Echo

by Anne Conley

  But first, he had shit to blow up, men to sell, and a vendetta to settle.

  He yanked the truck into gear and pulled out of the lot.

  “Let’s roll.”

  Simon listened, helpless, as his team fell apart in an ambush.

  “Coming around this trailer—ugh.” He lost communication with Evan, who was not at all combat trained.

  “I got your six,” from Ryan. “Uf!” Ryan was combat trained, minimally so, but one of his better fighters. Simon felt sick.

  “Y’all pull out. Now.” They needed to regroup ASAP, but they either ignored him or didn’t hear him.

  “They’re putting them into trucks.” Jordan, the Marine, the guy best able to tactically handle himself, was taken out next. That left Dex. An agonizing howl told him Dex was out. Minimal gunfire.

  This was bad.

  And the whole time, he’d been watching a yard full of 18-wheelers parked, looking impotent yet ominous.

  One by one, they started up with a rumble, until the deafening roar of tractor-trailer motors surrounded him. Then they started moving.

  All but one.

  Simon knew this was a trap, but without knowing anything anymore—only that his girl was probably in one of these trucks, as well as his team, his sister, his remaining family—Simon could only react.

  He jumped out of his car and ran to the remaining truck, climbing in and starting it up to follow.

  The trucks filed out of the lot, heading onto Ben White Boulevard toward the interstate. He knew what would happen next. The trucks would split up and he’d have a decision to make. He got on his phone and called Deena Rae.

  “I’m in a convoy of tractor trailers headed toward I35. Pretty sure they’ll split up, but I’ll follow the ones going south, need you to follow the ones going north.” He was glad she hadn’t broken into song at the word convoy, as Deena Rae was just that irreverent. Apparently, the seriousness of the situation was rubbing off on her.

  “Gotcha. What do you want Zack to do?”

  “Call the cops. Nguyen and the FBI have a task force for this case, and this is the evidence they need that Jonas is involved. I haven’t seen him yet, but I think I remember Evan talking about a transport offshoot of his shell companies. This is it. He’s taking them to Mexico.”

  He was guessing, but it felt right. If anything, Simon knew to trust his gut, and his gut was telling him the trucks he wanted would be headed to the border.

  True enough, at I35, his CB radio flared to life.

  “Simon? You ready?” He had followed five trucks heading south while the other six peeled off to the north for the freeway.

  He didn’t answer the voice he knew belonged to Jonas. He didn’t need to. Jonas acted without him answering.

  The truck immediately in front of him exploded into a ball of fire, as well as two trucks headed north in his enormous side mirror.

  Two trucks in front of him pulled over, the drivers bailing out and running. Simon kept driving, keeping the truck leading the line of 18-wheelers in his vision. Smoke, debris, and bits of sheet metal hit his truck as he passed the fiery explosion, steering the massive piece of machinery around stopping cars and flying debris.

  The two trucks that had been pulled over erupted in fiery flames.

  Jesus Christ.

  More fireballs erupted on the horizon behind him.

  Simon tried not to think about who was in the trucks currently burning all around him. He smelled the smoke and tried to tell himself it was just smoke, untinged by the odor of burning flesh, but his brain went to some strange places.

  A hollow formed in his chest—a painful, squeezing thing that told him they were gone. He wouldn’t get to see Ryan smiling at Krista anymore. Wouldn’t make fun of Evan refusing to work out on anything but the chin-up bar. Wouldn’t get to tease his brother about weird hobbies anymore. Wouldn’t hear Evan and Jordan bicker about piddly shit.

  His foot mashed down on the accelerator as he urged his big-rig to go faster.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Lacie was more scared than she’d ever been in her life. This guy driving the truck was a maniac, and she was clearly going to die. She was tied up in a position she thought she remembered seeing in a movie once. Her ankles were tied together to her hands, behind her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t squirm. She’d been gagged and couldn’t scream. She was helpless to do anything but watch as this madman drove faster and faster.

  He was gleefully pushing buttons on his laptop between them while he sang along to some disco music on the radio. For some reason, she was struggling to remember who sang this song, “Dancing Queen.” It didn’t matter, but her mind was focusing on the mundane in an attempt to not focus on her reality. But as she watched the guy press buttons, she jumped with each rolling boom that sounded behind them, wondering if it was Donna Summers or the Bee Gees.

  The maniac picked up the CB radio. “Did you like that?”

  Her pulse picked up when she heard Simon’s voice, sounding as helpless as she felt. “It won’t bring her back. You killed her ten years ago, Jonas. She’s gone.”

  Jonas. A name to go with the face—the face suddenly turning purple with rage. “You know nothing!” he screamed into the handheld piece. “Nothing!” The truck swerved, and Lacie slid into the floorboard as he straightened it.

  “Tell me what your plan is, Jonas.” Even sounding stressed, Simon’s voice was like a lifeline. She held onto it, made tinny through the CB, but it was Simon nonetheless.

  “My plan?”

  “Yes, surely you have a plan. Why did you blow up all those … trucks?” Her Simon’s voice cracked on the word trucks, and Lacie wondered what the scene of destruction was like behind her. Had any innocent bystanders died? People on their way down the highway coming home from work?

  Jonas waved his arm in the air. “Loose ends.” His voice was airy and detached. “I’m moving, you see? Those were employees who needed to be dealt with before they talked to somebody.”

  “So … Lacie wasn’t in one of those trucks? Bonnie?”

  “Oh, so fucking noble, aren’t you? Noble Simon Pierce.” A self-absorbed chuckle filled the cab of the truck, and Bonnie whimpered from the bed behind her. “You know I won’t be able to rest until you and that entire organization are dead.” His words were spoken with an eerie quality that would have sent a tingle of fear down Lacie’s spine if she wasn’t already terrified. He clicked off the button on the radio and spoke to Bonnie. “Or he thinks they’re dead anyway. Won’t matter. He will be dead. Cut off the head, you know?” He spoke like he was talking over coffee, so casual.

  Lacie knew there was no way she was going to get out of this alive. As the final chorus of “Dancing Queen” sounded from the speakers, she realized it was Abba. She had been wrong all along.

  Story of her life. She hadn’t given this guy the credit he was due, and she had completely underestimated the danger she was in with all the break-ins. She hadn’t felt this level of fear with the would-be rapists who had come into her home, and wasn’t that just dumb of her?

  Her compartmentalization was going to get everyone killed.

  Simon’s voice was quiet as he spoke through the speakers of the CB radio.

  “Jonas, take me.” Her ears perked up as she tried to picture his face. “Take me and leave that truck. Whoever’s inside, leave them and take me.”

  Jonas spoke to the cab, not into the radio. “Jesus, fucking perfect. Did you hear that?” He looked at her, a wild glee in his eyes—he knew he had Simon. Her heart wrenched, even as she started shaking her head. He pushed the button on the CB and started speaking. “Up here on the right, there’s a roadside park. Pull over. We can talk.” The twisted sneer at his words made Lacie realize there would be very little talking.

  Simon was sacrificing hi
mself for them. If Jonas held up his end of the bargain. Not that he’d promised anything, he’d just said to pull over and they’d talk. She had no idea what he had planned.

  It didn’t matter. She was clearly just along for the ride, with her death being the endgame.

  Simon watched for the roadside park, Jonas’s words echoing in his mind. He couldn’t help but remember all the meaningless words that made his life what it was now. All the words said and unsaid.

  His mother trying to talk him out of being a police officer because it wasn’t what she and his father had imagined for their children. Tanya’s words of love and affection right before she stuck him in the side with a knife. Quinten’s words of encouragement when his drinking got out of hand. All the words he’d told the guys at the securities office about love and women and how neither could be trusted.

  And the words he hadn’t told Lacie.

  All the explosions and smoke in the side mirror just told him he was probably too late. What were the odds she hadn’t been on one of those trucks? Knowing Jonas and his penchant for fucking with Simon’s life, very slim.

  He couldn’t think about that now. He had to believe she was alive somehow—until he found out for sure something different.

  Lacie.

  Quinten.

  Bonnie.

  Ryan.

  Jordan.

  Dex.

  Evan.

  All gone.

  He followed Jonas’s truck into the rest stop and pulled up behind him.

  Simon could have called the police. He should have, actually, but there was an element of the unknown that he knew a police presence would fuck up. Let them scramble around the blown-up trucks, looking for answers, while he tried to deal with Jonas.

  The truck was non-descript—a dirty, white box attached to a red cab—just like Simon’s truck. Just like the blown-up trucks. Now these two were one behind the other in this truck stop, and Simon couldn’t breathe.

  He didn’t know what was here for him. He would willingly give himself if it would save anybody else. Enough lives had been lost already.

  When the driver’s door opened, he let out a whoosh of air in one exhale. Lacie was unceremoniously dropped to the ground, while Jonas stepped out slowly, holding Bonnie in front of him. When they got down, he picked Lacie up by a piece of rope tied around her body.

  They were alive.

  Jonas was letting them go. He studied the tableau in front of him. Sadistic maniac between the two women he loved, tied up, their legs free. Rope dangled from their waists where he must have cut it so they could walk. Bonnie’s wide, brown eyes were vacant, glazed over, like she’d checked out completely. She clutched a laptop in her hands behind her back. He couldn’t blame her for the vacancy. If he could, he would totally do that. Lacie’s eyes were wide with a fear he couldn’t imagine. He wondered if Jonas had done something to them in the truck.

  “So you’ll take me?”

  Jonas smiled, a chilling parody of happiness, some twisted vision of something Simon couldn’t name.

  “Yes, I will. And the girls. We’re getting in your truck.” He nodded to the door of the back of his truck. “Go ahead. Open it. You can see what you’re trading your life for.” His voice was congenial, as if offering a Christmas present. “Go ahead.”

  Hands shaking, Simon opened the door, a strong sense of foreboding overpowering him. As the sunlight streamed inside, he saw a pile of bodies. His team. All piled on top of each other, unconscious.

  Hopefully.

  He saw his brother’s massive hand poking out from under Ryan’s back. “Q?” Simon dared to whisper and was rewarded with a thumbs-up. Okay. They were okay. He was going with Jonas to try to help the girls somehow. Hopefully, they could take care of themselves.

  Turning to Jonas, Simon started to plead. “You won’t leave the girls here? Take me instead?”

  “Fuck no. Get in your truck.”

  “Leave one.” Simon swallowed, knowing what he was opening himself up for. “You can do whatever you want with me, just leave one of them.” He knew if he didn’t specify, Jonas would leave Lacie. He’d always wanted Simon’s sister. With the rest of his team, Lacie would stand a chance.

  “Tempting, but you’ve never been to my tastes. I’m taking all three of you, unless you’d like to stay behind?”

  It was tempting. With the rest of his guys, they could all swoop in and save the girls, but he couldn’t leave those wide, scared eyes with Jonas. Lacie was freaking out. And Bonnie was doing something weird inside her head. Nope. He wasn’t leaving them alone.

  “Never.”

  “Then get in the fucking truck.”

  Simon complied, and Jonas shoved the girls into the bed in the sleeper before taking the passenger side and grabbing the laptop from Bonnie—a complicated-looking screen with red dots, green dots, and buttons along the bottom. Jonas hovered a cursor over one of the buttons.

  “I click this mouse and that truck blows. Drive south.”

  “Gotcha.” Simon’s palms were sweaty and his pulse raced, his stomach at his toes as the girls curled up together in the back of the cab. But he complied, his mind racing for a way out of this.

  Nothing in his entire career had prepared him for this, though, and as personal as the situation was, he was coming up blank. Probably because of how close he was to the guys. He couldn’t have collateral damage here, and Jonas was counting on that.

  His brothers in blue had been collateral damage when Tanya had turned on him, and as fake as he’d realized Tanya’s relationship was, it was nothing compared to this. If he lost Lacie, Simon might as well give up.

  He looked back at Lacie curled up on the bed, murmuring into Bonnie’s ear. She was comforting his sister in this impossible situation, and his heart broke once again. She was doing something no one ever should do: convincing someone she barely knew they wouldn’t die today, they would be okay. He read her lips as they moved over Bonnie’s ear.

  “It’ll be okay. Simon can get us out of this. We’ll be all right. I promise.” Her blind faith in him, in this hopeless situation, deflated Simon. He watched the scenery change and get barer the further south they moved.

  It was a while before he saw anything to give him hope, but when he looked in his side mirror and saw a black corvette race over the hill, he got excited. He couldn’t help it. That was Evan’s car. Someone had taken the T-tops off, and as soon as he saw manes of strawberry-blonde and auburn hair blowing in the wind, he knew Miriam and Deena Rae had come.

  He had no clue what their plan was, but it had to be better than his lack of anything.

  Behind that was the giant black truck with pink accents that Deena Rae touted as her pride and joy. Someone else must be driving that.

  Eyes glued to the digital display showing what was happening behind him, he watched as the girls drove up next to the big-rig. That’s when he noticed the truck had his guys in the back of it.

  His guys. They were here.

  Simon schooled his features, unwilling to give up the ruse, but his fingers started tapping on the massive wheel as he looked over to see what Deena Rae had up her sleeve. She certainly had Jonas’s full attention, his face practically glued to the window. Simon wanted to shout for joy or sigh in relief or something. But he was good. So good.

  “Holy shit. This chick just took off her shirt.” Jonas was still watching the spectacle outside, and Simon used the opportunity to turn off the display monitor that showed the truck closing in behind them, with Evan climbing on the roof.

  Simon let up on the accelerator, so the slow-down was barely perceptible.

  He spared a glance over to Deena Rae in Evan’s car. Miriam had her face shielded with huge sunglasses and a scarf, but Deena Rae was standing in the seat, naked from the waist up, shaking her tits like ther
e was no tomorrow.

  As distractions went, it was certainly working.

  “Is this you, Pierce?” Jonas had an accusatory glare in his eyes as he turned back to Simon.

  “Uh …” At a loss for words, Simon was relieved to see Evan’s head pop down from the roof of the truck and into Jonas’s window. Fucking guy and his upper body strength. Dude was a fucking cling-on.

  One Simon was thankful for.

  “Nope. That would be me,” Evan spoke as he grabbed Jonas by the neck, squeezing him until his eyes bulged. Simon let the truck coast and grabbed the laptop from Jonas’s lap. It all happened so fast, there wasn’t any time for him to react, so as soon as Evan grabbed his neck, he lost his grip on the roof and slid around to the side of the door, still hanging on. But at least Jonas couldn’t get to the laptop anymore.

  As soon as the truck was stopped, Simon jumped into the back to take care of Lacie.

  “Lace?”

  Quinten opened the door and pulled Bonnie out, while Simon helped Lacie get out of the truck. There was no telling if it had charges on it or not, and even with the laptop in his possession, Simon didn’t trust anything with regard to their safety. Not here. Not now.

  Ryan and Jordan subdued Jonas, while Dex got on the phone and Evan grabbed the laptop. Deena Rae put her clothes on while Slade, who had been driving her truck, looked on with a goofy smile on his face.

  Simon laid Lacie out in the grass and untied her. “Are you okay, baby? Did he hurt you?” She shook her head, but the tears freely fell. He understood and found himself sniffing back tears as well. Tears of relief, tears of joy, tears this was over, tears he’d found her in the first place.

  “Hold me, Simon. Just shut up and hold me.”

  He complied, her soft body fitting into the curves of his like a mold. He filled his lungs with her scent, unable to deny himself the feelings the smell of her invoked. Clutching her to him, he allowed his tears to fall, especially since she couldn’t see them. Just a couple tears. No more.