by Jenna Night
Leon’s heart nearly lurched out of his chest. Much as he wanted to catch the van and the dirtbags inside it, he wanted to take care of Cassie more. He pulled hard to the right, drove over the curb, across the sidewalk and ploughed down the grassy slope until he reached the spot where Cassie’s body had come to rest. He leaped out of the truck and ran to her.
I’m too late. She’s gone. Every horrible possibility ran through his head because terrible things did happen in life. He knew that for a fact.
She’d come to rest on her left side, reddish-blond hair fanned across her face, her arms and legs tucked in. Caught underneath her hands was a twisted plastic shopping bag. And then he saw that her ankles had been tied together with improvised binding made the same way, with twisted plastic shopping bags.
He was vaguely aware of Harry pulling up in his truck behind him, of hearing doors opening, and of hearing Martin request an immediate emergency medical response.
Leon dropped to his knees beside Cassie, barely able to take a breath. Wondering if she was still alive. Both wanting to know and not wanting to know at the same time. He reached out to brush her hair from her face. Her eyes were closed. But then her eyelashes fluttered and she opened them.
She was alive. Thank You, Lord!
“Hey,” Leon said softly, not sure if she realized it was him there beside her. She was gazing forward, not directly at him, and she looked dazed and very pale. “That was quite a landing,” he said.
Harry and Martin jogged up, not getting too close, giving them some room.
The light breeze moved Cassie’s hair so that it covered her face again. Leon smoothed it once more, this time gently tucking it behind her ear.
Cassie took in a deep, shuddering breath and slowly blew it out. Then she started to turn her face toward Leon.
“Stay still,” he said. “Don’t move. You might have broken something.”
Of course, she ignored him, and continued to very gingerly turn her head.
Leon was a big guy. The years of hard living before he’d gotten his life together showed on his face. He could intimidate men his own size into complying with his directions. But not Cassie. She only listened to him when she felt like it.
“Did you catch them?” she asked. It was evident by the tightness of her voice that she was in pain. And angry.
“I’ll catch them later,” Leon said. He wouldn’t feel a sense of relief until he knew for certain that she was okay.
She started to move, sliding her hands until her palms were flat on the ground and then pushing herself up. Leon wanted to help her, since she seemed so determined, but he was afraid he’d hurt her if he did. She was still wearing her bulletproof vest. Maybe that had helped to protect her spine and her ribs.
Increasingly loud sirens and the growl of a diesel engine announced the arrival of a couple of cop cars and an ambulance. Hopefully, a paramedic would reach Cassie and determine that it was safe for her to move before she pushed herself all the way to her feet.
“The bad guys wore masks again,” she said. “I didn’t see their faces. Didn’t recognize their voices.”
“So you’re sure they’re the same men that shot at us last night?”
She hesitated for a moment. “No, not completely certain.”
One very precise and well-planned attempt to kill her, followed by a kidnapping in broad daylight with trash bags used to tie her up. It made no sense.
“I knew you’d find me,” Cassie said, looking directly at Leon.
He didn’t know how to respond. He was afraid that if he started to tell her the truth—that he would have done anything to find her and make sure she was safe—he would end up telling her too much of what was in his heart. Like how he felt about her. And that would make things awkward between them. So instead he shrugged and said, “Your phone tracker worked.”
She let go a short laugh and shook her head slightly. “Yeah, the geniuses grabbed my radio from my hand and never thought to check my pocket for a phone.” Her smile faded and her green eyes shone with unshed tears. “They knocked me unconscious, but apparently I wasn’t out for very long. I’m pretty sure the plan was to kill me quickly and then dump my body. They just wanted to get far enough away from you and Harry and Martin before they did it so they wouldn’t get caught. Then they recognized your truck and knew you were on to them. After that, they heard the police sirens and decided to dump me and run for it.”
“Well, you survived,” Leon said as two paramedics walked down the hill and approached them. “You’re okay.” Thank You, Lord.
But it had been close. He could have lost her forever. And he and Cassie still had no idea who was trying to kill her.
FIVE
“I have some potential suspect photos for you to look at,” Sergeant Bergman said to Cassie in his office.
She sat back in her chair and shook her head. “I won’t be of much help. I didn’t get a good look at them. They wore masks over their faces.”
Cassie and Leon were seated across from the detective’s desk in his office at the Stone River Police Department. In the four hours since her kidnapping, Cassie had been checked out by a doctor, who’d confirmed her belief that she hadn’t suffered any broken bones. She knew how to fall as safely as possible—thanks to years of horseback riding, hiking and climbing—so she’d tucked her body in when the bad guys had tossed her and she’d rolled down the hill. And the bulletproof vest might have helped.
She was sore. And well aware that the pain would be worse tomorrow. She had some scrapes and a split lip and red marks that would darken into bruises. But she’d survived. And her bounty hunters were all safe. Thank You, Lord.
Getting checked out by the doctor had been a top priority. Along with giving the responding officers at the park every shred of information she could think of to track the camper van and catch the kidnappers.
The abandoned van had been located, with the bad guys nowhere in sight. The registered owner was out of town, visiting San Diego with his family, and claimed he had no idea it had been stolen from the side yard of his house.
At the moment, there were no solid leads to follow up on. At least, none that Cassie knew about. Bergman had been out of his office, busy with the investigation of the original attempt on her life, for most of the day. But he’d been contacted by the officers who’d responded to Cassie’s abduction.
He’d called her a half hour ago, shortly after he’d returned to department headquarters, asking if she felt up to a meeting. She was still in town, so she’d said yes. Leon had come along with her.
For a moment, her thoughts lingered on Leon and how he’d become such an integral part of her life. No doubt she wouldn’t have survived the day if he hadn’t responded as quickly and as boldly as he had. Beyond that, he’d become someone she relied on personally. Someone who encouraged her and gave her strength, despite her determination not to let that happen. Not with Leon, an employee. Not with any man, really. Not while her husband’s unsolved murder made it so difficult to resolve her grief and return to having a personal life.
Cassie realized she’d been gazing at Leon for a solid minute, maybe more. And that the sergeant was waiting for her to answer his question. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment as she wondered what emotions might have been revealed by the expression on her face as she’d looked at Leon. Fortunately, rather than watching her, Leon appeared to have focused his attention on Bergman along with glancing at the handwritten notes on the detective’s desk.
Cassie took a deep breath, refusing to get flustered, as she turned to face Bergman. “I couldn’t tell if the two men who attacked me today were the same ones who attacked me last night. Their method of operation this time was very different—much less precise. But that might simply be because they didn’t have time to plan ahead. This seemed like an attempt at a quick grab at the first available opportunity. So it could b
e the same men operating under different circumstances. Or it could be two entirely different assailants.” She sighed deeply. “It’s hard to accept the idea that two men would fire at my car, cause an accident and try to shoot me in the woods, and then, less than twenty-four hours later, two completely different men would kidnap me. But I suppose it’s possible.”
The detective nodded.
He wasn’t going to rule out any possibilities. That was the impression Cassie got from the expression on his face. And Cassie could respect that. Bergman was an independent thinker and fairly methodical, two characteristics that made him good at his job. Jumping to conclusions wasn’t really his style.
“Getting back to the photos...” He picked up the tablet sitting on his desk and tapped the screen a few times. “You’ve already mentioned that the assailants today were wearing masks.” He glanced up at Cassie. “Were they wearing glasses, sunglasses, goggles? Anything to cover their eyes?”
“No.”
“So you might consider focusing on the subjects’ eyes first when you look at these photos. Go through all of them, paying particular attention to the eyes. See if there’s anything familiar about them. Then look at them a second time, paying attention to the whole face. If anything triggers even the slightest bit of familiarity, let me know.”
“What parameters did you use to select these photos?” Leon asked. “Are they hired muscle? Organized crime?” Cassie had mentioned her theory on a possible organized crime connection to him.
“Just people to consider,” Bergman said vaguely. “Think about both attacks on you as you look at them.”
Cassie and her bounty hunters had experienced Bergman’s polite refusal to share details in an investigation before. There was nothing adversarial about it and she understood why he’d want to keep some things under wraps.
“You might have seen them somewhere without their masks,” Bergman said. “When they were planning the attack in the woods, they might have walked by your office window a few times to get an idea of your work routine. Or hung out in a coffee shop you visit fairly regularly. Followed you at court. Something like that.
“They would have wanted to figure out your basic daily pattern and then plan an attack around that. As far as today’s abduction goes, that has all the hallmarks of something fairly last minute. Still, they could have been outside your office when you left to go to court. Or in the courthouse parking lot, watching you.”
Cassie shivered at the thought of someone stalking her, possibly watching her for days as they plotted to kill her. She was security conscious because of her work, but everything that had happened to her since yesterday evening had taken her thoughts of security to a whole new level. It was a tricky situation. Her job required that she be cautious. But it also required that she shove caution aside when necessary to get the job done.
Bergman got up to hand her the tablet and then sat on the edge of his desk to watch her as she started to flip through the photos. Beside her, Leon leaned in a little closer so that he could see the pictures, too. The light touch of his leg brushing against hers, combined with the overall nearness of him, made her breathe a little more deeply and feel a little more relaxed.
She directed her attention to the pictures, a bit distracted by the exhaustion and body aches starting to settle in. She swiped through the photo lineup several times. But no one looked familiar. She glanced at Leon to see if anyone looked familiar to him. He shook his head. The feeling of disappointment soured her stomach—which was ridiculous. What were the odds of finding the bad guys this quickly and easily?
She handed the tablet back to Bergman, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. No one looks familiar.”
“No reason to apologize,” Bergman said, setting the tablet on his desk and then walking back around it to sit in his chair. “None of them is a targeted suspect. Just eliminating a few obvious possibilities.”
“What about Jerry Lutz?” Leon asked. “The owner of the car found on the fire road near the attack in the woods. You said you were going to go talk to him.”
“That is my next topic.” Bergman glanced at the paper notepad on his desk. “Lutz still holds a grudge against your late husband,” he said to Cassie. “He made that very clear. He still believes that when Jake arrested him, he ruined his life.”
Cassie shook her head. The ibuprofen she’d taken earlier had eased her headache a little, but her neck was getting stiff and sore. “If you break the law and you get caught, why is it the officer’s fault?”
Bergman raised his brows slightly and gave her a “tell me about it” look, but didn’t directly answer the question. “So, Lutz did in fact report that car stolen seven days ago. Well before the attack on you as you crossed the bridge.”
Leon made a scoffing sound. “He could have made a false report so he’d have an excuse if his car was seen in the vicinity when the attack happened.”
The bounty hunter had leaned close to Cassie while they’d looked at the photos on Bergman’s tablet. Even though they were no longer looking at the tablet, Leon still leaned toward Cassie, his leg barely touching hers. And right now, she was being very careful not to make any move that would cause him to lean away from her. His slight touch as he sat beside her, plus his focus on getting information out of the detective and involving himself in the investigation, made her feel taken care of.
She probably shouldn’t let herself savor the feeling of being cared for by Leon, but she did. Because she was scared and hurting and she’d been through a lot over the last twenty hours. And, ultimately, what would it hurt? She knew where the solid line was drawn between herself and Leon. An employer on one side and an employee on the other. She knew she wouldn’t cross over it.
“I didn’t say that Lutz was completely cleared of suspicion,” Bergman said evenly. “But I am telling you we have no basis for arresting him. Particularly since he had a very strong alibi for the time of the attack last night that included multiple witnesses.”
“What was his alibi?” Cassie asked. She had a vague memory of Lutz from the time Jake was murdered, and she was fairly certain he wasn’t one of the abductors today. But what if she was wrong in her belief that the same two men were involved in both attacks on her? Were there actually four men trying to kill her? Could Lutz have been one of the gunmen last night? Or even today? Maybe.
“He likes to throw darts. He’s in a competitive league, and he was at the Target Stop throwing darts from four thirty in the afternoon yesterday until shortly after seven in the evening. And during the time of the attack on you today, he was speaking with our officers.”
Cassie thought about that for a few seconds. “Do you think somebody is trying to frame him?”
Bergman responded with a slight shrug. “His name was all over the news after Jake was murdered. If a person were looking for someone to frame for an attack on you, anybody with a negative connection to your late husband would be a good candidate. Including Lutz.”
“What about Bryan Rogan?” she asked. Earlier, she’d thought he was no longer a viable suspect. But after having more time to mull things over, she’d changed her mind. “What about his loser criminal friends? They wanted to intimidate me into not giving my testimony in court because they knew it could lead to a stronger sentence for Rogan. They obviously didn’t stop me. I gave my testimony this morning. But maybe they tried to kill me after the fact because they wanted to punish me. Maybe they wanted to send a message to the other loser criminals about how tough they are.”
“It’s taking some time to track down all of the different individuals connected to that situation,” Bergman said. “But we’re working on it. When we find them, we’ll see if they have alibis for the window of time when you were abducted today.”
“I’d be happy to help you with that,” Leon said.
Cassie glanced over at him and saw his jaw muscles tighten.
“My team i
s handling it,” Bergman said. “Remember, just because you only talk to me doesn’t mean I’m the only one working the case.”
“What’s your gut telling you?” Cassie asked. “Is this about my testimony in court? Some fugitive I recovered who’s back out of jail and carrying a grudge?” She realized she was talking too fast, thanks to her rattled nerves, so she took a deep breath and blew it out. Maybe, if they could get all of this untangled, they’d finally be able to solve Jake’s murder. “Do you think it’s related to Jake? Or to the guy in the jail cell who seemed to know something about his murder?”
“That brings us to the last bit of information I have that I can share with you. I’ve got a name to go with the man in the jail cell with your confidential informant. His name is Seth Tatum.”
Cassie felt a flutter in her chest. Maybe this was finally it. The nightmare of Jake’s murder would finally be solved.
Bergman tapped his tablet screen a couple of times, then handed the tablet to Cassie to show her Seth Tatum’s booking photo. He was a young man, in his early twenties. Which meant he could have been a teenager when Jake was murdered.
“What have you learned from this Seth Tatum?” she asked, hearing her voice tremble a little.
“I’m afraid there’s a problem there.”
And just like that, Cassie’s rising sense of hope turned cold and dropped like a chunk of ice in her stomach. “What do you mean ‘problem’?” She handed the tablet back to the sergeant.
“Seth Tatum has vanished. He doesn’t answer phone calls. We can’t get a location on his cell number, so either he’s keeping the phone off and taken out the battery, or he’s completely destroyed it. His last known address is over in Montana. We requested help from local law enforcement to check out his residence. He wasn’t there. Neighbors say they haven’t seen him in several days. His car is parked in his garage.”
“So you have no way to locate him,” she said dully.
The detective looked her straight in the eyes. “We’re not going to give up looking for him just because he isn’t easy to find.”