The Damaged Heroes Collection [Box Set #1: The Damaged Heroes Collection] (BookStrand Publishing Mainstream)

by James, Sandy

  God help him if he tried to rape her. The guy wouldn’t walk away from her if he did. He’d crawl. Laurie remembered well every dirty trick her self-defense instructor had taught her, and she sure wasn’t afraid to use any or all of them. In fact, she almost itched to inflict some damage on Alex. She wondered for a moment if he made a grab for her whether she could incapacitate him long enough to get to the gun.

  Even if she could lay her hands on the weapon, Laurie wasn’t sure she had it in her to shoot the man. She would be more than happy, however, to use the handcuffs on him for once. And she would do her damnedest to find some help as soon as she had the scantest of opportunities.

  Laurie wasn’t entirely sure what little rundown town they were in, but she knew they were almost to their ultimate destination. Alex was convinced the treasure would be found somewhere in or around the Circle M ranch. She allowed herself a small, conceited smile when she thought about the way she would lead him on a hell of a merry chase when they got there.

  The stones aren’t at the Circle M, you idiot.

  It had taken Laurie a while to guess the location when she’d been working on the diary entries back in Bolingbrook. Even then, she wasn’t entirely sure of the exact spot. But she had a pretty good idea where they rested, and her sixth sense told her she was right. Trying to remember what she’d written on the pages she’d copied, she hoped she’d left her husband enough clues. Ross was smart. He would find those cursed diamonds.

  But then what? Alex wasn’t just going to let them go. Diamonds or no, he’d kill them. And Ross would put himself in harm’s way to save her. God, this whole situation was a nightmare.

  “Last chance,” Alex said as he grabbed the handcuffs and walked over to the chair where Laurie was trying to rest.

  “I hate you.” She had the fight the urge to hiss at him like an angry cat. He grabbed her wrist, slammed the cuffs on, and hooked the other end to the bathroom doorknob. She shot him an evil glare as she rubbed her sore wrist. The skin was still raw from the last time he’d cuffed her. He leaned over and roughly grabbed her chin before he forced a kiss on her. When he pulled away, Laurie wiped her sleeve across her mouth, trying desperately to remove any trace of his touch.

  “You know, I’ve tried so hard to be nice to you, but I’m running out of patience.” Alex stretched back out on the bed and played with the television remote control.

  Laurie gave a snort and laid her head against the side of the chair.

  “Even I have my limits. I’m not gonna wait much longer. I want you, Laurie.”

  Panic flooded her. If he wanted to rape her, she wasn’t in much of a position to fight him when she was trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey.

  He laughed as if reading her thoughts. “Don’t worry. I can wait until we find the stones. But that’s the limit of my tolerance. You better make your mind up that we belong together by then.”

  “Merde,” she said as she gave him an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “You know, even if you get your hands on those stones, you’re never gonna enjoy them. You’re a murderer. A cold-blooded murderer. The only place you’re going is prison.” Laurie couldn’t help but taunt him. She knew riling the guy up wasn’t the right thing to do, but being a good counselor was difficult when she was held hostage.

  He sat up and chuckled at her words. She wanted to throw something at him. “Don’t you see? They’ll be worth even more now. I’ll not only be famous, I’ll be infamous. Besides, I won’t get caught.”

  “Ross will come for me. He’ll just buy some diamonds if he can’t find them. He’ll—”

  Alex cut her off with a slash of his hand. “He won’t do shit.” An evil smile spread on his face. “And I’ll know if he brings me fakes. If he finds the diamonds, he’ll have the ring.”

  The damned ring. She’d forgotten about the lion’s head ring. Of course, it would be with the stones. “The ring,” she whispered.

  Alex nodded. “If he doesn’t bring the ring, I’ll know he doesn’t have my diamonds.” He gave her a smug smile, flopped back on the bed, and fiddled with up the remote again. “Besides, you’re wrong. He’s wrong. They’re at the ranch. The journal says so.”

  “Fine. They’re at the ranch. Whatever you say.” It took every ounce of strength not to roll her eyes at him again.

  “That reminds me. I need to call the dumb jock.” Alex set the remote down, grabbed the cell, and punched in some numbers. Laurie strained to listen to the side of the conversation she could hear.

  “Did you find them?” Alex asked, a sneer on his face. Interminable seconds passed. “I knew it. I knew she was lying. You don’t have them because you don’t know where they are. You’re lucky I don’t shoot her right now.” Ross’s enraged shout buzzed through the tiny phone loud enough Laurie could hear. Her heart ached for him. “No, you can’t talk to her. You better get your ass in gear, you stupid ambulance chaser. I’ll call again in two days with instructions. If you don’t have the stones, then you lose and so does Laurie.” Alex flipped the phone shut. “That’ll keep him busy. The idiot will be running around Chicago on a wild goose chase.”

  Laura swallowed hard. Ross would come for her. She knew it. She just had to maintain her cool and keep Alex busy until then. “If I help you find the diamonds, will you let me go?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound like she was begging—even if she was.

  “No, Laurie. You belong to me now. Not him. Me. Get some sleep. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. We’ll get the stones, and we’ll be in South America before that gorilla figures any of this out.” He turned the television off, threw the remote and his eyeglasses on the nightstand, and rolled on his side.

  Laurie was glad to have a view of his back instead of his face. She waited until his breathing grew slow and regular. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I hate you, you friggin’ psychopath. I want my husband.” After a bit of rearranging her body in the uncomfortable chair, she allowed herself to relax enough to fall into a troubled sleep.

  * * * *

  “You really came through,” Ross said as he waited for Bruiser to jimmy the lock. His stomach was still a mass of nervous knots from Alex’s phone call.

  “Yeah, well. Sorry we couldn’t trace the call. Freakin’ cloned cell. But I figured the little twitch’s crib might give us some idea of what’s going through that peanut brain of his.” The door opened and Bruiser grinned. “You’ll get me off the hook for the breaking and entering, won’t you?”

  “Hell, yeah.” Ross followed Bruiser through the door.

  “Jesus Christ. Look at this place,” Sheila whispered as she walked behind them into Alex’s abandoned apartment.

  One wall had been entirely covered with a creepy collage made up of pictures of Laurie. There were photos of her walking into the clinic, jogging around the neighborhood, even kicking a soccer ball in the park. The pictures he realized should have included his own face had been cut to eliminate all but Laurie’s image. Alex had clearly been following her for quite some time to have acquired such an extensive collection. Ross blamed himself for having not noticed.

  Scrawled in dark marker across another wall they found a list of names and dates written in enormous letters. Bruiser read the first few names aloud then suddenly stopped. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Some of these are the people from the journal. Alex was trying to figure out who they all really are. See?” He pointed at some writing on the wall. “Crystal’s name is crossed out and he wrote Mazie Campbell next to it. Do you think the date’s when she died? 1975?”

  Ross didn’t answer as he moved around the macabre room and tried to take in all of the information from the lair Alex had used to stalk Laurie. The place chilled him to the bone.

  Sheila pulled out her camera and began to take pictures. “Bruiser, we’ll need all the loose papers. I’ll get some pictures of the walls. Some of this stuff might help us find Laurie.”

  Shuffling through the papers, Ross found some printouts of emails Alex had received. “These are all f
rom people interested in buying the stones if he can prove they were tied to bootleggers. The asshole’s going to make a fortune if he finds them.”

  “Diamonds aren’t really worth all that much, are they?” Bruiser asked.

  “Not really. They’re only expensive in jewelry stores. Those stones will be valuable because of their history,” Ross replied. “And I doubt any of these people are reputable dealers. They’re probably private collectors. Most of what they’ve collected is stolen or smuggled.” He read a couple of the printouts. “This one says he’ll pay three million for a lion’s head ring.”

  He put down the printouts and picked up a handwritten family tree lying in the middle of the desk. “Miller. Alex traced Laurie’s family.” Bruiser came to read over his shoulder. “Look,” Ross said as he pointed to a name. “That’s gotta be Fortune. Timothy Joseph Miller—T.J. He’s filled in everything else except the name of Laurie’s great-grandmother. It’s blank. All the other names are on here.”

  Sheila finished snapping photos of the walls. Crossing the room, she moved over to where Ross and Bruiser stood and took the paper from Ross’s hand. “Why does he have ‘Duchess’ and ‘Ruby’ with question marks written on the margin?”

  Ross could see her turning things over in her mind and was a witness to when understanding suddenly came to her. Sheila’s whole face lit up.

  “He never figured out who Laurie’s great-grandmother was. And I’ll bet he doesn’t have a clue about whether she was Ruby or Duchess. That’s why he needed the journal.” She seemed practically giddy. “He figured one of ‘em knew where the stones were hidden, and he didn’t know anything about either of ‘em. Not even their real names. The psycho doesn’t know which woman is the right one.”

  Bruiser looked confused. “Then how did the bastard know about the journal anyway?”

  “Look at this,” Ross replied as he pulled a second copy of a family tree from the pile of papers on the desk. “Alex is related to—”

  “Ice!” Sheila suddenly shouted, obviously excited that she’d made headway in solving the mystery. “He’s Ice’s relative, just like Laurie’s Fortune’s great-granddaughter. How else would he know so much about all of this to begin with? The stories must’ve been passed down in his family for generations. Just like the insanity.” She turned to Bruiser. “Didn’t you say his grandfather did hard time?”

  Bruiser nodded. “Took out an old gangster with a .45.”

  “The whole family’s loony tunes,” Sheila said. “That old man was probably searching for the same stones.”

  Ross pointed to an entry on the Richards family tree. “Alexander Edward Richards. Born 1898. Died 1922. That had to be Ice. He was Alex’s great-grandfather.”

  Bruiser seemed to be catching on. “Someone who knew ‘em all had to remember Ruby kept a journal. Crystal had to know. She lived with Ruby and Duchess. Remember?” Sheila nodded as Bruiser continued. “If Alex’s family always knew about the stones, they probably knew about the journal, too. I wonder if that gangster Alex’s grandpa knocked off was mixed up in all this.”

  “Had to be,” Ross said. “Too much of a coincidence. Alex must’ve been the first one to figure out which Miller family T.J. belonged to.”

  Sheila seemed to find some thought that made her smile. “Yeah, well, we’ve got both parts of the puzzle now. The family trees and the journal. We’re gonna find those diamonds.”

  “Yeah, but Alex has the journal now,” Bruiser added.

  “He does,” Ross said, “but we’ve got the upper hand. Thanks to the Remington jet, we’re more mobile. What we need to do is find out who Ruby and Duchess were and find those damned diamonds. Then I’ll trade them for Laurie.”

  “Why don’t we just buy some diamonds? Give him those?” Bruiser asked.

  Ross held up the email printout. “The lion’s head ring. If I don’t have that ring, he’ll know they’re not the bootleg diamonds.”

  Sheila nodded with her usual enthusiasm. “Besides, Alex is looking for diamonds not people. The identity of those women is the key to solving this whole thing. We can get to their hometown and find their real names. He can’t. And I’ll bet Laurie’s slowing him down, dragging her feet. I just can’t help but think we’re missing...something.” Then he remembered Laurie’s call. “Shit, shit, shit. We need to get back to the house. I forgot to look on the bed. Laurie told me to check the bed.”

  “We’ll grab this stuff together and get outta here,” Bruiser said.

  Sheila took the larger papers on the desk and rolled them up. Ross gathered the smaller ones and started shoving them in Sheila’s big camera case while Bruiser guarded the door.

  “Breaking a law or two there, counselor,” Bruiser teased over his shoulder as Ross jammed the last of the papers into the black vinyl case.

  “Yeah? Well, I happen to know a few good attorneys who’ll get me off with nothing more than a slap on the wrist,” Ross replied.

  Sheila snorted a laugh. “Worst thing we’re committing here’s a petty theft. That takes us right back to the knowing some lawyers comment.”

  “We need to get back and see what Deepika and Andrew figured out from the journal entries,” Ross said.

  As they were leaving the apartment, he suddenly stopped and jogged back to the wall with Laurie’s pictures. He snatched one that showed a close-up of her smiling face and ripped it off the wall.

  “I’ll find you, Kitten. I promise. I won’t let you down again.”

  * * * *

  “Ross!” Laurie shouted as she came awake. The nightmare had been so vivid, so real. She was having a hard time realizing she wasn’t still trapped in it. In the dream, Ross had come to her in the foothills near the Circle M, and Alex had shot him in cold blood. She’d watched Ross die. She’d seen the anguish and pain in his eyes. She’d lost her husband to a psychopath.

  Blinking away the frightening images, Laurie tried to calm the frantic beating of her heart. She couldn’t lose her head. She needed her wits about her to keep Alex occupied.

  It was just a nightmare, not a premonition. She tried to calm herself. Just a nightmare, you silly goose.

  When she tried to rub the sleep out of her eyes, the tug of the handcuffs made her wrist hurt. Her shoulder had grown stiff from being confined to one position for too long, and her head ached. Laurie looked around the rundown room and suddenly realized Alex had left.

  Her heart started pounding again at the thought of escape. She tugged at the handcuffs, trying to free herself. “Come on, damn it.” She contorted her hand, hoping to make it small enough to slip it through the silver cuff. Her fingers and wrist chaffed and throbbed, but Laurie was determined to pull out of the restraint.

  Alex shoved the door open and came walking in whistling. He carried a sack of fast food and two coffee cups in a gray cardboard tray. Laurie stopped struggling. He peered at her and clucked his tongue. “Judging from those fresh scrapes on your wrist, you’ve been a very bad girl. You know you’re not getting away.”

  She scowled at him and turned her face away so he wouldn’t see the tears forming in her eyes. The madman probably enjoyed her pain and she wasn’t about to give him any satisfaction.

  Pulling a breakfast sandwich from the sack, Alex handed it to Laurie. She sat as still as a statue. “Come on, Laurie. You need to eat. We’ll get to the ranch later today, and you’ll need your strength.” He put the sandwich down on her lap. “Fine. Starve yourself.”

  Laurie gave a frustrated sigh and unwrapped the sandwich with her free hand. She had no real appetite; even the smell turned her stomach. After only a few bites, she put it aside on the end table next to her chair. “Can you turn me loose long enough to go to the bathroom? And can I get a shower? Please?” She hated having to beg.

  Alex dropped some sweetener into one of the coffee cups, stirred it with the small plastic stick, and handed the cup to her. She reluctantly reached for it and took a few sips, hoping the coffee would take the edge off her pounding headache.
“Well? Can I take a shower?”

  Taking a few steps into the bathroom, Alex came back out and said, “Fine. No window in there.” He retrieved the handcuff key from his jean pocket and released her from the bathroom door. “Ten minutes or I’m coming in to get you.”

  Laurie stood up and rubbed her sore wrist for a moment. Then she grabbed her blue gym bag from the floor and went into the bathroom. The last thing she saw before she slammed and locked the door was Alex sitting down on the chair and grabbing her abandoned sandwich.

  Once inside the shower, Laurie let the hot water beat on her head and her back, reaching for some calm. She didn’t want to cry, but the choking tears came anyway. Biting her lip, she muffled the sobs she couldn’t contain. The only comfort she took was that Alex wouldn’t see her weeping and get some sick delight from it. Her own fear was intense, but coupled with the rage she constantly read in Alex, she felt raw through and through.

  When the premonition hit, it came so strong it almost knocked her down. Laurie grabbed the shower bar and tried to stay upright.

  He’ll find her, he’ll find the diamonds, and then he’ll save you. Buy him the time he needs.

  Laurie took a deep breath as she stood on shaky legs. She instinctively knew who Ross was looking for, and a hesitant smile crossed her face. Maybe they could all still come out of this alive.

  “Time. Ross needs time,” she whispered. She’d make sure he had just as much as she could possibly give him.

  For the first time since she was dragged out of her home, Laurie felt as if she’d regained some control over her own destiny.