by Silver James
“What do you suggest, Ms. Rodriguez?” Pamela’s voice cut the air with icy precision. “Ignore a legal court order?” The woman arched that arrogant brow again.
Elena knew Pamela was displeased because she used her last name, but she didn’t care. This was too important. And she was seething. “We know the cartels are behind the human trafficking.”
“We do?” The woman arched a perfectly shaped brow. “We know nothing of the sort. Are you insinuating that this girl’s guardian plans to traffic her?” Elena did not miss Pamela’s eye roll. “There have been no allegations and we have no grounds to open an investigation.”
Elena, so angry she sputtered, gave in to the rage. Her fist hit the desk. “No grounds? We have all the grounds in the world. We have a kidnapped child. She can identify her abductors. They are members of an outlaw biker gang with ties to the cartels.” She stabbed her index finger on the most damning photo. “This motorcycle gang.”
“Oh? So, you are now an expert on biker gangs? That girl is a runaway, Rodriguez. She’s an unreliable witness.”
Elena threw her hands up into the air. “Unreliable? How can you say that?”
Pamela tsked. The woman actually tsked at her. Elena didn’t know whether to continue her angry outburst or laugh. Who did that? Besides Pamela. She really was a piece of work. Lots of words gathered on her tongue, all of them in Spanish, none of them flattering. Before she could control her temper and speak, her boss jumped in.
“The man who is her guardian—”
“Mr. West you mean?”
“No. I don’t mean him at all.” Pamela’s mouth turned down and she looked like she’d wallowed something sour. “Sheriff Anderson and I have had several conversations about him. I’m moving the girl’s case to the court here in Bexar County. Her guardian—”
Elena bit her tongue while Pamela shuffled through the file spread across her desk.
“Ah, here it is. Mr. Molson. The girl’s mother was his sister.”
“Was? I thought the last time a guardian came forward, he was married to the mother, or something, and she’d run off.”
“According to Mr. Molson, the mother is deceased. He is in the process of legally adopting her and has been granted, as her only living relative, legal guardianship until the adoption is finalized. Lord knows why, but he wants the little slut back.”
All the heat drained from Elena’s body at this news. Wrong. This was so very wrong on every level. Joy was not a runaway. And she no more belonged to those outlaw bikers than…than…Elena could fly to the moon by flapping her arms. A thought kept trying to rise, a niggle at the back of her brain but Elena was too far gone to acknowledge it.
She jabbed her finger on the photo again. “The patch on her so-called guardian’s vest reads Hell Dogs, Byrd.” Two could play that last-name-only game. “Need I remind you, Pamela, that even SAPD agrees that the members of that motorcycle gang are criminals. There is a reason they are called one percenters and outlaws.” She put everything she had into keeping her voice calm and patient.
“I have been told that the group we are discussing is not a gang. They are a motorcycle club. Not that it matters. Mr. Molson is not currently an active member.”
Pamela pulled out that damnable piece of paper and held it out for Elena. She had no choice but to take it, plus a second paper. “In addition to the habeas corpus, that’s a subpoena. Mr. West is to appear at the Bexar County Courthouse at eight o’clock sharp day after tomorrow. Bring all of the girl’s belongings when you transport her because I fully anticipate the judge will remand her into the legal guardian’s custody and we will be able to close this case.”
Ice water was truly running through her veins now. No, no, no, she chanted in her head. This could not happen. If the Hell Dogs got their hands on Joy, the girl would disappear. And in her heart, Elena knew terrible things would happen to the pretty child.
“We’re done here.” The sharp tone of Pamela’s voice recaptured her attention. “And whatever it is you are planning to do, forget it, Ms. Rodriguez. I have eyes on you.”
Wait. What did that mean? Whose eyes? A terrible thought slithered through Elena’s brain. Pamela Byrd lived in a big, fancy house and drove a new, expensive car. A civil servant who wore designer label clothes and shoes. And she was single. There was no rich husband to shower those things on the woman.
No! Elena chopped that thought off at the roots. The very idea of a social worker being involved in a human trafficking ring was so wrong she could no longer contemplate it. She and Pamela had always mixed like oil and vinegar but that was no excuse for jumping to horrible conclusions. She’d just have to be more observant, check to see who was around and paying attention. Surely the woman wouldn’t have her followed, but Elena would be more cognizant of that as well.
Except.
Why would Pamela receive this paperwork? Elena was the social worker on file. All correspondence and court orders should have come to her, not Pamela. And that’s when the thought nudging her blossomed into something close to panic.
Keeping her expression as noncommittal as possible under the circumstances, Elena asked, “Will there be anything else?”
“No. Just make sure to have the girl in court. Dismissed.”
She didn’t flee Pamela’s office. Not exactly. No, she executed a pivot, marched with her spine stiff straight to the door and out into the hallway. Elena maintained her composure all the way to her office, where she gathered up her things. Not waiting for the elevator, she skipped down the stairs as fast as she could go, clinging to the handrail for balance. She tossed a negligent wave at the security guard on the first floor as she dashed by. The electronic lock on the door to the employee parking lot stymied her flight for a few precious seconds, then she was free. All but running now, she scrambled to her car and climbed inside. Deep breathing through anger and panic, she grabbed her phone and called Pops.
The call went to voice mail.
Chapter 13
At the tone, she left a breathless message outlining the situation. Then she called the ranch. No answer. And no answering machine picked up. Panic overwhelmed the anger. She started her car, backed out of the parking space and zoomed toward the exit. Something was wrong. She could feel it and she had to get home. Now.
The storm broke halfway to Tarpley. Luckily, traffic was mostly non-existent. Everyone with half a brain was already down and in somewhere safe. The car radio stopped playing music before she cleared San Antonio’s city limits. She had wall-to-wall coverage of the storms.
Get home. Get home. Get home. Her brain chanted the mantra in time to the snick of her tires on the asphalt. Hail battered her little SUV between the gusts of wind buffeting it. Even on high, the windshield wipers labored to provide glimpses of the outside world. Rain and darkness swallowed her headlights. White-knuckled, she gripped the steering wheel until one particularly vicious blast sent her careening off the road. She got the car stopped and took a moment to stop shaking. Then she grabbed her phone to call for help. No service.
Deep breathing through rising panic, she peered out the windows. Jagged lightning split the sky and black storm scud raced below massive thunderheads. Her phone pinged and she almost dropped it in surprise. She fumbled to get the screen back on. A message. She clicked into the app.
On duty at station. Joy home alone. ETA?
Pops had sent the message almost an hour ago. It took her three tries to type a coherent reply.
Almost to Tarpley. Will go straight to ranch. Tried to call. No answer.
She hit send, held her breath, and waited, anxiously watching the one bar of 4G connection.
The reply came sooner than she’d thought possible given the weather conditions.
Power’s out. Ranch has generator. I can’t leave.
Of course, he’d have a generator, but did she have any clue of how to get it started? At least she knew where to find candles and flashlights, and where the door to the cellar was located. And of co
urse, he couldn’t leave the station. He was the fire chief. The man in charge. He had the whole town and this part of the county to worry about. She was a grown woman. She could handle this emergency. She typed back a short message.
On it. Be safe.
Take care of my girls. Out.
My girls. Smiling now, she put the car in Drive and eased back onto the road. It was time to take care of Pops’s girls. And didn’t that leave a warm fist pressed against her heart.
Pops tucked his phone back into his hip pocket, relief flooding him. He’d been worried sick about both his girls—Elena because she was probably out on the highway in this shit and Joy because the kid was home alone. He kicked himself mentally for not insisting Joy come with him. Hell, tornado watches happened and most folks barely noticed. Usually, they got a thunderstorm with rain and maybe some hail. But this one was bad. And Joy was by herself.
Radios crackled. Reba had her HAM radio set up in his office and she fielded telephone calls and emergency traffic relayed by storm watchers. Cell towers and telephone lines might go down, but with a battery and an antenna, HAM radio operators were in service. They still had power in Tarpley but keeping the lights on was a 50/50 proposition. They had a huge-ass generator beside the station, and another up at the Community Center, which Reba had opened as a shelter.
He’d just gotten off a radio call with the Bandera County sheriff’s office when Jack Riggs strolled through the door. His tan Stetson sported a plastic cover and his yellow slicker shed water in puddles. “Gonna be a long night,” the Ranger drawled in greeting.
“What was your first clue, Sherlock?” Pops shot back.
“Coffee?”
“Got some.” Pops grinned, knowing that Jack hadn’t been offering to get him a cup. He gestured toward the kitchen off to the side. “Knew you were coming. It’s a fresh pot.”
“’Preciated.” Jack sauntered off, poured a cup and hunkered down on a metal stool to watch the controlled chaos that was an emergency response command post.
Pops toyed with the idea of asking Jack to head out to his ranch to check on things but with the wind howling like a horde of hunting wolves outside, he just couldn’t. And if the worst happened, he’d need Jack there to help coordinate things. He shut down the worry and concentrated on his job. According to the National Weather Service, it was just a matter of time before the huge storm started dropping tornadoes. He could only hope and pray those suckers didn’t hit Tarpley or the surrounding area.
He did feel the vibration of his phone sometime later and checked the message app. Elena had made it to the ranch. He hit the thumbs up icon, unwrapped a grape Tootsie Pop, stuck it in his mouth, and went back to work.
The group of men took over the River Park Motel by stealth. The three men in the black SUV arrived in Bandera first. They scouted the area, found some secluded lodging on the banks of the Medina River and booked all the cottages. A throwback to the days of motor courts, the place boasted individuals cottages with attached carports. Each building contained a sitting area, one or two bedrooms, a bath, and a kitchenette.
After a phone call from Boomer to Rook, the Nightriders infiltrated just ahead of the storm. Two or three at a time, they came in from different directions, all avoiding the Sheriff’s Office on the north side of town.
They got the bikes under the carports and covered in tarps then met in the biggest cabin which had been claimed by the three men. Conversation was short. They knew why they were there. And every one of them was ready. Some drifted away to their own rooms, some stayed, drinking beer, playing cards, and watching the TV for weather updates.
Restless around the others, Nate stood on the porch, eyes to the southwest. Joy was out there somewhere, so close he could almost feel her. He’d promised Jacey that he wouldn’t come back without their daughter. She had to be okay. If not, the world would pay. His wolf, always close to the surface, growled in agreement.
Mac stepped outside and leaned against the rough-hewn wooden railing surrounding the porch, his back to the roiling clouds. “Storm’s comin’.”
Hell, yeah, it was.
Mac continued, “We’ll get her back.”
Hell, yeah, they would.
“We know she’s been safe for the past couple of months, man.”
Did they? How could Mac be so sure?
“The man has a reputation. A good one. He’s a protector. He’ll keep her safe until we get there.”
Nate still didn’t speak. He could barely breathe, much less form words. “She’s just a baby,” he finally gritted out. “And those bastards have already done everything to her.”
Joy never spoke of her life before Nate and the men of the 69th SpecSciOps unit rescued her from that lab. Antoine Fontaine, a Cajun Wolf, and his mate, DJ Collier, who was a US Deputy Marshal at the time, had been kidnapped by the jerkwads of Black Root Corporation. Black Root had previously taken Mac’s son, Liam. When they’d gone in to rescue Antoine and DJ, Nate discovered Joy—a small girl locked in a cement cell. She had no name. No memories of any life outside that fucking lab. She carried scars—physical and emotional. And she carried Nate’s heart. He knew all about labs, about experiments, about the pain and despair, because fucking Black Root had done the same to him before he escaped, in wolf form.
The door to the cabin creaked open and Ryan “Hardass” Tyree stepped out. He was the national vice president of the Nightriders. He’d also served with Mac and the others in the 69th before the unit was disbanded. “Talked to Rook,” he said quietly, standing like Nate, feet braced shoulder width, eyes to the sky. “We have an address on the foster guy. His ranch is between us and Tarpley. As soon as the weather cooperates, we can move in, scoop up your girl, and y’all can get her home. We’ll go hunting for the Hell Dogs.”
Hardy meant the Nightriders would go hunting. To hell with that. Nate wanted his pound of flesh from those fuckers. Thunder rumbled and the wind kicked up. All three men watched lightning flare across the sky. The door opened a third time and Rook stuck his head out. “Got tornado warnings to the south of us. Probably wanna batten down the hatches.”
Mac shoved off the railing. “The guy in the office said there’s a cellar.” A grim smile slashed across his stoic face. “Not sure we’ll all fit.” He shrugged. “Not sure we want to.”
And isn’t that the truth, Nate thought. He’d spent a year of his life trapped in an underground lab beneath Area 51.
That’s when the storm sirens screamed and everyone scrambled for cover.
Elena had never in her life been so glad to see the two-story house looming out of the darkness. Lightning electrified the atmosphere and the hair rose on her arms right before a deafening crash curled her into a ball. Too close. That strike was far too close. She needed to check the house. Check the barn. The animals. First, though, Joy. She grabbed her purse, gulped in a breath, then pushed open her door and sprinted for the front porch She was drenched by the time she reached the door, which opened just wide enough for her to slip in and then she was engulfed in a pair of small arms.
“Shh, querida. I’m here. We’ll be fine.”
Chisum and Big Jake danced around them. Still clinging to Elena, Joy chided the two dogs and at her command, both sat.
“You’re wet.” Joy’s voice was muffled against Elena’s shoulder.
“It’s raining and I forgot my raincoat.” That got a giggle from the girl. “Pops is at the fire station.”
“I know. He was called in. They’re expecting a tornado. I was watching the news until the power went out.”
“Speaking of, there’s supposed to be a generator, but I have no clue where or how to start it up.” Elena huffed out a breath. “And that last lightning strike was close. I need to go check the barn.”
Joy finally let go and stepped back. “You should change. I know where the slickers are. I’ll go too.”
Ten minutes later, Elena emerged from the room she now shared with Pops. Dressed in faded jeans and boots, she’d
tamed her hair in a tight braid. Armed with flashlights and draped in the long yellow slickers, they headed out the back door. The wind had dropped though they still had to dodge tree branches that littered the yard. She probed the darkness with the bright beam of the light, first checking the house then the surrounding buildings for damage. She found a large tree that had been split in half by lightning—probably the strike just as she’d arrived. All the structures looked fine but like Joy, she wanted to check on the animals in the barn. There wasn’t anything she could do about the cattle running in the fields.
The horses were nervous, tossing their heads with the whites showing around their eyes. She and Joy worked down the rows of stalls talking to each one, patting and soothing. Chisum stayed with her while Jake stuck close to Joy. They’d just reached the far end of the barn when Elena noticed the silence. While the wind wasn’t as fierce as when she’d first arrived, it had been noisy, whistling around the barn and whipping through tree branches. Now? Nothing. Creepy. She pushed open the back door of the barn, Joy hard on her heels.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know, chica. Something’s…not right.”
And it wasn’t. The air had gone completely still, but the atmosphere carried a heaviness, a portent of bad things just over the horizon. She inhaled and almost choked on the odor of ozone which so thick she could taste it on her tongue. That’s when she heard it. The runaway freight train. Just like in the movies. Just like all the survivors said when they were interviewed on TV.
“TORNADO!”
Chapter 14
Pops was not a meteorologist, but he’d taken the storm spotter classes offered by Texas A&M in conjunction with the Texas State Firefighters Association. He knew what to look for—in the sky and on radar. He was seconds away from hitting the sirens when Reba beat him to the punch. Multiple vortexes. All over Bandera County. As the auto-call warnings went out over the telephone system, he prayed that enough electrical lines were still intact to get the message out. Overhead, the in-town sirens screamed into the wind to alert those residents not already taking shelter.
