Harlequin Intrigue March 2021--Box Set 1 of 2

by Cindi Myers

  “There’s more?” Isaac asked, appalled. “I’m afraid to ask what it is. At least it can’t get any creepier,” he added more softly.

  “Wrong,” Blaze said, leading them through the kitchen to a door with two padlocks, already removed. He opened the door and flipped the light switch.

  “The basement?” Lucas asked, a cold sweat breaking on his brow. Images from every awful case he’d ever worked flooded his mind with dark and twisted possibilities.

  Blaze marched forward, leaving the obvious answer to lend itself.

  The trio followed dutifully.

  Phillip’s basement was typical. Unfinished, musty and damp. Filled with old boxes and shelves of things no one really cared about.

  But there were bars over the glass block windows. That part was not usual and definitely not good.

  Blaze stopped at a doorway in a newly erected wall. Dust from the installation still littered the ground. A line of padlocks hung open on the doorjamb.

  Lucas stepped forward, drawn by morbid curiosity to whatever was on the other side of the wall. He pushed the door wide.

  Thin vinyl flooring had been rolled out inside the space, covering the basement concrete. The walls were painted a serene and faded teal, like the accent color Gwen used inside her home. A small vanity and king-size bed had been placed against the walls. An armoire, rocking chair and two-seat dinette completed the furniture. The bed was dressed in white and piled high with lacy pillows. An old photo of Gwen and Lucas in a lovestruck embrace sat in a frame on the nightstand. Lucas’s face had been replaced with Phillip’s.

  “There are cameras here, too,” Blaze said. “They’re monitored from upstairs, as well.”

  Lucas ghosted through the room, dumbfounded and sick. “He planned to keep her here? Indefinitely?” He’d never seen anything of this magnitude in real life. This was the kind of insanity saved for television dramas and horror movies.

  Blaze rested a hand on the gun at his hip, his shoulders tense, expression blank. “Based on the amount of Rohypnol we found stashed inside an empty oatmeal box in the pantry, he planned to keep her drugged, and for a very long time.”

  “Detective?” A man’s voice called down the basement steps.

  “Yeah?” Blaze and Lucas answered in unison, then caught each other’s eye and headed in the man’s direction. The others followed.

  Blaze cut in front of Lucas at the stairs, then took them two at a time. “What do you have?”

  The tech officer from the makeshift office gave the line of Winchesters a look, then turned his eyes back to Blaze. “You’d better see for yourself.”

  They tracked him back to the row of desks and monitors where a small cabin in the woods centered a screen. Infrared gave the feed an eerie green glow.

  “It’s another surveillance feed,” the officer said. “I came across it while I was going through the files on the computer.”

  “Where is this cabin?” Lucas asked, certain this was the answer they’d been looking for.

  “We’re trying to find out,” the officer answered. He lowered into the chair once more and took control of the computer. He backed the video up ten minutes, then pressed Play. Headlights flashed over the cabin, then went out.

  “Was that a car?” Lucas asked. “Tell me we get a look at the plate.”

  The officer didn’t answer. Didn’t look his way. He just stared at the screen, drawing Lucas’s attention back there, as well.

  An image of Phillip appeared. He had Gwen over his shoulder like a caveman, her arms dangling limp and bound beside her motionless head. He worked the padlocks, opened the door then carried her inside.

  Lucas stumbled back. Pressing his palms against the cool surface of the wall to anchor himself. His head swam and the world tunneled.

  Isaac clutched his arm and pulled him into an empty folding chair. “Breathe.”

  Lucas inhaled deep and slow, but there was only one thing on his mind.

  Gwen’s attacker had carried her, unconscious, into the woods, not to the creepy little room he’d made for her in his basement. He knew the cops were onto him. Knew he couldn’t come home again. And that gave him no reason to keep Gwen alive.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Gwen opened her eyes to a blast of icy air.

  Confusion became terror as the details of her night returned. Her pounding head and rolling stomach were the combination of a probable concussion and too much Rohypnol-laced water.

  Her captor stretched a knit cap over his head, then stepped silently outside. He shut the door behind him, effectively cutting off the wind and delivering Gwen into comparative darkness.

  Where was he going? And why?

  She struggled to clear her vision and find a weapon she could use against him. She pushed into a seated position with a groan and a grimace, feeling a resurgence of pain in her still-healing side. Her still-bound wrists were sore and aching.

  Through the filthy window, she could see the silhouette of him, standing frozen and staring into the distance. Down the path he’d driven the car in on last night.

  She scanned the room again for a weapon she could manage and came up short.

  His car keys, however, were laying peacefully on the table beside his wallet and an unopened box of condoms.

  Gwen’s mouth opened and bile poured out, mixing with the contents of her stomach spilled there the night before. She wiped her eyes and mouth, biting back the tears. She couldn’t fight like this. Couldn’t run. And the things he would soon do to her were more than she could bear. He might not have assaulted her while she’d slept, but the ready box of condoms suggested it wouldn’t be long now.

  She steadied herself on the couch’s edge, still struggling to gather her senses.

  The white noise of a radio crackled nearby, and a voice barked out directions and coordinates. Orders and acronyms.

  Outside the window, Phillip turned to face the cabin, anger painted across his face.

  Gwen ducked. She surged forward, scraping the keys off the table, then diving back onto the nasty couch. A plume of dirt and animal hair rose around her as she pushed the keys between the cushions and closed her eyes. Her nose itched and eyes burned, but she couldn’t gag, couldn’t whimper or sneeze. Couldn’t let him know she was awake. If he knew that, he’d also know she was the one who’d taken the keys.

  The door swept open, filling the small space with another gust of icy air, and Phillip stormed inside. He slammed the door behind him, and her shoulders jumped involuntarily. He went to the table, listening intently to the rambling voice Gwen now recognized as a police dispatcher, delivering details of local law enforcement’s hunt for him.

  Phillip removed his phone from his pocket, then powered it down with a curse. He pulled the battery and SIM card, then threw the phone against the wall.

  Gwen jumped again without intention, and her assailant looked her way. “Where am I?” she asked, not needing to fake the grogginess in her tone or expression. “What happened?”

  He scowled. “They’re coming. So, we’re going. I’ll take my car as far as I can, then swap it for something else.” He looked her over, contemplating. “You look awful. I can’t take you in public like that.” He reached for her, roughly pulling her into a seated position. He tried to smooth her wild curls, then stuffed a ball cap over them instead.

  She whimpered as the material scraped against her cut and aching forehead.

  “Put this on,” he said, grabbing a jacket from a hook near the door and tossing it in her lap.

  “My hands,” she said, raising her bound wrists and blinking to clear her vision.

  Phillip cursed. His gaze swept over her, then around the cabin, presumably in search of a plan.

  Gwen’s plan was to stall. If she understood the situation correctly, help was closing in, and Phillip didn’t plan to kill her and dispose
of the evidence. He planned to take her with him. She could work with that. “I need to lie down,” she said, swooning backward, pretending to go boneless from the drugs.

  His expression lit. “That’s perfect.” He grabbed the water bottle from the table and forced it against her mouth. “Drink.”

  Her gut knotted at the idea of going under again. She let her eyes drift shut. She couldn’t drink that water.

  “If you drink this, I won’t put you in the trunk again,” he said. “You can sleep up front with me. I’ll even remove your zip ties.” He tapped a finger to the plastic bindings.

  Untied and not in the trunk were two things she needed to be if she was going to escape.

  She nodded slowly, then let him put the bottle to her lips. She sipped gingerly, making more noise than necessary and holding the small amount in her mouth.

  He watched her swallow, then breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll get the knife for this,” he said, touching the binding again.

  When he turned away, Gwen buried her face in the disgusting cushion where her head lay and spilled the water from her mouth into the fabric. She pressed her cheek and hair against the wet spot before he turned back, wishing she hadn’t swallowed any, but thankful for the amount she was able to reserve and spit out.

  Phillip cut the ties with a pocketknife he pulled from a coat pocket, and she let her hands fall limply to her sides. “Okay,” he said. “We have to go, and you need to keep drinking to stay hydrated.” He set the bottle beside her, then pulled her up again. “Let’s get your coat on and get out of here.”

  He fed her arms into the oversized sleeves of a black men’s coat, then pulled her onto her feet.

  She fell against him, overacting possibly, but he didn’t seem to notice. His distraction grew with every new syllable from the police scanner in the corner.

  “Where are my keys?” He patted his pockets and turned in a small circle, dragging her with him. “I put them on the table,” he said.

  Gwen bent her knees, sliding down his body and forcing him to set her back on the couch.

  He crouched onto the floor, searching desperately for his missing keys.

  Gwen slipped a hand up to the water bottle and loosened the cap until it spilled over the cushions near her face. She coughed and choked, as if she’d been trying to drink.

  “Hey!” Phillip glared in her direction, clearly seeing the nearly empty bottle and furious about it. “What did you do? That’s all the water I had for you. Now it’s gone!”

  She forced her expression to remain slack and her body still, but internally, she wanted to run. Adrenaline pumped hard in her veins, preparing her to take action, whatever that might be.

  “Radio silence,” the dispatcher called. “In three, two...” And the voice was gone. Only white noise remained.

  Phillip jolted upright with a wail and a curse. He punched the wall in a rage, then slammed his fists on the table before kicking everything in sight, including the couch where Gwen lay. He whacked the water bottle off the cushion near her cheek, then spun suddenly away.

  She pressed her eyelids shut, terrified he would rip one of the guns from the wall and kill them both rather than be caught or surrender.

  The rustle of fabric pulled her eyes open a moment later, though her lids felt heavier than before.

  Phillip had stepped into his ghillie suit and pulled on the balaclava. “They can’t have you,” he said coolly. “I won’t allow it.” He yanked a rifle with a scope off the rack near the door, and he walked outside.

  * * *

  LUCAS SECURED THE straps of his bulletproof vest and tucked a small communications device into his ear while members of the Jefferson County Sheriff’s strike team made battle plans.

  It was a bit of a shot in the dark, but the plot of tax-delinquent property in the middle of nowhere was the only hope Lucas had. Public records showed the property had belonged to Phillip’s father and had been inherited by Phillip upon his father’s death. There were no known structures or road frontage, but it was remote and familiar to Phillip. The perfect place for a psychopath under pressure to rest and regroup.

  Lucas zipped his coat, tugged on his hat, then freed his sidearm from its holster. He nodded at the strike team captain who’d taken Lucas’s call, and he’d mobilized a squad while Derek had raced Lucas across the county to join them.

  Now, they moved in single file, up a rutted, leaf-covered lane into the wilderness, while the first fingers of dawn climbed the trees.

  * * *

  GWEN GRIPPED THE WINDOWSILL, steadying her body and wishing she hadn’t swallowed any of the drugged water, but feeling the impact of the amount she had.

  Phillip moved like a ghost through the trees beyond the window, looking completely at ease. As if he’d done the same thing a hundred times, which he had, she realized, while stalking her. He squatted in a thicket twenty-five yards away, then set the barrel of his gun in the deep V of a dying tree and pointed it down the muddy pitted path they’d taken to the cabin.

  Gwen counted to ten, making sure he was staying put. Then she reached for the radio and turned up the volume. She needed the dispatcher’s voice to come back. Needed to know what was happening out there, and needed to warn whoever was coming that Phillip was lying in wait.

  She considered digging the car keys from the couch and attempting to drive away, but how far could she really get? Without being shot? Falling down? Or hitting a tree? The cabin slanted beneath her feet, as if confirming her inability to get far on her own. She stumbled toward the couch, woozy again and desperate to sit before she fell. Her toe connected with something small and hard on the way.

  Phillip’s cell phone skated across the floor, and Gwen nearly cried in response.

  She dropped to the floor, chasing the device beneath the table and begging her eyes to stay open. She found the battery near the wall, then rushed to install it before Phillip shot someone or came back for her.

  Adrenaline and panic made her clumsy. She dropped the battery twice before getting it into place. And she powered up the device, praying for a signal.

  That was when she heard the first gunshot.

  * * *

  THE BARK ON the tree beside Lucas’s head burst into shreds, sending him skidding onto his knees behind it. His ears rang and his heart raced. He wasn’t sure if that had been a warning shot, or if Phillip had missed. Neither seemed possible.

  “Winchester?” The voice of the strike team captain sounded in his ear.

  Lucas touched the communications device with one fingertip. “I’m okay,” he said. “I wasn’t hit.”

  “Did you see where the shot came from?” he asked.

  “East,” he huffed, trying desperately to slow his sprinting heart. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  And it wasn’t good news. At this time of day, a position in the east put Phillip between the lawmen and the sun. Phillip would have a clear view of them as day broke, and they would have a blinding view of the rising sun.

  Still, a slow smile spread over Lucas’s face as he pressed his back to the tree. The gunshot meant they’d found Phillip. And if they’d found Phillip, they’d also found Gwen.

  * * *

  GWEN WATCHED PHILLIP through the cabin window, nearly invisible in the trees. Her heart pounded harder than her head at the sound of the gunshot. “He’s shooting,” she told the emergency dispatcher on the other end of the line. “I think he just shot at someone.” She hated herself for hoping it wasn’t Lucas. Or Blaze. She knew neither of those lawmen would stay away from a rescue mission meant to save her. And she was sure Derek and Isaac would be there, too, if they could. Gwen’s parents might live in Florida, but she had plenty of family, she realized, right here in Kentucky, and she loved them all.

  So, she wouldn’t let this psychopath sit out there and pick them off one by one.

  “Can you commun
icate with whoever’s here for me?” she asked the dispatcher. “Tell them I’m here in the cabin, and I’m okay. Tell them Phillip’s in his ghillie suit and that he took a rifle with him. He’s using a tree as cover and a gun rest. I can see him from here. Maybe twenty-five yards from the cabin. I’d run, but I don’t think I can, and I’m sure he’ll see me open the door.”

  “What if we can give you some cover?” a male voice asked in her ear.

  “What?” she gasped, unsure what had happened to the female dispatcher’s calming voice, or who she was hearing now.

  “Ms. Kind,” the dispatcher said. “I’ve got Jerry Horton, on the line. He’s our strike team captain, and he’s got men in place to bring you home.”

  Tears welled and fell from Gwen’s eyes. Her chest heaved with a grateful sob, and the knot in her chest constricted impossibly tighter. She wasn’t sure she could actually run, but she would make a break from the cabin if this man told her to. “I’ll try,” she croaked, “but I’ve been drugged.”

  There was a long beat of silence before Jerry spoke again. “Hold the line,” he said finally.

  Panic swept through her at the silence. What did that mean? Had he changed his mind? Had something bad happened outside? Why hadn’t she asked about the gunshot?

  “Ms. Kind?” the dispatcher said once more. “I won’t leave you. Hang in there while he makes arrangements. Can you still see the shooter?”

  Gwen jerked her gaze back through the window, terrified he’d moved while she’d been distracted. “I don’t know.” She stared hard into the woods, willing Phillip to move, if he was there. Just enough for her to confirm. “The shot,” she said, her voice shaky with fear. “Did he hurt anyone?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  A fresh punch of tears blurred Gwen’s vision, and she blinked them away. “Good.”

  A moment later, wind rustled through the forest fluttering the material of Phillip’s suit, and she nearly collapsed with relief. “I see him,” she said. “He hasn’t moved.”