“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure you’re right,” Grayson muttered.
“Hey, you know where Wendy kept my spare key? I wanted to see if I left a change of clothes in my trunk.” Bliss smiled and hoped he believed her.
“I have it. It’s in here.”
Grayson strode to the closet, which was as big as her bedroom back at her apartment. He opened a small safe and rooted around inside for a moment before turning to present her with the spare key.
“Thanks.”
She grabbed the key, focusing on acting natural. How exactly was she supposed to act though? It wasn’t every day a serial killer proclaimed his obsessive hatred for a girl. She glanced at her phone again and cringed at the time. It was running out.
Bliss took the small staircase to the ground floor and checked the map once again. She wasn’t great with directions, but the phone could also be used to track her in a pinch. At least that’s what happened in the movies. So she left it on the bottom stair, waited until no one was looking, and slid out the front door. With her hood up, she hoped she looked like any one of the neighbors coming and going.
If one of the cops made her, it was all over, and Wendy was as good as dead.
She crossed the lawn and slid into her little car, shivering. Boy, it was unusually cold this year. She started the car, glancing at the cop cars every few moments. Easing it into drive, she rolled down the street, holding her breath.
Neither car moved to follow her.
No one ran out of the house after her.
She had some serious road to burn if she was going to make it.
“DO YOU THINK HE had a car waiting here? Or did he boost something parked on the street?” Travis studied the blocked-off street. He wanted to get out of the SUV and walk the scene, look for a clue, but then he’d be in the way of the professionals.
Officers and what had to be the forensics team clustered around the first car, Priscilla’s. The one Daniel had driven into the gated community and right up to the house to kidnap Wendy in.
“Nah. Two hostages? He had to have something waiting.” Connor twisted to look behind them.
“If they’re both tied up, what’s he got to worry about? Wendy’s not strong enough to break loose, and the kid’s probably scared shitless.”
“Time. He knew we would chase him, so he needed to get away clean and change vehicles before we got too close. He had to have something waiting at this location. He knew he was coming here. Look at the street. There’s no camera in sight. He knew he’d change vehicles without us knowing what to look for.”
“What about there?” Travis pointed to a dome camera mounted on the cross street.
“Nah, that’s blind this way. It only goes north and south. You can’t see the lights, that’s how he knew.”
“Fuck.” Travis rubbed his forehead. He’d gone up against some thorough bastards before, but they’d had teams to do the work. This was one man. “Do we have another ping on Wendy’s location?”
“Yup. Patrol is in the area now looking for a car or some sign of them.”
“Do we know which way they went?”
“Lali tagged every car that crossed the intersection behind us, the one up the street, the other to the left, and the three closest traffic cameras. It’s a lot of cars to follow and sort through. She’s requested some support, but still, that’s a lot of cameras and a lot of cars.”
“Needle in a fucking haystack.”
“Pretty much.” Connor eased the truck past the ongoing investigation. “If I wanted time alone with my sweetheart, and I knew the law was after me, where would I go?”
“What is that? Some kind of profiler trick?”
“It’s easy to get into some of their heads, but Daniel is more complex. Usually we’re dealing with a sociopath, mum issues, a sadist, someone who has a single driving trait. Daniel...he’s a mix. He’s a narcissist, yet he hasn’t made contact with us. It’s like he doesn’t even care about us, so who is it he wants to pay attention to him?”
“Bliss said he talked a lot about his subjects.”
“Maybe. We know he picked up homeless people and chopped them up, but still, he’d want someone to know about what he was doing. To show it off.”
“Wendy?”
“Yeah, that’s a good point. If he considers her his wife, maybe she’s his equal and her affirmation of witnessing his “work” is all he needs because we are so below his notice. But...” Connor shook his head. “It’s damn frustrating, man.”
Travis’ phone vibrated, breaking his concentration. He glanced at the screen and frowned.
“Hey, hold on. Let me answer this.” He clicked the Answer button. His phone connected to the Bluetooth. “Grayson, we’re—”
“Bliss is gone.”
“Wait—what?” Travis sat forward. The vision of her pale, blood-splattered face leapt to mind. Gone? Bliss? She couldn’t be. No, she was safe. Last he’d seen her, she was in the kitchen with her family.
“She came up to my room, asked for the key to her car to get some stuff out of the trunk. Then someone found her phone at the foot of the stairs.”
“Bloody hell,” Connor muttered. He pulled over to the curb and got his phone out, too.
“What about the tracker?” Travis asked. “It just pinged, right?”
“The cops are looking for the signal, but...”
“But what?”
“She deleted all the history on the phone. No calls, no texts, nothing. She’s doing something.”
Bliss would do anything to protect her sister. Anything. Damn it, he should have seen this coming. Cold dread settled in the pit of his stomach. She should have called him at least. He could have helped her. Together they might have been able to accomplish something. But alone? He wasn’t sure she stood a fighting chance against Daniel.
“Fuck all,” Connor said.
“What?” Travis glanced at the other man.
“The tracker still shows her at the house, as of five minutes ago. Ask him to look around, really check. Is she in a bathroom? Sleeping somewhere? Anything?”
“Is there anywhere else she could be?” Travis asked.
“No, we’ve checked every closet, room, and vehicle on the premises. Besides, they have video of her driving out the front gate ten minutes ago.” Grayson’s calm tone was breaking. He’d lost not only his wife, but maybe his sister-in-law as well.
“Then the tracker should have just pinged her...”
“Shit. It must be here somewhere. Damn it, Bliss.”
“We have another vehicle,” Connor announced. He gassed the truck and sent it barreling around the turn.
“Grayson, I’ll call you when I know more.” Travis hung up and gripped the side of the door. Connor could drive like a bat out of hell all he wanted, so long as it got them a little closer to Bliss.
“When did she get a bloody damn phone?” Connor said as he took a turn at a high speed.
“Last night. Grayson had Priscilla go buy her a new one.”
“And no one mentioned it? God damn it.” Connor slammed his hand against the steering wheel. His phone began ringing, vibrating in the cup holder. He grabbed it and shoved it at Travis. “Put her on speaker.”
Travis jabbed the screen.
“Connor, are you there?” A woman’s calm voice filled the cab.
“Yeah, me and Travis are here, Lali.”
“I tracked the last phone call made to Bliss’ phone. It’s from a pre-paid cell phone—”
“Shit,” Connor mumbled.
“—and that phone is still on.”
“What?” Connor and Travis said at once.
“Assuming this is our guy, I’m triangulating his location now. I have Gavin cross-referencing the area with our parameters for Daniel’s secondary location.”
“He could have dropped the phone to get us off his tail,” Connor said.
“What if he wanted to make sure Bliss had a way of contacting him?” Travis had to hope. This couldn’t be how
things ended.
“He could have told her to dump the phone.”
Lali’s voice broke through their battle of what-ifs. “Address, I just sent it to your phone and I’m updating the rest of the team.”
“Thanks, Lali.”
“Go save those girls.”
The line went dead.
“Where am I going?” Connor asked.
Travis brought up the map.
They had a long way to go, and Bliss had one hell of a start on them. When he got his hands on her... The only thing he could think of was never being separated from her again.
He was going to marry her.
9.
Bliss clutched the wheel and stared up at the large, metal building.
She was late.
Almost ten minutes late.
She’d run red lights and broken every speed limit posted, but she was still late.
Was Carlos still alive? What about her sister? Were they gone?
She pulled the gun and bullets out of her hoodie pouch. One went in the other, right? She slid the row of bullets into the gun until it clicked. Now, she just had to hope it was as simple as removing the safety and firing. Otherwise she was shit out of luck. She really should have taken Travis up on that gun lesson he talked about. If she survived this, she was learning how to shoot.
Bliss pushed her door open and stood. The bitter breeze bit into her limbs, leeching the warmth away.
It was the mountains and snow all over again.
She slid the gun into the waistband of her jeans like she’d seen Travis do. It felt weird and unnatural pressed against her spine, but at least this way her hoodie wasn’t hanging down to her knees from the weight of it. She slid the Taser out of her pocket and gripped it in the safety of her pouch.
The street was empty, probably due to the holidays. She almost wished someone would happen along to stop her. This plan was crazy. There was no way it would work, but she had to do something.
Daniel hadn’t given her instructions for how or where to enter the warehouse, just—the blue and white one. She reached a door with a faded red Exit sign stenciled on it and tried the handle.
It didn’t budge.
“Shit,” she mumbled.
Glancing up and down the street, all she saw were the big, rolling doors she couldn’t possibly get through. She took a chance and jogged to her left, around the corner.
Double doors. One, jostled by the breeze, swung a few inches.
Scratch the crime show setting. This was a horror movie, and she was the stupid chick in high heels going out the front door.
At least she had a Taser, some mace, and a gun.
Bliss took a deep breath and reached for the door.
Wendy could already be gone. Carlos could be dead. But she had to see for herself.
She stood at the door, peering into darkness so thick even the daylight only penetrated a foot or two. Listening did her no good. The ambient sounds blocked out anything helpful, like cries for help from her sister.
Did she call out hello? That seemed like asking to be murdered.
She stepped into the darkness and ducked to her right, squinting and praying her eyesight adjusted.
There. That sound. Was that a foot step? It was hard to tell with the way things echoed inside the building. She was starting to make out shapes and lighter bits of darkness, but no Wendy. No Carlos. And no Daniel.
She clutched the Taser and edged forward.
A flashlight would have been super useful. But why should she have expected to need that in the middle of the day?
Tall shelves lined her path from the door into the cavernous space. It was cold, and the occasional breeze still caught her off-guard.
Shit. The place was big. If she had any hope of meeting up with Daniel after being late, she was going to have to do it.
“Hello?” she called out. “Wendy? Carlos? Are you there?”
Bliss turned in a circle, gripping the Taser so tight it hurt her knuckles.
That.
That scraping sound was not because of the wind.
“Bliss, run!”
Wendy.
Bliss whirled toward the voice, somewhere to her right. There was just enough light filtering in through opaque panels to make out the form of a man. A very large man.
He shook a body—Wendy—like a ragdoll and then dropped her. Wendy scuttled backward on her bottom until she ran up against the metal shelves.
There was no sign of the boy. Was Carlos dead? Was she too late?
Her body reacted without her consent. Palms went sweaty and cold, her stomach tied in knots, and her limbs ached with the memory of snow and ice. For a moment, she almost swore she felt the drip of warm liquid on her face. She couldn’t breathe, and her heart pounded in her throat.
Daniel took two steps toward her.
Panic set in. She could run. Flee now. It’s what her instincts said to do. This was her in way over her head.
She’d made a huge mistake.
“Stop!” Bliss yelled. She forced herself to let go of the Taser and hold her hands out.
“You’re late.”
“You know how far this is. You knew I’d never make it in time.”
“Not my problem.”
“Where is Carlos?”
“I killed him.”
“Then we have no deal.” She took a step back. What were the chances she could run faster than him? Daniel still had that leg wound, he wasn’t a spring chicken, but it wasn’t like Bliss was used to doing a fifty yard dash.
“Brat’s alive.” He took another step toward her.
“Stop right there. You agreed if I came, you would let Carlos go.” She kicked her right leg back. Hopefully the Taser bulge wasn’t obvious.
“I’ll let him go after we cross the state line.”
When they were all under his control.
“That’s not what we agreed on.” It was hard to hear over the pounding of her heart and the clang of metal.
“That’s what’s going to happen.” Daniel pulled out a gun and pointed it at Wendy. “Now, get over here or I shoot her and kill the kid.”
Oh, God, she’d made a mistake. A really big mistake...
TRAVIS UNCLIPPED HIS seat belt and leaned forward, gun in hand.
The cell phone signal was close. They had it narrowed to a four block radius. Now, to find Bliss before something else bad happened to her. If Daniel hurt her, if she died, Travis would never be able to forgive himself. Her blood would be on his hands, because he hadn’t protected her.
Connor’s phone rang and once more he shoved it at Travis.
“It’s Lali. Answer it.”
He flipped the phone to speaker and held it between them.
“What’cha got?” Connor eased them around a turn. The shopping strip was busy with post-holiday traffic. Anyone could blend in here.
“An address. Gavin—I don’t want to know what he did—but he got the texts off Bliss’ phone.” There was furious typing in the background, a lot like what it sounded when Travis had Gavin on the line.
“What is it?” Travis glanced at the street signs.
Lali rattled off the address.
Travis brought it up on his phone and his vision hazed red.
“That’s ten miles from here,” he said.
“I know. I’m alerting the rest of the team, Gavin is communicating to local law enforcement. There’s more.”
“Hit me.” Connor whipped the SUV around and gassed it, on the fastest path to the blinking red dot.
“Daniel sent a message to her that said if she wasn’t there in thirty minutes the kid would die. That was forty-five minutes ago.”
“They could already be gone,” Travis said.
“Bliss would be hard pressed to get there in under thirty minutes.” Even Lali’s soothing voice broke with tension.
“And it takes time to sneak out of a house full of people there to protect you. She’s late to that meet.” Connor grinned and swerv
ed around slower moving traffic, lights on.
“How long until the closest patrol gets there?” Travis had to hope there was someone closer, someone nearer than they were.
“Uh, hold on, chatting Gavin...” The keys clacked and clicked. “Best guess? Eight minutes. That address is in the middle of a bunch of warehouses. Since the recession a lot of them have become vacant, transients have moved in, and the rest appear to be on hiatus until after the holidays.”
“Suppose that’s where he picked up his victims?” Connor asked.
“You’re the profiler,” Lali replied.
“What about finding his evil guy lair?”
Lali sighed into the receiver.
“Talk to me, Lali.”
“Gavin has dozens of pings off the cell number registered to Daniel in that area. I’m cross-referencing utility costs, wireless capability, but it’s not a fast process. This isn’t TV. It’s going to take a while.”
“It’s safe to say his secondary base of operations is in the area though?” Travis asked.
“Yes. Connor, Ryan is beeping me. Hold on.”
“Tell Ryan to fuck off.” Connor spoke too late. Lali was gone.
It was strange being the outsider on this operation. He was so accustomed to working with his SEAL brothers that riding along with the feds was a unique experience of being on the outside again.
He never much cared for being on the outside. Too bad his federal record meant jobs like this were out of the question for a guy like him. He’d stick to what he was good at, tracking down the bad guys and protecting people, and leave the serial killers to the professionals.
“How close are we?” Connor asked.
“Take a left up here. Five minutes.”
“The cops should be there any minute. She’s going to be fine, Travis.”
Travis didn’t respond. Connor didn’t know if Bliss was alive or not, he was simply trying to give him hope. It’s what Travis would do if their situations were exchanged. He’d say whatever it took to keep the client calm. The less hysterical or upset they were, the easier they were to manage. No one wanted a screaming customer, unless it was in bed, and then the only screaming that should happen was in pleasure. Not that he ever intended to bed a customer again.
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