacting. And somewhere, deep down, a part of him had said it all to be proved right. That he wasn’t worthy. That she’d ultimately get sick of his shit or disappointed enough to walk away.
Well, congratu-fucking-lations. Mission accomplished.
He had to get to her. He didn’t know what he’d say when he did, but he’d cross that bridge when he got to it.
Fifteen minutes after his rude awakening, he strode into the kitchen, feeling several steps below human. Harrison held out a tall glass with something resembling vomit inside.
“Do I wanna know what’s in that?”
“I assure you, you do not. Here, take some aspirin with it.”
Bracing himself, Ty tossed the pills back and gulped down the sludge. The indescribable horror of it made his eyes water. He slapped the empty glass down on the counter with a gasp. “Was there a raw egg in that?”
“I told you, you don’t wanna know.”
“Ty.” At the sound of her voice, he turned to see Ivy standing in the doorway, face pale, green eyes scared.
The noxious brew he’d just downed turned to lead in his stomach. “What is it?”
“Ari just called. Duke is missing and now nobody can find Paisley. They were out looking, and Ari went to get more people to help. When she came back out, there was no sign of her. She’s probably gone too deep in the woods and can’t hear anyone call her.”
Ty’s heart thundered, dread and horror racing neck-and-neck through his system. “You don’t really think that’s what’s going on.”
“Do you?”
“No.” The stalker knew about the dog. Had already demonstrated once that he could get close to him. What did Paisley love more than Duke? Nothing. She’d walk into hell itself to bring him back. And Ty had walked away, leaving her alone, foolishly believing she’d be safe among all the other guests and staff at the inn.
Harrison’s hand settled on his shoulder. “Wherever your brain is going now, stop. You’re no good to her if you spiral. Lock it down.”
Drawing on all his training, he exhaled a long, slow breath, bullying the fear and the blame into a cell deep in his mind. There’d be time to deal with them later, when she was safe. As he felt the control click into place, he nodded. “Let’s go’”
“I’ll text Sebastian and be right behind you,” Ivy promised.
Harrison drove. The whole way there, Ty prayed he was wrong. Prayed Paisley would be walking out of the woods with Duke at her side. But the people milling about in front of the three-story Victorian and the collection of extra vehicles parked all up and down the drive—including the sheriff—put that fragile hope to a swift death.
Spotting his boss at the center of a small crowd, Ty headed in his direction, Harrison on his heels. Xander looked grim as he held something out. “We found this.”
Automatically, Ty accepted it, staring down at the bright turquoise case with the custom vinyl skin proclaiming Please do not annoy the writer or she will put you in a book and kill you. Paisley’s cell phone. His jaw worked. “Where?”
“About half a mile due east. There—” Xander sighed, “there were signs of a struggle.”
The beast Ty had locked away roared and rattled the bars on its cage. He closed his eyes and allowed himself a single moment to acknowledge the rage. At himself. At whoever had taken his woman. “What do we know?”
“She was planning to leave.” This came from Ari, who’d been Paisley’s shadow since she arrived at the inn.
Ty focused in on her, noting the mix of fear and teenage belligerence in her dark eyes. “She what?”’
“She’d packed her car and everything to go back to Nashville because you were an idiot.”
“Ari!” Pru’s reprimand was horrified and sharp.
“Not helping,” Xander added.
Ty absorbed the words and the guilt they inspired. He’d driven her away even before she’d been taken. Ivy had surmised as much, but the confirmation still rocked him. “She’s not wrong.” Pushing past self recrimination, he turned to the girl. “Did she tell anyone she was going?”
“She said someone was expecting her, but she didn’t say who.”
It had been less than twenty-four hours. He felt in his gut she hadn’t made this call before last night, which meant the stalker had been close, waiting. How close? “Are all the guests accounted for?”
Pru’s eyes went wide. “Are you suggesting one of them could have taken her?”
“Process of elimination,” Xander explained.
Pru’s husband, Flynn, was already headed toward the house. “I’ll go check.”
“Did you see anyone else out this morning? Did anyone?” Ty glanced around at the others gathered, including them in the question.
“It’s midweek so we don’t have a full house,” Kennedy explained. “Three guests have been up and at breakfast in the dining room, and we haven’t opened for the day’s spa appointments.”
Xander studied him. “What are you thinking?”
“That Duke is the friendliest dog in the world, and it doesn’t take much to lure him off. I think he was used as bait.”
“Are there security cameras?” Harrison asked.
“No,” Xander started. “We never—”
But Ty was already running for the house. He bolted up the front porch and through the door. He took the stairs two at a time, racing for their third-floor room.
His duffel bag was still where he’d left it, his work boots kicked over by the chair. But all traces of Paisley and Duke were gone. Her absence struck him like a fist, but he couldn’t take the time to absorb it. He lunged for his laptop, even as footsteps sounded on the stairs.
“What the hell?” Xander asked from the doorway.
“I installed cameras when we moved in.”
“Are you serious?” Ty couldn’t quite tell if there was censure beneath the shock in his boss’s voice.
“I’m a paranoid bastard. They aren’t permanent.”
He pulled up the system, scrolling back the video feeds to about forty-five minutes before as both Xander and Harrison peered over his shoulders.
“Where the hell are these?” Xander asked. “I didn’t see a thing outside.”
“Hidden in the eaves of the house. They’re small.”
“We used all kinds of fun surveillance equipment in the Army,” Harrison added.
“There.”
Duke came into the frame, tail high as he performed his familiar sniffing examination of the side yard. Abruptly his head shot up, ears pricking, and his tail began to wag. He bolted out of view. Toggling over to a different view, Ty could just make out a figure, head down, beckoning the dog from the edge of the woods. He crouched down, giving the dog an easy rubdown, clearly offering him treats that Duke gobbled down without even chewing.
“C’mon, you fucker. Stand up and show your face,” Ty muttered.
As if following orders
, the guy snapped a leash on Duke and rose, taking one last look toward the front of the house and giving Ty a clear view of his face.
“Oh, fuck no.”
Chapter 14
Muted but frantic barking jerked Paisley to consciousness.
Duke.
She turned her head toward the sound, straining to see. But there was only blackness, and the motion made her muscles scream. Everything hurt and her mind seemed shrouded in fog. She tried to swallow, only to find something blocking her tongue. The strangeness of that dragged her back to awareness.
Not something. A gag. And she couldn’t see because she was blindfolded. Her arms and feet were immobilized. Bound to a chair? Wood creaked as she strained to move. The rest of it came back in a rush. The woods. She was attacked. Drugged.
Fresh fear spiked beneath the remnants of the drugs. Where was she? How long had she been out? Where was her kidnapper? She couldn’t hear anything over the roaring of her pulse and Duke’s continued barking. He was alive, and he was nearby. That was…something. Struggling to calm herself, she inventoried her body. Aches from the fall, soreness from where her arms had been wrenched back. But she didn’t feel any major injuries or signs of violation.
For the moment, she seemed to be alone. No doubt, that wouldn’t last. What was her kidnapper’s end game? This whole thing had begun as such comparatively benign contact to have escalated this far. What the hell did he want? Was he planning to keep her, Misery style? Was she expected to be some kind of plaything?
Closing her eyes, she wished desperately for Ty. Did he even know she was gone? If he knew, he was looking for her. No matter what headspace he was in, so long as she was in danger, he wouldn’t stop trying to find her. She knew that beyond the shadow of a doubt. He was going to come for her. She just had to hold on until he did.
The shriek of rusty hinges echoed through the space. A space that sounded far larger than she’d imagined. Paisley repressed a scream as footsteps made their way across a creaky wooden floor, wondering if she should pretend to still be unconscious. But she couldn’t stop from jerking her head toward the sound, trying to track the movement as the person circled around her. Clearing the room? Rescue? Ty?
A low, male voice cursed and rushed toward her. At the sense of hands near her face, Paisley flinched. The blindfold slid away.
“It’s okay. I’ve gotcha.”
She blinked unfocused eyes at the man kneeling in front of her chair. Not Ty. Joel Fisher.
He holstered his service weapon and moved behind her to work the gag free. As soon as it was out of her mouth, she flexed her jaw, trying to get feeling back.
“Are you okay?”
She was too stupefied to see him to focus on anything else. “I…what are you…how are you here?”
With a wry half smile, he began to work at the knots on her ankles. “Just call me the cavalry. I was already on my way up here, so I joined in the search when you disappeared.”
“How long have I been missing?”
“Since this morning.”
So it had been hours, not potential days.
“Why were you even coming here?” Where was here? Was she still somewhere in Eden’s Ridge?
“Deputy Brooks called to discuss the transfer of your protective detail. I understand you’ve had some problems up here. We’ve got a safehouse ready back in Nashville.” Joel paused, his hands on her knees, and looked up with an expression she couldn’t quite read. Earnestness mixed with…a sort of manic adoration. “I’m going to keep you safe.”
Something about this didn’t feel right. Ty didn’t like Joel and wasn’t particularly impressed with him as a detective. Maybe that was colored by jealousy, but even if he was abdicating his own role in her case, he’d find someone he knew and trusted to pass it to.
“Let me get your hands loose.” He straightened, and her gaze dropped to his feet and the dark brown boots he wore. Mud was splattered across the toe of one. Paisley angled her head, squinting at the shape it made. A cross.
Oh my God.
Panicked adrenaline dumped into her system, but she said nothing as Joel began to untie her wrists. She needed her hands free if she was going to do anything. And what the hell was she going to actually do? Wiggling her feet, trying to get the feeling back into her toes and legs, she finally took a look at her surroundings, searching for anything she might use as a weapon.
She was in a church. Or what had once been one. Much of the glass in the lancet windows was cracked or gone entirely. What remained was obscured by a layer of filth. A handful of old wooden pews marched in uneven rows toward where she sat. The pulpit—or where one must have sat—was behind her. A large, broken cross leaned against the raised platform of the dais. There was nothing she could swing. Nothing she could even move in her current condition except the chair she sat in. If there was a door other than the one he’d come through, she couldn’t see it from her position.
The pressure on her arms released at last. On a relieved sigh, Paisley hunched forward, rubbing at her wrists and hands. She needed to buy some time. Every extra minute was another one for the drugs to wear off. And another one that actual help might be on the way.
“Duke. Is Duke okay?”
“He’s fine, I think. Sounds it, anyway. I spotted him in a crate out back.”
What kind of crate will actually hold my little Houdini? She could hear it now, the sound of him rattling the cage. “Why hasn’t anybody let him loose yet?”
“I was more concerned with you.” He held out his hands to draw her to her feet.
“I can do it. I need to do it.” Stubbornly, she shoved to her feet, swaying a little. “You’re here alone?”
“Yes. We split up to search for you. I followed a wild hunch and ended up here. We need to hurry. We don’t know when this guy will come back.”
Moving behind the chair so she could use the back for balance, she insisted, “I’m not going anywhere.” If she changed locations, how much harder would it be for Ty and his people to find her?
Confusion flickered over his face. “What? Of course, you are. You can’t stay here.”
Paisley shook her head, brain frantically trying to find a way out of this. How could she keep stalling him? “I’m not going to live running forever, always looking over my shoulder. I can be bait. You can call for backup. He has to come back for me eventually, and y’all can take him down.”
A muscle ticked in Joel’s jaw. “That’s not an option. We need to go.”
“Why isn’t it an option, Joel?”
Again with the jaw clenching. He definitely hadn’t counted on her being noncompliant.
“There’s no radio signal here. We have to hike out to get one.”
“On the radio you’re not carrying? Or is it because you’re not going to call for back up? Because you don’t want to be caught?”
“What are you talking about? Did he hit you over the head?”
“I recognize your shoes from when you took me down.”
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Why couldn’t you just do what you were supposed to?”
Seeing her opening, she shoved the chair into him with all her might, hoping to knock him off balance. Seconds. It was only going to buy her seconds. But she lunged for the door, dodging pews and broken floorboards. Her hand curled around the knob, yanking it open. She hurtled outside, into weak, winter sunlight. For one glorious moment, she thought she’d make it. But Joel snagged her around the waist.
“Let me go!”
He yanked her off her feet, pivoting them both back inside.
But not before she saw the streak of her dog loose and racing into the woods.
As it was the last place Paisley was seen, the Misfit Inn had been turned into incident command. Search and rescue had been deployed, combing the woods more thoroughly, searching for any additional clues. Ty had called Metro Police in Nashville to confirm what he already knew—that Fisher wasn’t around. He’d taken personal leave four days before.
That wasn’t an indictment on its own, but the report from Carissa Knowles, who’d co-taught the citizens police academy with him was a heavy weight on that side of the scale.
“He really liked her. Everybody did. She was the belle of the class, and everybody had more fun because she was there. But Fisher definitely skated the line with her. Flirting even though she was taken. Touching her more than strictly necessary. She definitely got special treatment and special attention. He got a charge out of all her questions. Like they made him feel all important—big man on campus, as it were. Which was especially affecting for him because he went through a nasty divorce a couple years before. He didn’t take it well when he asked her out and she shot him down.”
“What did he do?”
“To her face, nothing. But there was plenty of that grown-man sulking. He stayed some kind of friends with her. In my opinion, he thought he could wait her out until she was single again. But that didn’t work out for him either. She never went out with him so far as I know.”
That tracked with what Paisley had told him herself. “Are you aware of any history of sexual harassment or other inappropriate behavior from Fisher toward anyone else?”
“He’s had a few slaps on the wrist, but no formal sexual harassment charges. And that’s entirely because many of our superiors are cut from the same cloth.”
“Do you know anything about her case?”
“I knew she’d been up here for something, but not specifically what. Let me see what’s in the system.” The clack of keys sounded in the background. “There is no case.”
“What?”
“There’s not a damned thing in the system after the mugging. If he was investigating this, he was doing it off-book.”
What better way to hide his own involvement than to control the flow of information to authorities? “Thank you for your help.”
“If there’s anything else I can do, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
Hanging up, Ty relayed the conversation to Ivy.
“So, he meets her at the citizens police academy, falls for her charm, develops an attachment, and gets shot down. The next month she’s mugged, and who does she turn to? Fisher. But she still doesn’t take the hint. Doesn’t take it past the professional into the personal he wants. Then the packages start. Nothing major. Just enough to creep her out. Again, she turns to her buddy. She’s getting more and more agitated and worried as things progress. But then you come into the picture, and she turns to you instead of him. That’s when we see the big jump and escalation. Because she’s going off his script. Everything that he’s done since then has been to get her away from you.”
