by Kylie Brant
Twisting away she spun and sped back the direction they’d come. He hadn’t followed her. Hadn’t gotten away and now… Panic fueled her feet, gave them wings. He had to be all right. Had to be had to be had to be…
A force nearly knocked her off her feet before two hard hands gripped her. “You’re not going back there.” Distant sirens sounded. Moments later they were followed by the flash of strobes. The lights were visible before the police cars could be seen coming fast down the ribbon of road in front of the property. “You have to go back for him,” she told Hunter beseechingly. “He’s you friend! He could be…” Her brain reared away from completing the thought.
“You’re my job right now.” But the man’s face was grim as he changed position and led her toward the ditch where they could hail one of the cruisers. And nothing Mia saw in his expression countered the sick twist of dread that was welling inside her.
…you and I will just be beginning…
There was an insidious fear spreading through her system that his promised beginning was never going to materialize.
* * * *
The scene at the Davis house was chaos. Mia stared out the window of the cruiser at the mob of people clogging the drive. Some were attempting to get in their cars, but two police cars strategically blocked the end of the drive. Mia searched in vain for some sign of Jude. Didn’t see him.
She opened the door and got out. “Mia.” Hunter was one pace behind her, his hand on her arm.
“No!” She whirled on him then, her tone fierce. “The police are on scene and you don’t get to try and stop me. I’m warning you, Hunter. I will hurt you.”
His gaze went beyond her. He raised his hands in surrender. “You win.” He smiled. “I guess he can handle you from here.”
Spinning, she looked in the direction of his gaze and her heart flipped. This time when she took off running, Hunter didn’t try to stop her.
The police did. She dodged one who was securing the outer perimeter. Didn’t make it past the next. She struggled in the man’s grasp, drinking in the sheer joy that was Jude. On his feet. Unscathed. His expression was sober as he talked to a policeman.
Until he saw her. His gaze went intense. He strode away from the officer, who called after him, his strides eating up the distance across the lawn. He broke into a trot. Mia calmed in the officer’s grasp until the man loosened his grip. Then she pulled away to race across the grass toward Jude.
The tears running down her face felt foreign. But his arms were familiar. And when they closed around her to hold her close, it felt like coming home.
* * * *
The victim Davis had held in the room he’d used as boot camp had been rescued right away. But it had taken another day to find the spot where the other women were imprisoned, because The Collector wasn’t talking. And right now, three days after the arrest, watching the video of that scene was enough to have nausea churning.
The property had been in the Davis family for generations. The original ranch house had once graced the acres. The local history archives described what a showplace the property had been, with one of the few underground barns in the country. It had once been attached by tunnel to the house so the family didn’t have to go outside for chores in the harsh Nebraska winters. Nearly one hundred years later the house was gone. And the buried barn had become a playground for a madman.
“He’s a sick son-of-a-bitch, but ingenious.” Police investigator Dale Carter watched the video with them. “See this structure directly over it? It houses the water and electrical connections. Mrs. Davis claimed Anthony built the place as a hunting cabin, but there’s barely space for the utility hookups inside.” He sent a quick glance to Mia. “If this is too difficult…”
Jude’s hand reached for hers under the table. Interlaced their fingers. “No.” She’d watch it through, squelching the memories the scene evoked. “If it was once a barn, how did the animals get in and out?”
The man fast-forwarded to shots of the exits. One had two big double doors that looked like an entrance into the back side of the hill. There had been no sign of them in the barn. Davis must have sheet rocked over them when he’d built the shower and the discipline storeroom.
“Here’s the exit you would have escaped from.” She squeezed Jude’s hand as the next part of the film showed a large door fitted at a slant into the front of the slope. “That isn’t the original door or frame. You can see that this was custom made.” Another shot showed it lying next to the yawning stairway. “He put in deep panels that would hold soil and used them for planters. So when it’s closed it looks just like the rest of the pasture. You can’t tell that the door is even there until you’re right on top of it.”
It’d been unsecured but heavy when she’d run up those steps. He hadn’t gone back to lock it. Why bother when the interior door was secured? She could watch all of the footage on the computer with an almost clinical detachment until they got to the part where the women were being led up those stairs. Traveling the same path Mia had taken five and a half years ago.
A sob caught in her chest, and she swallowed hard, beating back emotion. She watched them ascend that stairway one at a time, each wrapped in a blanket. Mia saw familiar faces. Some she didn’t know. All shielded their eyes when they reached the bright sunlight they hadn’t seen for years.
“Is Davis talking yet?” she asked.
Carter’s mouth twisted. “That’s not going to happen. He’s got some fancy LA defense attorney burying us in paperwork. Doesn’t matter. Thanks to you two we had a good idea of where to start looking. There’s enough to convict the guy.”
“Explain the Eldon Weale connection to me.” Jude’s question gave her an excuse to take her gaze off that video, even while she felt like a coward for doing so.
Carter leaned back in his chair. “Had the Jackson Hole police pick him up but when we served the warrant on his two houses, we didn’t find anything that led us to believe he knew anything about these women being held.”
“He received the shipments for the drugs used on them,” Jude interjected. “Had a mail drop in another state to do so.”
“Yes, and we found a shipment still waiting for pick up when we went to check it out. We found plenty of other stuff, too.” The sergeant shook his head in wonder. “I mean, here we have these two guys living in town and we have no indication of what’s going on beneath our noses. Davis was using the credit cards he took from some of his victims and buying items online before they were cancelled. Then Weale repackaged them to sell on eBay. Eldon admits he thought Davis was possibly using client information to run a scam, but I guess as long as he got the extra cut he didn’t ask questions.” Jude snorted and the man gave a wry grin. “Yeah, it’s weak but that’s his attorney’s problem. We’ll keep poking at him, especially once we get the records from his mail drop.”
“The card use would have muddied the waters for investigators looking for the missing women.” At least it had for hers, she’d been told. “I think he might have tipped off paparazzi in my case, claimed to have partied with me in Vegas or LA.” And the tabloids had aired the stories with their usual lack of compunction for facts.
He leaned forward to open a file folder and push it toward Mia. “This is a photo of a map we found in Anthony’s office.”
She picked the picture up and stared at it. And knew without being told what the numbers on it meant. When Jude saw it he glanced at her, concern in his expression. She gave him a tiny shake of her head. She was all right. Finally.
“You can see how the map of the US in the picture is divided into sections and numbered one through thirteen. Employees at the business say the numbers represent districts, each consisting of multiple states. Different salespeople are loosely in charge of clients in the districts assigned to them.” The numbers started on the northern west coast and were numbered one through three in descending order. The pattern continued until it ended on the eastern seaboard, which was numbered ten through thirteen.<
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“He selected an item for his collection from each district,” she whispered. There was a small cluster of states labeled eleven, representing millions of people. And somehow, somewhere she’d been the one to come to his attention. Where had he seen her? She knew they hadn’t met. Mia hadn’t recognized him when she’d first seen him in that garage.
The Collector had told them over and over how carefully he’d chosen them. And it had just been their miserable misfortune to have matched some impossible idea of perfection he’d had that set the wheels in motion.
“I think you’re right,” Carter agreed. “The map matches up with the home areas of most of the women, although a couple were snatched while they were on vacation.”
“Raiker can give you a couple more nails for this guy’s coffin.” Jude reached to flip the folder closed, shoving it over to the other man. “His lab was able to analyze Davis’ voice even though it was electronically altered when he talked to Mia on the phone in West Virginia. Get a sample of his voice and Raiker will run the tests to match them.”
“Not to mention the tox screen.” When the investigator looked puzzled, Mia explained. “When I was kidnapped in Pennsylvania Jude and I were injected with something. Raiker had his labs do a tox screen on Jude’s blood samples. I think you’ll find it has the same components as one of the drugs discovered on Davis’ property.” Perhaps found in those cupboards in the room where she’d been kept.
That made her remember the container she’d been locked in and she wasn’t able to conceal a shudder. Seeing it, Jude stood, his chair scraping the floor. “I think we’re good for now. I appreciate you keeping us in the loop.”
Carter stood as well. “It’s the least I could do. Any other detail you can think of that will help us tighten the noose around Davis, make sure you let me know.”
They crossed to the door, then Jude stopped. Turned. “Am I safe in assuming the complaint against Hunter Mason have been dropped?”
The man had the grace to redden. “Uh…the complainant rescinded her story. Finally admitted that Bruce Sullivan had put her up to it. Given his part in this thing, it’s pretty easy to see it was a ploy to get Ms. Deleon’s bodyguard away from her side.”
They walked through the station and out the front doors. The realization hit Mia like a physical force. “It’s really over.” She looked at Jude. “I mean, forever.”
“Forever,” he echoed. But his voice imbued the word with a totally different meaning. And the look on his face had her heart stuttering. Her hand still in his, he pulled her to a stop before they got to the car. “This is the end of you running, Mia. The end of you never feeling safe. But it can be a beginning, too. For us.”
He seemed to be waiting for her to speak. To say something. Anything. But the familiar fear was fluttering, preventing the words she’d most like to give him.
His gaze was intent. “You said once you were broken. We both are. But together we make something whole. Something damn well worth hanging onto. I’ve never said the words before myself, so believe me I know how scary they are. But I love you, Mia. I don’t expect you to be whole. I don’t expect you to be anyone other than who you are. I just want you to be as brave about this decision as you’ve been about every other damn thing that has happened in your life.”
Feeling like a fraud, she shook her head. “I haven’t been brave. Trying not to feel—at all—is really a sort of cowardice.” One that had served her well, she thought wistfully, until she’d met him. “When I heard that gunshot, I realized my days of feeling nothing were over. Because the fear of losing you was…” She searched for the words to describe the terror that had locked up her lungs. Frozen her veins. The memory made her voice shaky. “I can’t promise this is going to be quick or easy. But for the first time in my life I’m going to reach for something more. I can promise to love you with everything I have inside me.”
He tugged her into his arms in a quick sneaky move, and his embrace was nearly fierce. Reaching up a hand he brushed her hair back from her face with a touch as soft as gossamer. “That’s more than I could hope for.” His mouth came down on hers, and their kiss helped banish the old anxiety before it could rise.
Hope. With this man at her side it was no longer something to be feared.