by B. J Daniels
But her gaze was on the cowboy in front of her. She was caught. At least for the moment. All her instincts told her that they needed to get out of here. It didn’t feel safe.
“I’m at a disadvantage,” she said. “You know who I am, but I don’t even know your last name. I’d like to know the name of the man who chased me clear across the state.”
“Grayson. Thorn Grayson.” He grabbed the other chair, swung it around and placed it directly in front of her—blocking her escape. “Now where is Geneva Davenport and what the hell were you doing in her bed last night?”
“You make it sound so sordid. I was alone.”
“Sit down and start talking.”
“Fine.” She sat, trapped. One thing was clear at this point. Whoever this man was, he would keep chasing her. He was relentless. Now he’d caught her. He knew who she was. There was no getting out of this. Unless she could convince this cowboy to help her. But that would mean telling him everything. “It’s a long story.”
He leaned back, crossing his arms as if he had all night.
She frowned at him, realizing that was the case. “I know nothing about you.”
He smiled at that. “You don’t need to know anything about me.”
She raised a brow. “But I’m supposed to bare my soul to you?” She thought of earlier in his galvanized tub in the front of the fire. She’d bared a lot more than her soul already.
“If you have nothing to hide...”
She scoffed at that. “Who has lived to this age and has nothing to hide?” Her eyes narrowed at him. “Including you? Why don’t you tell me about your wife.”
He seemed to grit his teeth, and shifted in his chair as if to rise. “If you’d rather tell your story to the cops...”
She thought he was bluffing. Wouldn’t he have already called them if he were going to? “One question first.”
He looked at her with obvious impatience as he settled back into the chair.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why haven’t you turned me over to the cops already? Why did you go to all the trouble of even tracking me down? All you would have had to do was give the cops a description of your pickup and let them find me. You could have just gone back to your...life.”
She saw that hit a sore spot.
“Clearly, you don’t get my life. But then you are in no position to judge, are you?” He had her there. “Once it became abundantly clear that things weren’t as they seemed, I wanted answers. I want them directly from you. Also, you took my truck. Gertrude and I have a history.”
“Gertrude? Isn’t that also the name of your mule?”
“I named the mule after my truck. Now would you please quit stalling?” He leaned back. “So why are you so afraid of the law?”
“I have a record.”
“And you think they might suspect that you were involved in the kidnapping?”
“I can’t imagine how,” she said even though she could. At the very least, she’d trespassed. That could get her fired if not worse. Geneva or her grandfather could press charges, and she had enough financial problems as it was.
“Tell me how it was that you were kidnapped from Geneva Davenport’s bed,” he said.
“I was house-sitting. Kinda.” She glanced away for a moment, his gray gaze too intense.
“Kinda? How did you get into the house?”
“I know the security code. Geneva gave it to me. I’m her travel adviser and planner. I arrange luxury accommodations for her and make sure she has everything she needs when she arrives.”
“There’s such a job?”
JJ sighed. “It’s what I do. Look, I don’t think we should stay here. Maybe there is somewhere else we could go to talk about this. I just have a bad feeling.”
“A bad feeling?” He seemed to consider that. “Or you’re stalling.”
She rolled her eyes. “Have you always been so suspicious?”
Before he could answer, his cell phone rang. He checked the screen and then rose to take the call. “Yes?”
Her heart dropped. She’d just about bared her soul to him, and she had no idea who he was talking to on the other end of the line. She hadn’t been lying about that bad feeling. It felt even stronger now. She glanced toward the open doorway as he turned his back to talk to whoever was on the other end of the call.
Her mind whirled. Was he talking to his associates in crime? He’d known the passcode to get into the house—just like the kidnappers. If he had broken in, the alarm would have gone off. The cops would have been all over this place when she arrived. Unless he’d gotten the passcode from Franklin Davenport, but knowing Geneva, JJ doubted the young woman would have given it to her grandfather. Not that he probably couldn’t get it.
She picked up the chair she’d been sitting on and swung it, catching Thorn in the back. Grabbing her duffel bag as he went down, she sprinted toward the door without looking back. She flew down the stairs. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn’t hear if he was behind her or not. She doubted being hit by even an expensive well-made bedroom chair could keep the cowboy down.
She was almost to the lower level when the front door burst open. As she tried to skid to a stop, two men she’d never seen before rushed her. She swung the duffel bag, but her target only jerked it out of her hand and threw it aside. She kicked the other one in the groin and started to turn to run back the way she’d come, when he grabbed her and punched her in the face. Stars danced before her eyes an instant before everything went black.
* * *
THORN STRUGGLED TO his feet at the sound of an engine revving up outside. Had he really turned his back on the woman again? Rushing out of the bedroom, he caught sight of a man dumping JJ into the back of a large SUV, then climbing in. The driver hit the gas even before the door closed, and the vehicle left in a haze of smoke boiling up from the tires on the pavement.
He knew he’d never be able to get to her before they took off. But he headed down the stairs at a run anyway. He’d risked his neck for nothing because before he reached the main floor, the SUV turned the corner and disappeared in the pines on the road down to the main highway.
Swearing, he turned back into the house. Spotting her duffel bag lying on the floor, he picked it up and headed to the back of the house where he’d left his motorcycle. The only thing he could do at this point was to go after her, cussing her the whole way. What had she been thinking, hitting him with that chair and running?
He raced out the back of the house and leaped onto his bike. Flathead Lake’s slick surface had turned to silver in the moonlight.
His back hurt from where the chair had knocked the wind out of him and sent him sprawling to the floor. He should have known not to turn his back on her.
What about what she’d told him? She was Geneva’s travel agent? If she was telling the truth, Geneva Davenport had given her the passcode to her house.
Unless all that had been nothing but a fairy tale she’d spun for him. Damn the woman. He was trying to help her. But even as he thought it, he reminded himself that it wasn’t the job the judge had asked him to do. He was no closer to finding Geneva. If JJ had been telling the truth, then she knew where the woman was because she might have made the arrangements for Geneva to travel somewhere, which would explain why JJ was supposedly house-sitting—kinda.
He heard his cell phone ring and knew it was the judge again. He’d cut him off in midsentence to chase after JJ. When he’d called later, he’d had to tell WT that he didn’t have Geneva. That there’d been a mix-up.
Now he had to fix this. As far as he knew, Geneva Davenport was still in trouble. But so was JJ, he told himself as he went after her. And JJ might be the only person who could help him find Geneva and finish this.
He roared down the road in time to see the dark SUV turn onto the main highway and hea
d south. He slowed, letting a car or two go by before he also turned onto the highway. He had no idea where JJ was being taken or by whom. He assumed the kidnappers must still believe that they had Geneva, which meant she was safe for the moment.
But why wouldn’t they believe that she perished when the plane crashed and later exploded?
Because the missing kidnapper from the plane, Baker, must have seen JJ alive and by the plane before it blew up. Or seen Thorn and JJ at some point as they were leaving the site. Either way, the kidnappers now thought they had Geneva again.
He hated to think what they would do to her when they realized they had the wrong woman—and had from the beginning.
* * *
“FRANKLIN, MAY I speak to you in private?” WT said as he returned to the dining room. He could see that his friend was about to protest, about to assure him that anything he had to say could be said in front of his attorney and chief financial officer.
But he must have seen the judge’s expression because he stopped himself and rose. “If you’ll excuse us. Please help yourself to dessert.”
Franklin led him into his den. “Is it Geneva?” he asked, sounding terrified.
“The woman on the plane wasn’t Geneva.”
His friend blinked. “What? Are you telling me she wasn’t kidnapped?”
“It’s a little complicated. A woman who was staying at your granddaughter’s house was kidnapped. We believe the kidnappers thought they had Geneva. At this point, I don’t think they know any different.”
Franklin lowered himself into a chair and rubbed his forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“I don’t have the whole story yet, and neither does my...contact. But we should soon. We have to assume that Geneva is still in trouble. I think you should continue to raise the money for the ransom demand.”
His friend nodded slowly. “So we have no idea where she is.”
WT shook his head. “I’m sorry. And I think we should keep this to ourselves.”
Franklin rose to his feet wearily and faced him. “I noticed something between you and Helen.”
“It’s a long story.” And definitely not one he wanted to get into.
“You don’t trust her? Or is it Curtis? He’s young but—”
“I don’t trust anyone right now, and won’t until Geneva is back here and we know exactly what’s going on. You shouldn’t either.”
* * *
JJ WOKE UP slowly to rocking. It took her a moment in her foggy condition to realize she was on a bumpy gravel road. She had no idea how long she’d been out or where they were taking her. She didn’t have long to think about it.
“I hope to hell you didn’t kill her,” she heard one of the men say from the front of the vehicle.
“I checked. She’s still breathing.”
“The boss said to bring her to him when we found her, but he definitely needs her alive.”
As the vehicle came to a stop, she groaned inwardly. Her jaw felt as if it was broken. She opened her mouth, closed it and opened it again. It hurt but it seemed to still work. To her surprise, only her wrists were bound with tape—just like they’d been on the plane, only this time behind her.
She appeared to be in the cargo area of a large SUV. When it stopped, she tried to sit up, but a hand pushed her back.
“Stay down!” a man ordered. “Or I’ll hit you again.”
“The boss won’t be happy about you hitting her,” the driver said, and the other man told him what he could do with his comment.
She heard what sounded like the driver waiting for a line of traffic to pass. A moment later, they were moving again.
Was there only the two men that she’d seen when she’d come racing down the stairs? “Where are you taking me?” No surprise that no one answered her. She thought she caught the scent of water. Did that mean she was still around Flathead Lake?
The driver braked to a stop, killed the engine and got out. She could see the tops of dense pine trees out the window and realized she could be anywhere.
The back of the SUV opened.
The man who’d been holding her down slid out, grabbing her ankles and pulling her toward him. As he did, he drew a pocket knife and flopped her over on her stomach. Grabbing her bound wrists, he began sawing through the tape. “Not so uppity now, huh.”
As her wrists were freed, he jerked her out of the SUV by one leg. Still dizzy from the blow to her head, she stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. With one hand holding her upper arm tightly, he buried his fingers in her hair until he had a handful. “You know what happens if you fight me again.”
She could only assume, but all the fight had gone out of her. The second man appeared and grabbed her other arm. They half dragged her toward what appeared to be a small old cabin in the woods. Through the pines, she could see the lake and what appeared to be a huge new home being built on the lakeshore.
JJ realized that she could no longer hear the traffic on the highway, and realized just how alone she was here with these two men. If they’d brought her to this isolated area to kill her, they’d picked the perfect place.
The driver pushed open the door into the cabin. She blinked as musty cold air rushed out of the dim darkness. Looking around, she felt as if she’d been transported back to another time. The cabin appeared unchanged from maybe the 1940s, with its knotty pine walls, old bar signs and fishing photos. It smelled like an antique photo album, she thought as the two men hauled her into the living room area.
At first she thought there wasn’t anyone else in the room. Until she saw a figure move from the shadows and into the light of the front window.
* * *
THORN FOLLOWED ON his motorcycle, making sure he kept a car or two between him and the dark colored SUV. They’d headed south along the lake, passing cherry orchards and U-Pick signs, before he saw the SUV’s blinker come on as the driver waited in the traffic before it pulled up and turned off the highway.
Thorn wasn’t worried about the men spotting the tail. He didn’t think they had seen his motorcycle behind Geneva’s house. They’d come right to the front door as if they knew exactly not only what they wanted, but also how to get in.
Had they come to the house looking for JJ? Or Geneva? Or did they know the difference yet? Because of that, he didn’t have any idea who they were or what they were planning to do with JJ.
All he knew for sure was that they had her and he was getting her back. Ahead, he saw the SUV turn off and disappear into the pines. He drove past with the rest of the traffic, but turned back the first opportunity he had.
By then there was no sign of the SUV as he followed the narrow dirt road it had taken into the pines. He hadn’t gone far when he caught the glint of the SUV’s bumper partway down the hillside. On this side of the lake, the land dropped away steeply to the water.
Thorn slowed and pulled over. Cutting his engine, he hid the bike in the undergrowth and then headed through the trees toward the SUV. As he approached, he spotted the cabin just off the road. Farther down the hill, he saw the shine of bare new wood, and realized a huge house was being built right on the water far below the cabin.
He wondered how the men who’d taken JJ had access to this place. Whoever had hired them could own the land, but why bring her here in that case? It crossed his mind that the men might be part of the construction crew. They would know about the cabin, and since it didn’t appear anyone else was around over the weekend, knew they could use it. But use it for what purposes? He had his handgun in its holster under his jacket, but picked up a chunk of firewood as he neared the cabin. He preferred not to kill anyone if he could prevent it.
Hearing nothing, he worked his way cautiously toward the door. He told himself that they hadn’t brought JJ here to hurt her, but he couldn’t be sure of that. The hillside felt unearthly quiet, as if anything could happen
here without the rest of the world knowing.
* * *
JJ STARED AS the figure materialized from the shadows. For a horrible moment, she thought that she was about to meet Franklin Davenport. All she knew about the man was what she’d overheard Geneva telling her friends when she’d called to make travel arrangements at the agency. And that was plenty.
Geneva had made him sound like a tyrant who used his power to get anything he wanted. The kind of man who could crush someone like JJ without giving her a second thought.
But as the man stepped forward, she realized he wasn’t the distinguished older man she’d seen in the newspaper articles. He looked to be no more than fifty, with pale eyes and a head of dark wavy hair. He looked as if he’d been spending the weekend on the lake, dressed in shorts, polo shirt and boat shoes. He was handsome in a dark, intense kind of way. She had no idea who he was or why she’d been brought here. He definitely wasn’t Zac Judson, the man Geneva had been dating. She’d seen a photo of the two of them at the house.
The man sighed as he moved toward JJ. “You’ve done a great job of avoiding me. Until now. I don’t think you realize who you’re dealing with, although you should. No one rips me off. Especially you.” His eyes seemed to narrow, brows furrowing with each step, until he was only a few feet from her in the dimly lit cabin.
When he finally spoke, his voice was low. “Who the hell is this, Ryan?” He looked at the man on her right, the one who’d been driving.
“Boss?” Ryan said, sounding confused.
Then the boss shifted his gaze to the one on her left. “Bobby?”
The men flanking her glanced from their boss to her and back in even more confusion. “It’s Geneva Davenport,” Bobby said, sounding nervous. Not as nervous as JJ.
The boss let out a laugh that held no humor. “How did you come up with that?”
“We took her out of her house. The lights were on. She came hauling down the stairs...” Ryan said, no longer sounding sure of anything. He looked over at JJ and frowned as if she’d somehow tricked him.