Rules in Defiance

by Nichole Severn

  The world fought to right itself as the dizziness fled. She pulled at the root with her uninjured arm, but adrenaline could push her only so far. She was exhausted, bleeding. Her ears rang, but through the high-pitched keen, she picked up the sound of rushing water. A river. Looking down at her feet, she suppressed the scream working up her throat at the sight of how close she’d come to death. She struggled for purchase no more than twelve inches from the edge of a small cliff that ended in a raging river below. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, her hand gripped tight around the root. If the madman who’d shot her in the middle of the damn wilderness didn’t kill her, the river would. Waylynn tugged at the root again, but it gave way. Another scream escaped as reality set in. No one could help her now.

  A rough hand clamped onto her arm a split second before she plunged into the violent waters below, a hand with a raised scar across the back. “Oh, no, Dr. Hargraves. I’m not finished with you yet.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  You are a monster. Had he really thrown that in her face? The constant replay of their conversation echoed in his head as he hiked through another trail leading toward the main road. It was stupid to give in to the guilt eating him alive from the inside when he finally understood what she was, but the emotion proved too strong to fight. He’d used her one fear against her and now she was missing. Damn it. As far as he could tell, she’d headed straight into the woods to lose him.

  Three sets of headlights illuminated the trees and brush around him. He tapped the earpiece he kept on hand to connect to the rest of the team when they came into range and stepped out into the small dirt road leading up to the cabin. Vincent, Elizabeth, Sullivan and Anthony all hit the dirt at the same time and surveyed their surroundings. Just as they’d been trained. “Hey, look. It’s the strippers I ordered.”

  “You can’t afford me.” Sullivan Bishop took the phone Vincent offered him, swiping his thumb over the screen, and held it up. He turned in a wide circle. The former Navy SEAL had come strapped and ready for war. They all had. “How long has she been on foot?”

  Elliot strangled the guilt and rage. He never should’ve let her walk out that door, but neither did him a damn bit of good right now. Now all he could do was find her. “An hour. She headed down the road for about two hundred feet, then veered north, straight into the woods. I’ve searched four grids, all around the spot she took cover in the trees. No sign of her.”

  “We’re out of range.” Elizabeth stuffed her own phone into her pocket. “There’s no way she would’ve been able to call someone for a ride. She has to still be out there.”

  Not only were they out of range, but he’d also ditched her phone when he’d determined it was tapped, right before the car accident. No. She couldn’t call anyone. Couldn’t ask for help.

  “By ‘took cover’ you mean went into hiding?” Sullivan asked. “What the hell happened, Dunham? Last time I checked, that woman wouldn’t leave your side.”

  Elliot ran his uninjured hand through his hair. What’d happened? He’d screwed up. That was what had happened. There were at least a dozen other ways he could’ve approached the subject of the gun, but instead, he’d taken her betrayal personally. Searching for her a quarter mile in every direction, clearing his head, worried he’d find her body out here, he’d realized she hadn’t kept her father’s murder weapon to hurt him. She’d kept it to protect herself. Physically or from a murder charge, he had no idea. Didn’t change the fact he’d trusted her, believed her innocence, had slept with her, but he never should’ve judged her for how she’d chosen to survive. As she’d rightly pointed out, he’d done things—hurt people—to do the same. Waylynn was gone, but he sure as hell wouldn’t give up on finding her. “All that matters is that we find her.”

  Wrenching his SUV driver’s side door open, he gripped the gun Waylynn had left behind and handed it to Vincent with the old T-shirt still wrapped around the handle. No more lies. No more secrets. The forensics expert would tell him who killed Nathan Hargraves and then he would get back out there and search this entire state if he had to, to find her. “I need you to run prints on this as soon as possible.”

  And if they came back as Waylynn’s... He’d figure it out after he found her.

  “All right. I’ll do it.” Vincent Kalani towered over him, a Hawaiian giant with tattoos up and down his neck and curly, black hair that extended to the middle of his back. Unfolding his arms, the former cop pointed a single finger at him with one hand and took the gun with the other. “But only if you swear to stop stealing my food.”

  He’d do whatever he had to, to get to the truth. His future depended on it. “Deal.”

  “I’ve got my equipment in the SUV. Give me a few minutes.” Vincent headed toward his vehicle with the gun in hand.

  “I’m going back out there.” Someone had targeted Waylynn. Set her up for murder. Even if she got to the main road, she wouldn’t last long on her own. No matter what Vincent’s final report indicated or what Elliot had said to her before she’d run out the door, this wasn’t over. He checked the batteries in his flashlight, then the magazine in his Glock, and reholstered the weapon. “Even if it takes all night.”

  Anthony handed Kevlar and weaponry to Elizabeth, Sullivan and Elliot.

  “Tell us where you want us.” Sullivan waited for an answer, the rest of the team’s weighted attention on him. Every one of them had dropped what they’d been doing to aid in the search for Waylynn. Anthony and Elizabeth both had kids now, were risking their lives and their family by getting involved. Blackhawk Security’s team leader and founder had proposed to his army prosecutor. Vincent didn’t have anybody as far as Elliot knew, but that didn’t stop him from showing up and doing what he could to help. They’d all come out here because he needed them.

  Because they were his team. Because they were the only family he had left.

  Warmth spread through him at the thought. His parents hadn’t given a damn about him. He’d been another set of hands to work the land. The Iraqi guards hadn’t given a damn about him. He’d been their prisoner, someone to punish. But these people did. Waylynn did. Elliot curled his fingers into his palms. And he didn’t deserve any of it. The moment she’d gotten close, gave him a glimpse of what could be, he’d searched for an excuse to wedge between them. All because he thought he knew what real happiness was. In reality, he’d had no idea. Not until he’d met her. Then again, murder was a pretty good excuse not to commit to someone. “Elizabeth and I will search the remaining grids to the north. Sullivan and Anthony, work your way down the road in case she doubled back. Meet back here in thirty minutes.”

  “You heard the man. Let’s move out.” Sullivan and Anthony moved as one toward the road as headlights filtered through the thick trees. Another SUV climbed up the small incline toward the cabin and the team visibly tensed. “Stand down. It’s Kate with the profile you asked for. She tried relaying the intel earlier, but we got disconnected on the way out here. Your cell service really sucks.”

  Yet Waylynn had been able to get through to her lawyer without any problems.

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” As much as Kate’s profile might help them narrow the suspect pool, it wouldn’t do them any good until they recovered Waylynn. Even now, his nerves were fraying at the ends for not having her close. And if something had happened to her out here... Nausea churned in his gut. He’d spend the rest of his life with that weight. Whatever her crimes, she didn’t deserve to be hunted like an animal for the rest of her life. He closed in on Kate’s SUV as the former psychologist climbed out of the driver’s seat.

  And slowed.

  Where grief normally shadowed the blonde’s expression, the hopelessness in her gaze pierced him straight to the core. “Something’s happened.”

  “I’m sorry, Elliot. I pulled over on the side of the highway at the road entrance to see if she’d made it that far.” The team converged on th
eir profiler as Kate reached into the SUV, her focus entirely on him. She slammed her door closed, holding a medium-sized brightly colored bag at her side. “And I found this.”

  Waylynn’s bag.

  A high-pitched ringing filled his ears, a cold sweat shooting down his back. He forced himself to reach for the bag and curled his fingers in the faux tanned leather. The weight pulled at him and he didn’t have to look inside to know it was still full of her clothing and toiletries. “Where?”

  Kate crossed her arms and leaned her weight against the SUV, her voice hollow. Platinum blonde hair escaped the tight bun at the back of her neck as she pulled her phone from her signature green cargo jacket, her husband’s. She offered him the device. “About thirty yards from the road. I took a picture before moving it. Looked like she’d ditched it in a hurry. I had to recollect some of the items that’d fallen out. Including this.”

  Blackhawk’s profiler handed him an all-too-familiar storage drive.

  The one Waylynn had used to save her research.

  Elliot tightened his grip on the phone. Kate was right. From the looks of it, Waylynn had obviously ditched the bag in a hurry, but she never would’ve left her research behind. Which meant... “He has her.”

  “What’s the profile say, Kate? We’ve got to find this bastard before someone else gets hurt.” Sullivan took the phone before Elliot could crush it in his hand and studied the photo.

  Elliot didn’t hear a damn word. Forget the investigation. Forget the profile. Forget Vincent’s report. The SOB who’d framed Waylynn for murder had reached the end of his rope. He was going to kill her. Racing for the SUV, he ignored the pain shooting through his shoulder and ripped open the driver’s-side door. He tossed her bag in the back seat and shoved the keys into the ignition.

  “Elliot, you’re not going to find him on your own.” Elizabeth Dawson planted her palms on the hood of the vehicle, short dark hair swinging forward from behind her ears. “We’re a team. You need us.”

  “You’re not going to want me on your team after you see what I do to him.” The words growled from his throat. He revved the engine. He’d never hurt Liz, but he had no problem making her think he would to get to Waylynn. She was the only one who mattered. She was...everything. And he loved her. Didn’t matter if she’d killed her father. Didn’t matter she’d hidden the evidence for the last fifteen years. Or if she’d turn into someone he didn’t recognize years down the road from some genetic marker. She was his. And he had to get to her. Now.

  “Probably.” Elizabeth held up her phone, the Genism logo clear in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. “But I’m the one who knows how to find her.”

  He put the SUV in Park and got out. “What is that?”

  “I was able to save a chunk of data to my computer from the hard drive before it was stolen. Braxton’s been working on it since the break-in. Says he’s going to kill the guy himself if he finds him.” Elizabeth offered him the phone. “He recovered a readable copy of the list Alexis Jacobs was building from the genetics trials and just sent it to me. Names and everything.”

  Elliot ran his finger down the side of the screen. Adrenaline sharpened his senses, hiked his blood pressure rate higher. They had a lead. If one of the people on this list put their hands on Waylynn... He focused on one name in particular, reading it three times before the puzzle pieces fell into place, and let the violence boiling inside him take control. “I know where he took her, and I know who he is.”

  * * *

  A HIGH-PITCHED WHIRLING sound pulled her from unconsciousness.

  Waylynn swallowed around the horrible taste in her mouth. Dirt and...salt? Straightening her neck, she oriented herself and blinked to clear the haze. Her shirt had plastered to her skin, soaked. With blood. Where was she? Movement registered a few feet away from her and she tensed. But couldn’t move. Panic exploded through her and she pulled at her wrists as the flood of her last moments before her attacker injected her with a syringe rushed forward. She shut her eyes tight to work through the burst of pain in her arm. How could she have forgotten she’d been shot? “You shot me.”

  A wave of dizziness pitched her stomach into nauseous territory. Or had the white stuccoed surface beneath her actually moved?

  “I’ve seen what you’re capable of, Dr. Hargraves, remember?” Her lawyer, Blake Henson, crouched in front of her, a drill in his scarred left hand. The opposite hand he’d used to give her his business card back at the lab. Fear climbed up her spine, tightening the muscles down her spine. It was him. Blake Henson killed her assistant. Drugged her. Framed her for murder. Impossibly blue eyes steadied on her as she fought the churn of nausea working up her throat. “I couldn’t take any chances.”

  “In that case, I have a problem with the customer service here. Can I speak to the manager?” She forced herself to look past him, to the steering wheel and small windshield, the padded seats, the clean, tan-and-navy color scheme. Salt and humidity dived into her lungs. They were on a boat. Maybe at the marina where she was supposed to meet him. Only now she understood. He’d never intended to hand over those documents and help clear her name. He’d set all of this up from the beginning. But none of that explained the drill in his hand. Didn’t matter. She wasn’t going to hang around long enough for him to use it. Stretching her fingers behind her, she brushed against the seat at her back but didn’t feel anything that could be used to free herself. “You killed Alexis. Destroyed my research. Framed me. What did I ever do to you?”

  “Yes, well, I had to make it look like you’d do anything to protect your precious warrior gene trials after I killed Alexis.” Henson slipped his index finger over the trigger of the drill. “Shame, too. I was actually starting to think she and I had a future together. I was going to propose.” His expression hardened in the dim light coming off the horizon. “Then she started compiling a list of Genism employees and consultants who tested positive for the warrior gene, my name included. When my firm had first been put on retainer, we were asked to provide a blood sample by the board of directors. Genism policy. Once she confirmed I carried the variant, too, she’d started pulling away. Wouldn’t return my calls.” Her lawyer gripped the drill so hard in his apparent anger, he didn’t notice the extra drill bit magnetized to the base of the tool had slipped to the boat’s deck. “She was going to go to the board, cost me everything I’d worked for the last fifteen years. She was going to leave me. And I couldn’t have that.”

  Waylynn positioned her foot over the slim piece of steel. It wasn’t much as a weapon, but it was something. Maybe enough to cut the plastic around her wrists. She just had to keep him talking. “And somehow you learned about my past.”

  “Your previous murder accusation did come in handy.” Anger consumed his expression, a glint that was dark and violent and utterly menacing, but she’d seen scary. And this man? He didn’t have Elliot’s smile. “Who better to pin your assistant’s death on than a woman who’s already shown she’s capable of murder?”

  Her heart panged at the simple thought of Elliot’s name, but she bit back the urge to react. She had to stay in control. She had to get out of this. Because he wasn’t coming to save her this time. Pulling her foot inward, she maneuvered the drill bit that much closer toward her hand. She didn’t bother denying her lawyer’s allegation. The courts had brought the charges against her fifteen years ago despite the truth and he wouldn’t give a damn about what’d really happened. A few more inches. That was all she needed. “And Matt? What did he have to do with any of this?”

  “A tool. Nothing more.” Blake Henson stood, his knees popping as he straightened. Two steps. Three. He placed the drill above a large, clear, plastic box she hadn’t noticed until now and compressed the trigger. The high-pitched whirling started again as pressure built in her chest.

  Waylynn dug her heels into the deck. Oh, no. No, no, no, no. This wasn’t happening. Darkness closed in around the
edges of her vision, her breath coming in short bursts. Pulling at the zip ties again, she locked her jaw against the scream working up her throat. She wasn’t going in that box. Stretching to reach the drill bit sticking out from beneath the heel of her shoe, she cut the edge of her finger.

  The sound of the drill died as Blake Henson pulled the steel bit from the box. “Alexis showed me the list she built identifying subjects who carried your little warrior gene. Of course, I was surprised to find you on the list, Doctor. Didn’t think you had it in you. No pun intended.” His short burst of laughter only solidified the dread pooling at the base of her spine. “From there it wasn’t hard to aim Matt Stover in your direction. He felt lied to, manipulated, believed you’d destroy everything you and he had built for Genism for your own gain. Of course, some of those ideas might not have been his own. I gave him the idea to start tracking your phone, to wait for the perfect opportunity to strike when you were released from police custody.”

  “Why defend me at all?” she asked. “Why not let the police charge me with murder? You said you were my lawyer!”

  “I wouldn’t be playing my part if I hadn’t shown up in my legal capacity. It would have been conspicuous by my absence.” A furrow appeared between his eyebrows, as though his answer hadn’t been obvious. “I needed you close. I needed you to not suspect I was the one who’d killed Alexis in case your memory returned. The cocktail I dosed you with that night is powerful, but not always reliable.”

  “So many bodies.” But she wouldn’t be one of them. Waylynn palmed the drill bit and worked at the zip tie behind her back. No. She’d fight because she’d had to her entire life. She didn’t know how to die quietly. Was the drill bit cutting through the plastic? She had no idea, but she wasn’t going to sit here and let Blake Henson decide what to do with her. And she was done being his puppet. “You’re a psychopath.”

  “I prefer creative.” He set the drill down on the driver’s seat and hefted the lid off the box. “Like it? I’d like to say I came up with the idea all by myself, but your colleagues were really the ones who gave me the idea. You see, this plastic is near unbreakable. It can keep a number of contaminants from escaping the lab, only I’ve made a few adjustments to suit my needs.”