Birdsong filled the air as she edged up the mountain. She could almost enjoy this little adventure, if she weren’t so concerned about Mom and Dad. And Matt. Somehow, she had to get back to civilization so she could let Matt know it didn’t matter what he did for a living. Not anymore.
The dirt trail began to level out a bit as Lorie spotted a fancy log cabin perched on the edge of a clearing. The view it overlooked took Lorie’s breath away. Down below, she could see a campground, and, not much farther, a small town. A flash of recognition made her smile. Jen had been telling her about the annual music festival that started at Fiddler’s Knob a few years back.
Time enough for that. Seeing a Range Rover parked next to the cabin, Lorie stopped the ambulance and turned off the motor. Maybe the owners would have a cell phone she could use, to let everyone know she’d escaped.
As she approached the front door, it opened.
“Hello. I’m lost. Could I borrow a phone?”
The man filling the door frame moved into the daylight. Recognizing him, Lorie relaxed.
“Oh, Supervisor Pitt. I’m so glad to see you. You won’t believe what I’ve been through.”
“Well, good afternoon, Miss Narramore.” Supervisor Pitt smiled. “I’ve been expecting you. Won’t you come in?”
The hand he waved at the door held a gun. Lorie blinked, but the gun was still there when she opened her eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t. You’ve been very obtuse, but you’re about to be enlightened. Do come in.” His voice hardened. “Now.”
*
Matt took the back road to Fiddler’s Knob. Frank’s information about Joseph Pitt’s property included a cabin up on the Knob.
He prayed silently as he drove. His heart convicted him as he thought about Lorie, his Lorie. He couldn’t stand the thought of losing her…which made his thoughts turn to Owen and Lorene. He’d been so curt with the man, even knowing how he was suffering, how Lorene was suffering. Would it kill him to make peace before she died?
“Forgive me for being a hypocrite, Lord. I told Lorie she needed to forgive people, and here I am still carrying this load of hatred and hurt around.”
Matt almost drove past the half-hidden trail up Fiddler’s Knob, but turned at the last second, the Jeep’s tires kicking up dust.
“All right. I will to forgive Owen and Lorene, Lord. I trust You to bring my thoughts into the right place. Please help me to make peace with them before she dies.”
A subtle shifting in his being settled peace in his heart, giving him a feeling of lightness that made him aware of just how heavily that angry load had been weighing him down. He should have forgiven them years ago. An image of Lorie’s sweet face rose up before him, and with it, a blinding flash of truth. Now he was free to love her. But first, he had to rescue her.
He drove on until he was within a quarter mile of Pitt’s cabin and stopped. He’d go the rest of the way on foot, so as not to alert anyone to his presence. After swapping his Sunday shoes for the hiking boots, Matt checked the clip in his handgun. Only three bullets missing. Quickly he reloaded the clip, then replaced the Colt in the shoulder holster and buttoned his jacket. Silently, he swung the rifle by its sling over his shoulder.
Lord, be with us.
*
The interior of Supervisor Pitt’s cabin was a surprise. The living room reminded her of the lodge on Rob Roy Ranch, but the kitchen was a mass of drug-manufacturing equipment.
This must be the meth lab Matt had been seeking.
Pitt’s son Quentin, whom Lorie had seen a few times at the library, looked around, glared at her, sniffed and returned to his work. The bandage on his arm was dark with dried blood. Had he been the one who shot at her on Chastain Mountain? And maybe at her house? All the evidence seemed to point in that direction.
“Have a seat, Miss Narramore.” Joseph Pitt waved the gun at a sofa.
Lorie sank onto the edge of the cushion as Pitt walked over to stand in front of a massive fireplace.
“I’m sure you must have questions. Feel free to ask. Anything you like.”
Lorie stared at him, taking in the hardness of his face, the coldness of his eyes.
“No questions? What an unusual woman you are.” Pitt set the gun on top of the mantelpiece. “Very well. I’ll enlighten you on my own. It’s important that you understand what you’ve done—and why you must be held accountable.” His fingers stroked a stuffed pheasant that seemed to glower at Lorie with one beady glass eye.
“You still don’t know how you angered me in killing Grayson Carl.”
Lorie held her breath. Was the supervisor somehow connected to Carl?
“Or, I should say, Grayson Carl Pitt.”
Lorie’s blood turned to ice. “He wasn’t—?”
“My son? Oh, yes.”
Questions whirled in Lorie’s brain, caught in a vortex. How? Why? She could barely recognize one before another blurred by.
“But you helped get me my job here.”
Pitt smiled again as he petted the dead pheasant. “And why not? It brought you closer to me. It was much harder, running the intimidation campaign with you sixteen hundred miles away. Gray’s people wanted to eliminate you themselves, but with all the trouble they were having with the DEA by then, I talked them out of it. Family, you know. Still important to some people.”
Lorie glanced around the living room. A Nazi symbol had been superimposed onto the Stars and Stripes, the white circle with its swastika taking the place of the stars in the blue upper quadrant. So. That was why he had wanted the library to order those books.
“You’re an Aryan. How did you explain the existence of your mixed-blood son?”
Pitt’s face darkened. She’d hit a nerve.
“I was young and foolish when I was a Foreign Service officer. I hadn’t yet embraced the teachings of supremacy. Everyone in the movement knows what I stand for now. They believe me when I say that that’s all in the past.”
“I believed you. I believed in you.” Lorie’s heart thudded, pulse pounding in her ears.
“Yes. It’s really too bad about you. I think you might have been useful to me.”
“So what are you planning now?”
“I’ve been considering that. You made me suffer a great deal.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Oh, you’re sorry, are you? You murder my son and then you say you’re sorry?”
“It was self-defense.”
“Enough!”
Lorie jumped in spite of herself. She had to do something before these evil men could carry out their plans, whatever they were. The only trouble was, she had no earthly idea what to do.
*
Matt crept up on the cabin. He’d smelled meth cooking the moment he’d left the Jeep and radioed Frank requesting backup. Maybe this was the break in the case they’d needed. If only it wasn’t too late for Lorie.
The ambulance was parked next to a late model black Range Rover. Lorie was here. She had to be. Matt had no doubt he was seriously outnumbered.
Where were the troops? He couldn’t wait forever, not with Lorie trapped inside with her kidnappers. The front door was easily accessible, and he could find cover in the trees. The back door led out onto a deck overlooking a meadow.
Moving far enough away from the cabin that he wouldn’t be overheard, Matt activated his radio again. “MacGregor. I’ve found the ambulance at Pitt’s cabin. I need that backup, now.”
The radio crackled. The sheriff answered. “We have units en route. Hold your position, Mac.”
“Roger.”
Waiting might very well be the hardest thing he’d ever had to do.
*
It was amazing, really. Supervisor Pitt didn’t look like a madman or a sociopath. Perhaps he had some other mental condition. More likely it was a spiritual condition. Regardless, Lorie knew that she needed to get away from him as soon as possible. She continued to pray silently as she waited for
the right moment to act.
“I had great hopes for Gray.”
Quentin turned around in the kitchen and gave his father an ugly look, but Pitt’s back was to him.
Maybe she could turn Quentin against Pitt.
First, she’d have to keep him talking. “How did you discover you had a son in Colombia?”
“My son found me. Amazing, really. Such a simple thing. He had finally found his birth records. By then his grandparents were dead. He’d inherited some interesting property, and knew exactly what to do with it. Coffee. Emeralds. Cocaine. He’d become a very clever businessman. Relocating to the United States was a brilliant move on his part. After that, he hired private investigators to locate me, and keep it quiet.”
Quentin gave his father another insolent look, which the supervisor missed.
“Why did he keep it a secret? I’d have thought he’d be thrilled to find his father alive after—how long?”
“Thirty-three years. It was—an adjustment, for both of us.”
In the kitchen, Quentin made an odd noise and muttered something under his breath.
Clearly this was a sensitive subject. Lorie racked her brain for something that might get an even stronger reaction. “It sounds like he was everything you could want in a son.”
Pitt’s face hardened. “He was that and more. Until you deliberately stole him from me.”
Oops. Wrong move. And this was one chess game that could get her killed. What could she say to derail some of the anger? He seemed proud of how cunning his son had been—maybe that was a good angle to take?
“He had everyone in San Diego convinced he was a true philanthropist.”
“But he was, my dear.” Pitt smiled at her. “Just as I am. You can check the lists of all the charitable foundations to which I contribute.”
Lorie bit her lip. This was getting her no closer to dividing and conquering. How could she twist the knife for Quentin without setting off his father?
“I can’t understand why you’re willing to risk everything you love. You’ve already lost one son. Surely you don’t want to lose your other one.”
“And why would I do that? Quentin isn’t going anywhere, are you, boy?”
Quentin walked in from the kitchen. “Doesn’t look much like it. You, on the other hand, have been a peck of trouble from the get-go, Ms. Librarian. We should have just killed you. But no.” He glanced at his father. “He had to drag it out, to make you suffer.”
“Now, now, Quentin. You know I didn’t mean for you to get shot. Running them off the road should have finished the whole family. If you’d done a better job—”
Quentin turned purple. “I suppose you think your brilliant son Gray could have done a better job.” He swore. “Your pet project here shot him while he was trying to off that double-crossing chick who was going to turn him in. He couldn’t even protect himself, let alone his operation. And now you’re so smart, you’ve probably screwed up our own operation with your stupid vendetta!”
“Shut up, Quent. It’s over. We’ll take Miss Narramore to the old Cooper place and set it on fire. All the evidence will point to Adderson, and we’ll be home free.”
Pitt gestured with the gun. “All right, Miss Narramore. Time to go. If you’re good, I may even shoot you before I set the place on fire.”
Lord, you were with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the midst of the fire, but please—
“Get the door, Quent.”
Collecting a rope from the hall tree, Quentin put it over his shoulder and opened the door.
“After you, Ms. Narramore.”
With no choice but to follow, Lorie headed toward her doom.
TWENTY
As Matt watched, the door opened and Lorie walked outside, followed by Supervisor Pitt carrying a semiautomatic pistol aimed at the small of her back. Pitt’s son Quentin trailed after them, a rope slung carelessly over his left shoulder.
From his position behind a pine ten yards away, Matt lifted the rifle and sighted through it. He’d take out the supervisor first, and then worry about his son. Pitt’s proximity to Lorie made this tricky. If he missed…
He couldn’t miss. Lorie’s life depended on it.
Very gently, he started to squeeze the trigger—
Cold metal pressed against his right temple. Glancing at the man who had the drop on him, Matt recognized him as Paulie Jones, one of the mechanics who worked at the Pitt Stop.
“Nuh-uh. Lower that rifle nice and slow.”
If he complied, he and Lorie were both dead. If he didn’t, he and Lorie were both dead.
Lord, help!
Matt eased the rifle down from his shoulder and held it out to one side. It was ripped from his grasp and tossed into a tangle of brambles. As Jones fumbled at Matt’s holster, Matt reached up and grabbed the mechanic’s gun hand, forcing it upward. It discharged, the bullet slamming into a pine branch.
As they struggled over the gun, it went off again, the bullet flying wildly to hit Quentin Pitt in the ankle. He went down, squealing like a wounded razorback.
“Daddy!”
“Shut up, Quent.”
Jones seemed to have superhuman strength. He fought like a madman.
Dimly, Matt heard Lorie shout. “Meth!”
Now he understood. If Jones were on meth, he’d have enhanced reflexes, and enough chemicals pumping through his brain to make him think he could conquer the world. Matt prayed as he fought, prayed for the strength to overcome the addictive drug that had fueled the blitzkrieg.
Matt wrestled the gun from Jones and smacked it into his temple, felling him. Jones lay flat on the ground, unconscious.
“Stop right there!”
Matt wheeled in the direction of Pitt’s shout, going into a gun crouch. The supervisor had Lorie in a chokehold, pistol to her head.
“Throw the gun down or she dies right now!”
Matt shook his head. “You’ll kill her anyway. That’s always been your plan.”
Pitt raised an eyebrow. “Don’t be a fool, Deputy. I can make you rich.”
Matt spat on the ground. “I don’t need your money.”
He loved her, and at any second, he might lose her. And she was…reaching into her pocket? What’s Lorie doing?
“I can give you power!”
“I have God’s power on my side.”
“God!” Pitt sneered. “You think God cares what happens to any of us?” He shook his head. “You waited too long, Deputy. Tell your girlfriend goodbye.”
As Pitt’s finger slowly tightened on the trigger, Lorie’s hand flew up, sunlight glinting off a deadly looking scalpel. Pitt screamed in pain as the gun flew out of his hand, blood pouring from his slashed fingers.
“Down!” Matt shouted.
Lorie dived toward the ground, rolling away from her captors.
Matt pulled the trigger.
Pitt reeled backward, blood spurting from his chest before he hit the ground.
Quentin screamed. “Daddy!” Despite his injured ankle and bandaged arm, he reached for the gun his father had dropped. Matt shot it out of reach. “Don’t move, Junior.”
Lorie scrambled to her feet and hurried over to Supervisor Pitt, looking around for anything she could use to stop the bleeding. Kneeling beside him, she bunched up her skirt and pressed it onto his chest.
Pitt’s eyes opened. “What—what’re you doing?”
“Trying to save your life.”
Pitt blinked. “Why?”
“Because I couldn’t save your son’s.” She pressed harder, but blood soaked her skirt and stained her hands.
Pitt blinked, seeming to try to focus on Lorie’s face.
“You—forgive me?”
Matt couldn’t stand it one more second. “Lorie, get away from him!”
She turned to look at Matt and shook her head. “No. I have to do this.” She looked back at the man who lay there, slowly dying under her hands, despite her best efforts.
“Yes. I forgive
you.”
Matt’s hands clenched the pistol, ready to fire again if necessary. Standing there, watching, not knowing what to do or how to pray, Matt remembered the scripture, and let the Holy Spirit intercede on their behalf.
Pitt drew a gurgling breath. Maybe he planned to use it to forgive her for her role in Grayson’s death. Or to apologize for what he’d done. They’d never know for sure—that breath was his last.
“Daddy! No!” Quentin’s cry of anguish rent the pine-scented air.
Lorie stood up as the sound of sirens penetrated the woods. Tears poured down her face. Still covered in pine tar from yesterday, and now drenched in blood, she should have looked a wreck.
She was beautiful.
“Get the rope, Lorie.”
Picking it up from where Quentin had dropped it, Lorie brought it to Matt.
“You any good with knots?”
She nodded, her tangled hair flopping around her face.
“Tie up Jones.”
Lorie knelt in the dirt and, with moves that would make any bulldogger proud, bound Jones hand and foot while Matt kept his gun trained on Quentin.
After she hog-tied the mechanic, Lorie returned to Matt’s side. He gathered her to himself with his free arm as the cavalry arrived.
“I don’t care if you’re in law enforcement, Matt.”
“And I don’t care that your name is Lorie.”
After a Lanier County and two Dainger County Sheriff’s Department SUVs drove into the clearing to take charge of the situation, Matt handed off the gun to Gerhardt so he could pull Lorie into a better hug.
“I love you, Lorie Narramore.”
She blinked away tears. “And I love you, Deputy Matt.”
When Matt’s lips met Lorie’s, he knew it was true. She did love him. Everything was going to be all right.
EPILOGUE
Lorie sat by Matt’s side in the living room of the family house on Rob Roy Ranch, surrounded by her family, Matt’s family and the Sutherlands. Vangie Rae hadn’t aged a day since the last time Lorie’d seen her—the glamour industry had been able to accomplish that much. Still as slim as she’d been in high school, Vangie was now twice as blonde, and even bubblier in person than she was on the phone, despite the mixed feelings at tonight’s get-together.
Love Inspired Suspense June 2014 Bundle 2 of 2: Forced AllianceOut for JusticeNo Place to Run Page 61
