Code of Valor

by Lynette Eason

  When the department chopper arrived, the news chopper banked and got out of the way. For the next ten minutes, Linc drove while Brady kept an eye out for the van, desperately searching, heart pounding. “Where’d they go? Come on, someone, find them!”

  “No visual. Flying in a grid. They’re staying under the trees.” The radio went silent. Then crackled to life. “Spotted the van. It’s stopped on the side of the road.”

  “Anyone in it?” Brady asked.

  “Can’t tell.”

  “Route me there.”

  Linc drove. Brady glanced at the rearview mirror and noted the backup behind them. They broke into a clearing and there was the van. Linc slammed on the brakes and Brady threw open the door, weapon in hand. Together, he and Linc approached, guns held ready. “Hands up! Hands on the dash! Linc? You see anyone?”

  “No. Could be hiding in the back.”

  Other officers approached the rear of the van. “Open the door! Out of the van!”

  Brady reached the side door and yanked it open with one hand, gun aimed with the other. “Empty on the side!”

  “Front is clear!” Linc called.

  “Back is clear!”

  Brady raced back toward Linc’s truck. A crime scene unit would be called, but he wasn’t waiting for them. “Let’s keep searching,” he said as he climbed in.

  Linc sat in the driver’s seat. Still.

  “What are you doing? Let’s go!”

  “No. We’re not going to find her this way. We need to think.”

  “But—”

  “Think. We don’t know who has her. We don’t know where they’re headed.”

  Brady fell silent but pounded a fist into his open palm while he thought. “This is all about finding that boat,” he said. “We haven’t talked to the one other person who might know where it is.”

  “He’s in the hospital, still unconscious. He’s not going to be able to tell us anything.”

  “Who brought him to the hospital?” Brady asked.

  “I don’t know. The wreck happened in North Carolina. I was only able to track him down because I called his wife and she told me where he was.”

  “North Carolina, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wonder exactly where that wreck happened in North Carolina,” Brady said.

  “Let’s find out.”

  I’m coming, Emily. I’m going to find you.

  The question was, would he be too late?

  Emily’s wrists hurt.

  Her arm throbbed.

  Her foot ached.

  Her head pounded and her fear was off the charts.

  She clenched and unclenched her fists, keeping the blood flowing. When they’d stopped the van, she’d had hope. Only to have it fizzle when they’d hauled her out and into a waiting sedan. They drove for about thirty minutes until Snake Man had pulled into the U-shaped drive of the large home. He then escorted her to a chair in the kitchen and held out his hand. She gave him the SD card without a fuss. He would just search her for it and she refused to be subjected to that.

  Then he’d tied her up and disappeared.

  According to the clock on the microwave, an hour had passed. With each passing minute, her anger rose.

  Tears broke the surface and slid down her cheeks.

  The door burst inward and she sniffed, stiffened her shoulders, and glared at Paul’s scarred look-alike. “You’re up.” He moved behind her and released her hands.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, we know what lake we’re headed to.”

  Which meant they didn’t need her anymore.

  “Come on,” he said, and gave her a shove toward the kitchen door.

  “Where?”

  “The car.”

  “So you can dump my body somewhere?”

  He gave a low chuckle. “Emily, I don’t want to kill you.”

  “For some reason, I heard a silent ‘yet’ on the end of that.” She hated the shakiness in her voice.

  His smile faded, leaving a jaw of granite and eyes of ice. “Just do what I ask and we’ll see about you walking away.” She wasn’t that stupid, but she’d let him think she believed him. For now.

  “You don’t believe me.” At her flinch, he shrugged. “Your eyes give you away.”

  Emily ignored that. “But you have the lake where the boat is. What do you need me for?”

  “For something special. You’ve been kept alive for a reason, you know. Now walk.”

  His tone refused to be argued with.

  She walked. “You’ve been watching me,” she said. “Just like you’ve been watching Heather’s parents.”

  “Not me personally, but yes, I’ve had people watching you.”

  She shuddered.

  “Did you know Paul was the one who was trying to have you killed?” he asked.

  “Um . . . yes. Well, we sort of figured out that he had Heather killed.”

  “Stupid,” Todd muttered. “Paul gave a business card to the man he hired to kill someone?” He laughed. “That’s priceless.” His laugh turned into a frown. “That actually doesn’t sound like him. He’s usually more careful than that.” He continued to frown as he pondered that information and Emily bit her lip. He finally shook his head. “He wanted you dead because he was afraid you’d figure out which lake the boat was in.”

  “Didn’t he know that?”

  “No. He hired someone to steal the craft from me. Can you believe it? But here’s some irony. From what I understand, that person tried to blackmail him into paying him more before he’d release the location of the boat.” Todd laughed and shook his head.

  “Jeremy Hightower,” she said flatly.

  Todd shot her a surprised look. “Yes.”

  “He was in the pictures Heather sent me.”

  “The same pictures on the SD card.”

  “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen those, but I would assume.”

  He smirked. At least his lips did. His eyes never changed. He sounded so congenial when he talked, so laid-back and easygoing, but he was a cold one. And that scared her more than just about anything at the moment. She couldn’t let herself believe he planned to let her go. No matter how reasonable he sounded. He was a cold-blooded killer, and she needed to find a way to escape.

  A long blast from the horn nearly sent her into cardiac arrest. Snake Man sat behind the wheel of the sedan with a scowl on his face.

  “Get in,” Todd told her.

  “I don’t understand. Where are we going?”

  “To the bottom of Lake Porter in Carrington, North Carolina.”

  She buckled up and sat for a moment while that information processed, absently noting that they’d not tied her up. Nor were they trying to hide where they were going. Instead of letting the fear take over, she’d do her best to get as much information as she could from them. On the off chance she managed to escape, she wanted to be able to use whatever she learned. Because if she didn’t escape, she knew she’d be dead. “Jeremy took the boat to Lake Porter? How?”

  Todd sat next to her while Snake Man drove. He shot her a look as though weighing whether or not he wanted to talk, then gave a minuscule shrug. “The boat was in the water. I’d just pulled in to the dock and left the key in the ignition. One of the marina workers usually takes it to the fuel dock and fills it up so it’s ready for the next time I decide to take it out.”

  “Wait a minute. The Lady Marie belonged to a man by the name of Nicholas Raimes.”

  “So, you figured that out, eh?”

  “The boat decal was visible in one of the pictures. But he said he sold it.”

  Todd scoffed. “He didn’t sell it.”

  Brady never had mentioned getting the bill of sale from the man. “What’s your connection to Raimes?”

  “He lets me use the boat every once in a while. Actually, he lets me use it whenever I want.” He chuckled. “It’s more my boat than his. I think he’s been on it maybe twice since he bought it a fe
w months ago.”

  Emily’s mind reeled. Okay. Todd, Paul, Raimes. The question was, what was Raimes’s role in everything?

  Nicholas knew Paul and Todd, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Just because Todd used the man’s boat didn’t make Raimes complicit in Todd’s crimes. Although, why say he sold the boat when he hadn’t?

  She shut off her many questions about that and focused on the man beside her. “What is my role in this? We’re going to the lake that you now know about. I thought you were keeping me alive for that reason. What else is going on here?”

  “You, my dear, are going to dive down, open the safe, and retrieve the contents.”

  The more time that passed, the more Brady’s nerves twitched and his adrenaline flowed. It had been almost two hours since Emily had been snatched, and he was ready to climb the walls. Or knock some down. Instead, he found himself tracking down the man who’d survived—barely—the sinking of the Lady Marie.

  All hospitals smelled the same, and the one that held Frank Jarvis was no different. The man’s wife, Jenna, paced in front of his room while they talked. “I just don’t understand,” she said. “He was on a boat?”

  “Yes.” Brady showed her the enlarged picture of her husband’s face. “We’re not sure we have the entire story either, but we need to know where the wreck happened.”

  She smoothed her hand down the back of her head. A gesture that looked more like habit than the need to straighten her hair. “Um . . . not too far from here. He called and said he’d been stabbed and was driving to the hospital. Then I heard a loud crash. His OnStar system kicked in and that’s how the police and paramedics got to him so fast.”

  Brady straightened and exchanged a glance with Linc. “Wait a minute. Stabbed? Before the wreck happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he say who stabbed him?”

  “No.”

  Brady tapped the maps app on his phone. “Where exactly was the wreck?”

  She gave him the location and Brady looked it up. Then a slow smile spread across his lips. “Lake Porter. I guarantee you, he was with Jeremy and somehow managed to get to shore after Jeremy sank the boat. Or they sank it together and Jeremy turned on him.”

  “Frank wouldn’t do that. And neither would Jeremy. They were friends.”

  Brady wanted to open her eyes to her husband’s friend but didn’t figure that would help the situation any. “All right, let’s get a chopper in the air over Lake Porter and see if we can spot any activity going on out there. It’s a huge lake. Lot of square miles to cover. The good news is, not many people are going to be on the water this time of year, so if there’s anything going on, it should be easy to spot.”

  “A chopper’s going to alert whoever’s got Emily,” Linc said. “Might not be the wisest course of action.”

  “And it might be the only thing that saves her life.” He paused. “I’ve got friends on the Carrington dive team. I’ll give Gabe Chavez a call and see if they’re available for backup. He’ll have to clear it with the team captain, Anissa Bell, but hopefully, that won’t be an issue. If whoever has Emily has divers going after whatever’s on that boat, then we’re going to need some experienced people in the water.”

  Linc blew out a breath and nodded. “All right. Let’s get to work.”

  25

  He lowered the binoculars from his spot on the small hill overlooking Lake Porter.

  Soon. That’s what he kept telling himself. Soon. If he could just be a little more patient, the craziness would die down and he could retrieve what was always meant to be his. All of his careful planning and skillful maneuvering were so close to paying off. Juggling everything had taken its toll, but the showdown was near and the stress was coming to an end. Now, he just needed to kick back and watch it all unfold.

  He let the binoculars rest against his chest, then shoved his hands into the front pockets of his five-hundred-dollar pair of perfectly pleated pants. The material soothed. He loved the way it flowed against his skin and fit around his trim waist. Five hundred dollars for a pair of pants. It was absolutely ludicrous.

  When he got his hands on that flash drive, he was going to buy ten more just like them. He pulled his phone from his pocket and tapped the app on the screen that would allow him access to the surveillance equipment he’d installed weeks ago when he’d come up with his plan. A plan that had taken some serious detours along the way, but seemed to be back on track.

  Excitement built. He’d honestly thought the Gilstrap woman was going to bring everything crashing down, but Martin Burnett had taken care of her. And then the Chastain woman and her law enforcement friends. But now, it looked like everything was going to work out. As long as Todd didn’t mess up.

  Emily stared at the dry suit the man held out to her. “Are you kidding?”

  “Do I look like I’m kidding? I know you dive. My men were watching you and your boyfriend out at the lake. You seemed to enjoy it.”

  “I did. Very much. But I only started diving that week.” She swallowed and held up a hand. “I can’t dive by myself.”

  Todd scowled. “Well, let’s put it this way. I have no other options. You have more experience than Hudson or I do, so you’re it. Get into the suit and let’s get this done.” He picked up the helmet. “I even got you the same kind of helmet so there wouldn’t be any kind of excuses that you didn’t know how to use the equipment.”

  “But I—”

  “Go!” Snake Man stepped forward, his weapon aimed at her head.

  She knew as well as they did that her arguing was only prolonging the inevitable. “Seriously, I’ve only done this a few times,” she said, unable to help herself from trying one more time. “And that was with an experienced diver who walked me through everything step by step.” Except the last couple of times. He’d made her take over the role of teacher, gently correcting her if she made a mistake. She hadn’t made many. And that might be the only reason she would survive this. That, and God. She sent up silent, pleading prayers.

  Todd let out a growl of frustration and looked at Snake Man. “Can you do it?”

  The man laughed. “Me? I don’t even wade in the ocean, man. No, I can’t do it.”

  “You need someone experienced in diving,” Emily said. “Didn’t you think about this when you were concocting your plan?” Was she really taking him to task for not planning her kidnapping better? But still . . .

  “I planned it perfectly,” Todd said through gritted teeth. “How was I supposed to know that you weren’t experienced? You sure looked experienced.” He leaned closer, eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring. “If you’ve had a few lessons, then you’d better pull out every scrap of knowledge your boyfriend ingrained in you and get this done.” He drew in a breath and stepped back while keeping his gaze locked on hers. “Let me put it this way. Your mother and sister can’t stay hidden forever. If you don’t do this, I’ll track them down and kill them both.”

  She didn’t doubt it. With a shaking hand, she pointed. “Hand me the suit. You’ll have to fasten the back.” She compared this time to the first time she’d decided to pull on a dry suit. When she’d been going with Brady, she’d been so worried about the suit not fitting for a variety of reasons. This time? What if the suit didn’t fit? Would he make her go shopping for a new one? Why did the thought make her want to giggle?

  She was losing it. Emily slipped off her pink tennis shoes, and the cold from the dock bit into her feet, but she pulled the suit over her clothes and made sure the elastic was secure around her wrists just like Brady had taught her. And wonder of wonders, it fit. That very fact alone sent chills through her. Chills that had nothing to do with the blustery weather. That it was the exact size she needed meant they’d been watching her very closely.

  “You have to attach the line to my belt, and when I pull on it four times, it means I have the flash drive,” she said. “Then you bring me to the surface. Okay?”

  “You be sure to have the contents wit
h you.”

  “I will. Two sharp tugs means I’m in trouble or I can’t get the safe open or something’s wrong. Got it?”

  “Yeah, but that better not happen.” He handed her a device almost identical to the one she and Brady had used. It was a small underwater computer that would tell her exactly how deep she was, how much air she had, and how much time she had before she reached her NDL. Meaning, she could safely surface without stopping to decompress.

  She drew in a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “Are you going to kill me after I get you the flash drive?”

  “No. Your job’s only getting started.”

  Emily frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s information on that flash drive that I need you to handle. You can still access your bank’s software, right?”

  “Yes,” she said, wary where he was going with this.

  “Then that’s all that matters.”

  She wanted to press him for more details, but a flash of light behind Todd caught her attention. Could that be help on the way? Hope sparked. Then fizzled. No one knew she was here. It was probably someone just out for a boat ride. And if she alerted them to the fact that she needed help, they would die.

  Nausea curled within her.

  “You’ve got the ROV, right?” Todd said to Snake Man.

  Emily frowned. “ROV?”

  “Remote Operated Vehicle,” Todd said.

  “I’ve got it,” Snake Man said.

  “Good. Get in the boat. We’ve got a sunken vessel to find and plunder.” Todd grinned. “I feel a bit like a pirate. How about you, Hudson?”

  Todd’s companion didn’t seem to be the least bit amused and, without responding, climbed into the boat with the piece of equipment Emily assumed would tell them the location of the Lady Marie. She grabbed the flippers and raised a brow when Snake Man held out a hand to help her in. “So you have manners? Who taught you those?”

  “My mother.”

  “I’m sure she’s very proud of you.”

  His grip on her wrist tightened and she refused to flinch. “Don’t want you falling on your way in.”

  Of course not. That would really mess up the plan, wouldn’t it?