Up in Smoke (Firehouse Three, #4)

by Sidney Bristol

  Chaz slapped the laptop closed. Webb pulled his hands back just in time.

  “What you’re telling me is that one of your agents has been kidnapped and you don’t give two shits about getting her back?” Chaz couldn’t tell if the swelling was coming back, or if he was just angry enough that his vision was blurring.

  “Mr. Fairchild.” Webb leaned back in his chair, hands folded over his middle. “Regarding Agent Harris, it appears that she voluntarily left her post. There is nothing but your word against video evidence that she left here with material vital to our case.”

  Chaz hadn’t mentioned the contents of the safety deposit box yet. The agent questioning and debriefing him hadn’t given Chaz the opportunity to bring it up, so he’d assumed her boss would be the best person to speak to about it. Now...he didn’t want to give it to him. But he couldn’t allow Payton to put herself in danger for nothing.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out the thumb drive.

  “This is Payton’s report about her time spent with Alice and her testimony about why she did what she did. It also has the code to decrypt the data you took off that God damn phone everyone wants so bad.” He slapped the small, rectangular device on the desktop and straightened. His rib ached, his head throbbed, but at least his knee didn’t seem to be bothering him besides a little stiffness.

  Webb’s gaze flicked to the drive.

  Fuck him.

  Payton might die and all this dickhead cared about was...fuck if Chaz knew. Payton sure as hell wasn’t it. Her choices made sense if this was the same Webb she’d told him about.

  Hell, the way Webb was squinting at the USB drive now, he probably thought Payton was the bad guy in all of this. That she’d played them all.

  Chaz couldn’t believe she’d trusted her life to this guy.

  No one spoke to Chaz on his way out of the building. The cold December breeze sliced through his jacket, chilling him to the bone.

  He should be shopping for something nice to give Payton. They should be at home, in front of the tree, talking about what came next. Instead, he might very well be planning her funeral soon. The thought...broke something in him.

  Chaz got on the highway and headed south, letting his mind flow from thought to thought to thought.

  They’d transported him with a bag over his head, so he couldn’t remember street signs or anything of that nature. But...it’d been—what? A twenty-minute drive from the fire to the warehouse? He didn’t want to rely on his sense of time from earlier. He’d been far too out of it as it was to grasp the passing of minutes and hours.

  The windows.

  He’d been able to look out on Reunion Tower from the room they’d kept him in.

  They’d been facing north.

  That still didn’t tell him anything.

  There were easily a hundred older buildings and warehouses down there that could have a similar view. What was he supposed to do? What would Payton do?

  He drove around, searching for something familiar, something he might have seen while with Alice’s people. By the time his low fuel light came on hours later, he wasn’t any closer to finding Payton or where she was being held.

  Chaz needed sleep.

  But he needed Payton more.

  He turned into the next parking lot and rolled into an available spot.

  He got out, putting one foot in front of the other.

  The bell on the door chimed as he stepped into the lobby of Hopeful Paws. He’d been here a couple days ago. With Payton.

  A blonde woman behind the desk stared at him.

  He had to be a mess.

  Abby had snagged him some clean clothes, but that didn’t change the fact that his face was busted up and he felt like hell.

  “Can...I help you?” the young woman asked, her voice vibrating with tension.

  “I’d like...would it be okay if I sat in the kitten room?” His throat closed up around the words. How many days ago had he come looking for Payton and found her curled up on a concrete floor, covered in tiny, furry squirming bodies?

  The woman stared at him a moment longer.

  If she called the cops, he couldn’t blame her. He must look a frightful mess.

  “Chaz?” she said slowly.

  “Yeah?”

  “What happened to you?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  She slowly got to her feet and circled the desk to a door, holding it for him. Without another word, she led him back to a room with two glass walls.

  “One of the kittens went home a few days ago. We still have a couple.”

  Chaz braced a hand on the wall and lowered himself to the floor. Right where he’d found Payton.

  He patted the ground, a tiny, black kitten eyeing him from across the room.

  “Can...I call someone?” Charlie asked.

  “No.”

  The small black kitten, followed by a tuxedo sibling, waddled toward him. He wiggled his fingers, watching them pounce and play.

  Payton was just like a cat. There was no telling her to do anything because she’d do just as she pleased. Despite her coy front, she was loving and loyal. Full of surprises and sass.

  He wanted to spend his life with her, not just a few days, but...how did he find her? Where did he start?

  Payton gasped for breath.

  Wheezed was more like it.

  Damn Brent and his slippery tongue. Whatever he’d said to Alice had not only pissed her off, but she’d put her new thug toy to work on Payton.

  Death would be kinder.

  “I’m going out for dinner,” Alice announced.

  Payton couldn’t see Alice, but she could hear the staccato click, click, click of her heels.

  “What do you want me to do with her?” Mikel asked.

  Payton would have thrown up if she hadn’t already.

  “Whatever you want to. Just—don’t kill her yet.”

  Payton could envision Alice. She’d pause at the door and deliver that line with a hitch to one side of her perfect mouth. Her meaning was clear.

  There were fates worse than death.

  And Alice would use every one of them to get back at Payton.

  She sucked air down.

  Did she have any fight left in her?

  Mikel would have to get her out of the chair. That meant freeing her hands. If she had some fight left in her, if she could muster a defense...

  Who was she kidding?

  Her left arm was out of socket, she was pretty sure her left wrist was wrenched out of place, it hurt to breathe, her neck was jacked and her jaw...yeah. Better to not think about that.

  The door clicked shut.

  No one moved. Not her. Not Mikel.

  Things could be worse. A lot worse. She could be left alone with Wayne, Alice’s former, sadistic head of security. The guy was into torture porn. The real deal. It wasn’t sexual, the man was just that messed up in the head. Mikel was...he was a grade school dropout in comparison to Wayne. Still. He was learning fast.

  She swallowed and forced herself to lift her head and look the man in the eye.

  He tilted his head to the side, in that universal masculine way that spoke of interest.

  She wanted to hurl. To scream. To do everything in her power to get away. Men who looked at women like that weren’t going to buy her a nice dinner and flowers.

  Payton needed to bide her time.

  She wasn’t strong enough to fight back in her state. She had to be smart. Which meant this was likely going to suck.

  She could endure anything if it meant getting away. Couldn’t she?

  Mikel crossed to her until his shin bumped her knees.

  Alice had never permitted rape in her presence. She wasn’t the callous bitch she pretended to be. But what happened when she wasn’t around was none of her concern. Payton knew the rules, but Mikel was still figuring them out.

  He wrapped a hand around her throat and squeezed.

  Payton gasped for air.
r />   He squeezed harder.

  She fought the urge to panic.

  Alice hadn’t given him permission to kill her, but everything else was fair game.

  Mikel drew a long knife from his belt.

  Wait—she knew that knife.

  It was... That was Chaz’s knife. It’d been his father’s. Part of the gear handed down to Chaz. It was a long, sturdy blade, the kind a firefighter could use to hack through something and save someone. It was bigger, a little less wieldy than the ones Payton had learned to fight with as part of her undercover training, but it wasn’t that much different.

  Payton was so enraptured by the blade, she didn’t realize Mikel’s intent until he sliced her long-sleeve shirt down the front. She yelped and pressed herself back into the chair. The blunt edge of the blade poked her stomach, but he didn’t cut her.

  “That’s more like it.” Mikel stood back.

  Eventually, he’d have to realize the logistics and untie her hands.

  Then...he’d be ready for her to struggle.

  Bide her time.

  Wait.

  Patience.

  She had to be smarter because she wasn’t stronger, even if everything in her said to struggle.

  He ran the tip of the blade up between her breasts and up over to her left shoulder. The razor-sharp edge cut into her skin, but not enough to draw blood.

  She could do this. Whatever this was, she could do it.

  Mikel stepped around her and in one slice, cut her wrists free.

  Payton fought the urge to lurch to her feet. She’d been tied up for too long, she wouldn’t get far.

  Mikel hauled her upright. The blood rushed back into her fingers and toes, making her limbs tingle painfully. She tripped over her own feet as he dragged her toward the desk. He wrenched her already dislocated left arm even more. Pain made her vision blur and before she knew it, he’d slammed her face down, bent over the desk.

  Payton sucked in a deep breath and groped with her right hand.

  Where were they?

  She’d seen Alice use them earlier.

  “You be quiet, I don’t want the other brothers thinking they get seconds.” He groped around her waist.

  There.

  Payton grasped the shears, the ones Alice had used to trim her split ends.

  Mikel’s breath fanned against her neck.

  Payton jabbed backward, over her shoulder.

  Mikel shouted.

  He couldn’t make more noise. She couldn’t let him. If the rest of Alice’s puny posse rolled in, she was done for.

  She turned and lunged for him. Mikel tripped over the chair. It’d been kicked over, likely when he pulled her out of it. He went down hard, blood streaming down the side of his face.

  Payton ignored the pain in her left arm, or tried to. She jumped on Mikel’s downed form, driving her knee into his throat.

  Blood.

  There was so much blood.

  Head wounds bled bad, but...not like this.

  He pushed at her, but his strength was flagging.

  “Oh—oh God.” She dropped the scissors and clapped her hands around his neck.

  His blood pulsed forcefully through her fingers.

  Mikel stared up at her, eyes wide, mouth working.

  “I—I’m sorry.”

  She held her hand to the cut, but...she’d hit the jugular vein. And not a little. Alice’s shears were razor sharp. Payton had once sliced her finger so badly on them that she’d needed stitches.

  “Oh...God. I’m sorry.”

  Blood coated her hands, her jeans and the tattered remains of her shirt.

  She stared down into Mikel’s lifeless eyes. He hadn’t been a good person, but he was someone’s son. He should have faced justice...not this.

  Payton sat back, the blood soaking into the worn, wooden floor and pooling around them.

  In all her years, she’d never fired her service weapon or killed a person until this week. So many firsts. None of those were good.

  Then there was Chaz.

  The vision of his face startled her out of her trance.

  She didn’t have the luxury of being in shock.

  Payton couldn’t get out of here. Not on her own, not with Alice keeping so many of her new pets close by. Her left arm was useless and she had no idea where she was, much less where to go.

  She dug her hand into Mikel’s pocket and pulled out his phone.

  He had one of those swipe to unlock screens.

  She pushed to her feet and took the phone to a light mounted on the wall, studying the marks left on the surface of the phone. She traced what part of a line she could make out, then guessed. It took her four tries to get the damn thing unlocked.

  A normal person could call 9-1-1.

  She wasn’t normal.

  If she called the cops, they’d send a single patrol car. Maybe two. And she didn’t have the time or luxury to spend arguing about how she wasn’t a kid looking to prank someone. Teens calling out the cops as a joke were a godsend to the criminally inclined. It made emergency first responders less likely to believe someone like her, in an extreme situation, really needed help. She needed someone else to fight that battle for her.

  Payton activated the GPS and opened the map application. She used the location feature to copy the longitude and latitude coordinates into a text.

  There were only two phone numbers she had memorized.

  She punched in both of them and pasted the coordinates in. She muttered a prayer and hit send.

  If Webb could pull his head out of his ass...

  She didn’t want Chaz to be the one to act on that text, but they were all she had.

  Payton shoved the phone into her pocket. She wanted to knot the ends of her shirt, but her left arm was useless, and she wasn’t the kind of badass who could pop the sucker back in. If she had her way, she’d curl up in the corner as far from...the body and cry until help got there. But she wasn’t positive the cavalry was on their way.

  She had to help herself, even with her tits almost hanging out.

  Payton shoved the shirt into her pants, tucking the ripped bits over herself and limped toward the door.

  No one had come to check on Mikel’s cry of pain.

  Could she hope that his so-called friends had wandered off with Alice?

  Chaz sat in the recliner in the Winters’ house, staring at the scratches on his hands. Those kitten claws were awfully sharp, but they were cute little things. A lot like Payton. She was so disarming with her smiles and laughter, he’d never seen the truth under it all. She was...God she was out there, and no matter how sharp her claws were, she was still in danger.

  And he was powerless to find her. To save her. To help her. A whole day spent driving the city had driven home that fact loud and clear.

  Someone knocked at the door, but it wasn’t his house and he couldn’t muster the energy to care.

  Abby sighed and tromped to the entry.

  She was pissed at him. Rightly so. But he couldn’t find it in him to care, which made him an ass.

  “I’m so sorry for calling you this late,” she said.

  “No, you should have called. How’s he doing?”

  Spencer.

  Ugh.

  “He brought cats into my house.” She enunciated each word with force.

  “Have you taken allergy meds?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are the cats?”

  “My neighbor took them. God, small furry things in my house? That’s a recipe for disaster.”

  “Yeah. You have your EpiPen?”

  “Yes, dad.”

  “Hey, just checking. Seeing you like that was scary. Where’s Kyle?”

  “It’s Christmas Eve. He went to see Dad after we finished at Mom’s, and is likely staying there.” Abby groaned. “I didn’t know what to tell him about—you know.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I told him Cersei got out to make sure he wouldn’t come back here. Kyle hates Ce
rsei.”

  “Who—or what—is Cersei?”

  “She’s my reticulated python rescue. Poor thing was abandoned at Everly’s shelter with burns on over half her body. I couldn’t trace her ownership at all—you have to have a license to own one in the state of Texas—so I took her, since I had my license in order and Everly was sort of freaking out about what to do with her. She’s just a baby, but Kyle is sure Cersei’s going to kill him.”

  “Uh...I don’t know that I’d blame him... Don’t those get kind of big?”

  “Yeah, but she’s just a baby.”

  Spencer chuckled.

  They continued to chat. And yeah, Chaz hadn’t really been thinking when he’d scooped up the kittens and had Charlie put them in a carrier for him to take home. He’d just known...he had to have them. For Payton. Because if she came home, he wanted them to be there waiting for her. And if she didn’t...he couldn’t think about that.

  “Hey, Chaz.” Spencer knelt next to the recliner. It was weird seeing him out of uniform.

  Chaz grunted a non-reply.

  The doorbell rang, so loud it felt like a train spike being rammed into his temple.

  “Head hurt?” Spencer asked.

  “Hi, Tate. Thank you so much for coming over.”

  “No problem. What’s up?”

  Abby and Tate’s voices lowered to whispers. No doubt they were talking about Chaz.

  “Who’s he?” Spencer frowned toward the door where Abby and Tate were huddled together.

  Chaz didn’t bother to reply. What did it matter anymore?

  He’d thought he was so smart. That he could drive around and figure out where Payton was. He’d even called Arthur Long, the detective who’d gone over his house, but the cop was off for Christmas, out of state and had the case taken from him. Said it was a federal matter.

  No one was going to help Payton.

  Chaz was the only one who cared.

  Where was the justice in that?

  “Okay, either you talk to me, or I’m going to have to call an ambulance so we can get your head checked out.”

  “Fuck off, Spencer.”

  “That’s more like it.” He knelt next to the chair, watching Chaz with an eerie stillness that might have been unsettling if Chaz gave a fuck. “I know you’re worried about Payton, but you have to snap out of this, man. You can’t help her if you’re so worked up in your own head about things.”

  “They won’t even look for her. You know that?” Chaz turned his head, his gaze sliding from the tile floor to Spencer’s too-blue eyes.