by Ciara Shayee
It killed him to realise that, despite his promises to never again let Smith get close to the girls, Marley had been close enough to see him.
Distraught as he was, and distracted by Marley’s misery, Laker missed the sound of a truck pulling up outside.
“Laker? What the hell’s going on? Why are you…” Reagan trailed off, not finishing his question about the blood pouring from Laker’s head because the look of horror on the younger man’s face when he met Reagan’s gaze said everything. His cheeks were ashen, tears soaking the beard he’d let grow at Indie’s suggestion. She liked it, she’d said. So he’d kept it.
And now she was…she was gone.
“I’m s-sorry, Reagan.” Swaying on his knees, Laker collapsed into the doorframe, rasping, “He’s got Indie. Smith’s got Indie.”
Within minutes, police were swarming the street, blocking off all entrances and exits. Reagan, Peter, Laker, and Marley were corralled outside, where an ambulance crew tended to an unconscious Laker while Marley clung to him. He soon woke, disorientated and in pain, and very much adamant he be allowed to help.
Grace, who’d been woken by his roar of distress and Marley’s footsteps thumping down the stairs, was carried next-door to Peter’s house where she waited with Heidi, Pippa, Mary, and Roy, who’d arrived home amidst the commotion of Riley’s arrival.
He swept in like a king, cutting the over-confident officers off before they could shoo him away, assuring them he was in control and up-to-date. The few agents he’d brought with him were efficient and got to work immediately while Riley searched for Laker, Reagan, and Peter, finding them just as a police officer escorted an irate Archie through the police tape. As soon as Reagan spotted Riley, he marched up to the furious American.
“How did this happen? I thought you were keeping a lookout for him!”
Riley winced, knowing Reagan had every right to be angry. “Honestly, I don’t know. All we can do right now is find Indie, then we’ll get you answers. People will pay if mistakes were made, Reagan, I promise you that.”
The despairing father nodded, returning to the hastily erected marquee with Riley hot on his heels. At Riley’s and Laker’s insistence, the ambulance crew patched the younger man up before settling him in a wheelchair to catch his breath now he’d woken up
Riley wasn’t taking any chances and refused to let Laker out of his sight, while Laker himself just wanted to stay and contribute something, anything, to the search efforts. Marley remained on his lap, still shivering with fright.
The men formed a protective group around her.
~ oOo ~
Darkness blanketed the rescue team, casting an eerie glow over their work as they utilised borrowed torches and lamps to keep poring over maps and surveillance footage. Nosy, but sympathetic, neighbours supplied the congregation with hot drinks to ward off the chilly autumn air, as well as biscuits and hastily put-together sandwiches. As expected, journalists flocked to the scene as soon as news broke that one of the recently rescued Ashby-Davies abduction victims had been snatched away once again—this time from her home.
They were particularly interested in the body of a police officer being removed from the scene. It was quickly ascertained that Smith had to be responsible, though questions were being raised about how the poor man’s death had gone unnoticed for several hours. A preliminary check of Reagan’s house had revealed a hidden listening device in the kitchen, as well as another in the living room.
Reagan, Peter, Archie, Laker, and Marley watched the mayhem unfold around them through the portable screens Riley’s men set up, unable to comprehend that this was happening all over again. The only saving graces were that he hadn’t taken Marley as well, and the gun Laker remembered hitting his head hadn’t been used to kill him, just render him unconscious.
Dodging all of the journalists’ attempts to speak to them, Reagan and Laker stayed in the centre of the gathering, Archie nearby poring over security footage with one of Riley’s agents. Peter ventured over to tell the camera crews to keep out of the way of the police and federal agents. He was frustrated, feeling guilty for being glad Grace was unhurt, and determined to help in any way he could.
As a steady stream of police officers and FBI agents entered and exited his house, Reagan found himself pulling at his hair. He was going insane. It had been over two hours since he’d returned from work in a jovial mood, only to discover Laker bleeding heavily over his hallway, Marley in the midst of a panic attack, and Indie gone.
Again.
I only just got her back, he cried as his heart broke all over again when he realised, this time, Indie was all alone and just weeks from giving birth.
“Sir! I’ve got something!” A sudden cacophony of sound broke out amongst the ranks, a sea of people moving aside for Reagan, Laker, and Riley as they made their way through the crowd towards the man waving his arms in the air.
“What’ve you got for us, Ben?” Riley gritted out, growing more and more frustrated with every passing moment.
“Do you remember those trackers you had me develop back in Montana? You said they needed to be incorporated into something the girls would have on them at all times, right?”
Riley nodded jerkily, gesturing for Ben to get on with it.
“Well, I didn’t want to say anything right away because I wasn’t sure if they were online and working yet, and I didn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up, but I’ve been trying to get them activated. I’ve just had a call from my guy and he says they’re working.” With a gleeful grin, he added, “I put them in the lockets.”
Riley frowned, but Reagan and Peter’s eyes lit with new hope. “That’s why you wanted to see Grace’s replacement before Pete gave it to her?” In their hurried escape from the motel fire, Grace had lost her locket. She and Indie had a matching pair, each one containing a photo of their respective mother. Peter had replaced it on the anniversary of Penelope and Karen’s deaths. At the time, the men had been confused as to why Riley’s tech specialist had wanted to see it, but now it all made perfect sense.
Ben grinned. “Yup.” His fingers began flying over the keys of his laptop, a map appearing on the screen seconds later. He showed them the two flashing dots on the screen—one lilac, for Grace, and one pink, for Indie.
Grace’s was right where it should be, in her house.
All eyes moved to the pink dot. It was blinking like a beacon.
As Riley barked orders at the agents close by, Reagan turned to Ben, asking him to zoom in. At his side, Laker inhaled sharply when he realised where Garrett had taken Indie, a fractured plan taking shape in his mind.
Five minutes, and a couple of miles later, a mixture of Sussex Police, FBI agents, and news crews brave enough to risk Riley’s wrath by following, surrounded the derelict storage facility Indie’s dot now occupied. Leaping from the back of Riley’s sleek black car like a man possessed, Reagan was intent on running straight into the building to rescue his daughter. A pair of strong, unrelenting arms stopped him in his wake.
“You can’t go in there, Mr. Ashby,” a deep, gruff voice informed the irate father.
“Like hell, I can’t! That’s my baby girl in there!” He struggled ineffectively against the six-foot-five behemoth he belatedly recognised as Roberto Rodriguez, one of the dark-haired brothers on Riley’s security detail. Alberto, his almost identical brother, appeared a moment later at Riley’s back, Laker following unsteadily as he tugged his hair away from the white dressing on his head.
“Reagan, please, calm down,” Riley urged. “We don’t want to alert him to our presence if we can help it. We’ll have a better advantage if he doesn’t see or hear us coming. Do you understand? We just want to get Indie out of there safely, but we can’t do that until the armed unit arrives. What if he’s armed? What if he hurts her because we’re not prepared?”
The fight drained from Reagan’s body as he sagged, Roberto hesitantly releasing him. The last thing Reagan wanted was for Indie to get hurt.
> And the baby…oh God, the baby.
She was just weeks from delivering. They had to be okay; both of them. They just had to be.
“All right,” he huffed, reaching up to yank at his hair. “All right, but let me do something before I go mad.”
Amidst the chaos outside the red brick storage unit, nobody thought to keep an eye on the young man all-but crippled by the pain splitting his head in two, blood darkening the dressing on his head. Laker watched the flurry of activity from the floor, where he sank to his haunches when he realised that even though they knew where Indie was, they weren’t going to go in until more officers had arrived; until protocol could be followed.
It didn’t help that all he could picture was Marley’s face when he’d pried her from his chest, handing her to Archie. It wasn’t safe for her to go with him, but she hadn’t understood and she’d fought so hard to hang onto him. He hated leaving her, especially when she was so upset and had shrieked his name at his back until they sped away in Riley’s Mercedes.
It was that look, the abject misery on Marley’s face, which spurred him into action. Adrenaline coursed through his veins as he pushed himself unsteadily to his feet, leaning against a low brick wall to catch his breath.
Nobody was watching him.
As he staggered around the crowd towards an old, half-open fire exit door, Laker knew it was fear of Riley stopping the other guys running in. Nobody wanted to anger the fearsome agent by ignoring his command to wait.
It wasn’t fear of anything that pushed Laker’s feet forwards into the building, despite the pain accompanying each step—it was fear for Indie and the baby she carried.
What Laker hadn’t mentioned to Riley was that he, Archie, and some of their old friends had often used this building as a hangout during their teenage years. He remembered the layout fairly well, having gotten drunk there many times, but without Archie to guide him, Laker took a couple of wrong turns before he had a sudden thought.
The only area with a single entrance and exit was on the second floor. The second fire exit had been boarded up years ago when the area at the back fell in during a particularly violent storm, so the only way in or out was through the doors leading into the main stairwell. It was likely Garrett would want somewhere like that, where he could be in control of the entrances, so that’s where Laker headed. He harnessed all his energy to make his way up the cracked, dusty steps to the second floor, soon finding himself having to manoeuvre through piles of boxes, metal storage cabinets, and debris from a toppled wall.
Stifling a groan at a sharp ripple of pain in his head, Laker pushed on. It was just as he reached the doors hanging off their rusted hinges that he heard it.
Muffled, sickeningly-delighted laughter.
Even without having ever heard Garrett Smith’s voice, Laker instinctively knew it was him.
What worried him the most was that in the following thirty seconds or so, Smith’s laughter continued unabated, and he didn’t know if that was because Indie didn’t want to make a sound, or she wasn’t capable of making them.
He didn’t let himself dwell on the possibility that he might be too late.
“You can do this, McKinley,” he mouthed to himself, closing his eyes against an abrupt onslaught of tears. “You have to do this,” Laker added.
Inhaling a deep, dust-filled, lungful of air, he slowly pressed the door open wider and slid into the dark, cavernous room.
~ oOo ~
Blinking rapidly, Indie’s eyes took a while to adjust to the lack of light. Residual sedatives kept her movements sluggish as she tried to get her arms into a more comfortable position.
“Ah, there we are. Awake at last. And just in time, too. Your precious daddy has come to see us off. Isn’t that nice of him?”
Indie shuddered at the tone of his voice, unable to comprehend the depravity of this man and unwilling to believe that her dad was there, that he’d come for her. He’d be in danger, and she knew he wouldn’t just wait merrily for Garrett to hand her over. No—if he were here, he’d try to come in, all guns blazing. But she didn’t want to even consider it. She wouldn’t let herself believe that he was here, putting himself in danger for her.
It’s another mind-game, Indie, she assured herself as she closed her eyes again.
Shivers wracked her frame and pain gripped her spine, refusing to let go as his cheerful laughter bounced around the darkness. She bit into her lip to stifle a whimper of agony at the pain in her stomach as warm, sticky wetness seeped onto her thighs. The faintly metallic scent made her feel sick.
Hang on in there, baby. Please, please hang in there.
“I didn’t expect him to come, if I’m honest. After all,” crouching a foot away with a sinister smile plastered over his face, Garrett chuckled. “He didn’t come for you last time, did he?”
Not in the least bit inclined, or able, to answer, Indie simply quaked as she listened to Garrett fiddling with the safety on his handgun. He was playing with her. Trying to get her to open her eyes. But she didn’t want to.
If she had, she’d have been staring down the barrel of the gun.
The laughter continued until Indie couldn’t bear it anymore. Only, she didn’t get a chance to shriek at him to stop, to just do whatever he was going to do.
She sucked in a big breath but it was cut off by the sound of a trio of hard thumps, quickly followed by the thunderous boom of a trigger being pulled. With ringing ears and a thundering heart, Indie forced open her eyes.
She immediately wished she hadn’t.
In the centre of the circle of light were two large bodies. Garrett’s torso was slumped over another. One Indie was both horrified and relieved to see.
Laker.
Relief at seeing him alive was swiftly swallowed up by the horror of realising he wasn’t moving. Through the high-pitched, bell-like sound resonating in her ears, Indie just about heard herself screeching Laker’s name in a desperate plea for him to come to her.
Her horror escalated tenfold when it was the other body that turned to face her. “No…” she whispered.
The grey-haired demon gazed at her, wide-eyed. Slowly and unsurely, he slid backward on his hands and knees until he was barely visible in the dim light. It was then, when she could only just make out his heavily shadowed features, that Indie dragged her eyes back to Laker.
Using one arm to slide his way closer, he was smearing a trail of dark red blood across the pale concrete floor, his face ashen, eyes half-lidded.
“No, Laker, stay there. D-don’t move!” Fighting pointlessly against the cable ties, Indie sobbed; desperate, dismayed, and disturbed. Her cries only encouraged Laker. He finally flopped down beside her, resting his shaky head on her calf.
He choked as he tried to speak, his breathing getting too shallow, voice too quiet. He tried again, meeting her eyes. The light behind his minty green irises was fading fast. “I s-saw your drawing,” he murmured.
Indie hiccupped a sob. “Did you like it?”
“Yeah,” Laker breathed, a drop of blood escaping from between his lips as he coughed.
“Then it’s yours.”
The feeling of warmth seeping into her leggings triggered a waterfall of tears which streamed over Indie’s cheeks as she tried to bend over her bump to see Laker’s face. He heaved his head up, letting her rest her forehead against his sweat-dampened hair. “Tha-thanks. I’ll put it…” He paused to inhale a gasp that made his entire body shudder. Licking his lips, he continued, “in the best frame I can find. Maybe the one Little Sweet made me.”
“She’ll love that. Pinky promise me? That you’ll put it in a frame and keep it forever?” Indie whispered pleadingly, trying to keep him focused as his eyes dimmed and his head lowered, severing their contact.
“P-pinky promise…” Just then, he let out a gut-wrenching groan, curling in on himself and clutching at the rapidly expanding circle of crimson on his white vest.
“Laker! Don’t you dare leave me!” Indie cri
ed, tugging against her restraints even though there was no way she’d be able to break them. Looking around in desperation, she spotted Garrett. He hadn’t moved; still leaning back on his hands, staring at the crumpled heap of the man he’d shot.
“Help him!” Indie pleaded, hissing at the pain in her abdomen.
It was getting worse. So, so much worse.
“Please, help him! I’ll go with you! I’ll do whatever you want, just save him!”
Before either of them could make another move, they were joined by an army of men dressed in black and armed with weapons. They shouted in booming voices as they swarmed Garrett. All of it was lost to Indie as it occurred outside her circle of light. Soon, before the realisation that these people were here to rescue her could set in, she found herself staring into Riley’s ice-blue eyes.
It was all a blur.
Somebody cut her free.
A paramedic asked her a string of questions before she was loaded onto a gurney. As soon as they spotted the sticky stain on her thighs, they rushed into action. Indie’s eyes remained on Laker until a team of paramedics descended upon his prostrate form, blocking him from view.
Whisked from the darkness, Indie found herself staring blankly at the ceiling overhead, then at the black sky once they made it outside. The stars seemed to swirl and blend together, the moon looming too close to be real. As she was loaded into the ambulance the pain in her midsection became unbearable, Reagan’s face crumpled with fear and stained by tears as she heard words like ‘placental abruption’ and ‘haemorrhaging.’
The last thing she remembered uttering was Laker’s name as she felt cool hands on her overheated cheeks and heard the distant squeal of sirens lulling her into unconsciousness.
When she awoke hours later, it would be with a deflated bump, and with one less heart beating in the world.
chapter twenty-seven