CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Hunter drove faster than he’d ever driven through town in his life. He was painfully aware that seconds mattered...minutes mattered. The faster George could tell them something, anything about the kidnapper, the faster they might be able to find Colette.
Peter had already beaten her up. Hunter knew the man wouldn’t blink twice before killing her. He could have killed her right there in the house, and yet he’d carried her out and away. Why not just kill her?
Where could he have taken her? Where was his lair? The man had apparently moved freely through town in order to leave the items on Colette’s porch and to leave the note in the café. Why had everyone who was questioned in town indicated they had never seen Peter anywhere before? Why hadn’t he seen Peter in town? The man was obviously a freaking ghost.
Hunter screeched around the corner of the street that led to his house. When he got close enough, he saw George sitting on the front porch. He whirled into his driveway, cut the engine and leaped out of the car.
George stood, tears trekking down his cheeks. “I’m sorry, Hunter. I’m so sorry I didn’t do anything to help. I should have tackled him. I should have done something, but I hid like a baby.”
“It’s okay, George. Right now what I need for you to do is calm down,” Hunter said even though he was anything but calm. Every nerve in his body was screaming that he needed to find Colette as soon as possible.
“Come on inside. I need to get some information from you.” Hunter tried to stay calm, knowing that would also calm George down, but Hunter wanted to scream with urgency at the only man who had seen Peter Waverly.
As they walked through the living room, Hunter saw the gun still on the coffee table. Obviously she’d never gotten a chance to use it to protect herself. Zeus danced at his feet, and he let the dog out the back door as Nick entered the house.
George began to weep again as Hunter guided him to a seat at the table. “George, we need you to calm down so you can think clearly,” Hunter said and tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “You need to tell us exactly what you saw.”
“I saw him carrying her over his shoulder,” George said.
“Did he have a vehicle waiting for him?” Nick asked.
George nodded. “A black pickup truck. He put her in the passenger seat and then he sped away.” Hunter’s stomach tightened. Sped away where? Where was the bastard hiding out?
“Was it this man who took her?” Nick showed George the picture of Peter.
“No, it wasn’t him,” George replied with a frown.
Hunter looked at Nick in confusion. If it wasn’t Peter Waverly, then who had taken her away? Were they dealing with two different people? Two separate perpetrators?
George raised a fist and hit himself in the forehead. “I know the man who took her...I just...right now I can’t remember who he is. I know I met him. Damn, damn, damn!” He hit himself in the head once again.
Hunter caught his hand. “George, stop hitting yourself. That’s not going to get us anywhere. Just give yourself a minute to breathe, a minute to think.”
Seconds...minutes...where was she? Hunter’s need to find her burned in his belly as his heart continued to beat the rapid rhythm of despair. He needed George to remember, otherwise they had nothing.
“What did the man look like?” he asked.
“Dark hair...nice-looking man.” George’s frown deepened, and then he snapped his fingers and sat up straighter in his chair. “I know now. I met him at the café. Hank...Hank Bridges. He bought that old pig farm south of town.”
Before George was completely finished speaking, Nick and Hunter jumped up from the table and ran outside to their patrol cars.
The pig farm. She’d told them the person who had beaten her had a strange, unpleasant odor about them. A man living on a pig farm would have had that smell clinging to him.
Hank Bridges. What in the hell did he have to do with Peter Waverly? Was he a hired killer working for Peter? Had Peter been living with Hank? Was that how he had stayed under their radar?
It was much easier for Hunter to focus on these kinds of questions than the questions that ate at his guts. Questions like, were they already too late? Had Peter been waiting at the pig farm to bring him Colette and had he already killed his ex-wife? Was Colette already dead?
Oh God, he could scarcely stand the thought that she might no longer be in this world. He couldn’t imagine never again seeing her beautiful smile or hearing her sweet laughter. He couldn’t imagine her not being there for her daughter.
His heart hurt. All he wanted was for her to be in his arms. He wanted to bury his face in her sweet-smelling hair, feel her heart beating steady against his own. More than anything he wanted her to be alive.
He got on the radio with Nick. “We need to go in quiet,” he said. “We don’t know whether there’s one or two men in there, but either one of them is capable of killing her.”
“I’ve already called in a couple more men and told them to meet us at the old Winchell place next to the pig farm,” Nick said.
Thankfully he didn’t mention the fact that they might already be too late, that they’d reach the farm and find her dead body and the men would already be gone, never to be seen again.
He gripped the steering wheel tightly. Wasn’t it enough that he’d had to say goodbye to Danny? Hadn’t life taken enough from him already? He’d lost both his wife and his baby boy. Dammit, he didn’t want to lose Colette as well.
Nick followed him down the highway that would take them to the Winchell place, a small farm where the Winchell family had lived and struggled for years. Three years ago they had given up, moved away and abandoned the place to the bank. Nobody had lived in the place since.
He turned in to the long driveway and drove up far enough that the vehicles wouldn’t be seen from the road. Nick pulled in behind him, and within minutes two more patrol cars joined them. Deputies Greg McCain and Barry Simpson got out of the cars.
“What’s the plan?” Hunter asked Nick, recognizing that ultimately Nick was the lead on the case.
“We need to get close enough to do a little recon,” Nick said. “We need to figure out who, exactly, is in the house and where they are in the place. Greg, why don’t you and I sneak closer and see what we can see? Hunter, you and Barry wait here. We’ll check back here and we can make our ultimate plan to move in.”
Before Hunter could protest, the two men were gone, cutting through an overgrown cornfield in the direction of the pig farm. “There isn’t time for this,” Hunter said to Barry, who was an older, more seasoned deputy.
“Hunter, I know there’s a lot at stake here, but we have to have a plan. You know we can’t go in blindly. That could cost Colette her life.”
“Logically I know that,” Hunter replied with frustration. There was a clock ticking in his head, and he had the bad feeling that it was ticking down to Colette’s death.
* * *
COLETTE KNEW THESE were the final minutes of her life. Her wrists burned and hurt from her trying to get loose from the ropes that bound them. Unfortunately no matter how she tugged and twisted, she’d been unable to make any headway in getting free.
She’d stopped praying for help for herself and instead prayed for some kind of intervention that would keep her daughter away from the evil man who had sired her.
She prayed that Hunter wouldn’t carry the burden of her death, something he was in no way responsible for. Finally, she prayed for a quick and painless death even though she knew that wasn’t going to happen. There was no way Peter was going to let her die quickly and painlessly.
For the last hour or so, he had berated her, screamed at her and slapped her cheeks over and over again. He told her what a terrible wife she had been, what a horrible waste of breath she was. Then he’d told her how much he had loved her and that she had once be
en his entire world. He’d finally stalked out of the kitchen, and she was now alone.
She found it hard to believe now that she had ever loved anything about this man...this obsessed sociopath who would go to any ends to get what he wanted.
She found everything about this situation to be surreal. The fact that he’d obviously gone through extensive plastic surgery to change his appearance, the fact that he’d apparently bought this pig farm for the sole purpose of being close to her, to be able to torment her and then to kill her.
Who in their right mind would go to these lengths? It was obvious he wasn’t in his right mind, had never been in a sane frame of mind.
She realized now she would have never been able to get away from him. He had enough money to find her wherever she might have run. She could have run for years and he still would have chased her.
Peter was her fate. As much as she’d wanted it to be otherwise, his face would be the last one she’d see before she died. There was no way she wanted that to be so.
She closed her eyes and imagined Melinda’s sweet face. She saw the cute little wrinkle in her nose when Melinda smiled, the happy sounds of her giggles when she got tickled. Melinda had been the best daughter a mother could ever want.
She then imagined Hunter’s face in her mind’s eye. How she loved the way his smile lit up her heart and the beauty of his deep green, dark-lashed eyes made her want to melt into them. His face displayed so much of the character of the man he was. His warm eyes and laugh lines showed him for the good man he was.
Whether he ever found love for her again, she hoped with the information he had about Peter, he would somehow keep Peter from gaining custody of her daughter. She would also hope that after her death he would find forgiveness for the lies she’d told him in an effort to survive.
She wanted to weep for all the dreams she’d wanted to build with Hunter, dreams of happiness and family that had all been shattered. Still, she would take her last breath loving him. She would love him through eternity.
She opened her eyes and tensed as Peter came into the room once again. “It’s time, Colette. It’s time you pay the ultimate price for running from me. My pigs are very hungry, and I’m eager to end this and get on with my life with my darling daughter.”
She fought back a shiver. “You’ll burn in hell for everything you have done,” she said fervently.
He laughed. “Maybe, but in the meantime I’m having such a wonderful time.” He moved behind her and began to untie her hands. “Oof, I see you’ve been a bad girl and tried to get loose. You’ve got your hands all bloody, but that’s okay. My pet pigs absolutely love blood.”
Once he had her untied, he grabbed her by the arm and yanked her upright. She immediately fell to the floor on her butt. There was no way she was going to make this easy for him.
“Get up,” he commanded, anger rife in his voice.
She no longer feared his anger. What was he going to do to her? She was going to die within minutes anyway. “Make me,” she replied.
He yanked harder on her arm, but she made herself deadweight. “Don’t be childish, Colette. Now stand up before I lose my patience.”
“What are you going to do if I don’t? Kill me?” She laughed. She had nothing to lose now. “You’re pathetic, Peter. You’re a loser who has wasted the last three years of your life chasing after a woman who didn’t give you a second thought. You might have wanted me, but I never, ever wanted you.”
Peter’s face reddened, letting her know she was making him very, very angry. “Shut up,” he yelled.
“Why should I shut up? You’ve been talking to me the whole time you’ve had me here. Now it’s my turn to talk. You were a terrible husband, Peter. You’re a little man who is abusive to women. You really think you’re a big man because you can slap around a woman? Because you can get a knife and stab me? You abused me throughout our whole marriage. I ran from you because I hated you and I never, ever wanted to see you again. Even if you hadn’t tried to stab me to death, I would have left you anyway. You don’t deserve the love of any good woman, and you definitely don’t deserve my beautiful daughter.”
“Are you through?” A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Not quite.” She drew in a deep breath and laughed. “You also sucked in bed.”
She barely got the words out of her mouth when he slammed his fist into the side of her face. An intense pain caused bright lights to flash in her brain, and then there was nothing.
* * *
“THERE’S ONLY TWO of them in the house,” Nick said breathlessly. He and Greg had just come back to where Hunter and Barry had waited. “It’s just Colette and Hank Bridges. We saw no sign of Peter Waverly.”
“Was she alive?” Tension pressed tight in Hunter’s chest.
Nick nodded affirmatively, and a rush of relief swept through Hunter. “She’s tied to a chair in the kitchen,” Nick said.
“If there’s just one person with her, then this should be an easy takedown,” Barry said.
“Are you sure there was nobody else in the house?” Hunter asked.
“Positive. We got eyes on all the rooms in the house. There’s nobody else there.” Nick looked at Barry. “And there’s nothing easy about this. Hank is obviously a dangerous man. If he hears or sees us coming, there’s nothing to stop him from killing Colette.”
Hunter didn’t know what the deal was with Hank Bridges. He and Peter Waverly had to somehow be in cahoots. Hank could only be looked at as an assassin who had been paid to kill Colette. All Hunter really knew was one false move and Colette would die.
“We need to go in carefully and use the element of surprise to take down Hank,” Nick said. “Barry, do you have the door ram in your trunk?”
“I do.”
“Okay, I’ll take it and go in the front door. Greg, you take the south side of the house, and Barry, you take the north side. Hunter, you go around to the back. That’s where the kitchen is located. We not only want to get Colette out of there, but I also want to get Hank under arrest,” Nick said. “Earbuds in and I’ll give the signal to move in when I think everyone is in place.”
The four of them took off, moving as silently as they could through the field. Hunter’s heart raced with the need to get her out of the farmhouse and to safety. He hoped and prayed that this rescue effort didn’t go wrong. One mistake and he knew Colette would die.
Every muscle, every single nerve in his body tensed as a rush of adrenaline flooded through his veins. His need to get to her before anything happened was single-focused and overwhelming.
He changed his direction to come around to the back of the old farmhouse. There was no way to predict what Hank would do when he realized the police were on top of him.
And where was Peter Waverly? Where was the man behind all this? There was no doubt in Hunter’s mind that Colette’s ex-husband had orchestrated everything that had happened to her. So, where was he? He would think a man with such focus on killing a woman would want to be present when she died.
Still, he couldn’t think about that right now. All he wanted to do was bust down the doors, release Colette and hold her warm, breathing body against his.
As he got closer, the smell of the pigs grew stronger. Hunter had been around pigs before, and normally they didn’t smell so unpleasant. But this was the odor of neglected animals, of filth and waste.
When this was all over, Hunter would make sure the pigs were removed by the humane society so they could be placed with farmers who would properly care for them.
The farmhouse came into his view. A shed sat between the edge of the backyard and the house, a perfect place for Hunter to take cover until he got the signal to move in.
Keeping low and moving fast, Hunter raced for the small building. He slammed his back against it and held his breath, waiting to see if anyone in the house had possibly seen him.
When the air remained quiet, he breathed a sigh of relief. So far...so good. The only sound was the grunting and rustling coming from the pigpen.
He froze as he heard the sound of the back door opening. He peeked around the corner of the shed and saw Hank with a prone Colette across his shoulder.
What the hell? Was she already dead? Horror screamed through Hunter as he suddenly realized the man’s intent. The pigs squealed as Hank raised Colette high enough to throw her over the porch railing and into the pen.
“Move in. Move in,” Hunter screamed through his radio as he raced toward the pen.
Hank looked up in stunned surprise. “Put her down, Hank. Put her down on the porch,” Hunter yelled as he drew his weapon.
Hank froze. Colette looked like a limp rag doll in his big arms. “Put her down on the porch!” Hunter yelled again and ran across the lawn toward the two.
“She belongs with the pigs,” Hank yelled back. Once again he raised her up to his shoulders. “Say goodbye to Colette,” he said and laughed.
A crack sounded in the air, and Hank’s laughter stopped abruptly. As if in slow motion, he sank down to his knees and spilled Colette out of his arms and onto the porch.
Nick stepped out of the house and onto the porch, his gun in his hand and a bullet hole through the screen door. Hunter stumbled forward, his sole concern the woman lying lifeless on the deck. Was she already dead? Had they been too late after all?
His heart nearly stopped as he finally crouched down beside her and felt for a pulse. Let there be one...please let there be one, his mind begged.
Her face looked red and bruised, and if Hank Bridges wasn’t next to him dead, then Hunter would have killed him with his bare hands.
“She’s got a pulse,” he cried out to Nick. “We need an ambulance out here.”
“Already been called in,” Nick replied.
Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Page 53