by Dana R. Lynn
After he dragged her out, he slapped her. Hard. She tasted blood.
He pushed a button on his key fob and the trunk popped open.
Oh no. Suddenly, her fear of small closed-in places was all that she could think of. Struggling with all her might, she fought, trying to kick and scratch, anything to avoid being shoved into the trunk.
Her blows and attempts didn’t even faze him. He pulled her irrevocably toward the trunk.
“I can’t have anyone recognizing you, Alexa. In you go.”
He picked her up and threw her inside, slamming the lid down, closing out all the light.
“Wait! Don’t do this!” Ignoring the pain that lanced up the arm he’d held behind her back, Alexa banged on the sealed lid and shouted with all her might. It did no good. She gave up when the car began to vibrate. It was in motion.
Her claustrophobia kicked in, telling her to breathe quickly. She forced herself to remain calm and not panic. Which wasn’t easy. Taking in slow breaths, she considered her options. She didn’t have her phone on her—it was in her coat. Surely someone from the clinic would have notified the police by now.
Police. Gavin. Was he safe? What would he do?
He’d pray.
Closing her eyes, she tried to think of the right words. Nothing came to mind. Certainly nothing fancy. God just wants your trust and your love. Could she do that? Could she trust Gavin’s God. Could He help her now?
It was worth a try.
“God, I don’t know if I’m doing this right. Please help Gavin. Help me. Amen.”
Was that enough?
She tried to keep track of the turns the car made. It was impossible. She also lost any clue as to what time it was. She grew colder. Her teeth knocked together, she was shivering so hard. Her feet were blocks of ice. And then another problem became evident. She could feel her head growing fuzzy. It was hard to focus her thoughts.
Her blood sugar was crashing. The sugar pills she needed were in her bag. So was her glucagon kit. And her bag was back at the clinic. One of her worst fears had always been that she’d go into a diabetic coma and not be able to come out of it. She’d been careful since she’d been diagnosed to have the medicine she needed on hand.
But she had nothing now. No medicine. No food. No doctors. No Gavin. All she had was a maniac who believed that because she’d once treated him, they were soul mates.
Her head was swimming now. Soon she wouldn’t be able to stay alert. Fear crawled through her. Her heart wanted to explode with it. Fear for herself. Fear for Gavin.
And fear for Damien’s next victim. Unless he was stopped, the cycle would continue.
“Lord, I have nothing left.”
She couldn’t even think of the words to say. All she knew was that she was going to die. Gavin found some peace in his relationship with God. She discovered that she wanted that, too. Silently, in the cold dark trunk where she lay, she offered that wish up to God.
Closing her eyes again, a sense of peace washed over her. She had been searching for peace for so long. It had finally come with her surrender to God.
She waited for the end to claim her. “Lord, help Gavin not to blame himself.”
A tingling buzz swam in her head, accompanied by the whirling of nausea in her stomach. She was going to pass out. The buzzing increased, swallowing up her last conscious thought.
Poor Gavin. He was going to be too late.
* * *
Alexa was gone.
Sam was leaning over him, his face pale and drawn. “Gavin—”
Shoving his brother away, Gavin clambered unsteadily to his feet. Swaying, he fought off the dizziness. His arms were caught on both sides. Too weak to protest, he allowed himself to be assisted to a chair.
After a couple of minutes, the dizziness faded. Opening his eyes, he found himself the focus of the others in the room. Sam. Megan. Linda. But no Lexie, and no Damien.
He had her.
Gavin surged to his feet, nearly knocking Sam over in the process.
“Gavin, you shouldn’t—”
“He’s got her, Sam! That madman has Lexie. I have to go after her.” The sudden vision of that same madman holding a gun on his brother brought him up short. He gave his brother a once-over. He seemed all right. “Are you okay, Sam? You don’t look hurt.”
“We’re all fine. Look, he somehow blocked the door. We can’t get out. We’ve yelled, but no one has come to help us.”
“Yeah, that’s because when I got here, I made all the patients go away for their own safety.”
Sam nodded.
“That was probably for the best. Damien took all of our cell phones when he locked us in here. But he didn’t take yours. Megan has used your cell phone to call the police. You were only out for about five minutes. He can’t have gone far.”
Which was great information. Except that Jackson didn’t know how far Alexander was planning on traveling with Lexie. The past few run-ins had led him to believe that he was pretty set on killing her.
Lord, help me think!
“How long ago has it been since you called the police?” He started to pace, refusing to dwell on his aching head. Or his aching heart.
“Three minutes. Maybe four,” Megan answered.
Calculating the time and distance in his mind did nothing to improve his mood. Too far away. “It’ll still be fifteen minutes before the police arrive,” he told them. He could see by the troubled looks on Megan’s and Sam’s faces that they didn’t like that statement any more than he did.
“Oh!” He looked over in surprise at the quiet Amish girl who had exclaimed. Linda. Her eyes were wide. The side of her face was beginning to show the faint purplish hue of a bruise about to form from where Damien had shoved her against the wall. He winced. It had to hurt.
“Yes?”
“If that lady,” she said, gesturing toward Megan, “will let me use the phone, I can call my driver. He was only going to go into the hardware store on the next street to wait for me. I usually call him from the office phone, and he comes and gets me. He can come and open the door.”
The first glimmer of hope since he’d opened his eyes started to sprout and grow inside his soul. If the driver could come right away, there was a chance he could get to the woman who owned his heart.
Megan leaped to her feet, her face animated. “Yes! Here, call him, please!”
Linda didn’t need to be asked twice. Grabbing the phone, she started to enter the digits, saying the phone number to herself. Gavin tapped his heel against the wall while they waited.
“George? Jah, it’s Linda. Please, George, I need your help.” Rapidly, she explained her situation to the man on the other end of the phone. The conversation was less than a minute, but to Gavin, it took forever. Linda ended the call and handed the phone back to Megan. “He is on his way. The man who owns the hardware store is coming, too.”
Within a couple of minutes, the sound of two men working on the door was heard. It took them only a minute or so to get it unjammed. When they opened it, the occupants of the room all burst out, exclaiming and talking over each other. Gavin let them. They could explain what happened all they wanted. He had a killer to catch.
“Gavin! Wait up!”
Aggravated, he spun on his heel to watch Sam hurrying to his side. “What, Sam? I have a job to do.”
His brother raised his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “I know you do, little brother. I hope with all my heart you find her, this woman you care for.”
Gavin didn’t even bother to deny it. His days of keeping his distance were done. He just prayed it wasn’t too late. “Thanks, Sam.”
He started to turn.
Sam wasn’t done. “What can I do? How do I help you to get her back?”
The idea of Sam helping had never occurred to him. Sam had always been the one t
o sometimes demand help to achieve his goals. A doctor he may be, but he’d never gone out of his way to help anyone but himself. Until now.
People can change, can’t they?
Lexie’s words struck him. Maybe they could. Maybe his brother could. And so could he.
“Okay,” he said, turning to his brother, accepting his offer with sincerity. “I need to find out if anyone saw Damien Alexander and Lexie leave. I have no clue what kind of vehicle he was driving or where he was headed. Any information could help us.”
“You got it.”
Sam moved across the street to where some people had come out to watch. Gavin headed toward a second group. It took them a few minutes, but by the time Parker arrived, they knew what kind of car Damien was driving and what direction he was heading.
“Parker!” He ran up to his colleague and friend, who was on his radio. “Alexander’s driving a dark blue Chevy four-door sedan. They don’t know the make of it. One guy did catch the license plate. He said it was the numbers of the year his kid was born.” He rattled off the plate number to Parker, who immediately fired them back to the dispatcher.
Starting to back away, Gavin yelled, “I’m heading in the direction they drove.”
“I’ll follow along. Jace should be here soon.”
Knowing that Lieutenant Jace Tucker would be on scene here freed Gavin from any sense of guilt. “Right. I’m out of here.”
Parker gave him a thumbs-up.
“Sergeant Jackson!” Gavin spun to see Megan running toward him. She was holding a small zippered bag in her hand. “You might need this. It’s Alexa’s diabetes kit.”
“Thanks!” Grabbing the bag, Gavin headed for his vehicle.
Jumping into his cruiser, Gavin tossed the bag on the passenger seat. Then he jammed the key into the ignition and turned. The car roared to life. Jerking it into reverse, he pulled out of his parking space, then moved off in pursuit of the woman he loved.
I’m coming, Lexie. I’m coming. Please just hold on.
SEVENTEEN
The cruiser slid into a turn. The wheels spun on the gravel, spitting out dirt and stones. Gavin could hear the gravel chunks pelting the underside of the vehicle. He removed his foot from the gas long enough for the car to settle before he again sped up.
His siren was blaring out a warning for other vehicles to get out of his way, the blue and red lights flashing like a disco strobe light. Traffic moved aside for him. Glancing in his back mirror, he could see another cruiser following close behind. Parker. Good.
Lord, let us catch Alexander before he hurts Lexie.
“The suspect has been spotted heading west on Marrell Avenue,” Elise’s clear voice cut across the air.
“Yes!” He would be at Marrell in two minutes. And Marrell was one of those roads with very few roads to turn onto. Long stretches with only fields on both sides. He hazarded a glance at his GPS. A plan formulated in his mind. It could work if he turned at the next intersection. Jabbing his finger at the radio on his dashboard, he shouted, “Parker! I’m going to turn on the next road and head north. I’m going to try to cut him off. If you stay on Marrell, we can box him in.”
“Got it,” Parker responded.
Breaking the connection, Gavin crossed his hands and spun the steering wheel, swerving the cruiser to the left in the intersection. The road was narrow, and he had to slow down to take it safely. Even as frustration tightened his hands on the wheel, he tamped it down. It would do Lexie no good if he crashed. He needed to be safe just as much as he needed to be fast.
A soft litany of prayer streamed forth from his mouth as he continued to drive.
Twenty minutes later, the road he was on ran parallel with Marrell. Glancing to the right, he saw the blue of Alexander’s vehicle about a car length ahead of him. Not for long. He grinned, clenching his teeth. His knuckles tightened on the steering wheel and his foot pressed down on the gas pedal. The engine revved. It was a beautiful sound. Alexander’s car was an old beater. It gave off a lot of exhaust, but it had no real punch to it. His cruiser, though, now it was a machine. Already, he was gaining on Alexander.
The exhilaration he felt was short-lived. A single glance over at the car he was racing parallel to made his blood freeze in his veins.
Lexie wasn’t in the car.
At least, he couldn’t see her. He forced himself to remain calm, to keep his wits about him. There were a multitude of possible reasons why he couldn’t see her. Maybe Alexander was making her stay down in the back seat. Maybe she was sitting in the floorboard.
Maybe she was dead.
No, no, no! He would not give in to those thoughts. It wasn’t going to be like last time. He wasn’t going to lose someone else he loved because he wasn’t on time. He would see her again. And when he did, he would tell her how he felt and do his best to convince her to give him a chance. Even if he didn’t deserve it.
But first he had a killer to catch.
The bend was just ahead. As soon as he rounded the curve, the two roads would merge into one and run concurrently for the next five miles. Now was his chance. Setting his jaw, Gavin jammed his foot on the gas as far as it would go. His cruiser roared and shot forward, skimming the curve like a skater rounding the arena. He pulled on the steering wheel, veering his vehicle so that it was perpendicular across the road, blocking it. Parker’s cruiser was advancing rapidly from behind.
Whipping his head up, his steady gaze met Alexander’s panicked eyes. He could see the other man frantically turning his wheel, but he had nowhere to go. There were trees on one side, a guardrail on the other. And in front, the steel frame of Gavin’s car. Still, he didn’t give up. His car slammed into the guardrail with a sickening crunch. Gavin flinched, praying that Lexie hadn’t been injured in the crash.
Throwing the door open, Damien Alexander leaped from the car and bolted toward the trees. A tactical error. Gavin jumped from his own vehicle and ran him down. Alexander was hampered by a limp. There was a bloody gash in his jeans. He’d obviously been hurt when the car had crashed into the guardrail.
With a single leap, Gavin took him down. They landed together on the packed snow. The man was shouting insensibly as Gavin rolled him on his back and slapped handcuffs on his wrists, reciting the Miranda rights quicker than he’d ever done before. All the while, his heart and mind were focused on finding Lexie. Saving Lexie.
Parker arrived at his side as he finished. The two officers hefted the belligerent criminal to his feet. He still wouldn’t give up, kicking and fighting the whole way.
Gripping Alexander tightly by the shoulder and arm, Gavin spoke through clenched teeth. “Where is she?”
A smirk crossed Alexander’s face. “I told her she’d pay for betraying me. I told her. You think she’s yours?” He spat in Gavin’s face. “She’s mine. She loves me. Or she did. Now she won’t be able to betray me ever again.”
For a moment black spots danced before Gavin’s eyes. He was too late. This evil man had killed her. He’d never see her again. Grief like he’d never known swirled inside him.
He’s lying. The thought was a desperate one, but he clung to it like a man dying of thirst. He couldn’t give up now, not when he was this close.
“Parker,” he barked at his friend. “Take him and put him in the cruiser, will you? I need to search for Lexie. Something tells me this dude is lying.”
“You got it.” Parker grabbed Alexander from behind, one hand firmly holding on to his wriggling shoulder, and pushed him toward his vehicle. The lights were still flashing. “You’re going away for a long time.”
Alexander struggled harder. “No! No, you can’t have her! She’s mine. She belongs to me!”
Gavin listened to the shrieks, and some of his fear bled away. The man wouldn’t carry on so if she was truly dead.
He took a moment to glance inside the vehicle. Lexie wasn’t
inside the car. If she was still in the vehicle at all, she had to be in the trunk. Reaching inside the car, he pushed the button to release the trunk and then raced to the back of the car.
His heart stopped.
Lexie was lying, so still and pale. All his fears returned. Then he saw she was breathing.
Her diabetes kit! Remembering the bag in his car, he ran back and yanked it out of the front seat. Rummaging through it, he found what he had been looking for—Alexa’s glucagon kit. Grabbing it, he quickly returned to her. Then he bent over and lifted her out of the trunk. Her head lolled against his shoulder. “Come on, Lexie. Fight. Don’t give in. Lexie, please, open your eyes. Let me see your eyes.”
No response.
“Parker! Call 911!” He couldn’t take his eyes off her beautiful face. She was so pale. The bruises on her cheeks stood out starkly.
“Done.” Parker appeared beside them. “Do you have anything you can give her?”
“Yeah. Help me.”
Between the two men, they managed to roll her into the proper position for Gavin to give her the glucagon shot.
A moan caught their attention. Both men’s eyes shot to her face. Her lids fluttered open. Her gaze was unfocused and confused, the pupils huge in her blue-gray eyes. They were the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
“Gavin?” His name was a mere mumble on her lips, but he understood it. Her mouth moved. She was trying to talk again but couldn’t seem to get the words out. He put his finger on her lips to still them. It couldn’t be good for her to use so much effort when she was in such bad shape.
“Right here, Lexie. I got you. You’re going to be fine. The ambulance is on its way.”
“He shot you.”
He’d almost forgotten that in his concern about her. “It’s just a minor wound. Seriously. I’m good.”
“Glad.” She fell back asleep in his arms. He kissed her forehead, thanking God for getting him there in time. Her skin was so cold. She needed to be warmed up, soon. The ambulance arrived, and he released her into the paramedics’ care, knowing they could help her in ways he couldn’t. Not that it was easy. The only thing he wanted was to go with her.
