by Tara Rose
But what didn’t make sense was why they’d escalated to kidnapping. And why her? It should have made her less afraid to know that someone who would remember her from school had done this, but it didn’t. Just the fact that he’d committed this crime proved he wouldn’t give a shit who she was, or how many times he’d seen her in the halls in school. She was in deep shit. She had to get word to Van, and she had to do it quickly.
Chapter Nineteen
Van listened to Tommy’s voice on his phone as he sped toward The Black Whip in his SUV. It was on the seat next to him, on speaker, so that Van could keep both hands on the wheel, because he was having trouble driving.
“Her car is here but not the keys. And the food she bought was on the pavement when we arrived, still in the carry-out boxes. Did she have a purse with her?”
“No. She puts everything in her pockets. Hates to carry a purse unless she has no choice.”
“I don’t see her coat, either. It must still be on her. Where would her phone have been? Do you think it’s in the car?”
Van punched the steering wheel with one hand. “That would have been on her, too. I told you that.”
“Calm down, Van. I’m just making sure we leave nothing unaccounted for. We’re interviewing witnesses. When you get here with the spare keys, we’ll check inside her car.”
Witnesses? That word gave him more hope than he’d felt since making the call to Tommy. “People saw her?”
“They saw a red Camaro that now has a year attached to it everywhere from 1965 to 1980, and two men push a red-haired woman inside it.”
“Chevy didn’t make the Camaro until ’67. It went on sale the previous September.” Shut the fuck up! Who gives a shit?
“Assuming they got the model right. Now get off the fucking phone and drive.”
The call disconnected, and Van concentrated on not crashing his SUV. She had to be okay. They would find her, and she’d be unharmed. Because if the men who took her touched one hair on her head, he’d fucking kill them both, and no one in Passion Peak would convict him for it.
* * * *
The Camaro spun and slipped, and judging by the sounds it made as it did so, Rowena was convinced they’d either slide backwards down this hill, or have no rubber left on the tires by the time they reached their destination.
While Marco and the other man traded insults and enough curse words to fill a barrel, Rowena worked on the twine. They hadn’t tied it tightly, and she assumed that was because they’d been in a hurry. Consequently, she was able to jiggle it loose just enough to slip one wrist out. By the time she’d done so, both arms ached like she’d just carried a very heavy package up several flights of stairs, and she was sweating bullets, but she didn’t care.
They were still climbing the hill, and whoever was driving had finally realized that he needed to drop the car into a lower gear, so it was slow going. She smelled burned rubber. Steeling herself for possible detection, she turned her head toward the front seat and tried to glance at the men. She didn’t dare lift her head. She could only see the backs of their heads. Both had dark hair, and both were still focused on the treacherous road.
Rowena’s phone was in her right pocket, and her left side faced them. If they didn’t hear her or turn around suddenly, she could get away with this. She brought her right arm up as slowly as possible, watching the backs of their heads the entire time. When she reached the pocked of her coat, she pulled out the phone, and turned her head toward the back seat. If they caught her, they’d take her phone, so she had to make this text message count.
She pushed the button on the side to silence it, and then unlocked the screen. Even though her other hand was free as well, she kept it behind her back in case they turned around. If they glanced into the back seat quickly, they might miss the fact that only one wrist still appeared to be bound. Plus, she only needed one hand free to work the phone. She went to her text messages, opened Van’s contact information, and typed, Carmas cousin Marco. Climbing steep hill outside town. Camaro slipping on ice.
* * * *
Van stared at his phone, not daring to believe what he saw was real. Tommy and Phil were searching Rowena’s car, after deciding there was no point in dusting it for prints. It had been locked, and all the witnesses said the men hadn’t gone near her car. They’d taken her as she came out of the restaurant and crossed the parking lot, and then shoved her into the back of a Camaro.
Van tapped Phil on the shoulder and handed him the phone. “I think I know where she is.”
Phil read the text. “Oh holy fuck. They’re on Mountain Top Trail.”
Van jumped into Phil’s cruiser and closed the door. Phil shot him a look that said “no fucking way,” and at first Van thought he wasn’t going to let him ride along, but then he told Van to put on his seatbelt and not say a fucking word.
Every available Passion Peak police cruiser sped out onto Cheyenne Boulevard and headed south. Van wanted so badly to text Rowena back, but he knew if he did, he risked her getting caught reading it. He had no idea how she’d managed to send it, but could only imagine it had been at great danger to herself. Rowena was not a woman who would lie down and accept her fate. She’d fight back.
Tears threatened as he imagined the worst, and he fought hard to push the images from his mind. They knew where she was. They’d reach her before those men hurt her. They had to.
“When was the last time you or Rowena heard from Marco Mandanici?”
He glanced at Phil. “Are you kidding? Years ago. High school. No one has heard from him since he went away to college. I haven’t heard Carma talk about him in over a decade.”
“He must have been watching her. Rowena, I mean.”
“Why?”
“My guess is money. If he hasn’t been in town for that many years, he probably doesn’t know she spent it all.” Phil gave him as close to a sympathetic glance as Van had ever seen him give anyone. “He probably thinks you both still have all that money she won from Brandt Fontaine.”
“Holy shit. He’s in for a big shock.” Ransom? They’d kidnapped her for ransom money? “But why? I mean, why not just try to find the buried treasure in this town? I’m assuming that’s why they all came here to begin with.”
Phil shrugged. “No clue. Desperation? Three of them are in jail. Rowena might have been Plan B, or they might have simply reacted when they thought they had a chance to get away with something this afternoon.”
“We will find her, right? She will be okay.”
“That’s my plan.”
Van studied Phil’s profile as he drove. “Now I know how you felt when you were chasing Clay Martin’s truck and Eve was in it.”
Phil shook his head. “Don’t do that to yourself. These men aren’t serial rapists or murderers. This was a spur-of-the-moment, desperate attempt to get money, or they half-assed planned it by the seat of their pants after their colleagues were thrown into jail and two of their vehicles were impounded.”
Van nodded several times. “Which explains why they’d take a Camaro out on a day like this. Now I know I wasn’t hallucinating.” He told Phil about seeing both a white and red car days ago, before he’d made the call while sitting in the driveway of Knox Auto Detailing.
“I wish you’d said something.”
“I was going to, but I had no descriptions to give you or Tommy.”
“Okay. That makes sense.” Phil turned onto Mountain Top Trail and dropped the cruiser into first gear as they started the ascent. Van glanced behind and saw Tommy behind the wheel of his cruiser. “What if they hear the sirens and panic?”
Phil didn’t answer him. The road was almost completely covered in ice, and Phil dropped it into second gear, swearing softly under his breath
“How the hell did they get a Camaro up here?”
Phil shook his head. “No fucking clue.”
Rowena would hear the sirens, too. She’d know that her text had worked. Van leaned against the seat and closed his eyes, pictu
ring her face and those beautiful green eyes. He would look into them again. He would hold her, he would kiss her lips, and he would make love to her again.
* * * *
Rowena finally got her phone back into her pocket just as the land flattened out. Both men let out loud exhales. They continued to drive, and Rowena worked to get her right wrist back inside the loop of twine. She was sweating profusely now, and her arms ached badly. Would they notice that the binds were now too loose to actually be restraining her?
She finally got it back inside, but had no idea if the ruse would work. As they slowed to a stop, she swore she heard the wail of sirens, far away, but it was probably her imagination. Her text message had only been sent two minutes ago, at most. Then again, sound did strange things in the foothills. For all she knew, the sirens were on the other side of town.
“Get her out.” That was Marco’s voice. She stiffened, waiting for one of them to realize she’d slipped free, but neither one said a word as she was lifted out of the car and flung over someone’s shoulder. She watched snowy boots walk behind her, not knowing who they belonged to, and not daring to say anything.
The wail was unmistakable now, and they both must have heard it, too, because they stopped walking.
“Where’s that coming from?” asked the other man. He was the one behind her.
“Can’t tell. Sound bounces around in the hills. Let’s get her inside.” Marco started walking with her again, and then she heard a wooden door open. They stepped inside a structure that smelled like mold and rotted wood, and Rowena sneezed several times in a row.
“Stop that shit,” said Marco.
“I can’t help it. I sneeze inside houses with a lot of mold. And I have to pee. If you’re going to keep me here I’ll need fresh air and a bathroom.” She was beyond afraid now. She was pissed off. Who the fuck did these two think they were? She hadn’t overcome almost two decades of mistrust and insecurities to end up a prisoner of two assholes. Fuck this shit. If she was going to die, she’d go down fighting.
“Oh, listen to that,” said Marco, placing her on her feet. “We got the fucking Queen here.”
He spun her around, and she looked into his eyes. There was no surprise in them. He knew that she’d already figured out who he was. “Why are you doing this, Marco?”
“Money. Why else?”
Rowena frowned. “Money? What money?”
The other man walked over to a table that had seen better days, picked up a copy of Celebrity that was dated the day she’d won her court case, and rattled it in her face. “This is you.”
Rowena stared at the picture she knew so well, taken fourteen years earlier while she’d descended the steps of the courthouse. She could still remember being surrounded by reporters, but her entire focus had been on getting safely inside Derrick’s waiting limo. She’d just heard about Aunt Looney’s death when that picture had been taken, and she’d been grief-stricken.
“You live in that big fancy house and your husband’s business is booming. We want a share of it, your majesty.”
“What?” She stared from one to the other, understanding finally dawning. “What happened to the treasure hunting? You’d get more money doing that.”
The man rattled the paper again. “Bullshit. You won twenty-two million dollars. It says so right here. And that’s exactly how much we’ll take for your safe return.”
Rowena almost laughed, but then she remembered Van saying they’d found guns in one of the vehicles. They might have another one stashed in this cabin. But as the wail of sirens grew louder, something inside her snapped. She wasn’t going to give these two fools the satisfaction of thinking they had a brilliant plan here. She wanted them to know how badly they’d fucked this up.
“Wow. Bad day for you two. You should have done your homework. I spent most of that money within the first year after I came home. And the rest I gave away. It’s all gone.”
Rowena watched disbelief fill their faces, and then Marco grabbed her and shoved her into a chair. She instinctively reached out with both hands to keep from toppling over, and when they realized the twine was loose, the other man tried to grab her, but she evaded him and stood, taking the chair with her.
Tires squealed outside, and then she heard shouting and the sound of boots crunching on ice and snow. Both men looked panicked now, and Rowena took advantage of their momentary distraction to pick up the chair. As they rushed her, she swung it and heard it connect with someone’s head.
The man she’d struck yelled and collapsed onto the floor, but the other one continued to rush toward her. She fell backwards just as the door burst open. Rowena screamed when she heard gunshots and wood splintering a split second later, and then her world went dark.
Chapter Twenty
Van rushed over and pulled Marco Mandanici off his wife, and was about to punch him in the face when two cops pulled Marco away and led him from the cabin. Van pulled Rowena into his arms and held her while she cried.
“What happened?”
“You’re okay.”
Her voice came in gasps between the sobbing. “I heard gunshots.”
“Shhh…it’s over. You’re okay. Tommy fired a warning shot and it hit a ceiling beam.”
“I fainted.”
“You’re all right. There are ambulances on the way.”
“I don’t need one. But I think I killed one of the men.”
“You didn’t kill him.” Phil was standing over them. “He’s breathing, but out cold. Good thinking, hitting him with a chair.” Phil almost smiled.
“It was self-defense. They rushed me.”
Tommy moved toward them. “Of course it was. No one thinks otherwise. Are you up to coming to the station to give us a statement?”
She nodded then clung to Van’s arm as he helped her stand. He cupped her face, not caring that tears spilled over his lashes now. “I am so sorry. I should have come with you.” He was so relieved that she was all right, but he knew he’d spend the rest of his life kicking himself for not coming with her to pick up the food.
She shook her head. “No. If you had, those two fucking idiots would still be out there. They thought I still had the money I won from Brandt. They kidnapped me for ransom.”
“Told ya,” said Phil.
She glanced at Phil. “It’s gone. It’s been gone for thirteen years.”
Tommy laughed loudly. “You mean to tell me they didn’t know that?”
“Apparently not. What is Marco doing back here?”
“We’re going to find that out. Come on, you two. I’ll give you a ride.”
* * * *
While Rowena gave her statement to one of the officers, Phil drove Van back to The Black Whip to get his car, and when they came back into the station a half hour later, they carried four boxes of food. Everyone in the station enjoyed a feast, courtesy of Dalton, who had donated the food once he heard about the incident.
Slowly, Rowena’s hands stopped shaking. She kept hearing the crack of the chair against the other man’s head, and she wondered how long it would be before she didn’t hear it anymore.
“I am so proud of you.” Van had said that at least two dozen times now, but she didn’t think she’d ever get tired of hearing it.
“I wasn’t going to die at the hands of two fools. Especially not after what you and I were able to accomplish earlier today.” She kept her voice low, but right now she didn’t give a shit if everyone in the station heard them.
“I knew you had strength in you that you hadn’t yet found.” He brushed a finger along her face, sending shivers up and down her spine. “I’ve never loved you more than I love you right now. I was so scared…”
“So was I,” she whispered. “But I held your face in my thoughts.”
“I did the same thing.” Van kissed the back of her hand, and Rowena sighed out loud.
As they finished up their meal, Tommy came out from the back hallway of the station to tell them that Marco had given up the enti
re story. “He’s kept in touch with his cousin, Jonas, all these years. They hang with a rough crowd in New York whose families still have Mafia ties. They figured that since their great-uncles and grandfathers were the ones who’d hidden all this money and stolen property, they were entitled to it.”
Tommy picked up a burger and began to eat it with one hand while he continued talking. “So, once they heard this story on the news, they made plans to come here and find the loot. Jonas provided them with targets to hit.”
Tommy sat on the edge of the desk and glanced at Rowena. “They took you today for money, but it was a half-baked scheme they threw together, late last night. They were desperate after Jonas and the other three got pinched. They knew they couldn’t pull off any of the jobs now that every house was being watched, so they figured they’d get some money another way. When I asked Marco how they’d planned to get away with the money, assuming they’d have gotten it in the first place, he said they hadn’t thought that far ahead.”
“What a bunch of fucking idiots. So was I ever really in danger?”
Tommy averted his gaze for a second. “Well, you might have been. We recovered two shotguns from the cabin.”
“Fuck,” said Van.
“It’s okay,” she said, covering his hand with hers. “I’m all right now. This is over.”
“How do we know that? Passion Peak is all over the national news. What’s going to stop more treasure hunters from showing up?”
“I think we might have that covered,” said Tommy.
Van raised his eyebrows. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, Phil and I were talking about this the other night. It seems to us there’s one simple way to lay this matter to rest, once and for all. If we find all the shit supposedly buried behind walls and in mineshafts, and if we then let that story leak to the media, there won’t be anything left to come here and try to steal.”
