by Juniper Hart
“Sarge, we have a problem—”
“Let me stop you right there, Cara,” Will interrupted, holding up a hand. “Coffee first, then you can bombard me with the great gnome captures of Scarlet Oak overnight.”
“But Sarge—”
“Coffee!” he bellowed as he left the desk clerk, making his way into the back offices.
It never failed; every morning, Cara would assault him with a barrage of words, which made no sense to him, and every morning, he would explain to her that he was subhuman without a caffeine boost.
“Sarge, did you hear what happened?” Detective Monroe asked, and Will shook his head in disbelief.
Was everyone deigning to get on his hit list that day?
“I don’t care what happened on the Christensen’s soybean farm,” he snapped, “until I get my coffee. Cara!”
She hurried toward him, her face pale, but she still didn’t carry his coffee in her hands.
“Are you serious?” he cried. “Where’s my coffee?”
“Sergeant Sears, Merrik Vladimir is in your office,” Cara said sternly. “His daughter has been kidnapped.”
Will stared at her uncomprehendingly. Has Cara started drinking already this morning?
“What?” he demanded. “What do you mean she’s been kidnapped?”
Cara pointed, and Will raised his head to look to where Merrik Vladimir paced about the floor of his office.
“He’s been there for an hour, waiting for you,” she sighed.
Will gazed at her with questioning grey eyes. “Then why the hell didn’t anyone call me?” he asked, rushing toward where the wealthiest man in Scarlet Oak burned a hole into the shabby carpeting with his quick, agitated steps.
Will didn’t bother to wait for an answer; he knew his phone was perpetually off when he was off-duty. If anyone had tried, the calls would have gone straight to voicemail.
“Merrik, what the hell?” Will asked. “What happened?”
“Where the hell have you been?” Merrik shouted, his face red with consternation. “My daughter is out there in the hands of some lunatic and—”
“Just calm down,” Will instructed sternly. “Tell me what happened.”
He gestured for the older man to sit, but Merrik Vladimir was having none of it as he continued pacing about the room, breathing fire.
“Someone has my baby!” he growled. “Someone has snatched her off the streets and is holding her for ransom!”
Will thought quickly, racking his brain for any past kidnapping attempts on anyone from the Vladimir family.
He could not recall any such incident. “Tell me everything,” Will urged.
“I got a phone call two hours ago from a distorted voice saying they had Ruby,” Merrik explained, “and that I need to pay six million to get her back.”
Will hit the intercom. “Davidson, get in here,” he called.
“I called all her friends, her good for nothing boyfriend, and anyone who might have contact with her. Nothing. No one has seen or heard from her.”
A knock at the door announced Detective Davidson’s arrival.
“Yes, Sarge?”
“Run the LUDs on the Vladimir’s’ home phone, incoming from two plus hours ago,” Will ordered. “Also run the records on Ruby Vladimir’s cell. I want to know every tower it has pinged off and check to see if it can be tracked via GPS. I need Monroe visiting the boyfriend first, and all other friends after that. Take all the manpower you need and interrogate her neighbors. Find out where she was last night. I will have Cara run down her financials.”
“No need for that,” Merrik scowled. “I have control of all her money. I can give you any financial information you need. Just get out there and start looking for her!”
Will nodded. “Yes, my officers will get going immediately. In the meantime, when and where is the drop?”
“I don’t know!” Merrik exploded. “I am supposed to be getting another call from him in the next few hours. Instead of waiting for it, I have been stuck here waiting for you to grace the police department with your presence.”
“Go home and wait for it. I will send a technical team with you to trace the call.” Will placed his hand on Merrik’s shoulder for a moment before dropping it. “I know you’re under a lot of stress right now, Merrik, but you did the right thing, no matter what those terrorists threaten.”
Merrik stared at Will. “What do you mean I did the right thing despite their threats?”
Will’s brow furrowed. “I assume they told you not to contact the police.”
Merrik’s mouth became an expression of fear, but he shook his head. “No,” he gasped. “They didn’t say a damn word about the police.”
Will was stunned, but Merrik was done with conversation.
“Just find her,” he whispered, the fearful expression on his face shifting into an angry one. “I don’t care what it takes. Bring my Ruby back alive.”
Will felt a stab of sympathy for the man.
“I will find her,” he assured Merrik. “Nothing is going to happen to your daughter, Merrik. Not on my watch.”
The black-haired man did not answer and stalked out of the room.
Will shoved Davidson toward the door. “Go with him!”
Sighing once both men were out of sight, he sank into his chair, conjuring an image of Ruby Vladimir in his mind.
He knew her more by reputation than by sight, but Scarlet Oak was not a big town, and he had chanced across the red-haired goddess a few times. And now someone had her. She had been kidnapped. In Will’s town.
He ground his teeth in anger, willing his premolars back into place.
“So it’s true?” Detective Monroe asked, poking his head into the office. “Someone took Ruby Vladimir?”
“Bring in the boyfriend for questioning,” Will replied without answering the detective’s question. “His name is Robert Askin. I want to talk to him myself.”
Monroe made a whistling noise and nodded, his eyes wide with surprise. “I can’t believe anyone would be that ballsy,” he said, shaking his head.
“Are you still here?” Will snapped. “Go find Askin!”
He stifled a groan and stared at the ceiling, suddenly feeling helpless. In a town run by bear shifters, how does a girl get snatched? Will knew the answer would not be easily found.
Chapter Three
“Is this really necessary?” Ruby asked, struggling against the constraints on her feet. “I’m obviously not going anywhere.”
“You should be glad we haven’t gagged you,” the man muttered, puffing on a cigarette as he stared blankly at the television. “But if you keep yapping, I might do just that.”
Shawn had left, leaving Ruby alone with the crotchety stranger, tied to a chair inside a seedy apartment.
Despite Shawn being the one who had physically kidnapped her, Ruby wished he was the one keeping an eye on her rather than the nameless weirdo watching infomercials.
“I can see why you need the money,” Ruby commented, looking around the unit with disgust. It was nothing akin to the comfort and luxury in which she had been reared. “Although I have to say, six million is aiming kind of high, isn’t it?”
The weirdo jerked his head up and peered at her with strange, iridescent eyes. “What do you mean?” he asked, his lips twitching in question. “You don’t think your daddy will pay it?”
Ruby tried to shrug, but it was only a half gesture. “Can’t say,” she replied. “We aren’t that close.”
It wasn’t true, of course, but she reasoned if she could plant the seed of doubt in her captors’ minds, they might screw up.
And if they get careless, I will be easier to find, she thought. It was a longshot, but longshots were all she had.
“Really?” the man drawled, rising from his seemingly ingrained spot on the sofa and ambling toward her.
Ruby felt a spark of fear for the first time as she watched him approach. “I don’t know,” she said quickly, recognizing that she
may have made a blunder in saying such a thing. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”
He smiled then, and Ruby was sure she had never seen a more disturbing sight in her life: a mishmash of crooked, yellow teeth on a fetid mouth.
He lowered his head so they met eye to eye. “You better pray that he does pay, darling,” he said quietly. “Or I’ll put a bullet between those beautiful dark eyes of yours right now.”
Ruby tried to maintain his stare, but she faltered, terror seizing her heart.
Shawn hadn’t frightened her, maybe because she knew him and didn’t truly believe he could hurt her. This man, though… he was another story.
“I don’t hear you praying, sweetheart,” he taunted, stroking her face with a nicotine-stained finger. Ruby shuddered, and he laughed almost maniacally at her response. “Don’t worry, darling. I’m gonna take good care of you before your time with us is up.”
He licked his lips.
“Get away from her,” Shawn snapped from the doorway. “You don’t touch a hair on her head until we get paid.”
The creep scowled. “Who’s gonna know?” he sulked, but he rose to his feet, lumbering back toward the sofa where he had been sitting for hours.
“I’ll know,” Shawn growled, slamming the door.
For an instant, Ruby stared at him, a glimmer of hope flashing through her. I knew it! He’s not going to hurt me. He’s going to protect me and send me home after Daddy pays.
“She doesn’t shut up,” the man grumbled.
Shawn sighed, stalking toward her. “Ruby, what have I told you about running your mouth?” he demanded.
Ruby offered him a timid smile. “I was just trying to be friendly,” she protested coyly.
To her shock, his hand flew up, smacking her across the cheek. Tasting blood, she stared up at him, her vision slightly blurred by the blow.
“We don’t want to be your friends,” Shawn said conversationally. “Gag her, Herman. And if she gives you any more trouble when I’m away, knock her out with heroin. But keep your pants on until the money is in hand. After that, I don’t care what you do with her.”
Chapter Four
Will glanced at the SWAT team, each man waiting for his signal.
He held up his fingers in count, and when his hand signaled three, the battering ram crashed down the door of the apartment.
Two men looked up in shocked surprise as the law enforcement officers flew into the apartment, screaming orders for them to lay down on the ground.
Will bypassed the kidnappers, racing toward the back room, kicking open another door.
Ruby Vladimir lay on a mattress on the floor, her eyes half closed, her dark red hair disheveled. Will immediately rushed to her.
“Ruby, I’m Sergeant William Sears,” he told her sinking to his knees at her side. “I’ve been looking for you for days.”
She nodded slowly, seemingly incoherent, but her dark eyes widened slightly as she understood his words. Will helped her into a sitting position, pushing the tangles of her hair away from her face.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,” she murmured. “I’m okay now.”
“Good,” he sighed, pressing her close to his chest to comfort her. The gesture was inappropriate, but he needed to feel her against him. Tentatively, her arms encircled him, as if longing for a touch that was not cruel, and he squeezed her tightly, feeling the beat of her heart increase against his chest.
She tipped her head back, looking at him plaintively, and he stared back into her eyes, the urge to kiss her overwhelming.
Stop! Will screamed at himself. What are you doing?
But it was as if he was no longer in control of his own movements, and his lips met hers with a fervent passion. Immediately, Ruby responded, crawling onto her knees to meet him at face level, her hands eagerly stripping off his clothes as she moved.
The voice in Will’s head grew quieter as the blood in his loins increased. His hand reached for her hair, dropping her head back as his lips crushed against the coolness of her throat.
As Ruby struggled to unbutton his shirt over his wide chest and formed biceps, she pushed him down onto the mattress, and he knew he needed to take her before the others found them in the back room.
Will could hear them calling out to one another only a few feet away, and it heightened his sense of urgency and arousal. His hands made their way up Ruby’s pencil skirt, freeing her long, lithe legs to spread for him as his mouth continued moving across her belly and then down into her core.
She gasped with delight as his tongue delved into her center, her hands squeezing into his dark mane of hair. Faster he stroked her with his mouth, encouraging her to climax, but she gripped his head, pulling him upward.
“There’s no time,” Ruby whispered. “You need to take me now.”
Before the last word was out of her lips, Will was deep inside her, Ruby’s hands gripping his rear as he thrust deep and hard into her.
Instantly, she erupted upon him, crying out silently as her teeth went through her lower lip. The sight of blood drove him into a frenzy, pounding faster, watching her beautiful face freeze in the shock and ecstasy of his engorged member.
Will exploded in great spurts, memorizing the expression of desire on her face as someone began whispering in his ear.
Whirling his head, he turned and stared at Detective Monroe.
“Are you all right?” Monroe asked, his face registering worry. “You look funny, like you’re in pain.”
Suddenly, Ruby was gone, the apartment non-existent, and Will understood where he was: in the barracks inside the police station, lying on a cot.
Humiliated, he sat up and looked at his subordinate.
“Any word?” he asked. It was the first sleep he had gotten in over forty-eight hours.
The kidnappers had arranged for the ransom drop for the following day at Marketplace Corners, across from the Junction.
But there were so many things bothering Will about the entire kidnapping scenario—things such as the boyfriend letting Ruby wander away without another thought after a fight. He claimed he didn’t even watch her walk down the street. He gave a very loose description of what she had been wearing, and Will could not get over his intense dislike for Robert Askin.
There were other issues, too. The kidnappers seemed to be in no rush for their money, as if this whole thing were a game. Or, as if they had no intentions of giving her back anyway, and were having their fun with her. The thought filled Will with dread.
It must be why I had that dream, he thought. I want to protect her, but I don’t know how.
Their calls had been untraceable, and the voice distorted when the second call came through. Will could tell that they were dealing with professionals, and yet, they had not seemed concerned in the least about whether or not Merrik Vladimir contacted the police.
What kind of men are we up against? Will wondered, eyeing Monroe as he waited for an answer to his initial question.
“Nothing has changed. Davidson is still with the Vladimirs, but Merrik is not doing well.”
“Then what the hell are you doing in here, Monroe? Go make yourself useful!”
Will lay back down, staring at the bunk above him, wondering what else he could be doing, where else he should be looking.
I feel like the answer is right under my nose and yet…
He sat up suddenly. Maybe the answer was literally under his nose. The hairs on his arms began to prickle.
Chapter Five
Ruby bolted up, her eyes wide with a silent scream.
It was the same nightmare she’d had the night before: a heroic rescue, a dark-haired muscular man making love to her in a back room as Shawn and Herman were captured by a dozen SWAT team members.
But just as she climaxed, a beast burst into the room and swiped at her savior with a deadly paw, sending them both flying into a wall.
“What’s the matter, princess?” Herman called tau
ntingly as he took in her horrified expression. “Bad dream?”
Ruby shifted her eyes away from him, looking down at her bonds again, her mind racing. How could she free herself? Did anyone live below the unit where they were keeping her? Would they hear her if she made enough noise? She didn’t dare do anything, not when she was certain that any minuscule move might cost her life.
Today is the day Daddy is supposed to make the ransom drop. Today will be the day I discover my fate one way or another. Her mind flittered back to her dream and she exhaled slowly, shaking her head.
If you are real, Sergeant Will Sears, please be careful, but come and find me.
***
Will poured over the notes, his eyes burning.
If his hunch was correct, something had to connect a suspect to Ruby Vladimir.
He felt as if he had read the files a thousand times, but it didn’t seem to help. Nothing was standing out to him—no surveillance, no witnesses.
There is only one way that this kidnapping makes sense to be done with such ease.
“Sarge, do you need anything?” Monroe asked from the doorway, and Will shook his head quickly. “I’m heading out. I’ve been here all night.”
Monroe nodded.
“Monroe, shut the door on your way out.” Will slumped back against his chair, begging his mind to understand what he was missing, but he just couldn’t see it.
And the ransom drop is in two hours, he reminded himself. If we don’t find out where she is before that, she’s as good as dead.
The idea made him queasy. He needed air.
Fighting his way through the small stationhouse, he clawed his way to the back exit, gulping in the morning like he was suffocating.
Suddenly, he had the insurmountable urge to smoke. It was a filthy, disgusting habit he had forsaken a decade earlier, but the desire was overwhelming. The need to feel a cigarette to his lips was so unbearable, he began to walk through the staff parking lot, seeking out packages of smokes on their dashboards.
He paused at the end of the parking area, peering into the window of a truck.
What the hell are you doing? Will asked himself. You’re acting like a lunatic. But as he turned away in embarrassment, something under the seat caught his eye.