He needed to get to her. To them. He looked up at Norah, mentally cursing himself for not letting the white knight fantasy take over. He had to rush in. He had to save her. Save them both. Waiting for the doctor’s word be damned. Except as he started to push to his feet, his phone chimed with an incoming message. When he yanked the device from his pocket, his blood turned to ice. The message from Dr. McMillan was the one they’d prearranged.
The tests came back positive.
It meant that the other man had evidence that Elle and Katie—both, because of the plural—were at Trey’s house near Wavers Lake. That wasn’t the issue. The problem was the words that followed.
Unfortunately, it looks like the specialist wants to do a full removal.
It wasn’t a part of the code, but it didn’t take any kind of genius to figure out what it meant.
Noah slammed his body back from the table hard enough to knock over the laptop and shot a desperate look in his sister’s direction as he stood.
“Tell me you have a car here,” he said, not disguising his desperation at all.
But his plea was unnecessary. Norah already had the keys in her hand.
Chapter 20
Elle’s movement through the woods wasn’t quick, and at first, it wasn’t very steady, either. If anything, it was slow and rocky. Her riding skills were rusty, and aside from the initial burst of freedom, all she felt was sure that she was about to go flying off. The path that ran from Mr. Quincy’s house, all the way along the edge of his property, then into the woods was overgrown to the point of barely being distinguishable from the low-lying foliage and loose dirt. Every bump jarred Elle, every kicked-up rock made her cringe. One particular divot made her bite her tongue hard enough to taste blood. But the farther she went, the surer she got.
After a few minutes, she started to believe there was a chance that she wouldn’t fall. After a few more, she stopped looking down to check her speed on the after-market speedometer. Another few minutes after that, her palms were drier, and her breathing came easier. And by the time the path ended, she was at last traveling at more than a crawl. She wasn’t quite able to ignore the thickening trees, but she was able to guide the dirt bike through the woods and down to Wavers Creek, where she paused to reorient herself.
Through the helmet’s shield, she eyed the rain-heavy water. It flowed thicker than she’d ever seen it, its ripples heading eastward toward the lake. It looked dangerous and foreboding. Unlike the summer that she’d snuck off to meet with Mr. Quincy’s granddaughter, when it had been nothing more than a trickle. She and the other girl had climbed down the embankment to dip their feet in. Lying on the pebbled edge, they’d talked about building a raft, climbing on and sailing down to Wavers Lake without ever opening their eyes. For Elle, it had been a real wish. And at the time, she’d wondered if the other girl really understood that.
No time for nostalgia, she reminded herself. You don’t want Katie to be wishing she could float away on a raft, too.
With a final glance at the creek, Elle revved the bike up again, and she kept going. For the next few miles, the bike sailed smoothly over the dirt. She traveled east—the opposite direction of flow of the water—and kept going all the way to the footbridge that led over a particularly narrow part of the stream. There, she had to dismount and pull the machine across to the other side manually, but that was fine with her, and the bike started up again with no problem. She let the bike pick up some actual speed for a short while after that, and the trees whipped by in flashes of green and brown. The sense of freedom slipped back in, and it wasn’t until the foliage thinned out again that Elle slowed, then came to a halt and cut the engine. When she pulled off her helmet and lifted her gaze, she could just catch the peaked roof of Trey’s cabin over the line of shrubs surrounding his yard.
Almost there.
Despite the fact that she was sure she was too far away to have been either seen or heard, Elle took a moment to listen for sounds of an alert. She held her breath and ignored the nervous beat of her heart. But the only noises were the odd chirp of a bird, and the breeze rustling the branches overhead. She moved with caution anyway. Crouching low, she used varying objects for cover. She slunk from the trees to an enormous rotted-out stump. She did an awkward jog from the stump to a clump of salmonberry bushes. From there, she darted to a chopped woodpile, then to the woodshed itself. Next, she made a bold run to the manicured shrubs nearer to the house, and she pressed herself into their thick cover. She took a moment to catch her breath, then squeezed between the cedar-scented branches, took three steps, and pressed her body to the six-foot privacy fence. On her tiptoes, she peeked through the lattice at the top. When she found the area clear, she moved again—this time to inch along with painstaking slowness. At last, she reached the gate that would lead to the rear of the yard. She knew her new position placed her just two dozen feet from the back door. If she craned her neck, she’d even be able to see the bedroom window. And Katie was in there waiting.
Using that thought to propel herself to take the final steps, Elle lifted a hand and flicked open the gate. She took a breath and moved through. And just about tripped straight into a man who crouched right below the gate. He was on his knees. He held a weapon in his hands. And it was aimed at her chest. But that wasn’t the worst part. What made the fact that she’d been duped far more terrifying was the familiar, falsely sweet voice that called out to her.
“Oh, Mirabella,” said Trey. “Did you really think it would be so easy?”
Slowly—so, so slowly—Elle made herself turn toward him. He stood just inside the door frame that led from the porch into the house. The sight of him tried to bring in a thousand bad memories. But Elle had had nearly a decade to fight them. To cope with them. To live with them. To overcome them. And it was startlingly easy to sidestep them now, in favor of assessing the concrete details.
As always, Trey’s hair was perfectly in place. Maybe he had an extra line or two around his eyes, but otherwise, he was nearly the same as Elle remembered. He wore a carefully tailored suit, immaculate shoes and an oversized watch. When she was a kid, Elle had thought of his manner of dressing as his uniform. Later on, as a teenager, she’d speculated—only to herself, of course—that the outfit was designed to tell people exactly what Trey Charger could afford. She hadn’t liked it then. And it filled her with loathing now, too.
But there was an important new detail that overshadowed the old ones. The fact that Trey looked smaller than Elle had always thought. Narrower shoulders. Not much taller than she was herself, really. And for a second, she actually wondered what she’d ever found so intimidating about him. When he spoke again, though, she recognized that what mattered wasn’t so much the control he’d had over her in the past; it was what he could do to her now.
“This is an interesting little turn of events,” he said, pulling out Katie’s shoe from his pocket, then tossing it from hand to hand. “Where is she?”
Elle watched the shoe. He was practically a caricature. Still just a picture of how he wanted others to see him. Rich. Dangerous. Deadly. But there was nothing amusing about his display at all.
Elle yanked her eyes to his face and spat out a one-word lie. “Gone.”
He cocked his head, still comical but not. “You went to an awful lot of trouble to leave here, and even more trouble to come back. And you expect me to believe that my daughter is just gone? Wherever Katie is, she’ll want you. Sooner rather than later, I think.”
Elle pressed her lips together. Because what he said was truer than he could know. How long would Katie stay in the closet? How long could she stay there? And how much time would Elle allow to go by before she had to give in and tell him the truth?
She breathed out and made herself maintain an even tone. “I had another, perfectly good reason for coming back.”
“What could possibly be more important than escaping from me?”
<
br /> “Just one thing. Killing you.” As she said it, she yanked the stolen gun from the back of her waistband and took clumsy aim.
She knew she wouldn’t have time to fire accurately. But she also knew that Trey wouldn’t let his lackeys shoot her with deadly force. Because if that had been his aim, she’d be lying on the ground already. All she needed was enough chaos that she could flee once more, then give herself enough time to come up with a new plan to save Katie. Taking the shot was worth it, and it might be her only opportunity to escape. So she squeezed the trigger and hoped for the best.
The crack echoed through the air. Trey dived sideways. His armed guard—the one who’d trained his weapon on Elle to start with—came leaping forward, and two more men exploded out the backdoor. But aside from taking a moment to appreciate the look of shock and fear on Trey’s face, Elle didn’t pause. She fled.
Her feet tore over the grass as she ran toward the side of the house. She slammed though the spring-loaded gate that led to the front, ignoring the way the wood panels drove splinters into her forearm. Her mind was on Katie. On whether or not the little girl had been frightened by the commotion. On whether or not she would stay put as instructed. Briefly—for no more than a flash—Elle considered changing her path and heading back into the house. As quickly as the wishful thought came, though, it also retreated. She wanted Katie in her arms. But trying to carry her to safety was a ridiculous notion. And even if she’d been strong enough, the option itself was far-fetched. Trey’s men would recover from their surprise quickly, and Elle wouldn’t even have time to get up to the bedroom before getting captured all over again. She could already hear their shouts and the pounds of their feet as they began their chase.
You need Noah.
The thought almost made her falter. But as she veered from the driveway back toward the woods and the dirt bike, she couldn’t help but wonder why in God’s name she’d sent him away. The one man who would undoubtedly have helped her. A man who wanted to help her. Whom she could trust. Whom she felt connected to. Whom she cared about too much to let him sacrifice himself. And who she wished was there now, so badly that it hurt.
She pressed on in spite of the sudden burn of tears. She made it to the trees, and past. Her chest heaved with the exertion. Her muscles throbbed. Sweat slid down her forehead and into her eyes with a blinding sting. Despite that, in the end, her efforts weren’t enough. She no sooner spied the handles of the dirt bike sticking out from the spot where she’d abandoned it than a bullet hit the ground just in front of her feet. Elle was certain the shooter wasn’t aiming to kill. That didn’t mean that logic could overrule her body’s reaction to the shot. She leaped sideways to avoid it. She stumbled. She hit the ground, arms flailing uselessly as her chin smashed against the rough terrain. Stars sparkled behind her eyelids. And before she could recover enough to even get up to her knees, a rough hand landed on her shoulder and a knee pressed to her back, forcing her flat down. Then Trey’s voice filled the air, making things impossibly worse.
“Get the hell off her,” he ordered. “You guys have screwed this up enough times over the last six years. I’ll take it from here.”
For a moment, the physical pressure eased. But the reprieve was an illusion. And a short one, at that.
Trey roughly took hold of her elbow and yanked her up hard. The world spun, but Elle still tried to pull herself from his grasp. And his grip only tightened.
“You owe me a debt, Mirabella,” he said coldly. “You forced me to go back on my word, and I’m tired of chasing you down. So you know what? We’re going to take care of that issue right now. Then you can be someone else’s problem.”
She spat out a mouthful of dirt. “It’s Elle.”
He rolled his eyes, barked out a command to his men, then dragged her across the yard without heed for her dizziness, her stumbles or the occasional cry that left her mouth. He didn’t pause until they’d reached the driveway. And there, he stopped only long enough to yell something else to his thugs—this time, a nonsensical order about finding a suit—and then he shoved her into the back seat of the car and slammed the door so quickly that she barely had time to slide into the seat.
Holding her undoubtedly bruised arms close to her body, Elle closed her eyes. She knew there was no point in trying to get out. This was Trey’s personal vehicle. And past experience had taught her that he had police-issue locks—the kind that opened only from the outside—installed in every car he owned. She had to bide her time. Come up with some workable solution. But it was hard. Her head was fuzzy from her fall, and her body ached all over. She could feel desperation and hopelessness hovering on the periphery of her heart and her mind.
When the creak of the door announced that someone was climbing in, Elle opened her eyes just enough to see that one of the bodyguards had taken the driver’s seat, while Trey himself buckled into the passenger seat. Both men were silent, as the oversized driver started the engine. Neither said a thing as they pulled a U-turn and headed down the driveway. The wordlessness gave Elle’s mind too much space to wander. And it didn’t go in the direction she would’ve liked. What was Trey thinking? Planning? Where was he taking her? What nefarious plot did he have in store? She knew what he’d wanted her to do—what he’d been going to force her to do—when she was eighteen. Yet he couldn’t still be thinking of making his plot into reality, could he? Not after this long.
The quiet moments dragged into minutes, and the only sound was the crunch of the tires rolling over the road.
Elle fought a renewed round of tears. Every second pulled her farther away from Katie. She focused her attention out the window and tried to steer her brain to a more positive, more solution-oriented place. She’d escaped from Trey in the past. She’d rescued Katie right out from under him before, too. So there was still hope, even if it seemed far away right then.
Holding tight to that small bit of reassurance because it was really all she had, Elle started to make a mental list of any and every idea she could come up with. But she didn’t get any further than imagining herself giving both men a simultaneous blackout-inducing crack on the head—somehow, anyhow—before the driver’s voice interrupted her.
“Boss,” he said, low and urgent. “We got a tail.”
“A tail?” Trey repeated. “How in the hell did we—” He cut himself off. “Can you see who’s driving the vehicle?”
“Not quite close enough. A blond, maybe?”
Trey turned around and flashed an icily furious look at Elle, “Your boyfriend’s not too smart, is he? But I guess his brains don’t matter anymore anyway. He’s a dead man.”
Noah.
Elle bit her lip but said nothing back. She didn’t dare glance in the direction of whoever was following them, either. She was afraid he was right. And she was afraid he was wrong, too. Was it really him? Had he tracked her down? Put his life on the line and disregarded their last conversation?
After another second of silence, Trey spun back to his driver. “Bait him.”
“Bait him, boss? You mean lose him?”
“No, you bag of rocks, bait him. Guide him somewhere off the main road, but make it look like you’re trying to get away.”
“You got it, boss.”
The car jolted forward then picked up speed. The rhythmic roll of the tires became an urgent spin, and as much as she didn’t want to react, Elle had little choice but to hold on. The vehicle whipped around corners. Scenery flashed by faster than Elle could even note it. They tore past the turnoff into the main part of town, and they kept going. For a minute, they cut onto the highway. Then they made a sharp exit onto a warren of bumpy side roads.
“Still on us,” announced the driver after a particularly sharp turn.
“Good,” replied Trey.
The vehicle picked up speed once again, and the fuzziness in Elle’s head amplified. The road was growing narrower, the trees thick
er. Silently, she prayed that if it was Noah following them, then he’d have enough sense to realize he was being duped. But she kept her eyes straight ahead and refused to give in and look. And on they went. Up a hill. Down another. Then Trey’s driver made another quick turn, and quite abruptly, they were back on the highway. Elle spied the sign that thanked visitors for coming to Wavers Hollow right before the car veered off the road, dipped down a short embankment and came to a shuddering halt on a patch of gravel. They were well shielded from the main road, and as the driver turned off the engine, and the sound of an approaching vehicle carried on, Elle’s heart thumped a frightened beat. Tension rolled through the small space.
Her internal voice was all but sobbing. Noah. What you were thinking?
But just a moment later, her worry changed to confusion.
“Boss,” said the big man in the driver’s seat. “It’s not him.”
Now Elle did twist around for a look. And the driver was right. It wasn’t Noah, climbing out of a silver SUV. It wasn’t a man at all. It was a statuesque woman, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. Her blond hair was piled on her head in a haphazard bun, and she had a slightly harried expression on her face. And for a second, Elle thought she knew the woman from somewhere. There was something familiar about her features. But Elle’s vague recognition quickly took a back seat to the fact that the woman was hurrying toward them.
This isn’t going to end well, Elle thought.
As if to confirm the thought, Trey swung another chilling stare in her direction. “One move. One flick of your eyes. If you do anything that makes her think you need help, I’ll have Jake kill her on the spot.” He brought his attention back to the driver. “Get out with me,” he ordered. “And keep your gun handy in case Mirabella doesn’t believe me.”
Elle held her breath as the two men exited the vehicle. Even though she knew she probably shouldn’t, because it might put the unknown woman at risk, she couldn’t quite stop herself from watching the interaction. The blonde made it all the way to the car’s rear bumper before Trey and his driver—Jake—intercepted her. And thankfully, Trey had left his door open just wide enough that Elle could hear everything being said.
High-Stakes Bounty Hunter Page 22