Chapter 21
We arrived back at the farm to find Clayton putting his bags in the back of the Town Car. He slammed the trunk as we approached.
“Going somewhere?”
“Duty calls. Ms. Delany has another assignment she needs me on. Are you going to be okay here without me?”
“I don’t know how we’ll ever manage,” I teased and pulled him into a hug. His stance remained awkward and rigid, as though I might give him cooties from the human contact, so I kissed his cheek for good measure and watched in amusement as he wiped the spot with a handkerchief.
“Your sister is still worried about you. She thinks you should leave with me and I should drop you back home.”
I gave a nonchalant flip of my wrist. “I’m fine. Go on without me.”
Nathan rested his arm over my shoulder and held out a hand to Clayton. “I’ve got her.”
They shook, and Clayton’s face softened. “Yeah, I’d say you do.”
****
Three hours later, under cover of the cloudy night sky, we parked in the same spot as before, only now lights peeked out from partially closed curtains. Two trucks were parked in the driveway. Nothing unusual there. It was the vehicle of choice in Texas.
Nathan and I sat in silence, watching and waiting, until I couldn’t take it anymore. “I’m just going to go peek in the windows. Then we’ll know.”
I opened the door, and Nathan hurried to turn off the inside overhead light, plunging us back into darkness. “No, you’re not.”
“It will be fine. You’ll be able to see me from the truck.” I slipped out of his hold.
“Cassie.” He said my name on a loud whisper just as I shut the door.
I jogged across the street and was sliding up next to the shadow of the house when a warm hand landed on my shoulder.
A squeak left my lips before Nathan covered my mouth with his palm and leaned in. “Don’t scream. It’s just me.”
I inched closer to the window on the side of the house, trying to stay out of view of the neighbors. I lifted my head over the windowsill, just enough to peek inside.
“Kitchen,” I whispered as I slowly lowered out of view. “Let’s try another one.”
“This is illegal, Cassie,” Nathan whispered as he followed me around toward the back of the house to a sliding glass door.
I peeked around the edge to find John, standing shirtless inside. Kissing him was Murray Ranch roughneck, Pete, who had a towel wrapped around his waist. My hand flew to my mouth to cover my gasp. Poor Monica. Did she know her husband was cheating on her with another man?
“What?” Nathan whispered and moved me out of the way to look inside. He leaned back out of view and pressed his back to the brick. The look on his face and lack of words said it all. Nathan hadn’t known either.
He took my hand and hurried me from the house and back across the street. He pulled open the door, and we both froze.
Uncle Dan was sitting in the front seat with a gun pointed at our heads and a phone pressed against his ear. “Get your asses out here.”
He motioned with the gun as he slid out of the car. He grabbed my wrist and twirled me to his chest, pressing the gun into my side.
“Why?” Nathan growled and moved closer. Dan cocked the trigger.
“Not out here, kid. I have a reputation to protect,” Dan said, just as John and Pete burst out the door and jogged across the street. They were both now fully dressed.
John grabbed Nathan’s arm and yanked him toward the house while Dan guided me with the gun.
“You know your son’s gay?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
“His little pansy-ass fell in love with the one man more dangerous than himself. I couldn’t stop it.”
“You cheated on Monica,” I called out as they shoved us into the house.
“She doesn’t need to know, and she’s not going to find out, once I kill you both.”
The back of John’s fist met my cheek. An explosion of pain stole my breath and sent me to the ground. I was unable to stop the impact. I struggled to breathe as I cupped my hurt face. My fingers came away bloody as I winced.
Nathan reached for me, but froze as John pressed a gun hard against my temple.
“I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch.” Nathan growled.
“You sound like your mother,” Dan said as he crossed the room and poured himself a bourbon. “She didn’t know how to keep her nose out of my business.”
“Which one of you killed her?” Nathan growled as I slowly rose to my feet.
“You might not remember, but your mother and my wife, Tina, were best friends. It was inevitable when our families spent so much time around each other. Your mom was the first to notice the bruises I’d left on Tina. We’d fight, and she’d get me so damn angry.” Dan’s eyes glazed over as if he were remembering.
“You killed her too, didn’t you?” Nathan asked, snapping Dan back into the present. He poured two more drinks and handed one to John and the other to Pete. Without the gun holding me in place, I scooted closer to Nathan’s side.
“Your mother killed her when she offered Tina a way out. A way to get away from me. She’d almost made it too, but I caught her just in time. That car accident wasn’t difficult to stage.”
“Jenna wanted to help Tina hide?” I asked, standing next to Nathan. I rested my palm on his arm, signaling that I was all right.
“That was her thing,” Dan said, draining the liquid in the glass. “She has a book of names of others she helped hide. Tina told me about it when I was beating the plan out of her.” Dan turned and threw the glass into the fireplace. The shattering sound of glass made me still.
Dan lifted the gun and pointed it at Nathan. “I’d planned the entire bank robbery down to the second. When your mother walked in, that threw everything off. I knew instantly that this was my chance to make her pay.”
“You killed her, you son of a bitch.” Nathan growled and I held his arm firm.
“I had everything. My plan was already in motion to kill the guys who robbed the bank. The money was all mine. Your mother was just a bonus. I had an air tight alibi. I was a victim just like your mom.” He gave Nathan a sadistic grin. “As she lay dying on the floor of the bank, I promised that I’d find her book and contact every one of those men to tell the women’s locations.”
“You’re a sadistic bastard,” I said, unable to stop myself.
“Her being at the bank that particular day was kismet. Two birds, wouldn’t you say?” Dan let out an evil chuckle as he cocked the trigger again and grinned. “Tell your mom I said hi.”
Before he could pull the trigger, Pete shoved the gun to the ground to stop him from shooting. “Don’t kill him yet. We could use him.”
“I’m not going to help you,” Nathan spat.
“How?” John asked.
Pete pistol-whipped Nathan with the butt of the gun. He dropped to his knees, and I went with him, my hands on his face.
“Are you okay?”
“She’s how you’re going to help us,” Pete announced. “Cassie is a freak of nature. She knew where to find oil for William. We’re going to use her to find the oil for us, on Michael and Janet’s land. You won’t have to sell it to the developer to pay off your gambling debts. The oil will be enough to set us up for life,” Pete said.
“Then we’ll kill Nathan and Monica. The town won’t think twice about Cassie leaving town when they find Nathan and Monica dead together in a bed,” John said, swiping at his nose. “Pete can kill them both while I establish an unbreakable alibi.”
“You won’t get away that,” I said, helping Nathan to stand. “His family will come looking for us.” Not to mention mine when Gwen figured out that I went missing. The entire FDG group would converge on this town. Hopefully, one of my sisters would have a premonition before I died.
Fear skirted my spine. These guys had a plan, and they could probably make it work. I wouldn’t let them hurt Nathan, and they knew it.
Just like I did. I was falling head over heels for the agent, and that was going to get us both killed.
“Touch him again, and you’ll never find a drop,” I said, gritting my teeth.
John raised his gun and neared me. He rested his palm on the back of my neck. “You’re going to be fun to break.”
He leaned over and pressed a hard and punishing kiss to my lips before he pulled away.
I turned my head. “Stronger men than you have tried.”
“Oil first, son, then you and Pete can share her like you do with your wife. Let’s tie them up in the storm shelter while we devise our plan. After you’re finished judging the competition, John, we’ll come up with a reason Nathan left town for a few days without saying goodbye. That should give us enough time to set the stage for killing him and Monica in bed. His family will believe me, and then we can get to work. Get Nathan’s keys. I need to hide his truck.”
They bound our hands behind our backs with zip ties before leading us out back and down into the storm shelter. This storm shelter was being used for storage and was smaller than the one at the library where Michael and Janet were still hiding.
They shoved us down the stairs. I lost my footing, and I landed on my side on the dusty floor seconds before we were plunged into darkness.
Chapter 22
Nathan dropped to his knees beside me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to push myself to sit up and ignoring the pain radiating down my arm. “Your friends suck.”
Nathan rested his forehead against mine. “They aren’t my friends.”
He turned his back to me and used his zip-tied hands to help me stand. A scream wretched free as I put pressure on my foot. “I think I sprained my ankle.”
Nathan reached for her foot in the darkness and ran his fingers gingerly down to my ankle. “I think you did more than that. Come on let’s get you a seat on the stairs so you can take the pressure off your foot.”
Nathan started to move around the room, and he’d moved out of my peripheral vision.
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for something sharp to get out of these bindings.”
I lifted my butt and slid my wrists beneath, moving my legs through the path until my hands were in front of me. I rose, limping on my foot, and slammed my fists against my legs, tugging each hand in the opposite direction until the plastic snapped free.
Nathan hurried to my side as I wobbled and sat back down. “How did you know to do that?”
“YouTube video.” I grinned and ran my gaze down his body. “Something tells me you won’t be as flexible, so wait here.”
I pushed the wall to ease myself up and hopped around the room until I found exactly what I needed. A long thin piece of metal. I returned and slid it through the connection tines, breaking the connection where they could just slide free. Within seconds, he was out.
Nathan kissed me. “You surprise me at every turn.”
“I’m kind of unpredictable like that.” I sighed. “Okay, I got us free. How are you going to get us out?”
I heard the click sound seconds before light surrounded us. Nathan stood in the middle of the room. He’d pulled the light string hanging from the ceiling. I’d been in worse places than this, but still, knowing what lurked nearby was better than not knowing.
The room had knickknacks of all types lying around. Tools, Christmas decorations, everything you’d think to find stored in a garage back home.
Nathan jogged up the stairs and pushed against the wooden door. It didn’t budge.
“Don’t suppose you found an ax lying around? Or a key?”
“No,” Nathan said, jogging back down the stairs. He opened boxes, looking for a weapon.
Sweat poured down my face as the crystal vibrated against my chest. I slowly rose from my spot and hobbled around the room, almost tripping on a hammer. I picked it up and moved it out of the way. With each step, the vibration would strengthen until I was standing before a locked gun cabinet pressed at the other end of the room.
“Uh, Nathan,” I said, clasping my crystal in my hand. “I think I know where your cash is stashed.”
I yanked hard on the lock. Breaking locks wasn’t a skill that Gwen had taught me yet.
Nathan disappeared before returning to my side with a screwdriver in hand. He pressed the pointy part beneath the hinge bolt holding the door in place, and he pried it up, not stopping until both bolts were removed and the door lay hanging askew by just the lock.
“We work well together,” I teased.
He set the door aside and rummaged through the contents. Finding no guns stashed inside was disappointing. Stuff from a kitchen sat on the shelves. Breadboxes, crockpots, steamer pots, everything big and bulky you’d find around a kitchen, including containers for sugar and flour.
He grabbed the cookie jar and opened it, showing that there were stacks of hundreds inside. I tilted the flour canister and lifted the lid and found the same thing. We looked through everything, and in each of those kitchen storage items, they had stacks of clean hundred-dollar bills with no red dye, until we got to the breadbox.
Nathan pulled it out and had a hard time opening it. He tilted it and pulled out stained cash. “Looks like more than one teller got their dye packs inside.”
I picked up another pot, and when I did, it sounded full of loose change. I peeked beneath the lid, and my heart clenched. I showed Nathan. Sitting inside were a few of the gold coins that my client had found. These men really had killed Herbert.
Nathan pulled out a fistful of the ruined money in his grasp. “I’m sure Dan had an idea of which bags full of cash would get ruined.”
Nathan sat back on his haunches and exhaled a long deep breath. The mystery of his mother’s death was solved, but he’d yet to bring the criminals to justice. All of the original bank robbers were dead. Dan had seen to that. Only the fourth man was still breathing, but not for long.
“Did you know anything about a book?”
“Yeah, my dad told me about it three years ago. My mom was part of an underground system that helped battered women disappear and start new lives. She had a ledger of everyone they helped. We thought she died over that. She’d gone to the bank to retrieve it and brought it home to add another woman to the list. I don’t think my dad realized who it was. My mom returned back to the bank the next day with other items in her backpack to put in the safety deposit box. The book stayed at the house. She needed time to get the details figured out and written in. If my mom hadn’t returned to the bank to put more stuff into her deposit box, she might still be alive.”
“Something tells me that Dan wouldn’t have left that to chance.”
“You’re right.” Nathan’s jaw ticked as he answered.
“And I guess Tina never made it out of town or got her name in the ledger.”
“My mom died for trying to help her, though. Funny thing is that she didn’t even tell my dad who she was trying to help. We hadn’t a clue.” Fury filled Nathan’s voice. “We went on fucking family vacations with those people. We’d camped together, done everything together.”
“Let’s hope Marty isn’t anything like them.”
“Amanda,” Nathan whispered as if remembering that there was still a family connection.
“They won’t hurt her. They have to keep up appearances,” I said, resting my hand on his. “My sisters will come looking for us. I’m sure of that.”
“We need to get out of here.” Nathan rose with renewed purpose and continued his search around the area.
I stumbled, and Nathan was quick to my side. “You rest, and I’ll do the heavy lifting.”
I sat back down, ignoring the throb in my foot and the sweat beading on my brow. I couldn’t imagine having to live down here in a confined space. Michael and Janet were much stronger than I could ever be.
Chapter 23
I’d fallen asleep sometime watching him pace the room. When I’d woken up, I was leaning against his
shoulder. He’d made a blanket out of winter coats and had covered my body.
I glanced up at him to find a look of defeat on his face.
“No luck finding us a way out?” I asked.
“I came up with a plan, but it could kill us,” he said deadpanned, as if he’d been debating on telling me.
“What do you have in mind?”
“We need someone to find us.” He glanced in the direction of the gas cans across the room. “We could start a fire with the money and wait until the cavalry arrives.
My mouth parted. “The smoke inhalation would kill us first, but you might be on to something. What if we set fire to one of the doors instead of the objects in this room?”
“It wouldn’t matter,” Nathan said, running his fingers over his head. “We’d still end up dead if the fire department didn’t get here in time.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “What if we pretended to still be tied up when they come back? What if we rushed them with a weapon?” I spotted the hammer across the room that I’d moved out of the way. The handle was partially sticking out from beneath a small dresser.
“What weapon?” he asked, rising and almost knocking me over. “I’ve looked through every box in here. I’ve torn this place apart.”
I made an O with my lips. “I almost tripped on it when I was following the crystal. I shoved it beneath that small table. Sorry.”
Nathan kissed my lips. A look of relief filled his eyes. “You’re beautiful and smart, and I love you, Cassie Bennett. If we get out of this, you’re going to be spending a lot more time with me.”
“Promises, promises.” I chuckled and watched Nathan pick up the hammer and head back up the stairs.
He slammed it against the door, over and over again. Each stroke sent shards of wood flying. The loud sound was deafening.
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll hear you?” I asked.
Nathan swung harder. “Nope, I don’t think anyone’s home. John will be at the rodeo competition. Dan will be at the bank, and even if Pete is home, I can take him, but I suspect he’s with my dad or Amanda.” Nathan swung harder and faster until he broke through. A gush of air rushed in, and the sun shined down. Nathan used the claw part of the hammer to tear a piece big enough for him to climb through.
Pay Dirt (Bennett Dynasty Book 2) Page 10
