by Tami Lund
“I think I need to let the police know about this,” she said as she climbed out of the cellar.
She closed the cellar door, and then because it made her nervous to leave it exposed – even though she was fairly certain no one would realize it was there unless they knew about it ahead of time – she pushed a set of steal shelves from one wall to another, so that they were at least partially covering the door in the floor.
She then stepped into the bathroom and washed her hands and wiped her face with a wet paper towel. She brushed dirt and rust flakes off her clothes and flipped off the light as she left the bathroom. She grabbed her keys and purse off of a shelf and opened the backdoor. Butter darted out and then began barking madly.
Gabriella noticed that a car had been backed up to within a few feet of the door. The trunk was open. Gabriella’s brain registered that this situation did not feel right. She immediately tried to push the door closed, but a foot was wedged into the doorway. She gave up her efforts and turned and rushed through the storeroom, heading towards the front of the candy store. If she could just get through the storeroom door, someone – preferably Brandon, from his office directly across the street – would see her, would see her assailant, and would come to her rescue.
But she was tackled from behind before she reached the door. She fell to the floor, knocking the air out of her lungs. Before she could gather her strength to fight, she felt something press against her neck. A scant second later, there was a pinprick of pain and within another few seconds, her mind began to fog, and then it shut down completely.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Brandon glanced at the clock in the upper right hand corner of his computer. Four twenty-six. Late enough, he decided, to call it quits on a Friday afternoon. Besides, he was exhausted from lack of sleep and worry, thanks to the late-night visit from Gabriella’s ex-boyfriend’s brother. He hoped to hell that Gabriella had gone to the police station and they had already contacted the Dallas PD, who were hopefully in the process of arresting Miguel Martinez. Brandon had a feeling he would not sleep well until he knew Miguel was either behind bars or kicked out of the country.
He glanced up from his computer screen and looked at the plate glass window that faced the candy store directly across the street. Was Gabriella even now at the police station? Or was she still at the house, catching up on the sleep she missed last night? He hadn’t seen a single trace of activity across the street, and he looked at that damn candy store a hundred times a day, at least.
A flash of buttery yellow caught his eye and drew it downward. Butter was there, at the door to the DDA office, scratching and barking madly. The thick glass drowned out the sound, but he could tell she was barking by the way her mouth kept opening, over and over, without pause, as she stood on her hind legs and scrabbled at the door with her front paws.
“What’s she doing on this side of the street? And why’s she having such a damn fit?” He stood up and headed across the office to the door. As soon as he pulled it open, the dog rushed inside and began running circles around his legs, without ever letting up on the incessant barking. He waited a heartbeat and then glanced outside, looking for Gabriella. If the dog was here, Gabriella couldn’t be far behind.
But she wasn’t on the sidewalk and her car wasn’t parked out front. “You didn’t get out and wander over here, did you?” he asked, looking down at the dog. She danced at his feet, still barking nonstop.
“Stop already!” he snapped. The barking was giving him a headache. “Why are you so damn excited?”
He stepped out onto the sidewalk and looked across the street. The candy store was dark. The setting sun glared off the windows, making it impossible to see inside. As soon as he opened the door, Butter bolted across the street and went running down the block.
“Butter!” Brandon called, thinking at the same time how much he hated that name. Who named their dog something so silly as Butter?
But he smiled as the thought occurred to him. He shook his head and realized Gabriella could do any old silly thing she wanted, just as long as he was somehow involved. His smile widened. Gabriella was gun-shy when it came to relationships, but that’s okay, he could wait.
He thought about the older women in his family. If only they could see him now. Brandon Sarantos, local heartthrob, renowned playboy, was ready to settle down, after having only met Gabriella a couple weeks ago. Mind-boggling. But in a good way.
Definitely a good way.
Butter’s barking jarred him back to the present, and he realized she had not stopped when he called her, and was still charging down the block. He called out the dog’s name again and then jogged across the street after her. She rounded the corner at the end of the block and Brandon jogged up to the corner just in time to see her bolt around the corner again, down the alley behind the candy store. Brandon was starting to feel slightly alarmed now, so he picked up his pace and chased after the dog.
When he reached Butter, she was frantically scratching at the back door to the candy store. Gabriella’s car was parked under the stairs leading up to the apartment. “Did she lock you out?” he asked the dog, even as his heart rate inexplicably accelerated.
Quite suddenly, he had an impending sense of doom. He rapped his knuckles on the door but no one responded. He looked around and noticed another set of tire tracks. Someone had backed right up to the back door. He glanced around again and spotted something on the ground near the door. He stepped closer and his heart stuttered in his chest.
“Gabriella’s purse,” he said.
He opened the purse and pawed through it. Her phone was there, but her keys were not. Purse in hand, he bolted down the alley, running home as fast as his legs would carry him. Butter belatedly realized he’d left and chased after him, still barking nonstop.
He ran straight to his house, burst through the back door and began shouting Gabriella’s name. When he received no response, he switched tactics.
“Gabby, answer me, damn it!” She may get pissed off at him for using the nickname she only tolerated from a select few individuals, but at least he would know she was safe and sound and nothing had happened to her.
Unfortunately, that tactic did not work. There was no response to his shouts.
He raced upstairs, checking every room before he finally pulled her phone out of her purse, found Emmett’s number and pressed send.
“Hey sis,” Emmett said when he answered the phone.
“Emmett, it’s Brandon. Have you seen or heard from your sister lately?” He could hear the panic in his own voice.
Emmett was instantly on alert. “What do you mean, lately? I haven’t talked to her since yesterday. What the hell is going on?”
“She’s gone. Her purse was on the ground outside the candy store and the dog is having an apoplectic fit. She swears she saw Miguel Martinez’s brother snooping around the house last night.”
“Oh shit.”
He could hear shuffling, movement on the other end of the line. Probably Emmett pulling on his coat and digging for his car keys. He hadn’t known Emmett for very long, but he could tell he was a highly protective younger brother.
“I’m at your parents’ house. I’m on my way to your house right now.”
Five minutes later, Emmett’s rental car screeched to a halt at the curb in front of Brandon’s house. Brandon rushed out the back door, leaving Butter howling in the laundry room. Emmett leapt out of the car and met him on the front lawn. “Tell me what happened,” Emmett demanded.
“Last night, Gabriella saw some guy snooping around the house. She said it was Miguel’s brother” –
“Hector,” Emmett said grimly.
“Yes, that’s it. We called the cops and they came and took him away. Gabriella stayed home today, to sleep in, since it happened in the middle of the night, and I know she didn’t go back to sleep afterward. She was planning to go to the police station to follow up, since they didn’t talk to us last night” –
“They did
n’t take a statement last night?”
Brandon shook his head.
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah, we thought so too.” Brandon glanced at his watch. “I haven’t talked to her all day. And about forty-five minutes ago, Butter was standing in front of my office having a fit. When I opened the door, she took off down the street, to the back door of the candy store. Gabriella’s car was there and her purse was on the ground.”
“She swears it was Hector last night?”
“She was scared out of her mind. I was half afraid she’d try to sneak out and run away in the middle of the night.” More than half-afraid. He’d kept his arms wrapped around her in a vise-like grip for the rest of the night and had barely slept at all, for fear that she would slip out of his grasp and out of his life.
“Shit. We have to move, fast. Hector probably has her, and his goal is going to be to get her to Miguel as quickly as possible. Let’s go to the police first, see if Gabby made it there.”
Brandon pulled the keys to his truck out of his pocket. “I’ll drive.”
***
An hour later, Brandon’s frustration level was so high, he had an almost desperate need to hit something. Daniel Franks was number one on his hit list, although Miguel and Hector Martinez ranked high up there, too.
Brandon hated Daniel for what he did to his sister, and now that hatred burned even deeper. He was a completely incompetent police officer. Brandon hoped they took his badge after this debacle.
He’d been in such a hurry to go on his vacation that he hadn’t bothered to file last night’s report correctly, nor to turn in Hector. Brandon’s vision glazed for a moment and all he could see was red, as the realization that he could lose Gabriella pressed down on his very soul. And it was Daniel’s fault. If he had done his job correctly last night, Hector would be in jail and Gabriella would be home – at his home – safe and sound right now.
“Hey, you okay, man?” Emmett’s concerned voice cut through the haze of anger.
Brandon blinked and turned to look at him. He hadn’t really paid attention to how much Emmett looked like Gabriella until that moment, and seeing it now caused his throat to close up.
Her look-alike brother gave Brandon’s shoulder a squeeze. “Hang in there, man. We’ll find her. We have to.”
The irony that Emmett seemed to have decided that Brandon was worthy of his sister after all did not escape him. Now that he may never see her again. Emmett squeezed tighter and Brandon forced himself to focus on Emmett – and to focus on coming up with a plan.
“Let’s go to Daniel Franks’ apartment,” Brandon said. “Maybe he hasn’t yet left for his vacation. I want to know why he fucked up that arrest last night.”
“Good idea,” Emmett said.
Neither man spoke out loud what they were both thinking: it’s the only lead we have at this point. The police promised they would do everything they could to try to find Gabriella, but really, what could they do? Brandon felt like the only thing they were doing was feeding information to the Dallas PD. And the Dallas PD was two thousand miles away.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gabriella struggled to focus, to pull her mind out of the darkness. Her head felt like an army of hammers were relentlessly beating away at her skull. She wanted to close her eyes and sink back into the oblivion, where no pain could reach. But fear kept her awake. Fear of Miguel.
She tried to shift her body and realized she was bound. She was sitting upright, in a chair of some sort. She wiggled her fingers. Her hands were bound behind her back, and her body was bound to the chair. Even her legs were strapped to the chair.
She finally slit her eyes open and waited until her vision stopped swimming. She widened her eyes and glanced around, discovered she was in a small kitchen, tied to a chair near a small wooden table. She could see a patio door and a small living area beyond it. She was pretty sure she was in an apartment, but it wasn’t the one above her candy store. She focused on the man standing in front of her and let out an involuntary gasp.
“Daniel?”
Daniel Franks grimaced. “Surprised, Gabriella? You shouldn’t be. I’ve been warning you to get out of town and abandon that damn candy store for weeks.” He paused and shook his head. The look on his face was grim.
“It never would have come to this if you’d listened. And now you’re getting a double whammy.”
“A what?” Gabriella forced herself to focus on the man standing in front of her. Her brain still felt fuzzy. She was having a difficult time putting together coherent thoughts.
“I gave you plenty of warnings. Hell, I thought finding Mr. Partridge’s body would be enough. I don’t know why you are so hard-headed.”
“What does Mr. Partridge have to do with this?”
“It was me, Gabriella. I’ve been trying to scare you away from the candy store. I’ve tried everything. I even tracked down Chareese and convinced her to come back into town for the weekend, hoping she would lure Brandon away from you. I’m not an idiot. I figured out he was the reason you wouldn’t leave. But now it doesn’t matter. I’m finally going to get the store.”
“How? Why?” Gabriella asked, afraid her fate would be the same as Mr. Partridge’s. All over a stupid candy store. Why was Daniel Franks so obsessed with the candy store?
“All I wanted was for you to decide to get rid of that damn candy store. I just needed you to dump it, cheap, so that I could buy it from you. If you would have just given up, it wouldn’t have come to this.”
“To what?” Was he really going to kill her? Over the candy store? This made no sense.
“I understand you had quite the life back in Dallas.” He said the words softly, and watched the fear blossom across her face.
She gasped. “No.” Anything but that. Anything. “I’ll sell it to you. I’ll give it to you,” she blurted. Just please, no…
Daniel glanced at his watch. “Too late, Gabriella. You had your chance.”
“Please…” She couldn’t leave Brandon. She couldn’t.
“Why are you so upset? Hector Martinez said his brother would be thrilled to learn that his errant fiancé was tucked away right here in our quaint little town. So thrilled, in fact, that he promised to sign over ownership of the candy store, if I kept you secured until he arrived.”
“It’s not his to sign over,” Gabriella argued.
“Oh, but it will be. Just as soon as you two are married.”
“No.”
“Afraid so, Gabriella. I’ll give your regrets to Brandon, of course.”
Gabriella’s eyes filled with tears at the mention of Brandon’s name. Dear God, she would never see him again. The thought was almost more than she could bear. It was worse than the thought of dying.
“Why are you doing this, Daniel?”
“Oh, I’m getting something out of it. Something I’ve been searching for, for seven years.”
“How could I possibly be connected to something you’ve been searching for that long? I’ve only known you two weeks.”
Daniel’s face twisted with pent up anger. “My ex wife took everything. Everything. I’m in debt up to my eyeballs and she still takes half my paycheck for child support. Hell, I can’t even afford to see my kids because I can barely afford to feed myself, let alone two additional mouths. I can’t get ahead. She took it all,” he repeated.
Gabriella recalled Brandon mentioning that Daniel had been married to one of his cousins, and that they had both been unfaithful. She imagined Daniel must feel cheated because of the Sarantos’ obvious influence in this town.
But that wasn’t reason enough to kidnap Gabriella and hand her over to Miguel. At least, not in Gabriella’s mind.
“I need a windfall,” Daniel continued. “Somewhere in that candy store is a giant pile of cash, and I want it. It will solve all my problems. I can give my ex a lump sum and get the hell out of this hell hole.”
Gabriella glared at him. “Is the money rightfully yours?” Was he related
to the family who once owned the candy store, and hid that pile of cash in the cellar?
“If I find it first, it is. That family’s long gone. Hell, half of them never believed the money existed in the first place. But I know it does.”
“How?”
Daniel gave her an impatient look and glanced at his watch again. “My dad told me about it. He was friendly with the kooky old man who hid it. Guy was afraid of banks, so every dime he ever made, he kept, and stored it in his own way. That candy store was just one of all of the businesses that family owned. They were the first fucking Sarantos,” he spat, a sour look on his face. Clearly, Daniel had jealousy issues.
“If I tell you where the money is, will you let me go?”
Daniel stiffened. “What?”
“I know where it is. I’ve seen it.”
A myriad of emotions rushed across his face, as he waged an internal battle. Finally, he shook his head and gave her a disgusted look. “You’re lying. No other candy store owner in the last seven years found that money, and some of them actually believed it existed. You probably don’t even believe it’s there. And you’ve only been here for two weeks.”
“It’s in the cellar,” she blurted, hoping against hope that Daniel would believe her and free her before Miguel arrived. “There’s a cellar underneath the storeroom. It’s a hidden door. It was underneath that pile of overstock. No one ever got around to throwing it all away, so no one knew it was there.”
Daniel stared at her, remaining stock still for the count of ten. Then he snarled, “I’ve been scaring people out of that place for seven years and there’s a goddamned cellar no one told me about? Son of a bitch.”
“Please let me go. Please. Take the money, I don’t care. You can have the candy store too. I’ll sign it over to you, free and clear. Please just let me go. I don’t want to go back to Dallas. Please.”
She was begging and she didn’t care. She didn’t care if she sounded weak and pitiful, if that’s what it took to get Daniel to let her go. She didn’t want to go back to Dallas and marry Miguel, but even more than that, she didn’t want to leave Brandon. The thought made her throat close and she choked on a sob.