Broken Promise

by Tara Thomas

  “Is that smile for me?” Brent asked, walking into the bathroom.

  She couldn’t reply right away because instead of waiting for her to answer, he started taking his clothes off. First, he toed off his shoes, then he slid his socks off. He’d unbuttoned his shirt before lifting his head as he waited for her to reply. He smiled.

  “I took that to be a rhetorical question,” she said. “But I’ll answer any way you want as long as you finish what you were doing with that shirt and move on to your pants.”

  This time his smile turned into a laugh. She loved his laugh. It was deep and rich and never failed to send shivers up her spine.

  She still couldn’t keep her eyes off him. Especially as he stripped his shirt off. And most especially as his fingers drifted to the button of his pants. But then they stopped again and she almost whined.

  “Janie,” he said, but his voice was all wrong.

  Heart pounding, she looked up.

  He smiled, but it wasn’t the smile that made her all warm and happy inside. It wasn’t Brent’s smile at all. She blinked. Brent was gone and the man in his place was partially hidden in the shadows.

  “Ready for some fun?” the man that wasn’t Brent asked.

  She tried to get out of the bathtub, but found she couldn’t move. Looking down, she realized she wasn’t in a bathtub at all. She was bound to some sort of table.

  Her eyes watered because even as she tried to pull and jerk against the rope that held her to the table, she knew it was a lost cause. She tried anyway.

  He stood in the shadows and laughed. “I’m glad you’re finally awake enough. I thought maybe I gave you too much the second time and ruined the game for everyone.” He took a step forward and her heart raced. The light fell across his face and she screamed.

  Mac. She hadn’t escaped after all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  They stopped at a remote part of the park that Brent estimated was about two miles from the red dot that represented Janie. There were several roads through the forest, but they’d decided on this one because it got them the closest. Which was why he didn’t understand why Alyssa told him they needed to stop where they were. He paced back and forth in front of the car as Alyssa turned on the computer.

  “I don’t understand why we aren’t getting closer.” He spun around in the dirt and looked at Alyssa.

  She didn’t even look up from what she was doing. “Because the dot hasn’t moved. So either it’s just her phone or they’ve stopped for the night.”

  But he knew there was one other possibility that could explain why the dot hadn’t moved. He wasn’t going to say it out loud. It was bad enough it had been a thought in his head. He stormed over to where Alyssa was.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m getting into Mac’s computer.” She didn’t stop her actions, but at least she was explaining what she was doing. “I know his username, and if I remember correctly and he hasn’t changed his password…”

  He looked down the road that would take them to Janie. Or at least the red dot that symbolized her at the moment. “Let’s go.”

  “Hold on.” She didn’t even look at him.

  “I’ve been holding, and I’m going to find her myself. If you want to come—” The rest of the sentence left him as Alyssa lifted the laptop up and showed him the bottom.

  “Holy shit.” Brent couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “He taped his password to the bottom of his laptop?”

  “He made it too difficult to remember. He thought he was being clever.” She talked while she typed. Her hands paused. And then she spoke with a huge grin. “I’m in. Trust me on this. We need to take a few minutes to plan.”

  He took a deep breath, mentally gave her sixty seconds, and watched as she went into Mac’s e-mail.

  “It looks like most of his correspondence is with a man named Mr. G. That could be anyone.” She scrolled some more.

  “Did you have access to his laptop?”

  “No, why would I?”

  He shrugged. “I know some couples share that kind of stuff.”

  “I never even thought about going into his laptop. After all, I never offered to let him use mine.”

  He was getting ready to tell her that of course she wouldn’t, but that she was a police officer, when she said, “This is interesting.”

  “What?”

  “The last e-mail is from tonight and it’s unread.” She pointed to it and read the part visible in the preview pane. ‘Why aren’t you answering your phone? Call me immediately. What the hell have you done?’”

  “So Mac’s gone rogue?”

  Alyssa nodded. “From the looks of it. Unfortunately, we still don’t know what he’s up to because we don’t know what his plan or orders were to begin with.”

  Brent was getting ready to say more, but the silence was broken by a sharp scream.

  “Janie,” he whispered.

  * * *

  Mac laughed, but there was meanness in his eyes. “Scream all you want, no one’s coming.”

  “I don’t believe you.” And just to prove her point, she screamed again.

  He was by her side almost immediately and slapped her face. Hard. She was so shocked that he’d hit her, she stopped. She could tell he was shocked, too. It occurred to her that maybe he didn’t have any problem dealing with the other women he’d kidnapped, but he might with her. After all, she wasn’t a nobody, a stranger, to him. She was his girlfriend’s best friend. They’d shared meals together. That was when it hit her that she’d finally accepted that he was the man they’d been looking for. Then she realized that in knowing her, he also knew what she was capable of and that made her feel even stronger.

  She hoped to God the drug he’d used on her had run its course. She didn’t think she could handle one more hallucination. Not if it had Brent in it. She closed her eyes to block out every thought of him. She would need her mind completely clear if she was going to be able to pull off an escape. And at the moment, she had to focus on Mac and not Brent.

  Mac hadn’t liked hitting her. She needed to do more to remind him that he knew her. Rule number one: make them see you as a real person.

  “Why?” she asked him. “Why me?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Why not you? What makes you so special that you should be spared?”

  She shrugged or she shrugged as much as she was able, being bound to the table. Anything to keep him talking and to not show fear. “I don’t think Alyssa will be very happy.”

  His eyes blazed and she struggled to hide her shock. She’d never seen him that animated before. He bent low and in doing so, put his face right in front of hers. “I’m doing this for Alyssa. I’m doing it to keep her safe. He promised me she’d be safe. So you can drop the game of let’s keep him talking so he realizes I’m a real person. I know you’re a real person, but I’m never going to pick you over her. And if that means I have to take you out, I’ll do it. For her.”

  He spun around and mumbled to himself as he walked away. Janie let out the breath she’d been holding and called to his back, “It won’t work that way, you know.” Hell, did he actually think he was being noble in his actions? Was he planning on Alyssa thanking him? Was he that delusional?

  Mac didn’t turn around but he did stop.

  “There’s no way he’ll let you go now,” she told his back. It had always been a theory that whoever they were looking for was not working alone. Nice of Mac to confirm that. But she still had to keep him talking. “Not that easily. Especially knowing how far you’ll go for her. He’ll always be there, between you.”

  He still didn’t say anything. In fact, she wasn’t sure he even heard her. But then she saw it, he balled his right fist and let it go so quickly. She’d have missed it if she hadn’t been watching him so closely.

  “Are you going to let him have that much power over you?” She might be pushing him too far, but she had to do it.

  She wasn’t sure how much time she had l
eft.

  He spun around and the rage she saw reflected in his expression took her breath away. He lifted a fist. “Not another word.”

  * * *

  “Brent, no.” Alyssa put her hand on his arm as he turned toward the sound. “You can’t just run off like that.”

  He grit his teeth because he knew she was right. They were close to her. She was alive. The smartest thing to do would be to stay calm and plan. He knew that.

  But there was another part of him, a rather big part he could admit, that whispered just because she screamed didn’t mean she was still alive. That part of him urged him to run toward where the sound came from and make up a plan on the way.

  He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if anything happened to Janie because he didn’t head to her immediately. Hell, he was smart enough to know that no matter what happened, he didn’t want to face the future without her.

  Rather than giving into either side, he picked the option in the middle. He didn’t ignore Alyssa’s advice, but he didn’t allow her to take him back to the car, either.

  “You’re killing me,” he said. “If something happens to her and it’s because we didn’t run off the second we heard her…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. It hurt too much to think, much less say out loud. He’d never felt more defeated.

  But one look at Alyssa showed him she was feeling the same. “I know,” she whispered. “Trust me. I know. But I’m also a cop and experience has shown time and time again that if we take a few minutes to plan, it works out the best for everyone.”

  With a silent nod, he allowed himself to be led back to the car. The entire time, part of him screamed inside that they were wasting time and that they needed to find Janie now and to hell with a plan.

  It tore him up inside that he’d heard her screams and he knew the sounds would haunt him for a long time to come. The worst part was, he felt helpless at the moment. There was nothing he could do to save her. He’d never been helpless. He’d worked hard his entire life to avoid that very thing. Yet when it mattered the most, all his hard work was good for nothing.

  Alyssa took him to where she’d set up the laptop on the hood of the car. “I’ve skimmed through his read e-mails and from what I can piece together, he’s definitely acting rogue.”

  “What? He wasn’t supposed to kidnap Janie?”

  She flinched. “No. Not exactly.”

  “How do you not exactly kidnap someone?” He watched her carefully, making sure she didn’t hold anything back.

  “He wasn’t supposed to kidnap her. He was supposed to kill her next weekend.”

  The ground underneath him tipped and for a second, he thought he was going to throw up. Even though the threats Janie had received had stated as much, to hear them verified only intensified his desire to run toward where he’d heard her and not rest until she was safe in his arms.

  “We have to find her,” he repeated to Alyssa. “Now.”

  “We are, but we can’t run off without a plan. Look at this rationally.”

  His fear for Janie was rapidly turning into anger at Alyssa. “Don’t you dare stand there and tell me to be rational when the woman I love has been kidnapped. By the man you’re fucking, I might add.”

  She surprised him by staying calm. “I get that you’re worried. I even understand your anger and why it’s directed at me. But I need you to understand a few things. One, every time we argue, we’re wasting valuable time that could be spent on Janie. Two, Janie is like a sister to me and I will fucking take down anyone who hurts her.” A knowing grin covered her face. “And let’s not forget, I know Mac better than anyone.” At his raised eyebrow, she typed something on the laptop. “For example, I know that he doesn’t handle sudden change very well. It’s borderline debilitating to him. So if we wanted to completely wreck his plan…”

  As she detailed her ideas, something that felt a lot like hope made Brent smile for the first time in hours. Hang in there, Janie. Just a little bit longer. I’m coming for you.

  * * *

  Mac was worried about something.

  He stood in a far corner of the room, looking anxiously at his phone and muttering under his breath. And even though she wasn’t close to him, she could feel the sweat appear on his forehead. He eventually looked up and caught her staring.

  Shoving his phone in his back pocket, he walked toward her. “What are you looking at?”

  “I’m trying to decide how long you’ve been tangled up in this mess.” No matter what he’d said, she felt she had to keep him talking. When he did, he couldn’t hurt her or give her more of that drug. “I’m also trying to figure out why you got involved in the first place.”

  His phone buzzed and he pulled it out of his pocket while he talked. “That one’s easy. I’m actually surprised Alyssa didn’t tell you all about it. Gambling debt.”

  Alyssa had never mentioned anything like that to her, but more unsettling was his remark. She wasn’t sure why, but the way he spoke it, so offhandedly, made her wonder again if her friend had been aware of everything from the beginning.

  She felt like a traitor to even think such a thing, but the investigative part of her knew she had to consider it. The profiler on the case had always held the belief that whoever their suspect was, he also had some sort of “in” with the Charleston PD. What would be better than to have a girlfriend who was not only on the force, but was also working the case?

  Janie searched her mind, struggling to find any clue that would corroborate the hypothesis of Alyssa playing both sides since the beginning. No matter how far back or how deep she looked, she couldn’t find one. Nothing. Janie hoped she wasn’t letting her friendship blind her.

  Just the thought of their friendship was enough to bring back everything they’d gone through as friends. And they’d been friends as well as coworkers for years before Mac even appeared on the scene. All the late night girl chats on the phone. The many times they commiserated about the sorry state of any man over thirty with a pint of double mint chocolate chip and two spoons.

  No. Alyssa wasn’t involved. No way.

  “Why are you so quiet all of a sudden?” Mac asked.

  “Just wondering if Alyssa knew about everything this entire time and was just playing me.” She found it was hard to get the words out.

  She didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone’s face get so red so fast. “No,” Mac said. “Keep her out of this. She has nothing to do with it.”

  For a second she was touched by Mac’s seemingly protective assertion that Alyssa was blameless. But then he opened his mouth and blew that all to hell.

  “She’s much too weak to be involved,” he said. “Like all women. She couldn’t handle it. Women are good for one thing and it’s not what they have between their ears.”

  “Yup,” Janie said. “I’m beginning to see why she always put off marrying you. That’s disgusting. Tell me, is she fully aware of your view on womanhood?”

  “Of course not. I’m not an idiot. I was planning to wait until our honeymoon before telling her she had to quit the police force.”

  “Oh my God, you’re serious. If you knew her at all, you’d know she’d never quit.”

  “She wouldn’t have a choice. Besides, being a cop is too masculine a profession.”

  How was it possible Alyssa had dated him for as long as she had and not seen or at least sensed the monster inside him? “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

  He laughed. “Yes. And I have you here all alone. Think about how that’s going to turn out for you.” He leaned in way too close for her comfort and whispered, “You here with me. All alone and no one having any idea where you are.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Brent’s phone buzzed with an incoming e-mail. He glanced down, planning on ignoring it as he had with all the other e-mails that had come through that night. Yet a look at the subject line changed his mind. This wasn’t any ordinary e-mail. It was the report on Mac’s financial records that he had requ
ested weeks ago.

  Alyssa looked at him like he was crazy for reading an e-mail. Too bad. Though it was small, there was a chance the e-mail might contain something that would help Janie. He opened the e-mail, scanned it, scanned it again a second time, and closed it, full of rage.

  “Alyssa,” he said.

  She looked at him, her eyes growing large at his expression. “Yes?”

  “Did you not think it was odd, or at least a little bit strange, that your boyfriend had one and a half million dollars in gambling debts?” It took all he had to say the words, he was so mad he could hit something.

  Alyssa grew pale. “One and a half million?”

  Brent didn’t have time for this, he just looked at her. And waited.

  “One and a half million,” Alyssa mumbled to herself.

  “Don’t act like you didn’t know.” He was so tired of all the lies and deception and cover-ups. When would someone give him a straight answer? “Don’t play me for a fool.”

  “I have never lied to you.”

  “Perhaps we need to define the word lie,” he said. “Because in my book, keeping information that you know is pertinent to an investigation, is very much a lie.”

  “Did I know he had gambling debt? Yes, of course. But when I found out, it was only a quarter of a million. And he told me he would get help.”

  “And you just believed him, and never questioned him? Honestly, I thought you were smarter than that.” He really didn’t need to sit here arguing with her over this, he needed to be out looking for Janie. He took a step away.

  “Wait.” She put her hand up to stop him. “You have to believe me. He was getting help, going to counseling. I saw that. You have to believe I didn’t know about the one and a half million.”

  Brent had always considered himself a very good judge of character, and for some reason, he didn’t think Alyssa was lying. He still wasn’t sure how she didn’t know about the money Mac owed, but he was going to believe her. Because even more than he believed in his own instincts, he believed in Janie and Alyssa was her best friend.