by Ali Parker
Caleb pulled over and parked, making sure his hazards were on in case another motorist came around the bend in the narrow road. The men climbed out of the truck and made their way to the side of the road where the tracks began. It was dark and wet, but it took only moments for Brice to discern the outline of Janna's rusty old Volvo at the bottom of the embankment. In that second the world went white, his heart bursting through his chest and exploding into flames in front of him.
At least it felt like it did.
He didn't even realize that he'd tried to rush down the steep slope until Caleb pulled him back. "Wait!" the ranger shouted, shaking him. "Don't go charging off. You'll slide down the hill and injure yourself."
"She could be down there hurt!" Brice realized he'd nearly screamed the words, but he couldn't control himself.
"I know." Caleb remained calm. "And if you get hurt too I won't be able to drag you both back up this hill. Let me at least tie a guide rope before we go down, or we might have trouble coming back up again." The ranger pulled a length of nylon rope out of the case in the back of his truck. He secured it to a thick tree, then gestured for Brice to grab hold of it as he had.
Brice was instantly grateful that Caleb had insisted on the rope. The slope was very steep, the ground loose and muddy, and they stumbled several times climbing down to the car. Time slowed down, and Brice felt like he was moving through molasses. Every second of delay he imagined a thousand terrible deaths. It was his fault, all of it. If he hadn't driven her to flee, she'd never have gone off the road. She wouldn't be sitting down there now, maybe bleeding.
Maybe dead.
After an eternity they reached the Volvo. Caleb headed for the passenger side, while Brice tugged on the driver side door. It was a struggle to get it open, due to the vegetation crowding the car on all sides. When he'd opened it enough to wedge inside, he pressed himself into the gap, praying that Janna wasn't too badly injured. Or worse.
Brice was so confused by what he saw that for a moment he couldn't process it. He heard Caleb pulling the other door open with a groan, and finally looked up when the ranger stuck his head into the car. "She's not here."
The ranger's eyebrows rose in surprise. After a quick sweep of the interior, he nodded, and both men stepped back from the car. "This is strange," Caleb said, then held his hand up to stop Brice as he started walking back around the car. "Wait. Maybe she walked away. Check the ground for tracks."
Brice nodded and trained his flashlight on the ground around him. The large prints left by his loafers were obvious. They were also the only tracks he could see. He scoured the ground around him and let out a groan of frustration. "Nothing here."
"Nothing on my side either." Caleb peeked through the back windows. "I don't think she went off the road. Not by herself anyway."
"What do you mean?" Brice was frantic. It was as if his mind couldn't process the events unfolding around him.
Caleb pointed to the front of the car. "The Volvo went off the side of the road and kept rolling until it hit this tree." Brice nodded. That was self-evident. The rusty brown car was crumpled like a discarded soda can in the front where it had hit the tree.
"If Janna had been inside, there should be some sign of her presence. This car's too old for air bags, so I wasn't expecting to see them, but if someone runs head-on into a tree, you've got to expect some kind of injury. There are no traces of blood in the car's interior."
"Maybe she was wearing her seatbelt and wasn't badly hurt."
"That's possible I suppose. But if she wasn't hurt, then we have to assume she got out and walked away from the crash. You saw how hard it was to open the doors. If she'd climbed out on either side, you'd think she would have had the same challenge -- fighting the brush to get the doors open. But nothing had been disturbed before we got here. It's like the doors were never opened after the crash."
"And there were no footprints." Brice nodded, catching on quickly. The realization that Janna wasn't in her car when it went off the road provided him with a fleeting sense of relief. It was immediately crushed by a deeper, more ominous fear.
Fighting off the panic that gripped his insides, Brice swung his flashlight around him, not willing to accept the thought that gnawed at his brain. He struggled back up the slope with Caleb behind him, both slipping and sliding until they were covered in mud. When he reached the top, he shined the flashlight along the woods that lined the dark road.
Maybe she'd somehow made it out, somehow climbed to the road and was making her way on foot. The rain could have washed out her footprints.
Suddenly his light passed over something reflective. It was small and shiny, laying a few feet from the road in the tall grasses. His heart in his throat, Brice bent down to retrieve it.
The casing was cracked, but when he tapped the screen, it still lit up. The background displayed a dazzling array of greens. No doubt a snapshot of one of her paintings. Finding her phone let the wild animal called terror out of its cage.
Caleb noticed the blood draining from his friend's face, and his eyebrow lifted in inquiry. "What is it?"
Brice took a deep breath, unsure if he could even vocalize the words. "He's got her."
Chapter 17
Janna woke suddenly, her eyes flying open, to be greeted by a sickening blur of motion. She was in a car, traveling quickly down winding roads, the forest running into smudged greens in the wet windows like the pallet of her paints. Her head pounded, and for a terrifying moment, she couldn't remember where she was.
When her gaze swept over to the driver, memories flooded back suddenly. She'd been investigating a spun-out car in the road when someone had come up behind her and slapped a foul-smelling rag over her mouth. Everything had faded to black, and here she was, riding along a rural road with her kidnapper.
Janna tried to shift, wanting to grab the door handle and throw herself out of the car in her panic. Her hands went nowhere, unfortunately. They were bound securely in front of her with a length of thick silver tape.
"Ah, you finally woke up."
The kidnapper's voice drew Janna's attention, and she looked him over, her mind racing, trying to stay ahead of her fear. He was slightly taller than average, on the slender side, but with enough wiry muscle that Janna was unsure of her ability to overpower him. His hair was blond and wavy, its expensive cut highlighting its thickness while attempting to disguise the growing widow's peaks on either side of his unlined forehead.
"You can go back to sleep. We won't get there for another half hour or so."
Janna's confusion doubled at his words. Was he slurring? She looked at his face again, noticed the ruddy tint infusing his cheeks. What was wrong with him? Then she saw the bottle seated at the juncture of his thighs. The label identified it as an expensive brand of vodka. Her kidnapper was drunk.
"Who are you? What's going on?"
The driver laughed. "He didn't tell you about me? I thought for sure he would have. Maybe he's too ashamed of his past transgressions."
Janna's brain finally shook off the lingering effects of the chemical he'd used to knock her unconscious. "You're Brice's cousin Chester, aren't you?" The resemblance was obvious, once she noticed it. Brice had been telling the truth.
"Got it in one. You are a smart cookie. But I'd already realized that about you. That's how I finally caught you, even though he didn't make it easy." That last point was emphasized with a hearty burp. "Pardon me," he said after, then burst into a fit of high-pitched giggles.
Janna thought the man must be unhinged. She turned her attention to the road, just in time to see a sharp curve coming up. Her kidnapper didn't slow, however, he just jerked the wheel sloppily, and the car careened around the curve, the loud squeal of tires causing her to grit her teeth. It felt like they almost went up onto two wheels. With her heart pounding loudly in her ears, she realized the full danger of the situation. A drunk driver. On dangerous roads. Driving too fast. And there was nothing she could do about it.
"Y
ep, I caught you, and they didn't."
He was mumbling to himself now, but Janna picked up the thread of his conversation. Anything to distract herself from the passing blur of the road and the danger of a drunken wreck. "So how did you do it?"
Her kidnapper looked over at her in surprise, as if he'd forgotten he was not alone. A slow smile spread across his face, and he took a sip from the vodka bottle before putting it back between his legs. "I've been watching you for days. Hiding in the bushes near your house. Following you around the campus. But I couldn't ever get close enough to grab you, not with those three security assholes tailing you everywhere."
"But finally they slipped up. I watched you this morning as you stormed out of the restaurant, screaming at my dear cousin. I knew then that you'd plan something, figure out some way to retaliate."
"It wasn't retaliation!" Janna interrupted, unable to stop herself. Her keyed-up emotions made her impulse control vanish.
Chester chuckled. "Call it whatever you like. He didn't tell you about the security guys, right? Not until after you spent the night at Drake's house."
"How do you know about that?" Janna was mortified to have her life under a microscope, to have her every second cataloged by Brice, and now his cousin as well.
"I followed you there, of course. I thought you were smart. Now keep up. Dear Cousin Brice confronted you about your little indiscretion with Drake, then had to come clean about how he knew. Poor Brice. If he'd only figured out how to lie like the rest of us. Instead, he feels compelled to tell the truth, even when it hurts his own family." Chester's eyes went dark and his lips twisted into a cruel scowl.
Janna was frightened by that look, by the quiet menace it portended. Best to keep him talking, instead of dwelling on his Brice-inspired rage. "Fine, so you saw me storm off. But how did you figure out I'd do something...drastic?"
"You were obviously pissed, and I knew you'd try to escape your security team, to show Brice just how mad at him you were. Either that or you were trying to sneak back over to your lover's house. It was a toss-up really, deciding whether to stake out your place or Drake's. But I thought I'd have a better shot at making sure of where you were headed if I followed you from your place. That bit with the decoy was pretty clever, and I almost fell for it. But the girl was too skinny to be you. So I waited, followed your car, and figured out pretty quickly you were heading to the land my dear cousin donated. It wasn't hard to speed around you and set up a trap."
Janna frowned, angry at herself for ignoring Brice's warnings about his clearly deranged cousin. Still, the man's accusation stuck in her craw. "Drake is not my lover."
Chester eyed her, his mouth pulling up into a confused pout. "Sure he is. Otherwise, why would you spend the night over there?"
"We're just friends."
"Did my cousin buy that?" he asked after a harsh bark of laughter. "I bet he just ate it up. I don't know why Brice so adores being treated like a doormat. He wants his women to walk all over him. Can't help but pick the gold digger type. Just look at what that bitch Evetta did to him. I could almost feel sorry for him if he wasn't such a sanctimonious prick. I was fucking her at the same time, but I'd figured out her game long before Brice did. Poor sap gave her diamonds, cars, a fucking house for chrissakes! All the while she was fucking some accountant. And me. And probably a host of other guys."
"I didn't cheat on Brice." Chester's revelations were making Janna feel sick.
"Yeah, but the week after he tells the world you're his girl, you're spending the night at his biggest rival's house. Tell me you're not playing games."
"I'm not--"
"Look, I don't care," Chester snarled finally, then swerved around another curve. The tires skidded dangerously close to the edge, and Janna let out a little scream.
"Shut up!" he growled, then cursed as the vodka bottle came loose and spilled down his leg. "Shit!" He fumbled for the bottle, his eyes no longer on the road.
Janna held her breath as the car slid towards the side of the road. The edge lacked a guard rail to hold back the forests that climbed the steep hills around them. If the car kept on, they'd go over the side, down an embankment, and into the trees. She calculated her chances at escape. Would they be better if they crashed? Maybe her captor would be injured or killed, and she could make her way to safety.
And maybe I'd wind up the one who's hurt. Or worse. Decision made, she scooted over and grabbed the wheel with her bound hands, guiding the car away from the edge.
"What are you doing?" Chester shouted when he realized she'd moved. He backhanded her, the power of the blow against her face forcing her head back against the seat. The sting made her eyes tear, and she looked up in a watery daze.
"No funny business." He scowled down at her, his face flushed with drink, his eyes wild. He was riding the knife-edge of control, and Janna worried about what would happen when he took a tumble.
She felt the panic slicing up her insides, and for a moment she gave in. "Please...just let me go. I broke up with Brice, okay. We're over. So you can't use me to hurt him. He won't care."
Chester smiled, his perfect white teeth shining in the darkness. "Oh, he'll care. He's looking for you right now, I'm sure. We won't have much time before he figures out what's happened."
"What are you going to do to me?" Janna's voice was barely above a whisper.
His predatory smile was answer enough. "You'll see."
* * *
Brice spent the drive back to town on the phone. Between endless redials of Janna's number, he called his assistant to apprise him of the situation and order him to assemble the security team for a briefing and to alert the authorities. Another call to her cell. Another five rings, and then her voice came on, apologizing for missing his call.
His chest tightened every time he heard her recorded greeting, and he started hanging up before the fifth ring had finished.
Before long he was back in town, speeding towards his office and the security team now assembled there. It took several minutes to develop a plan, but soon he'd deployed his men in the hopes of locating his cousin.
"We've got teams headed towards your cousin's vacant apartment and your uncle's foreclosed residence. Another one is stationed at the co-op, in case she returns." Brice was thankful for his very capable assistant as Tony ran down their checklist. "I've been calling nearly every member of your family for days. So far, no one has seen or heard from your cousin. The authorities have been alerted, and they claim to be working the case as well. I was told they'd investigate her abandoned car near Alsea. Is there anything that I'm missing?"
Brice shook his head. "No. You've been very helpful, Tony. Thank you."
His assistant approached, laying a warm hand on his shoulder. "We'll get her back. You're doing all you can."
Brice stiffened, realizing then that Tony's statement wasn't technically true. "No, I'm not, but I will be." He stood, gave his assistant a wry smile and a pat on the back, then headed out the door. He wasn't looking forward to his arrival at the next destination, but if it helped him find Janna and bring her back safe, he would grit his teeth and get through it.
Drake didn't look that surprised to see him. Brice wanted to smack the smug grin off the man's face, but he couldn't. Not when he needed his help.
"Brice Masterson, what a pleasant surprise." The dark haired devil's smile was sharp, and Brice assumed, insincere.
"I need to talk to you."
"Of course," Alex said after a moment, then stepped aside to allow Brice to enter. The walk down the hall to his office was silent, and neither man said a word until both were seated and staring at each other over the large desk.
"So what was it you wanted to talk about?" A hint of a smile played at the corners of Drake's lips.
Brice took a deep breath. Irrational thoughts tumbled through his brain. Just this morning he'd been confronting Janna about spending the night in this very house, and now he was here, about the beg his rival for help. Now was not the time to
give in to the urge to knock out the smug bastard's teeth.
Alex watched Brice as the silence stretched on, finally speaking first. "Look, if this is about Janna spending the night, I can assure you that nothing happened."
"I know," Brice said. "That's not why I'm here."
If Alex was giving the pretense of being surprised earlier, genuine confusion was evident on his features now. "Then what is this about?"
"Janna's missing, and I need your help."
"Of course," Drake replied without hesitation. "But I'm not sure what I can do. What's happened?"
Brice sighed. "You remember my cousin Chester? I'm sure your paths have crossed at one event or another."
Alex nodded. "Yes, I seem to recall he was a man with a certain...alcoholic charm."
"He's a lush, but generally harmless. Until I helped put his father in federal prison. He's holding a grudge, and I think he's kidnapped, Janna. I'm afraid he'll hurt her to get to me. And I don't know where he's taken her."
"Where do I fit in? I assume you've alerted the authorities?" At Brice's nod, he continued. "And you've hired someone, or a lot of someones, if I know you, to look for her." Brice nodded again. "Then what can I do to help?"
"I need to find my cousin, and I need to do it quickly. He can't get far before he needs to crawl into a bottle. And since Daddy's in prison, he's been cut off from his usual allowance, so he's probably exhausted nearly all of his resources. That makes me think he's on one of the properties his father owns. The problem is, I'm not sure how many properties my uncle has. I'm certain his business hasn't been legitimate in years, and there's no telling what shells he's got his holdings hidden under."
Brice stared directly at his rival. "I know you've got a guy in Public Records, or the Assessor's Office, someone who finds information for you when you need it."
