Deadly Bounty: SCVC Taskforce Romantic Suspense Series, Book 11

by Misty Evans

  Frank glanced at Sorscha. The girl still stood in the doorway to the kitchen, acting as if this was all commonplace. Just an average day in her life.

  “You,” Sam snarled. “You lied to me. Alison was the woman Kyle fell for. You purposely misled me about that, didn’t you?”

  Sorscha grinned. “It was too easy. Frank told me you were this really smart FBI agent, and I totally fooled you. That night, when you rode your bike here? I didn’t know then who you were, but I made sure I put a tracker on the bike, cause I knew you must be mixed up with all of this...” She motioned at the group. “You didn’t even realize it, did you?”

  In that moment, Sam hated her even more than she did Alison. Maybe herself a little, too, for letting this amateur get the best of her.

  “We have plenty of evidence to show Cahill’s been helping you,” Frank said.

  “We even have pictures,” Sorscha added. “Such a shame to get rid of him. He’s tasty looking.”

  A string of curses left her lips, as she mentally kicked herself. All this time, she thought she’d been doing such a good job at hiding, keeping Joe safe, Hetty and Dec, too. What the hell was she going to do now?

  Play the game. There was nothing else to do.

  She raised her chin, eyeing Frank. First, she’d try reasoning with him, although she doubted it was worth the breath. “Let Joe go. Them too.” She jerked her head at Hetty and Dec. “Do whatever you want to me, but you can’t kill all of us and pretend it’s an accident. Internal affairs will investigate. The SCVC has already put together many of the pieces. They’ll figure out the rest. You’ll be exposed, Alison will go down, and you’ll have our deaths on your head. She isn’t worth it, Frank. You’re looking at life in prison.”

  He extracted a digital recorder from his pocket and held it up. “If you confess to being the one behind the bombings, clearing Alison of them, I’ll consider not killing Cahill. But the rest of them…?”

  He let the threat hang in the air.

  Sam knew he wouldn’t leave Joe alone. Joe could out him and Alison. But what could she do? She had to try something to save the man she loved.

  An image of her dad rose in her mind—he’d died a hero and here she was about to die a fugitive. Not only that, because of her blunders, she was about to get the three people in the world who had stood by her killed.

  Her bloody knee, wrapped in an old t-shirt, throbbed. Her head did too. Hetty continued to cry softly, Dec was making noises in the back of his throat, as if trying to get her to glance at him. When she did, she saw the word “no” in his eyes.

  Don’t do it. Joe wouldn’t want her to confess to anything, no matter what Frank promised. He was just as crazy as Alison, and she couldn’t trust him or Sorscha.

  She prayed Joe would realize she’d placed a tracker on Frank’s car at the restaurant. Maybe he was on the way. He wouldn’t be here in time to stop what was about to happen, but he would catch Frank in the act and the man wouldn’t get away with it.

  Frank set the device on the table. He tapped the bat against his leg. “Do we have a deal, Samantha? Your confession for Cahill’s life?”

  She raised her chin again, narrowing her eyes. “How about this?” she countered. “You take that recorder and shove it up your ass, and I won’t kill you or your niece in the next few minutes.”

  Sorscha barked an indignant laugh, but Frank eyed her sullenly.

  He glanced around at the interior. “Okay, then, here’s how we’re going to stage this.”

  Moving to Dec, he motioned at Sorscha. She walked past Sam, kicking her in the foot.

  “Your junkie friend attacked Sorscha,” Frank explained to Sam. Then he looked at his niece. “You ready?”

  Sorscha braced herself. “Do it.”

  Frank swung the bat, nailing her in the upper thigh and she yelped. Rubbing the spot, she said through gritted teeth, “That’s gonna leave a bruise.”

  “That’s the idea.” Frank faced Dec and everything in Sam propelled her to get up. Before she could, Frank reared back, the bat held high. “But being the junkie that he is, Sorscha easily overwhelmed him.”

  Dec’s already wide eyes turned alarmed.

  Sam screamed, “No!”

  Frank nailed him in the temple with a sickening thud.

  Dec toppled sideways, chair and all. From behind her duct tape, Hetty screamed.

  Sam lunged, but her knee wouldn’t hold and Sorscha struck her, knocking her away. She fell to the ground, everything screaming in pain once more.

  “Next.” Frank moved to Hetty. Her screaming stopped, and her chest rose and fell, hyperventilating. The small woman, rocked, gaze jerking between Frank, the bat, and Sam.

  “Don’t you dare,” Sam growled, wrestling against her failing knee. “I will kill you!”

  “This gal tried to run.” Frank handed off the bat to Sorscha. From his back beltline, he pulled a handgun. “She almost made it to the door, too. So I had to shoot her.”

  Frank walked behind Hetty, as Sam threw herself forward. “Nooo!”

  Too late. He fired a bullet into Hetty’s back.

  Sam screamed.

  21

  Joe raced down the freeway. His focus jumped between the pulsing red circle on the map on his phone, Alison in the seat next to him, and the traffic.

  Sam and her damn spy shit. It’d taken him nearly a mile to realize his phone was pulsing, and when he’d pulled it out, the app for a GPS tracker blinked like Rudolph’s nose.

  She’d managed to place a device on the car of her kidnappers. For that, he wanted to kiss her. He’d used them on rare occasions when chasing a fugitive, but this had taken his love of them to a whole new level.

  “Where are we heading?” Alison asked, squinting at the map.

  Toward the outskirts of the university, from the looks of it. The kidnappers had stopped, in fact, right in Kyle’s neighborhood.

  He’d already be on their ass, if not for a multi-car pileup that had cost him nearly fifteen minutes and a detour.

  He sped around a car, then took an offramp. “You have no idea who has Sam?” he demanded for the third time.

  “I told you, none. I can’t believe you’re actually dumb enough to be helping her. She probably got picked off by another bounty hunter, or some nutcase who saw her in the parking lot and figured out who she was. Her picture is all over everything.”

  Joe thought about shooting Alison and dumping her body, but he didn’t want to waste more time. “I don’t believe you.”

  Although he was focused on merging into traffic, he didn’t miss her eyeroll. “Get over it, Cahill. You’ve now implicated me in this, and if we do catch up to her, I might even cheer for her kidnapper. If nothing else, I’m claiming the reward.”

  He passed a large RV, receiving blaring horns for his trouble. “You’ll be lucky if I don’t kill you and dispose of your body before the night’s over.”

  She snorted but fell silent.

  Fine with him. As he weaved through suburbia, thankfully less congested than the freeway at this time of night, he sent SOS texts to his brothers, as well as Cooper Harris. Brief and to the point, forwarding the location of Kyle’s.

  As he cruised to a stop a block down from the apartment building, he saw the neighbors’ place was dark.

  “You need to get closer so we can see what’s going on,” Alison chided.

  “We aren’t doing anything,” he shot back. “You’re staying here. I’m going in.”

  “You don’t even know who’s in there or what they’re planning.” She pointed out her window. “There’s an alley behind these houses. Park there, and come up to the duplex from the rear.”

  How did she know about the alley?

  Joe eased a few yards closer, bringing the lower apartment into view. A dark Buick, nearly hidden behind the hedgerow, was tucked up tight to the side of the house. The faintest of lights crept out the edges of the first floor windows. Was someone downstairs?

  No light upstai
rs, so whoever had Sam, was indeed, in the lower apartment.

  Joe once again parked, debating his options.

  “You can’t walk up to the front door.” Alison shook her head. “I mean, if this is a bounty hunter, why bring her here? Something about this is off.”

  The sick feeling in Joe’s stomach told him why. “They’re going to kill her.” He reached for his door, pocketing his phone. He needed to get his gear on, arm himself. “Stay. Here.”

  As he exited, Alison said, “Not on your life.” She bailed out and looked at him over the roof. “You’re too emotional about this and you don’t know what you’re walking in to. You need backup, and I’m all you’ve got.”

  He considered hitting her with the stun gun, at least that’d shut her up. Then something caught his eye.

  There was the faint sound of a bass drum, music. The neighbors.

  He thought about the girl who talked to Sam, telling them about Kyle’s girlfriend. The one who’d been at the bar tonight.

  The woman the neighbor had described as Kyle’s girlfriend was Alison’s opposite in every way. And yet…

  Acting as though he were going to actually let her play backup, he went to his trunk and popped it. “What’s your poison?” he asked.

  As expected, she followed, and peered inside, admiring the weapons stashed there. As she did so, he grabbed a Taser and looked it over. “How did you know about the alley, by the way? You can’t see it from here.”

  In a split second, her gaze swung to his, and before she could run, he zapped her.

  22

  Sorscha kicked her again, this time in her damaged knee. Horror and rage burned in Sam’s throat, and it was all she could do not to vomit.

  She inch-wormed to Hetty, who now lay on the ground, eyes distant as blood stained her shirt. Drip by drip, it began to pool on the floor.

  But she was still breathing. “Hang on, Hetty,” she whispered. Tears streaked down her face. “Hang on.”

  “And now for you.” Frank yanked her up, shoving her against the stairs. Sam’s knee screamed and gave out, but Sorscha pinned her to the wooden railing.

  The house was old and hadn’t been taken care of since it’d been split into apartments. The spindles wobbled at the pressure.

  “You gonna shoot me in the back, too?” Sam spit at Frank. “Coward.”

  Her goading didn’t seem to matter to him. He and Sorscha simply exchanged a glance, as if the game was getting old.

  Think, Sam demanded her brain. She needed to clear her emotions and do something.

  Gritting her teeth against the pain in her knee, she glared at both of them. “Traitors to your country and cowards on top of it.”

  Sorscha gave her a shove and the railing shuddered. “Shut up, already,” the girl sneered. To her uncle, she said, “I’ve got her. Go ahead.”

  I will not die like this. She wouldn’t let Alison and Frank get away with what they’d done.

  Cold fury burned in her veins. As she sensed Frank raise the gun, she gathered her strength and slammed into Sorscha.

  Bam. The gun went off, a bullet whizzing past her ear close enough to raise her hair.

  Sam dropped to the floor. Sorscha cried, toppling sideways and reaching for the railing.

  Another shot rang out, but Sam had already rolled, using the momentum to knock Sorscha down. Wheeling high up onto her back, she drew her legs in as close as she could and rocked forward sliding the handcuffs over the bottoms of her feet. Her damaged leg refused to obey and the foot caught on the chain of the cuffs, but her momentum helped jerk it free.

  Sorscha lunged and Sam swung out, catching her face with the sharp edge of the metal.

  “Hold still, you goddamned brat,” Frank growled.

  Sorscha jerked back, lips feral as she shrieked obscenities. Sam threw her cuffed wrists over her head, using the chain between them to choke the girl.

  The cold fury gave her strength and she whipped Sorscha in front of her to act as a shield. “Put down the gun,” she demanded to Frank.

  Gagging, Sorscha tried slamming her body weight into Sam, but Sam was already against the wall, using it for leverage.

  She tightened her hold, Sorscha’s fingers digging at the metal as she coughed and choked. “Drop. It.” She gave a squeeze on the cuffs and the girl stopped squirming.

  He eyed her warily for a long moment, then lowered the weapon a few inches as he sized up his options. “Damn it, Sorscha.”

  The chokehold kept her from speaking, and Sam figured her eyes were bugging about now. Then Frank surprised her, raising the gun once more.

  Sam realized with some shock, he was ready to sacrifice his niece to get himself out of this. Instincts kicked in hard. She could see it in his calculating eyes—he planned to shoot Sam right through Sorscha.

  Body quaking, mind reeling, she was out of options. Closing her eyes, waiting for the hit to come, her body was too weak to attempt to move both her and the girl.

  “I wouldn’t pull that trigger, if I were you,” a hard voice said from the kitchen door.

  Sam’s eyes flew open. Both hers and Frank’s heads whipped to look.

  Joe.

  He was carrying a body in a fireman’s hold and had a gun pointed at Frank. He unceremoniously dumped his package on the floor “You heard her. Drop your weapon or I shoot.”

  Frank’s startled eyes glanced at the woman lying on the floor. Alison. His voice was incredulous. “Ally?”

  Joe’s gaze flicked to Sam. Hang on, it told her.

  Her arms shook, losing what little strength they still had, and Sorscha began struggling again. Sam willed everything she had into them, forcing the metal chain across Sorscha’s neck to cut off her air. Still, she’d lost so much blood. Her good leg trembled, losing its battle to keep her upright. Black dots danced in front of her eyes.

  Joe pointed his gun at Alison, speaking to Frank. “Put down the weapon or she dies.”

  In the distance, the blare of a siren sounded…or maybe her ears were ringing. The dots grew to shadows. Do not pass out.

  Joe stayed focused on Frank. “It’s over,” he told him, his voice level. “The FBI knows everything.”

  Not quite, Sam thought. Neither they nor Joe had any idea what Frank and Alison had done together.

  Or did he?

  Frank’s lips thinned. He sighed, and slowly, inch by inch, lowered his gun in defeat.

  Alison stirred. Frank started to take a step toward her, but he hadn’t dropped his weapon. Joe yelled, “Drop it! Now!”

  The bastard raised the gun. As he did, Sam shoved Sorscha and sent both of them careening into her uncle.

  The girl cried out as they fell as one, knocking Frank sideways. The gun fired, a bullet smacking into the wall behind Joe.

  The weight of Sam and Sorscha combined was enough to keep Frank pinned. Joe jumped into the fray, knocking Sorscha in the head with the butt of his gun. He brought a knee down on Frank’s arm and the man’s weapon came loose from his grip.

  Sam slid off the pile, shoving herself away. Frank fought Joe, cursing, before Joe managed to clock him square in the jaw. That shut him up, his lashes fluttering before his eyes rolled up in his head.

  Dead silence fell. “Sam?” With swift movements, Joe zip tied their ankles and wrists. “Talk to me. Are you hurt?”

  “No,” she lied. She slid to Hetty, but the dizziness was too much, and sank to her side.

  Her ears were fine—the one thing on her poor, tattered body that was—and the siren grew louder until it seemed as if it was there. She knew it was—Joe had called the cavalry.

  She held Hetty’s hand, grappling to stay conscious as Joe came to her, a key in hand to unlock the cuffs. Her wrists were chafed from the metal, but that was the least of her worries.

  “Hey.” He gently tugged her into an embrace. “You got yourself into a mess, didn’t you?”

  She almost laughed, but it took too much effort, so she sank into him, and wished she could stay there for
ever. Her throat was too tight to speak so she pointed at her friends, both lying motionless on the floor. Tears burned her eyes.

  Reading her mind, Joe released her to check their pulses. He yanked off his flak vest, then his shirt to pad Hetty’s bullet wound.

  People began to rush in and Joe shouted orders, even as he said to Sam, “They’re still alive. Ambulance is on its way.”

  As more people flooded in, taking care of Alison, Frank, and Sorscha, Joe pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. Sam closed her eyes and gave in to the threatening darkness to tuck herself into his chest.

  23

  Two days later

  SCVC Taskforce office

  Sam looked at the faces staring at her around the meeting table. Dr. Walsh, Cooper Harris, Ronni Punto, Thomas Mann, Director Dupé, and a Special Agent in Charge named Moan from the FBI.

  Her left leg was propped on a chair, crutches against the wall behind Joe. He hadn’t left her side. She was still tired, battered and bruised, but things were looking up.

  “The FBI would like to make an offer concerning your old position,” SAC Moan said. He was a slight man, with a balding head and thick eyebrows. They’d flown him in from D.C. to handle the situation, and Sam knew from the look on Dupé’s face, he was none too pleased to have Moan stepping in and taking over. “We want you back, and we’re prepared to offer a substantial raise with it.”

  The Bureau was in hot water after releasing the information that had cleared Sam’s name and implicated Frank and Alison in the plot against her. Worse, they were terrorists, and the FBI had two black eyes.

  While she’d loved her job, Sam had decided she couldn’t go back. Trusting anyone inside the Bureau now was a no-go. “Let me make it clear to everyone,” she said, meeting Moan and Dupé’s eyes, “I’m not returning.”

  She sensed Joe having a hard time keeping the smile off his face. He was finally getting what he’d wanted all along—her to get out of undercover work.

  She flicked a glare at him. While she wouldn’t let him know she was actually relieved to give it up at this point, she didn’t want him to think he had the upper hand here. She’d never hear the end of it.