by Roxie Noir
“Looks like we found you, Ellwood,” Hammer says.
God, I hate that name, but I don’t move. I don’t say anything. I just stare at Luna and silently hate them.
I don’t know how they knew, but they did. There’s exactly one person on this planet that I’d give myself up to save, and she’s sitting in a car with a garrote around her neck.
“I think you know how this goes from here,” he says, and nods at his two thugs. They come over and pat me down quickly, but anything I had on me is already in the police station behind bulletproof glass. They nod back at him.
“All right, let’s head out,” he says.
“Let her go,” I demand.
I have zero bargaining power right now, but I can’t just let this stand.
“You’re not in a position to ask anything, Ellwood,” Hammer says.
When the fuck did he get so well-spoken? I wonder.
“Let her go,” I say.
Hammer sighs, his gun still trained on me. Then he glances at the guy in Luna’s car and motions to him. The garrote disappears from around her neck, and her hands fly to where it was, her eyes sliding closed with relief.
I swallow hard, praying they don’t try something else.
“Okay,” I say.
“Wait,” Luna says.
“What now?” Hammer asks, sounding irritated.
Two tears track down her face, and she looks over at him.
“Let me say goodbye,” she whispers, her voice strangled with tears.
I feel like an aluminum can being slowly crushed, like my heart is crumpling, watching her cry.
“Jesus,” Hammer mutters.
“Please?” she whispers, her voice nearly breaking.
He just waves with his gun. Luna gets out of the car, watching the four armed men, then walks toward me, her back to them.
The moment they can’t see it, her face changes. She’s still crying, but she’s instantly determined, her jaw flexing, her eyes flashing, and when she walks up to me, I can see that there’s something in her hand.
“I’m sorry,” I murmur. I’m still facing the four men, all with guns trained on us, so there’s almost nothing I can do or say.
Luna puts her hand around the back of my head and kisses me hard. Her face is wet, but she presses herself against me, opening her mouth and pushing her tongue against mine sloppily.
Then she makes a noise, and in any other context it would be sexy as hell, but right now it’s just weird. I take the hint.
“Oooh, baby,” I growl at her, hoping that I’m doing this right.
“Oh Stone,” she whispers, and I wrap my arms around her, my hands on her ass. “Baby, be strong.”
She makes out with me even harder, moaning as she kisses me, my hands all over her.
Behind her, two of the guys exchange glances. Hammer sighs. Luna’s practically dry-humping me.
“God, come on,” one of them mutters, and they start looking away, like they don’t want to see this.
In a flash, Luna shoves something down the front of my pants, right into my boxers.
“Mmm,” I say, and try to turn it into, “Mmmmm. Mmmmmm.”
“Okay, enough,” Hammer says gruffly, and Luna pulls back, my face in both of her hands.
“Hold on, okay?” she whispers, her eyes full of tears but flashing angrily. “Just hold on. Please.”
“Luna, no,” I say desperately, leaning our foreheads together. “Please don’t do anything. I just want you to be safe.”
“I trusted you,” she whispers. “Now it’s your turn.”
“No,” I say. “No. Luna, no.”
But she steps back, her arms folded over her chest.
“Cute,” Hammer says.
He grabs me and shoves me against the side of the SUV, and I force myself not to resist as he ties my hands behind my back. Not with Luna standing behind me, a gun trained on her.
Hammer shoves me into the car headfirst, then gets into the driver’s seat. Two guys with guns pointed at me get in on either side.
I shift in my seat, trying to see Luna. The thing she put into my pants — I think it’s her phone — is still there, and I’m doing my best to keep it from being too obvious.
The moment we’re inside, we squeal out of the parking lot. I turn my head to watch Luna disappear behind me, standing in the parking lot, crying.
I feel like someone’s sliced me open and is unspooling my guts, hand over fist, with every foot we drive.
Don’t do anything, I think as we go around a corner and she disappears. Just let me go. I was bad for you to start with.
“Cute girl,” Hammer says, like we’re having a conversation.
“Fuck you,” I spit.
Hammer sighs.
33
Luna
The SUV goes around a corner, and then I’m alone in the police station parking lot, crying and shaking, my whole body trembling like there’s an earthquake only under me.
For the first time in my life, I’m glad I cry when I’m furious. I didn’t mean to, but I think the waterworks made me seem like some pathetic girl trying to say goodbye to her boyfriend, like I just wanted one last kiss before he got taken away to—
You are not thinking like that, I tell myself. Like hell is this goodbye.
I take a deep breath and force myself to stop shaking, stop crying, and get a grip, because the time for hysterics is over. I grab my purse and make a beeline for the police station, already digging through my wallet for the card that Patricia, the agent who works on organized crime cases, gave me.
This is fucking unbelievable, and it makes me angry beyond belief that what Stone is being punished for is the thing he did right. He probably saved hundreds of lives by stopping a human trafficking ring, only to have them track him down like an animal.
There’s no way I’m letting this happen. No fucking way.
The rookie waves again, looking puzzled as I walk to my desk and pick up the landline, since my cell phone is jammed down Stone’s pants. I start my computer, dial Patricia’s number, and hold my breath as it rings.
Please pick up, I think, as my desktop comes to life slowly. Please pick up. I don’t have much of a backup plan.
After seven rings, there’s a click, then a long pause.
Then a woman clears her throat on the other end.
“This is Patricia Dunbar,” says a sleep-clogged voice.
“Hi, I’m Detective Luna Rivers with the Tortuga Police Department,” I say. “We met at the law enforcement mixer on Friday. I had the arson case that you thought might be related to organized crime.”
She clears her throat again.
“Yes, I remember,” she says.
I take a deep breath.
“You were right, and I know this is a bad time, but I really need your help,” I say.
I hear rustling in the background, like she’s getting out of bed.
“What’s going on?” Patricia asks.
When I hang up the phone, my palms are still sweating but I feel nearly boneless with relief. The rookie is sitting on Batali’s desk, wide-eyed, obviously listening in. Not that I care. As we’re saying our goodbyes, she walks off to the back.
On my computer screen, while I was talking, I pulled up the GPS tracker and traced my phone. I hate watching the red dot moving along the map on the screen, but I know I’d hate it more if it stopped moving. If it’s moving, at least it’s still with Stone and I know where he is.
I want to get in a squad car and chase him down. I want to go in, guns blazing, and kill every one of those motherfuckers who think they can hurt Stone for doing something right.
But I don’t. There’s four of them and one of me, and if they’d wanted him dead right away, they’d have killed him before they left the parking lot. I don’t know how much time we’ve got, but it’s at least some.
The rookie comes back, carrying a pile of clothes, and hands them to me. I just look at her questioningly.
“Yo
u can’t wear a dress to kick down doors, and I think we’re about the same size,” she says matter-of-factly. “I keep street clothes in my locker, just in case.”
I take the jeans and t-shirt from her.
“It’s Miranda, right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, and smiles.
“Thanks,” I say.
“We’re gonna make those guys wish they’d never heard of Tortuga,” she says, very seriously.
I like her.
While I’m waiting for Patricia to get here, I go get Stone’s stuff from Property. Finally wearing underwear again, I use Stone’s phone to call Tony and tell him what’s happened. He’s not happy, but he agrees to help, and I don’t really care how anyone feels right now.
Then I call Batali. I call my sergeant, Pushton. The red dot on the screen heads toward the Los Gatos National Forest, so I call Cedar and wake him up. Before I know it, police officers are trickling in.
Tony shows up, wearing khakis, a tucked-in polo shirt, and a huge gun on his hip. Patricia Dunbar shows up and immediately starts organizing people with the help of a giant whiteboard. Batali and Sergeant Pushton get there.
Batali puts one hand on my shoulder and looks at me, questioningly.
I nod. She nods. We look at the red dot on the screen. It’s stopped moving, stuck in the middle of a dirt road in the national forest, and my heart squeezes in my chest.
Just go, I think wildly, staring at the dot stuck on the screen. What if you’re too late? What if he’s dead right now, and it’s because you spent too long putting together some bullshit plan?
This is your fault.
I ball my hands into fists so hard my fingernails cut into my palms.
If I’d gone alone we’d both be dead, I tell myself. Those motherfuckers think they can hunt people down and kill them in cold blood.
Fuck no. I’m coming for them.
And I’m bringing the cavalry.
34
Stone
They don’t bother blindfolding me, so I try to watch where we’re going, but after about fifteen minutes we’re somewhere outside Tortuga and I don’t recognize it anymore. It’s just grasslands and chaparral as we climb, going over the coastal hills. It gives way to pine tree as we get over that front range, and then it’s dark and we’re in deep forest.
I see one of those big, retro-looking signs that says Welcome to Los Gatos National Forest! Land of Many Uses, but I only have a vague idea where Los Gatos is.
Luna’s phone has shifted, so now it’s sitting awkwardly next to my dick. If the car jostles too much, it pinches my balls, and I try not to make a face. I’m also pretty sure it’s getting sweaty.
I wish I could take it out and throw it through the window, but my arms are still bound behind my back. My shoulders screamed in pain for the first twenty minutes, but now they’ve started to go numb. Plus, there’s no way I could get rid of it without someone seeing me.
I hate this. The phone down my pants is everything I like about Luna — she’s quick and she’s clever and determined — and I fucking hate that it’s there, that she’s planning something and I can’t even get a phone out of my underpants. I don’t want to alert these guys out of fear that they’ll go back for her.
But if she’s following me, that puts her in danger too.
Goddamn it, Luna, I think, as we keep driving and driving. All I wanted was to keep you safe, and you had to fuck that up.
I don’t know what they’re going to do to me. I know they’re going to kill me, but if that’s it, I’d be dead already. All I can think is what if they go back for her.
What if she’s coming after me and they kill her too?
I tell myself that Luna is smart. Smart enough not to try something, smart enough to let me go and get on with her life and maybe someday look back fondly on the brief affair she had with an ex-con.
But I have a bad feeling that that’s not what’s going to happen, and it’s not just her phone pinching my balls.
It feels like forever before the SUV comes to a stop, the headlights glaring at trees in front of us, making them look like tall, thin ghosts. My gut clenches as Hammer stops the car, cuts the engine, and looks back at me.
He doesn’t say anything, but the other three guys open their doors. One grabs me by the arm and yanks me, sending pains shooting up my shoulder.
“I can get out of a fucking car,” I say, but he ignores me.
Finally, I jerk my shoulder from his grip, and he pistol-whips me across the face. I stumble and nearly fall, half from surprise and half because my hands are behind my back, my balance off.
“Son of a bitch,” I say, spitting blood onto the leaves.
He jams the barrel of his gun right under my chin, forcing my head up.
“What?” he says.
You’re already a dead man, I think. Fuck it.
“I called you a son of a bitch,” I say, enunciating at clearly as I can with the side of my face swelling and a gun under my jaw.
There’s a click as he takes the safety off.
Just do it, I think, gritting my teeth together. I die here or I die later.
“Red,” says Hammer. “Fucking knock it off, will you?”
I laugh, even though I shouldn’t.
“Yeah, knock it the fuck off, Red,” I say. “Or you could shoot me and probably save yourself some work.”
There’s a vein standing out in his forehead, but he puts the safety back on slowly.
Then he pistol-whips me again, on the other side of my face, but I’m expecting it this time.
“Enough,” Hammer says, walking over to us. “We’ve got a film to make. And Ellwood, if we don’t get what we want, we take our disappointment out on Luna. Got it?”
I look him dead in the eye. I’m pretty sure the skin over my cheek is split and already swelling, but I don’t care.
“Don’t you fucking touch her,” I say.
“Or what?” mocks Red, but Hammer just puts up one hand.
“Then you know what to do,” Hammer says, then looks around at his henchmen. “Let’s go,” he says. “We’ve got a schedule.”
I’m starting to think Hammer isn’t the meathead I assumed he was. He turns away from us, flips on a flashlight, and starts walking through the woods on a vague path, though he looks like he knows where he’s going. He still has a limp.
Red shoves his gun into my back, even though we both know that’s not the real threat, and follow Hammer. I can feel Luna’s phone slowly working its way to one side and then, with every step, sliding a little further down.
After a few hundred feet of walking, it’s finally sliding down the legs of my jeans, and I start sweating. I can’t let them see the phone fall out.
I hit my foot on a root and pretend to trip, and it throws me off-balance and I almost trip for real, but it shakes the phone loose.
“Watch it,” Red growls behind me. Hammer and the other guys turn around, look at us, and then keep walking.
The phone falls out onto the ground, and we all keep walking.
I finally take a deep breath.
Please don’t find me, I think.
35
Luna
We’re too late, I think, over and over again as we speed down the two-lane roads of Los Gatos national forest. I should have just gone alone. Maybe I could have taken one person with me, and we could have taken those guys down, right?
I glance again at the GPS, the red dot representing my phone flashing on the screen. It hasn’t moved in thirty minutes. I look through the windshield again and force myself not to think about what that might mean.
Maybe it just fell out, I think desperately. Maybe he’s just hurt, but he’s alive, or they found it and threw it away somewhere.
I look out the window. I’m in the back of a Sheriff’s Office SUV, along Cedar and a couple SWAT guys who are all very serious, facing straight ahead. There are more in the other two SUVs, along with Batali and Tony.
They all insisted
on coming. Or, more accurately, Batali and Tony simply informed Patricia that they were going, and Cedar argued until he wore her down, since he’s the one who knows the national forest.
The SUV slows, and we turn onto a smaller road, this one with no dividing lines down the center. We’re getting closer but we’re still too far behind, and I bite into the skin on my thumb as we bump down the road. Anything to distract myself.
It feels like a dream, like a weird, bad, dumb dream. It’s past three in the morning. I’m in a car, wearing a bulletproof vest, with a SWAT team, riding off to the rescue of an ex-con who screwed up his witness protection.
If you’d asked me two weeks ago what I thought I’d be doing tonight, I’d have said sleeping. Hell, if you’d asked me that three hours ago I’d have said sleeping. This is insane.
We bump along the bad road, moving way too fast. The SWAT guys look stoic. Cedar pats my knee. I try not to think that Stone is dead.
It’s another twenty minutes before we find the black SUV, parked at the end of a long, rutted fire road in the forest that doesn’t so much dead-end as finally peter out. We all get out of our SUVs, headlights off, the SWAT guys amazingly quiet, and let our eyes adjust to the dark.
Cedar looks at a topo map with a red light, and the SWAT guys crowd around. He points to a spot.
“We’re here,” he says, keeping his voice low and quiet. He points at another spot. “There’s a hunting cabin right here that’s a likely possibility. About a quarter-mile in, surrounded by forest, a pretty easy hike.”
“And if he’s not there?” one of the guys asks.
Cedar taps another spot on the map.
“Right here is the foundation for something that was never built,” he says. “I’m not sure what it was going to be. And here,” he says, drawing a circle on the map with his finger, “There’s a microwave array with a small cinderblock building, but it’s on a rocky outcropping and it’s a fairly difficult hike from here. The cabin is our best bet.”