Twisted Innocence (Moonlighters Series Book 3)

by Blackstock, Terri

  Max cursed, and Michael kicked the building. “He could have gone a dozen different directions on the other side of that wall,” Michael said. “Probably had somebody pick him up.” He set his hands on his hips. “I can’t believe we lost him.”

  “We’ll just have to find him,” Max said. “He’s bound to go home eventually.”

  But Michael doubted it. Barker knew he was being followed. He wouldn’t let his guard down now.

  CHAPTER 53

  For Holly, it had been an early morning after a sleep-interrupted night. Lily had demanded two feedings during the night, then had wakened for the day at five a.m. Between feedings, Holly’s sleep had been shallow, and she’d dreamed of tragedies involving Creed.

  She gave Lily a bath and dressed her for the day. Juliet would work at home today so that she could watch Lily and Robbie, since she hadn’t yet been able to find a babysitter. Holly would go to the office and hunt down any facts she could find about Barker, the alleged bomber, and hope something she found might lead them to Leonard Miller.

  She strapped Lily into her car seat and carried her out the side door from her kitchen into the garage, snapped the car seat into its base in the backseat of her taxi, and kissed her daughter’s forehead. She’d probably be asleep before they’d driven a mile.

  A crash turned her back to the house. Glass breaking . . . voices . . .

  Her alarm system blared its warning. Holly went for the gun on her passenger seat as her phone began to ring. The alarm company.

  She clicked it on and said, “Call the police. Someone’s in my house!”

  She left the call connected and dropped the phone into her pocket as she headed back in, leading with her firearm. Then she saw them . . . the two meth heads who’d mugged her days ago, awkwardly going back out the window the way they’d come in, as if they hadn’t counted on the alarm going off.

  “Hold it right there!” she shouted. “Don’t move!”

  But the girl kept scurrying through, cursing as she cut her hand on glass. The man pushed her out and dove out behind her.

  Holly ran to the front door and bolted out. The two stumbled across the yard as the alarm kept blaring. Refusing to let them escape this time, Holly followed them, yelling for them to stop. She couldn’t fire right here in a residential neighborhood, and they clearly weren’t afraid of her.

  Their drug abuse had taken its toll, and they weren’t fast runners. Holly ran with all the strength she had, and when she caught up to them, she grabbed the girl’s shirt and threw her against the man, knocking them both to the ground. “Stay down or I’ll kill you!” she shouted. “Don’t move your little finger!”

  They cursed and lay facedown on the pavement as the sound of a siren swirled close.

  “What did you take from my house?” she demanded, dripping with sweat.

  “Nothing!” the girl shrieked. “We didn’t have time! We were told you weren’t home and you didn’t have a security system.”

  “Who told you that?” They didn’t answer. “Who?”

  When they still refused to speak, she bent and roughly searched their pockets, grabbed the girl’s huge bag. She looked through it, trembling, and found her own wallet, her credit cards, her driver’s license—things they’d taken from her purse the day they’d robbed her in her cab. It didn’t look like they’d had time to get anything from her home.

  How stupid could they be, breaking in through a window like that in broad daylight? What kind of idiots were these people?

  When the police cars made it to her street, she waved them down to her. Keeping her gun on the thieves, she called out, “I’m Holly Cramer. I work for Michael Hogan. I have a concealed permit. These two just broke into my house.”

  The first cop out drew his weapon and shielded himself behind the door. “Drop the gun.”

  Holly tossed it toward them, out of the couple’s reach. “Cuff them!” she shouted. “They mugged me a few days ago. There’s a police report. You can check. I don’t want them to get away.”

  The cop in the back car got out and got her gun. “I know her. I took her report. She’s legit.”

  Holly breathed a sigh of relief as they gave her back her gun, cuffed the two thieves, then shoved them into the back of separate cars, the two foul-mouthed addicts cursing and spitting.

  Holly wiped the sweat from her forehead. Lily. She had left Lily in the car. “Can we finish this at my house? My baby’s in the car in my garage.”

  They agreed. Holly jogged back the few houses to her own house as the police cars moved into her driveway. She went back in the open front door, through the kitchen, and out to the closed garage, a police officer following her.

  The back door of her taxi was still open.

  Lily lay sound asleep in her car seat, undisturbed by the chaos. But then Holly saw it . . . wires weaving through the straps and clip over the baby’s ribs. A device of some kind placed on the top of the seat near her head.

  A bomb!

  “No . . . dear . . . God . . .” She stood frozen, unable to move.

  The cop stepped up behind her. “Ma’am?”

  “A bomb . . . on the car seat. The break-in was just a distraction.”

  The cop began shouting into his radio as Holly’s focus narrowed down to those wires.

  CHAPTER 54

  Creed was sick of the hospital gown and wanted desperately to change into his own clothes, but his sutures and the Velcro cast on his arm made it difficult. Maybe when his mother came back in he would get her to help him change into clothes that made him feel more human. Cathy sat next to the bed, questioning him and taking notes. Though the police had questioned him for hours already, she still grilled him, hoping to jog loose some additional memory—any memory—that would help them locate the man who had changed her life three years ago.

  The hospital phone rang, and he jumped. Most people called him on his cell phone. He hadn’t gotten a single call on the hospital room’s phone since he’d been here. He tried to reach it with his right hand, but Cathy sprang up. “I’ll get it.”

  She picked up the phone and handed it to him. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Creed.” It was a man’s voice, one he couldn’t quite place. “Do you know where your baby is?”

  Creed sat up straighter. “Who is this?”

  “A recent acquaintance,” he said. “Sorry our little encounters didn’t work out. But this one surely will.”

  Miller. He mouthed the name to Cathy and slid his legs off the bed, got to his feet. “What do you want?”

  “I wanted to let you know there’s a bomb on your baby’s car seat. If anyone tries to move her out of it, she’ll blow.”

  Creed bent over and drew in a breath. “What . . . do you want?”

  “I want you to walk out of that hospital and drive to where I tell you.”

  Creed looked frantically around the room. Where were his clothes? “I . . . I don’t have my car here. I was brought in an ambulance.”

  “Have someone drive you to your car. Come the rest of the way alone. Give me your cell phone number. I’ll call you back in twenty minutes.”

  Creed almost couldn’t breathe. He rattled off his number.

  “Oh, and if you talk to Holly Cramer, tell her not to do anything stupid,” Miller said. “Those wires have a hair trigger sometimes.”

  The phone clicked off.

  “What did he say?” Cathy said. “What did he want?”

  “Have to call Holly.” He grabbed his cell phone off the bed table. “Get my clothes. They must be in the closet.”

  Creed’s heart slammed against his sternum as he waited for Holly to pick up. Her phone rang once, then she clicked on. Her voice was quiet, trembling. “Creed . . .”

  “Is she okay?” he asked.

  “There’s a bomb,” she said just above a whisper. “The police are here but they can’t move it or it might explode. She’s sleeping, but if she wakes up and starts to move . . .”

  “Holly, Miller wa
nts me to leave the hospital. He’ll call me back with instructions. Just hang on. I’ll do whatever they say.”

  He heard the slurp of her sniffs, voices in the background. Finally, she whispered, “Be careful, Creed.”

  Creed hung up and Cathy handed him his clothes. “I have to get out of here,” he said. “Help me get dressed.”

  Cathy did, then hammered him with questions as they headed out.

  Max was waiting at Creed’s car, which was parked in his parents’ driveway. Thankfully, Creed’s parents weren’t home, or they would have tried to stop him. But it wasn’t his own safety he cared about. It was Lily’s.

  “We wired your car so we can monitor what’s going on,” Max said.

  “No, they’ll find out and hurt Lily.”

  “He already knows we’re all over this. There are police at Holly’s house. They know you would have gotten us involved.”

  “I have to hurry. He’s going to call any minute.”

  “Then leave the wire in place. We want to follow you to wherever he intends to send you.”

  “No, he said to come alone,” Creed said. “I have to do what he says.”

  “All right, but we’ll set up near where you are in case we have to move in.”

  “What if they find out and object to that?”

  “Creed, we’re not going to let you go off the grid with them. This is the way it has to be.”

  Creed didn’t have time to argue. He got into his car and tried to think like his enemy. Why would Miller risk this, knowing the police were swarming around?

  His phone rang as he pulled out of the driveway. He swiped it on and set it on speakerphone. “I’m alone. What do you want?”

  “I want you, Creed. Come to 202 Sherman Avenue. It used to be a car wash, but it’s out of business. Wait in the parking lot, and when I’m sure you’re alone and no cops are in the vicinity, I’ll give you further instructions.”

  Creed made a U-turn and headed in that direction. “Do you have a remote to detonate that bomb?”

  Miller only laughed.

  “Do you have a remote?” Creed yelled.

  “As a matter of fact, I do. But it won’t take the remote to blow that car up. Just a little movement.”

  Creed felt as if the wind had been knocked out of him. “If you hurt my baby, I will spend the rest of my life tracking you down . . . There won’t be anywhere you can hide.”

  More laughter. “Just go to the address, Creed. Do as we say and things will go better for the baby.” Miller ended the call.

  Creed wiped the sweat from his forehead. His mouth was dry; he could hardly breathe. He pulled over for a moment, typed the address into his GPS, saw where to go. Then he clicked on Holly’s number again, hoping she had it on vibrate so it wouldn’t wake Lily.

  Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Creed?”

  “Have they gotten the bomb disconnected?”

  “Not yet,” she said, her voice trembling. “She’s still sleeping. What do they want you to do?”

  “He gave me the address of some car wash. I’m headed there now.”

  “He’s going to make you do something devastating. Commit a crime, kill somebody . . .”

  “I’ll do what I have to do.”

  “I don’t want you to die. I just . . . found you.”

  He noticed a helicopter circling overhead. “You weren’t looking for me.”

  “No, I wasn’t, but now . . .”

  “Holly, there’s no choice,” he cut in. “It was stuff I did that got me into this. Whatever happens, I caused it. I can’t let Lily or you suffer for my sins. If I have to die for my daughter, so be it.”

  Holly was silent for a long moment. Creed saw the car wash up ahead, and a building in back. “I’m there now. I’ll call you back.”

  “Creed?”

  He hung up and pulled into the parking lot. No cars, no sign of life. He drove into a bay.

  The phone rang again and Creed clicked the speakerphone. “I’m here.”

  “Go into the building. Door’s unlocked. I’ll be watching you through the security camera. I’ll see every move you make.” Creed got out of his car and started toward the building, the pain in his arm shooting through his bones.

  “Now, listen carefully,” Miller said. “You’re going to walk in there and go to the desk in the office. In the top drawer, you’ll find a loaded revolver.”

  Creed felt sick. They were going to make him kill somebody. He opened the door and went in, found the office and the .38. He took it out of the drawer and checked; it was fully loaded. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  “Walk to the middle of the lobby where the tarp is. Sit down on the tarp, then finish the job we started.”

  Creed’s mind raced. What was Miller telling him to do? The gun . . . the tarp . . . the job . . .

  Suddenly it hit him. They wanted him to be his own victim.

  CHAPTER 55

  Two men from the bomb squad, clad in padded gear and helmets like those Holly had seen in war movies, tried to get her to back away from the car. She refused.

  “I’m the only one who can keep my baby calm,” she said in a voice as quiet as she could manage. “If the bomb goes off and kills her, let it kill me too.”

  “We don’t have that option, ma’am,” Saginaw, the lead bomb expert, told her. “We have to clear the area. This bomb looks powerful enough to maim, dismember, or kill everyone within its radius.”

  Sweat dripped into Holly’s eyes. “You’re wasting time,” she said. “I’m staying with my baby, so leave me alone. Get. The bomb. Off of her.”

  They conferred for a moment, and she fully expected someone to tackle her and cuff her and haul her away from her daughter. But no one did. Clearly the others were taking the bomb seriously enough not to want to walk into its radius to remove her, or risk making noise enough to wake Lily.

  “Ma’am, we’re trying to protect you.”

  “Stop calling me ma’am and focus on my daughter instead of me.”

  “We’re not sure the bomb is hooked up,” Saginaw told her. “First of all, he didn’t have a lot of time to plant it. We can’t see where the wires are connected.”

  She let out a ragged breath. “He’s fast. He set the bomb under Michael’s car, and he didn’t have much time then either. Don’t take any chances, please.”

  “The bomb does appear to be live. It’s the same type of device that was put under Michael Hogan’s car. That had considerable power, and add to that the gasoline in the car’s gas tank . . . They might have this thing set up to detonate remotely, but we can’t locate the detonator without moving the baby. Disconnecting the car seat from the base might be the trigger to detonate, but we’re seventy percent sure that these wires wrapped around the seat are just for show.”

  Seventy percent wasn’t good enough. “He had time to plant it. It didn’t take him long with Michael’s car.”

  “We’re considering everything, ma’am.” The other guy opened the opposite car door after examining it for wires, then slipped onto the seat, videoing the wires on that side of the car seat.

  Holly couldn’t breathe.

  The moment Michael heard of the standoff at Holly’s house, he notified Cathy, Juliet, and Jay, all of whom rushed to be there for their sister, even though the police had closed off the street, evacuated the surrounding homes, and roped off a perimeter far beyond the bomb’s reach.

  Cathy got Holly on the phone. “Honey, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Holly whispered. “Lily isn’t.”

  “You need to get out of there,” Cathy said. “Let the bomb squad work on it, but you don’t have to be there.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Holly repeated. “If Lily goes, I go. If she wakes up, I need to be here.”

  Cathy burst into tears. “What can we do, honey?”

  “Just pray,” Holly whispered. “That’s what we need.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Max and his men set up a mobi
le command center in the parking lot of a skating rink just blocks away from the car wash where Creed had been sent. Michael paced outside the van, his phone to his ear. He’d found the owner of the car wash, learned it was rented to an LLC called Denton Enterprises. “I need to know about that building. Is the power still on?”

  “Yes,” the owner said. “We’re trying to sell the car wash, so we’ve kept the power on.”

  “What about a security camera? Do you have one inside?”

  “Yes, and it’s still functional too.”

  “Does it save video to a hard drive on the premises, or is there a wireless link that sends the image somewhere else?”

  “Wireless link,” the owner said. “I can give you the login info if you want to get on that wireless network, but I don’t know who’s monitoring it right now.”

  Michael took down the info, then stepped into the van. “Which one of you is the computer tech?”

  A young, bald guy with Buddy Holly glasses lifted his hand. Michael told him about the camera. “If we get on their network, what can we find out?”

  The computer guy—who went by the name of Dex—scratched his ear. “I could pretty quickly locate the computer monitoring the image. I could also set up a feed so we could monitor it as well. But I need to get close enough to the building that I can access their wireless signal.”

  “The owner said it’s video only, no audio. He told me the location of the camera, right over the front door. I think we could go in through a window in another room at the back and not be seen. Then, while you work on getting on the network, I can assess the situation.”

  Max didn’t like it. “It’s too dangerous. They could have snipers all around that place, or it could be rigged with bombs too. It could be a trap.”

  “Send a team ahead of us to scour the area for snipers,” Michael said. “But if he has people on the premises, he wouldn’t have to monitor things on camera. He would have had them kill Creed and be done with it. No, he set this whole thing up so that he could manage it from a distance.”