by Zoe Chant
The truck moved. Verity wondered if Hawkins had been telling the truth, or if he had merely said whatever he needed to say to get her to calm down and cooperate.
"We're going to one of those old mines right now." Ducker sounded very smug. "You don't mind the dark, Ms. Breslin? Where we're taking you, it's very dark. And no one is every going to find you."
Chapter Fifteen: Maddox
In the short time Maddox had been gone, Verity seemed to have vanished into thin air.
He tried the shop first, but it was closed and locked. Her phone just went to voice mail. He hesitated to leave a message. Maybe later, if he couldn't locate her first, but he felt that he owed her a conversation in person.
If only he could find her to have that conversation.
He sank down wearily on the porch steps, resting his aching leg.
"What's wrong, son?" asked one of Verity's elderly neighbors, puttering in her garden next door. Maddox had learned all their names during the fire incident, but had promptly forgotten them. This might be Lucy? Or Trudy? Possibly Betty.
"You don't know where Verity is, do you?" he asked hopefully.
The old woman shook her head, and Maddox's heart sank. But then she pointed down the street. "Can't tell you where she is now, but I saw her head out thataway a little while back. Looked like she was going downtown, maybe."
Hmmm. Maddox heaved himself up off the steps and set off to look for other Verity sightings.
Nearly everyone in town seemed to know her; she was fairly distinctive with her long skirts and long hair and the white cane she carried when she was out and about, and most people had gone into her tea shop at some point or another.
"Oh, the tea lady!" said a young woman pushing a little girl on a swing. "Yes, I saw her walking down by Tanner's Market this morning."
"No, she didn't come in here," said the clerk at Tanner's Market, a young man with a scraggly mustache. "But I saw her across the street, heading toward the park."
And so on, and so forth, until he ended up in the county records office talking to the woman behind the counter, cheerful and friendly with a head of piled-up curls.
"Oh yes, her! I helped her look through the city bylaws and other records, until she found what I guess she was looking for. She had me print it out for her."
"Print out what?" Maddox asked.
"The city charter. Here, you can look too if you like."
Maddox looked, but it might as well be gibberish to him. Just a bunch of legal mumbling about the boundaries of the town and so forth.
"Any idea why she wanted this?" he asked.
"I don't know, but she had me run off a copy and then asked if I could call a taxi to take her to the county seat."
"Why?"
"No idea. She seemed really excited, though."
There was only one possibility he could think of. "The county seat—does Ducker have an office there?"
"Well, I guess he does. Want me to find the address?"
"Yeah." His voice was so harsh that the secretary drew back from it. Maddox forced himself to calm down, lower his voice, hunch his shoulders to appear less big—all the little tricks he'd picked up over the years to make himself less scary when he needed to. "I mean, please do that."
He struggled to get control of himself. Losing his cool and scaring the secretary wouldn't help anyone, least of all Verity. But all signs pointed to Verity having found something that she thought could save the town, and she'd run off to confront Ducker with it.
"Yes, here it is, right in the middle of downtown," the secretary said, running a finger across a page of the old-school phone book in front of her.
"How do I get there? Too far to walk?"
"There's a bus that runs a few times a day. Or I could call you a cab. It might take awhile; there's only one cab in town."
"Yeah. Do that. Please."
As he left the building, he tried once again to call Verity. His call went to voice mail. This time, he stopped himself from hanging up.
"Verity, it's me. Maddox. I, uh, please don't do anything stupid 'til I can find you."
Okay, that was a terrible message, he thought as he closed the connection. He should have told her to call him. Maybe she'd think of it on her own when she got the message.
Maybe it was already too late.
He hesitated with his phone in hand. He could go ahead and call the FBI, like Loretta had suggested. It was probably a good idea ... for someone else.
But now his mate was in danger, and getting the proper authorities involved would only guarantee that he'd be shut out of helping her, forced to sit on the sidelines while they went endlessly through official channels and anything could be happening to Verity. His hands would be tied. He wouldn't have the option of contacting Darius for backup either, not without turning a glaring official eye on Darius and Loretta.
So much for doing things the right way. In the end, it always seemed to come down to doing things his way.
***
Ducker's office was in a big fancy high-rise building. Just looking at it made Maddox's blood pressure skyrocket. The guy already had so much. Why did he want more so badly that he had to chase honest working people off their land?
"Mr. Ducker isn't here," the receptionist told him. "Do you have an appointment?"
"I think he'll want to talk to me. It's about Verity Breslin."
"Sir, that name means nothing to me." But her gaze flickered away from his eyes. Maddox had seen people do that before when they were lying. She slipped a hand under the desk. "You'll have to leave or I'm going to call security."
Maddox leaned on the desk, heavily enough that it creaked under his weight. "See, lady, I think you're lying. I think he's in here, and I'm not leaving 'til I see him."
"She's not lying."
Maddox glanced around quickly. Sheriff Hawkins stood just inside the door to the office, regarding him levelly. Maddox braced himself for a fight, but the sheriff merely tilted his head at him. "Come with me if you want to see your girlfriend."
Maddox's bull reared up inside him. It was all he could do to keep a grip on his temper, and on his animal. It's for Verity, he told himself. He wasn't still that person who used to solve all his problems with his fists. Not anymore. But if they'd hurt her, nothing on Earth could save them.
"What did you do?" he asked coldly as he followed Hawkins out the door. "Where is she?"
"She's not hurt. Not yet."
Maddox's hands curled into massive fists. He wished he had them around Hawkins' thick neck. "If there's a scratch on her, I'll break every bone in your body. Where is she?"
Hawkins glanced sideways at him. "I think I'm done taking orders from Ducker. I want to flip on him. Take what I know to the authorities. I want to know you won't come after me if I do that."
"I don't give a damn what you do. I don't care what Ducker does either. I just want to know where my mate is."
Hawkins blew out a breath. "She's at an old silver mine north of town. I can tell you how to get there. Hell ... I can drive you. But Ducker's still out there, and he's got a bunch of other guys with him. You'll have to fight your way through a small army to get to her."
Let me at 'em, Maddox's bull responded.
"Not you, though?" Maddox said.
"I told him I had business in town." Hawkins grimaced. "I haven't told him about you, about your ... animal, by the way."
"I'm not gonna thank you."
"Didn't expect you to."
Hawkins' sheriff's cruiser was parked by the curb. Hawkins opened the door and gave Maddox a look. He circled around and got into the passenger side in front. It was the first time he'd ever been in a cop car without cuffs on.
"Why are you doing this, anyway?" he asked Hawkins as the sheriff slid behind the wheel. "Don't expect me to believe you had a sudden attack of conscience."
Hawkins shook his head. "It's not that, not exactly. Let's just say I've been thinking about what you said. You said some things that made me
take a look at my life in a whole new way. You're right, this isn't the life I wanted for me or my family. I don't know if it's possible to start over, but I want to try."
There were a lot of things Maddox could have said to that, but he found himself thinking about his own life. About the way Darius had given him a chance after he got out of prison—and the way he'd walked away from Darius eventually, to try to be his own man out from under the heavy hand of the dragon clanlord.
"Sometimes it is," he said slowly. "If you're willing to put in the work. And ..." He gestured to his own bad leg. "Willing to take your lumps, too."
"Guess we'll find out." Hawkins threw the car in gear. "Let's go get your girl."
Chapter Sixteen: Verity
Verity had tried, at first, to keep track of the twists and turns where they'd taken her, but she eventually gave up. Now she was someplace quiet, and she had no idea where.
At some point she'd been handed off from Hawkins to some of Ducker's other hirelings. She'd never expected to miss the asshole sheriff, but at least he hadn't been manhandling her so roughly. These guys were abusive and crude and had ended up carrying her when she refused to walk, only to throw her to the sand in a place that echoed.
They walked away, and she heard the distant thunk of something heavy falling into place. She felt her way after them, groping along a cave wall until her fingers touched wooden timbers. She felt it all over, some kind of heavy door, blocking her way.
They had shut her up in an old mine and then left her.
She sat down on the sand and took slow, deep breaths until she felt calmer.
No one is every going to find you, Ducker had said.
But he was wrong. Maddox would. She was absolutely certain of that.
Chapter Seventeen: Maddox
It was starting to get dark when Hawkins pulled over and stopped. They'd been driving down an old dirt road for awhile, passing no other cars, although deep tire marks indicated that more than one vehicle had been on the road before them.
"The mine's up ahead," Hawkins said. "I can't take you closer without being seen. You know this is a trap, right? They expect you're going to show up to try to rescue her."
"I'm counting on it," Maddox said. He checked for cell service and wasn't surprised to get none; there would be no calling for help. "Hey, don't suppose you could back me up a little while longer. I could use the help."
Hawkins drummed thick fingers on the steering wheel. "Ducker knows where my family is. I'm not going against him head-on, not without protection for them."
"I get that," Maddox said. "Appreciate what you've done so far."
He opened his door. Night air, lightly scented with the fragrant smells of the desert, swept into the cab of the cruiser. Maddox started to step down to the shoulder of the road, then turned back.
"Hey, sheriff, if you'd do me one more thing?"
He scribbled Darius's number on the back of a receipt from the glove box and handed it to Hawkins. "When you get back to town, call this number and tell him where I am. Where we are. You don't have to give him your name, but if you want to, he can protect you better than a whole armed division of feds." If Darius didn't just decide to bite him in half, but Maddox chose not to mention that part.
"Who is he?" Hawkins asked, fingering the receipt.
"My old boss. A much bigger and meaner boss than yours."
Hawkins didn't say anything, but he tucked the receipt into his shirt pocket. Maddox slammed the door and stepped back so Hawkins could pull out onto the road. As the cruiser's taillights faded into the dusk, he turned and left the road, heading into the brush.
It wasn't fully dark yet, but it was getting there fast. Distant coyotes yipped in the night. Closer to Maddox, the scrub rustled softly with the sounds of little night creatures going about their business.
He leaned heavily on his cane, his hip aching. He'd given it a real workout already, and the night was far from done. About halfway up the hill, he decided that he needed more than two legs if he wasn't going to be completely useless by the time he got to the mine. He took off his clothes, bundled them up, and stashed them under a rock. He could come back for them later.
Hopefully he'd still have need of them.
The night seemed less dark and much warmer after he shifted, full of interesting smells. Taking the weight off his back leg, supporting his bulk on the other three legs, helped a lot with the ache in his hip. Maddox sniffed the air, snorted, and began to climb, still limping but not as severely as before.
He reached the top of the hill and looked down into a small valley. There were several cars and trucks, with their headlights lighting up the timbers of the old mine entrance. Ducker was visible by the glimmer of his silver hair, talking to a couple of men with guns slung over their shoulders. Maddox estimated about a half dozen others around the vehicles.
His bull's sharper-than-human senses of smell and hearing also alerted him to the presence of a sentry nearby, stationed atop the hill. Maddox moved toward the source of the people-smell carefully, his bull's massive hooves crunching on the gravel.
"What the hell—?" The sentry swung an automatic rifle toward him and then lowered it with a groan as Maddox took a bite of the nearest tasty-smelling bush. "Jeez. Just some stray cow."
As soon as he turned away again, Maddox shifted and moved in quickly behind him on bare feet to grab him from behind in a chokehold. The guard went down and Maddox stole his rifle, along with his boots to reduce the risk of stepping on a cactus or a rattlesnake. Wearing boots and nothing else, he went down the hill quietly toward the mouth of the mine, staying to the shadows.
Distraction. He needed a distraction. After thinking for a moment, he crouched behind a rock and set up the automatic rifle pointing across the valley. He hooked a bootlace around the trigger and carefully bent over a bush and tied the end of the lace loosely to hold the bush in place. It would snap back in moments, pulling the trigger.
Maddox kicked off the ill-fitting boots and shifted back to his bull. He trotted down the hill, making no particular effort to hide. Everything depended now on whether he could trust Hawkins. If Hawkins had told the truth about keeping Maddox's secret, if Hawkins hadn't tipped off Ducker that he was coming here tonight. Maddox wasn't normally a leap-of-faith kind of guy. Maybe Verity had rubbed off on him.
Or maybe it was just that he didn't have a choice. His mate was in danger. He had to get close to her, no matter the risk.
Several rifles swung toward him as he wandered into the pool of headlights, stopping and starting, trying to do his best impression of some farmer's strayed prize bull.
"Holy shit, look at the size of that cow," someone said.
I'm not a cow, Maddox's bull protested grumpily.
Knock it off, ya big ox.
"Anyone in the mood for beef tonight?" someone said, and there was scattered laughter.
Maddox scuffed the ground with a hoof and nibbled at a bush, but he had no appetite. They might shoot him even if they didn't know who he really was. He wouldn't put it past them. Ducker stood back, looking amused. There was blood at the corner of his mouth, and he occasionally dabbed at it with a handkerchief. I bet Verity did that, Maddox thought proudly. That was his mate, all right.
"You see a brand on this big guy?" one of the gunmen asked.
Maddox's bull reacted in horror at the idea of being branded. Maddox merely snorted in bovine laughter. Let them try.
His distraction better come soon, before they did try.
He was braced for it, but it still made him jump when it happened, a chattering burst of gunfire from high on the hillside as his twig-trap finally snapped.
The reactions were immediate, men flinging themselves behind cars and spinning around to see where it was coming from.
And Maddox burst into motion. His hooves shook the ground as he galloped through the men, headed toward the opening to the mine.
No one tried to stop him. Why would they? He was an animal seeking refuge
from a loud noise—a large, extremely difficult-to-stop animal, no less. Instead Ducker's gunmen threw themselves out of the way, and he reached the entrance to the mine without interference.
He encountered a new problem here. The mine entrance was too narrow for him to easily enter with his huge body. He thought the shaft would probably accommodate him, but he had to tilt his head to the side and dip it uncomfortably toward the ground to get his horns inside. He forced his way forward, feeling the door timbers scraping his massive shoulders.
"That is one seriously spooked cow," someone said behind him.
Bull, his animal protested.
Maddox had other things on his mind than defending his bull's honor. His nostrils flared at the smell of his mate. Verity was in here somewhere.
He pushed his way forward, wincing as his horns snagged at the ceiling and walls even with his head tilted forward and down at a neck-straining angle. It was so dark he couldn't see, especially with his head twisted to the side. But the darkness was good, he thought as he pushed ever deeper into the mine. He couldn't look back to see if he was being followed, but as soon as he was deep enough that the darkness would cloak him from onlookers, he could shift back to a shape more practical for navigating mines.
Before he could do that, however, he ran into another of Ducker's guards—almost literally. Already spooked from the sound of gunfire and shouting outside, the guard shone a flashlight in his face and then let out a shocked yell. Maddox was dimly aware of movement behind the light, knew there was going to be a gun involved, and lunged forward, head-butting the man to the ground with his bony bovine forehead. Then he shifted in mid-stride and punched the dazed guard in the face.
He retrieved the man's rifle just as another guard appeared in the tunnel up ahead. The sight of a naked man standing over his colleague gave him just enough pause for Maddox to get in the first shot. The man went down without a sound.