The entire trip to Billy’s house, Emma was horribly ill. Croft just had to be all right. He couldn’t leave her alone too. If anything happened to him, she couldn’t deal with it. Where else could she run in the world to forget how much she loved him? There was no place, on the Earth, where she would find any solace.
He was a loss she’d never recover from.
“Stop it, Emma,” demanded Reese. “He’s going to be fine. Greyson wouldn’t want you sitting there with that look on your face.”
“I can’t help it.” A single tear slid down her face.
“Emma,” Briggs took her hand in his, and forced her to look back at him. “I have every intention of getting him to the altar, so I can have a weekend off once in a while. He’s tough, and he is one of the best FBI agents I’ve ever met. He has the instincts of a soldier. I know Greyson Croft will pull through for you.”
“He’s correct, Emma. Right now, you need to think positive. Do it for him!” demanded Deputy Reese.
Emma pulled out her cell phone and tried his number once more. She hung up and looked at the looming house ahead. So many horrible things flashed through her head, and she fought valiantly to push them back.
When they pulled up to the cabin, and her Jeep was sitting there, her stomach rolled. What possibly waited inside could change her life forever.
“Can you do this?” Briggs asked, aware his partner could be dead behind the door.
“Come on. I’m ready,” she replied, pushing out of her seat and finding a little bravery left.
“How do you want to do this, Sheriff,” Briggs purposely called her by her title, making her focus on work and nothing else.
Emma pulled her sidearm. “I’ll take low. Reese, you take the back door, and Briggs you go in high.”
“Deal,” he answered, drawing his own gun. “Ready to do this, Sheriff?”
She nodded. “I’m ready. On three,” she said, signaling a countdown. Her nerves were on edge, but she held going through the door.
They swept the room and cleared the house. It wasn’t until her deputy called her name did she feel panicked. “Where are you, Reese?”
“I’m in the bathroom, and you need to see this.”
Emma walked through the house with Briggs at her back. When she entered the bathroom, she saw the puddle of sticky red blood in the middle of the floor. Crouching down, Emma touched it with her finger.
“Shit.” She looked up at Reese. “It’s fresh blood. Something happened in this room because if Grey found this, he would have called it in.”
“It’s probably his blood,” rationalized Briggs. “Emma, it’s only a little blood, maybe they surprised him. Really, this isn’t even close to the blood they’ve been leaving behind. They’d want him alive. This is a game to them. They need him to keep you in the game.” Briggs knelt down beside her and watched her look at the blood on her palm.
Emma wanted to weep.
“Don’t you dare fall apart on me! Until he’s back, you’re my partner, and I need you to help find him alive. I’m new at this, and if you quit on me now, he’s lost. Let’s go back to the station and get working.”
Emma nodded. “Yeah, we have the upper hand. They don’t know we know that it’s them.” She stood up and looked at Reese and Briggs. “When this is over, it won’t be Grey’s blood on my hands.”
Both men knew exactly what she meant.
Back at the station, she sequestered herself in her office. When both men came to the door for their work, she finally spoke.
“I want you to run EVERY property owned by Lila Tate, Ron Tate and Will Taylor, Curtis. Then we move fast and search them all. Reese, call in every deputy we have. No exceptions. You tell them to say nothing to anyone. If this gets out, Grey is a dead man. They’ll kill him and dump him because the game will be up and they’ll want to get away.”
“Yes, Sheriff,” he said, rushing out of the room.
“Briggs. I want those properties within thirty minutes. We can’t take the chance that Will Taylor gets bored and starts carving Croft up for shits and giggles to pass the time.”
“Sure thing, Sheriff. You’ll have it done fast.”
“I also want to know why Lila is helping this animal. I want information on her family and her mother.” She stared over at Briggs. “Locate the whore in her family, Curtis, and find it fast.”
Emma was done crying.
Now, she was going to save her man.
~Chapter Nineteen ~
Wednesday Afternoon
Greyson Croft had never been a prisoner until that moment. He knew what it felt like to be in pain, but this was beyond it. Will Taylor was taking great pleasure in beating the hell out of him.
He couldn’t taste anything but copper pennies, and he was sure he was going to be scarred for life.
There was sticky blood running down his cheek, and he suspected a gash was the cause. It was getting hard to see, since his eyes were swelling shut from all the repeated strikes to his face.
The more he fought to get free, the more pain they inflicted. If Lila kicked him one more time in the ribs, he was pretty sure they’d all shatter. All he was holding onto was the vision in his head of his wedding day to the love of his life.
Emma was the only thing he had to keep him sane and alive through all the horrible pain. Everything past that moment depended on how smart and good she was at her job.
His life hung in the balance.
Everything in him wanted to answer their questions, just to get a moment respite, but he wasn’t willing to risk Emma’s life. He’d heard them talking when they thought he was passed out. Will Taylor was going for her tonight. He was going to wait to steal her from her bed, and he was going to hack the flesh from her body.
He couldn’t let that happen, so he kept denying they knew anything in hopes that he could buy her time. Greyson prayed his partner kept his word and didn't leave her side. Being a realist, he knew the odds on the outcome. His time alive was ending, and it was a sacrifice that he’d willingly make for her.
Croft’s heart broke at the thought that she was going to have to be the one who found him. They were planning his death, and it wasn’t going to be pretty, all he could hope was it ended quickly.
God, he’d been so close to happiness to lose it, but then he could feel something more replacing the pity. There was a sense of profound gratitude that he found her, and the week they’d shared. She’d been worth it all.
“I’m going to enjoy raping her,” Will Taylor taunted.
Croft didn't reply. Not because he didn’t want to, but because he was slipping back into the dark. A tear slipped free as he tried to not think about what was coming.
Hopefully, if they were going to kill him, it would be now when he couldn’t feel anything, and he could die dreaming of the woman who owned his heart.
Emma sat behind her desk, staring out the window. She listened to the hum of the voices going on outside her door. There was no doubt that everyone was scrambling around doing their best to pin down Will Taylor’s rat hole. She just hoped it would be enough.
When her door opened, she didn’t even move to see who was entering. Already, she knew. Emma could see the reflection of Briggs in her window, and it made her breath catch. She tried desperately to hold onto the tears.
“Emma. Are you going to pull through?” asked Briggs.
She nodded and then told him what she was daydreaming about. “One of the first days that Greyson and you were in town, I had to change my clothes because I was covered in blood.”
“I remember.”
“He tricked me into getting dressed in here while he looked out the window just like I’m doing now.” She tried to laugh. “He watched me in my reflection in the window.”
“Sounds like something he would do when it came to you.”
“He’s a stubborn, cagey bastard, and I love him with all my heart.” Emma wouldn’t ever love anyone after him. She’d found her soul mate.
�
��I know he feels the same about you. In the year that I’ve been partnered with Greyson, I’ve never seen him get tied up over a woman. He is the job.”
Emma just sighed and closed her eyes. “We need to find him alive, Curtis. I can’t do this again. I can’t look at his blood on my hands.” She stared over at him with tears in her eyes.
He had to do something. “Sheriff, do you think he is sitting wherever he is, crying about missing you?”
Emma shook her head.
“No, he’s fighting for his life and trying to get back to you. I suggest you try the same thing. Don’t insult everything he stands for by quitting on him.”
Emma sat there for a moment and wiped her face. “Well done, Agent. I do believe I needed that.”
“I thought so.” He wanted to say more but Reese walked into the room with a printout.
“We have the properties.”
“Give them to me,” stated Emma.
“Will Taylor owns three. His apartment building he lives in just outside town, a piece of land with no residence, and this one you might find interesting.”
“Spill it, Reese,” she demanded, having no patience for the dramatics.
“It seems he owns a corner of ‘The Crossing’.”
“Any structures?”
“An old barn, but it’s abandoned.”
“Well that fits the pattern.”
“It almost seems too easy,” added Briggs. “It’s too obvious.”
Emma sat back and closed her eyes for a second. “It does, except he doesn’t know that we figured out the game. We know that both he and Lila are involved. We have that on our side. He’s arrogant enough to believe that we still think Lila is his victim. That may be our only saving grace at this point.” Emma stood up. “I do enjoy having an ace in the hole.”
“What’s the plan, Sheriff?” Briggs asked.
There was no doubt. “Reese send out deputies to the other properties to make sure I’m not wrong. You tell them if they find Agent Croft there, they bring him out alive. You, Briggs and myself are heading to the barn.”
“Do you want back up?”
“No, we’re all we need for what’s coming,” she said, letting them know exactly what she was planning. “I want to be able to get to the property without giving them advanced notice. If they so much as smell us coming, they’ll kill Grey.”
“Sheriff, I think we should hike in through ‘The Crossing’ so that they don’t hear any cars,” added Briggs.
“Good idea. Be ready in ten minutes.”
“Emma, do you want to know what we found out about Lila Tate?” asked Reese.
“You can brief me on our way there.” She stopped moving and looked over her shoulder. “If anything happens to me, you make sure you tell him I love him,” she stated, staring from man to man.
Both men nodded, walking out of the room to leave Emma to prepare for the oncoming battle--one where she’d die for the man she loved.
In the car, Emma checked the magazine in her gun and checked her back up piece. She watched as Briggs did the same. “Tell me about Lila Tate’s family life, Reese. I want to know what we’re up against.”
“It seems that she had a rough childhood at home. From what we’ve discovered, the family had domestic disputes all the time. A few were even called in and reported.”
“What else?” Emma asked.
“From what I had time to scrape together, it seems Lila’s mother had numerous affairs and eventually left Ron Tate.”
“That explains her anger toward women,” added Emma.
“It also could explain how the victims in town were picked. All the women were sleeping with daddy. Lila lived at home, and she would have to be blind not to notice the women her father was shacking up with. It is after all, a very small town,” Briggs added.
“Okay, so we can tie Lila to Taylor through a Biology class,” she paused. “She could always say that it’s a coincidence.”
“No way. She was his lab partner. We contacted the professor, and he vividly remembered them. He called them ‘love birds’.”
“Okay, that’s helpful to know. He’s attached to her. She then helps him get a job working for her father, and meanwhile she meets Billy Barnes. How?”
“She could have met him out at a bar or on his mail route. Maybe he was really in love with her and followed her back to Celestia. He did have that inheritance he received when his parents died. We may never know his role in this.”
“He could have helped them or he could have just been a loose end that they needed to tie up. Maybe he knew too much,” Emma suggested.
“That’s all we have on Lila. I didn’t have much time, even with the FBI resources,” apologized Reese.
She patted his arm. “Okay, so Will Taylor? What about his family life?” asked Emma.
“It’s pretty sketchy but as far as we can tell, he was from a single parent home. His mother raised him, she had numerous live in boyfriends, and Child Protective Services has Will in their records. He might have been abused by his mother and one of her men.”
“Did CPS investigate?”
“They couldn’t. The mother moved them around a lot. They had no address to follow up.”
“Where did they move to ultimately?” Briggs asked.
Reese pulled it all back up from memory. “Philadelphia. Consequentially, Will Taylor left home at eighteen and got a few different jobs before getting the job at Department of Transportation. He worked and went to school at the same time.”
“And? I feel more info in there somewhere, Reese.”
He grinned. “He had two PFA’s filed against him by girlfriends.”
“Two? Why?”
“He knocked one girlfriend around during a quarrel. She left town and didn’t press further charges. The second one was a co-ed in college. She also filed but didn’t press charges, stating she was scared of retaliation.”
“So, he has a history of abuse against women, and Lila could possibly be the one who adds fuel to his fire. I really wish we were clearer on Billy’s role in this. I feel like we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle.”
“Wait, Emma, we can tie Bekka Drake to Will Taylor. She worked in a law office.”
“And?”
“It’s across the hall from the office of the Department of Transportation,” added Reese.
One more piece to the puzzle. “That SOB knew her from seeing her every day. He used his records to get her address and kill her. Now, we need to fit Maggie Wilson into this. I wish I knew how she played into the whole thing.”
“I say we ask Lila all about it when we have her cuffed,” said Briggs.
Emma knew that wasn’t happening if Grey was dead. If they killed him, she’d be saving the taxpayers of Pennsylvania a whole lot of money. “Good idea.” She took off her seatbelt as the car came to a stop. “We need to move fast and quietly.”
“Let’s go save my partner’s ass,” stated Briggs, grinning. “I want to kiss his bride.”
All three checked their vests and weapons, making the trek across ‘The Crossing’. Emma led the way followed by Reese, and then Briggs closing in the rear. They moved quickly, and soon found themselves just on the outskirts of the barn.
“We have to move fast. It’s still light out, and we don’t need them knowing we’re coming,” Emma whispered. Croft’s life depended on it.
“There looks to be only one way in, except for a window high on the second level,” said Briggs in hushed tones.
Emma knew they had but one choice. “Well, then it looks like we go in the front.”
The three crossed the open field as quickly as they could. Emma would have preferred darkness to keep them covered, but the idea of Croft in that barn being sliced to pieces made her stomach knot. They covered the ground and braced their backs against the wall, getting ready to make contact.
Emma motioned for both men to cover her she was going in first. Both agreed, watching as she slowly slid the barn door open. It m
ade no noise and Emma stayed low in the shadows. She motioned for Briggs and Reese to follow. All three sat in silence as their eyes swept the area. Emma fought to not inhale sharply when she saw her fiancé.
Shit!
He didn’t look good at all. His color was wrong and the left side of his face was covered in blood. Emma could see the red stains running down his wrists to where he bloodied them trying to get free. His head was bowed, and she could see his chest fighting for air.
Emma’s hand shook as she pointed toward Croft and made a few hand gestures.
Both men nodded.
Greyson Croft didn’t have much time left. They were close to stealing his life away.
Suddenly, they heard the voices coming from the far corner.
“Why did we have to get rid of him, Will?” she asked in her whiney voice.
“Billy became a liability, Lila. When he found out about us, he was going to go to the sheriff and tell her everything he knew. I told you that he was weak and not ready for our mission. The minute he figured it out, he wanted to go crying to the authorities,” stated Will Taylor.
“I know, but he was a good diversion. That stupid bitch sheriff was convinced that Billy was the one.” Lila laughed and looked proud. “Like Billy could even plan his way out of a paper bag.”
“He was an idiot,” Taylor agreed.
“Now what are we going to do? Soon enough, she’ll have them on our trail. It definitely won’t take her long to figure out that we killed Maggie Wilson and Bekka Drake.”
“Oh, poor, Maggie. She looked too much like her sister for her own good. How was I to know? That fool Billy never mentioned she was a twin.”
“So much for mistakes,” Lila giggled. “What about Emma?”
“Killing Agent Croft will slow her down. I think we’ll disembowel him, slit his throat, and dump him on her porch while she sleeps. That should distract her long enough,” he said sharpening his hunting knife.
Celestia is Falling (A Croft & Croft Romance Adventure Book 1) Page 49