Tanner was already nodding in agreement.
“Yes,” Logan said. “We want to be there. Can we keep a lid on this from the press for awhile? Once this breaks it’s going to be a nightmare.”
“I told the sheriff to keep it quiet, but I can’t guarantee anything. If Bryson lawyers up, they may go public. Or maybe one of the deputies or office staff talks.”
Bryson. Bryson. Bryson.
Would Logan ever be free of that name and family? Ava had been right about Wade Bryson living rent-free in his head, but it was because of shit like this. He’d never get away. He and Wade Bryson would be inextricably linked forever.
“Call us with the details,” Logan said. “We’re picking up my daughter right now, but we’ll be back at the condo soon. I know some of the other guys might want to watch the questioning as well.”
Eli promised to send him the information as Tanner pulled up in Katie’s driveway. The house her family had rented was in a nice area with Mediterranean-style homes. Because it was a weekday, the street was mostly quiet except for a lawn care team several houses down mowing the grass.
“I’ll wait for you here,” Tanner said, pulling out his phone. “I’ll send a text to the guys to let them know the news.”
“Sounds good. I shouldn’t be long.”
Hopefully Brianna wasn’t too ill and wouldn’t need a trip to the emergency room. Maybe just an oncoming cold? Whenever they’d flown anywhere, Brianna had always ended up with the sniffles from the recirculated air. In fact, Ava usually did, too. They should have expected something like this.
He’d get Brianna home and tucked into bed with some orange juice and chicken soup.
Then he’d go question Jake Bryson about why he killed all of those men.
Instead of the men that he really wanted dead. Them.
Brianna’s first thought when opening her eyes was that it was stifling hot. The air around her was moving but it wasn’t cooling her off at all. Instead, sweat was trickling down her back, her t-shirt sticking to her damp skin. Her arms hurt and she didn’t know why.
At first her vision was blurry but she blinked a few times and everything came into focus. Above her, a ceiling fan was turning, the blades softly squeaking with every rotation. The room was rather small, with a desk pushed up against the wall and an overstuffed chair in the corner. There were two windows side by side, the drapes pushed open, that looked over a backyard or green space of some sort.
And the reason her arms hurt was because they were cuffed behind her in this wooden chair.
Her heart accelerated as she tugged at the binding at her wrists. A sharp pain ran from her shoulder to elbow as she strained to get free. She had no idea how she’d ended up here but every instinct inside was telling her that this was bad, very, very bad, and she needed to get out. Now.
Her panicked mind struggled to make sense of her predicament. The last thing she remembered was being helped to the car by Katie. They were supposed to go back to the condo and her parents.
And where was Katie? Was she hurt? Was she also tied up?
Brianna’s stomach twisted into a hard knot as her brain ran through all the possibilities of what had happened to her friend and none of them were positive. She tried to breathe steadily to calm herself down as her hysteria mounted. She wasn’t tied to the chair, her arms were simply placed behind the straight wooden back, so she could stand up if she wanted to but then what? They were cuffed together so she couldn’t fight back or even open the nearby window to climb out.
Calm down. Calm down. Dad was cuffed to a chair once. You’ve heard the story for years. What did he do?
She didn’t really want to think about the reason she was cuffed in this small room. Her dad had been cuffed because Wade Bryson wanted to kill him. Why was she?
Like most teenagers, she’d heard stories of human trafficking. She’d always sort of thought that they were to scare kids that wanted to have fun and stay out late, have some independence from their parents. Now she was quickly rethinking that.
Think. Just think. Slow down and think. You won’t get out of this all panicked.
What would Mom and Dad do?
Brianna stopped struggling and took several slow breaths. She needed to use her brain. She didn’t know how or why she was here, but she wasn’t going to let herself become a victim on the evening news. Some cautionary tale for other teenage girls who’d gone to the mall without their parents. She could only hope Katie - wherever she was - was doing the same.
Never let anyone take you anywhere. Scream, yell, fight, scratch. Whatever you have to do. Make a scene. Be difficult.
She was already somewhere else but from looking out of the window she was still in Florida. There were palm trees in the backyard. She didn’t know what time it was but she didn’t think she’d been sleeping all that long. Was it the same day? If so, they hadn’t had time to transport her very far.
And if they wanted to transport her from here, she would follow her parents’ advice. Make a scene. Fight. Scream. She wouldn’t go easily or willingly.
Brianna thought back on the stories she’d heard growing up about how her dad had broken a set of handcuffs and ended up fighting Wade Bryson for a knife. Experimentally, she gently tugged at the bindings at her wrists, her fingers trying to run over the edges. From this she realized that she was bound with plastic zip ties, not a metal set of handcuffs.
Her head fell back in relief and tears burned at the backs of her eyes. Her mother had been writing a book with Aunt Kaylee about a kidnapping and the victim had been tied with zip ties, but she’d managed to get away by breaking them. Kaylee and her mother had wanted to see if it was possible and they’d purchased about a dozen sets of plastic zip ties. Everyone, including Brianna and Colt, had been tied up with those things and had learned how to break them. She’d done it once; surely she could do it again. There was only one problem. She was tied behind her back, not in front of her like they’d done in practice that day. She’d need to slide her hands underneath her bottom and legs.
I can do this.
Once she broke her ties, she could climb out of the window and run away. She could get help and find out what happened to Katie.
I have a plan.
She didn’t get a chance to put it into action, however. The door swung open and a man walked through, his gaze immediately on her. She’d never seen him before, didn’t know who he was, but she didn’t like the way he was looking at her.
She began to tremble as he eyed her up and down, his expression stone cold. She wanted to say something, anything, but she couldn’t seem to make her mouth work, especially as he moved closer, towering over her. She bit into her lip to keep from crying out loud. She didn’t want to show fear or any expression if she could help it. She didn’t want him to know how frightened she was.
“Where’s Katie?”
Somehow she’d managed a sentence, although her voice sounded shaky and scared.
If she thought he’d be angry about being questioned, she was wrong. His brows went up in surprise.
“You’re worried about Katie? You should probably be worried about you, Brianna.”
“How do you know my name?”
It was actually not a great question. She didn’t know where her purse was and he probably had it. Her school ID was in her wallet.
And her phone? Did he have that also? Had he gotten rid of it? If he still had it, there was a chance her parents could find her using that cell phone app she’d argued with her mom and dad about. She’d called it surveillance; they’d called it being safe.
If I can just get out of here alive, I’ll never argue with Mom and Dad again. And I won’t argue with Colt either.
“I know lots about you. But I bet you don’t know anything about me.” He leaned forward so close she could smell him, a mixture of sweat and something else…something slightly floral. Fabric softener? His face was clean shaven, his dark brown hair a little long and shaggy, falling over one eye. �
�My name is Gavin Witlock.”
Witlock? That was Katie’s last name.
“You’re Katie’s brother?”
He nodded and took a step back.
“You might know me better by the name my father gave me. Jake. Jake Bryson.”
It took a moment for her brain to put it all together. He was a Bryson. And if Katie was his sister, then she was a Bryson, too.
“You’re a Bryson.”
He smiled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Technically, so are you. But yes, I’m a Bryson. Your father killed my father.”
“Your father was Wade Bryson.”
Brianna knew that her father wasn’t responsible for Lyle or Aaron’s deaths.
“He was. Your father took him from me. So I’ve been waiting and practicing for this day, little Brianna. Your daddy is going to come running to your rescue and that’s when I finally avenge what he did to me. Me and my sisters.”
She was the bait. And she had no doubt her dad would come running to rescue her.
Right into a trap.
“My father didn’t take your father away. The prison system did that. He was only protecting himself that night.”
Bryson’s blue eyes were cold and icy. He wasn’t even angry. He was simply determined.
He didn’t answer, instead turning his back to her and facing the desk, rummaging in the middle drawer before pulling something out. The metal glinted where the sun streaming through the windows hit it.
A knife. Just like Wade Bryson all those years ago.
And just like those murders that her dad was investigating back in Corville. This was the guy.
“You killed all those men in Corville, didn’t you? You carved the initials of my dad’s friends into their skin.”
Her mom and dad were always trying to keep her from seeing crime photos but she and Colt always managed to look at them. These had been particularly grisly. She hadn’t slept well that night.
“Where’s Katie? Is she okay? What are you going to do?”
But Jake Bryson wasn’t answering Brianna anymore. His gaze was off somewhere far away, as he held the knife up for her to see.
“Practice makes perfect,” he said.
She didn’t know what he was talking about, and she didn’t have time to ponder it either. His arm swung down and the knife sliced through the skin of her left arm. She screamed as the pain burned, but he didn’t give her any respite. His arm came around again, this time the knife slicing through the fabric of her shirt and the skin of her shoulder. She screamed again, instinct kicking in as self-preservation became her primary goal. She began to stand up to run but his hand came down on her other uninjured shoulder, shoving her back into the chair.
His expression was granite, his eyes so dark they were almost black. A shudder ran through her as he placed the blade on her cheek, near her jawline. She tried to freeze but she was physically shaking from the fear and pain. With absolutely no change in his expression, he pressed the blade into her skin, cutting the delicate flesh. Tears welled up in her eyes and another scream escaped her lips. She didn’t want him to know he was hurting her, but she couldn’t control her reaction. She could feel the blood from the wound sliding down her neck as the tears streamed down her face. He’d moved the knife down to her other arm when the door flew open.
“What are you doing?”
It was Katie. She looked fine.
Bryson turned to his sister, but his expression didn’t soften in the least. He was looking at her as coldly as he’d looked at Brianna.
“This wasn’t the deal,” Katie said, her voice high and angry. “You weren’t supposed to hurt her. You were just supposed to use her as bait.”
Brianna wanted to speak, say something to the person that she’d thought was her friend, but she was in far too much pain to even move. Dealing with that was taking all of her energy. She couldn’t form words at the same time.
“You were just supposed to scare her a little,” Katie scolded. “Not use your knife. That’s for him.”
“Practice makes perfect.”
The second time Bryson had said that.
Katie beckoned to her brother, barely glancing at Brianna. “Come out here. We need to talk.”
With the knife still in his hand, he followed Katie out of the room, leaving Brianna all alone. She was bleeding and hurt but she couldn’t give up. Her mom and dad wouldn’t do it and she wouldn’t either. She had to get out of here and warn her father that he was walking into a trap.
But she didn’t know how long Bryson and Katie would be gone. She’d need to hurry.
Standing up from the chair, she dropped down to the floor and then slid her hands underneath her all the way to her feet before pulling them free. Every movement of her left arm sent a burning pain through her but she gritted her teeth and ignored it. She couldn’t let her injuries keep her from escaping. When Bryson came back, he was surely going to hurt her far worse. He’d probably kill her and she wasn’t ready to die.
Luckily, she was flexible from all those years of gymnastics and swimming. Now the zip ties were in front of her. She’d done this once before and it hadn’t been that difficult. Hopefully, these weren’t some new and improved zip ties that she’d never heard about before.
Raised voices could be heard through the wall, although Brianna couldn’t make out what Bryson and Katie were saying. Only a few words here and there that didn’t make any sense. Any minute they were going to come back, especially if Katie didn’t win the argument.
She stood and raised her arms over her head, wincing at the pain, and steeled herself for more of it as she took a deep breath. She then quickly pulled her arms down and away with all the force that she had. As that day a few years ago, the zip ties snapped apart and her hands were free. Her arm throbbed with pain, but it wasn’t quite as bad as the time she’d broken her wrist. Only then her mom had given her an ice pack and taken her to the emergency room. A few more tears leaked from her eyes at the thought of how her mother would fuss when Brianna or Colt was sick or hurting. She’d never take it for granted again.
I’m free. Now get out of here. I need to find Dad.
Her hand automatically went to the cut at her jaw, her fingers coming away with bright red blood. It stung and hurt and she wanted nothing more than to curl up and cry but that was a luxury that would get her killed. This was life and death and she needed to be smart. She didn’t know how Bryson planned to use her as bait for her dad, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out.
Her heart racing with a mixture of fear and exhilaration from getting free, she opened the window and was able to push the screen off easily so she could climb out. She only stood outside the house of horrors for a second before taking off running from the backyard. She’d run and find someone with a cell phone or maybe a delivery guy. At home the neighborhood streets were crawling with package delivery trucks and cable repairmen.
Brianna ran around to the side of the house and toward the front yard, more tears blinding her vision. She’d just made the driveway when she ran into something large and solid. Two strong hands grasped her shoulders and she immediately fought back, her nails instinctively clawing at his arms. She wasn’t going to go back to that house quietly. She’d fight until the end.
22
He couldn’t stand Katie’s voice. She was yelling at him, shaking her finger in front of his face, incredibly angry at his actions.
“You never said you were going to hurt her,” she accused. “You said that you were going to use her as bait. That’s it. She’s not a part of this. She didn’t kill Dad.”
But she was a Bryson. Partly. Logan Wright was Dad’s half-brother. That meant that Bryson blood ran in Brianna’s veins.
What had their dad and mom said about Bryson blood?
It was evil. It needed to be stamped out by whatever means necessary. Their father had killed his own brothers to make sure that the evil didn’t propagate. Only Logan Wright survived.
�
�Are you listening to me?” Katie pressed. “Dammit, I’m talking to you.”
“I don’t want to talk.”
Because he didn’t.
She didn’t understand. This wasn’t about Brianna Wright. He didn’t care about her. This was about revenge for his father’s cold-blooded murder. He’d been denied a father because of Logan Wright. It wasn’t fair. It had never been fair. His mother had said that so many times.
He’d waited so long, bided his time until he was completely ready. He’d practiced over and over until he knew just what to do. How to drag the suffering out as long as possible before the final kill. It was time. Today. No more waiting and imagining.
It was finally going to happen.
Katie was still talking at him, the noise grating on his nerves. Her face was red and she appeared to be furious with him.
“Stop talking.”
It only served to make her angrier and she shook her finger under his nose again, her voice louder than before. He couldn’t take it. She needed to be quiet. Logan Wright would be here soon and if she was screaming and yelling, she’d give them away. He wanted to have the advantage of surprise.
He knew what he had to do.
Raising his right arm, he brought the knife in his hand down across Katie’s neck, right where the pulse beat frantically. Immediately, he felt the warm spray of blood on his body and face, the liquid trickling down his cheek and arms. Katie gurgled, her hands clawing at her own throat, but then crumpled to the floor, her eyes wide open, her face no longer red but pale. A large pool of blood was beginning to grow underneath her body and around his feet. The wet soles of his shoes squeaked on the tile. There was spray on his clothes and the white refrigerator and stove. He reached for a dishtowel and wiped his face and hands clean, tossing it back on the counter.
It was quiet now. Practice makes perfect. He’d known just where to place his knife.
Logan Wright would be arriving any minute.
Forgiven Justice (Cowboy Justice Association Book 14) Page 17
