Love Inspired Suspense January 2014

by Shirlee McCoy

  Stupid. She and Josh had done a lot of dumb things the past few days, but not asking to see ID on the man questioning her was the worst.

  “Don’t beat yourself up too much. We’ve been doing this a long time in a lot of places. You’re an amateur up against pros. It was only a matter of time before you stumbled.” The man leaned forward so that his face was inches from hers. “Now. Tell me what you figured out. You can start with that last piece of information First Sergeant Walker found.”

  Andrea shook her head and backed as far as she could against the wall, digging her voice up from where it had plummeted to her toes. “I do that, and you’ll kill me right here.”

  He sat back and tapped his finger on the gun, still flat on the seat beside him. “I think we’ve already proven more than once we’re not out to kill you. We don’t need your blood on our hands.”

  “You’re lying. You killed Wade, so there’s no reason you wouldn’t take me out next.”

  His eyebrow arched as he tipped his head to the side. “You’re way too smart to have fallen for something as stupid as me being a cop.” He chuckled. “You’re right. But look at it this way. Either way you’re dead. At least make it mean something.”

  “You’re out of luck. Without all of the pieces, you don’t have enough information to locate and access.”

  She sat back, arms crossed, allowing a look of triumph to creep onto her face. He could kill her if he wanted, but he wasn’t going to get a thing out of her for the trouble.

  “Check her cell phone.” The voice came from the front of the ambulance.

  For the first time, Andrea considered the driver.

  It was the young paramedic who had worked on her earlier. He’d been in and out of the apartment the entire time she and Josh talked, practically invisible to her.

  Her jaw fell open before she could stop it.

  The fake detective chuckled low. “See, Ms. Donovan? You just can’t win.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Now you can hand your phone over, or I can take it by force.”

  Andrea considered her options. There was nowhere to run in the crowded back of the ambulance, and he definitely had the size advantage, not to mention the gun.

  Conceding to temporary defeat, she passed the phone to him as the ambulance slowed.

  Martin flicked through, then pulled out his own cell phone and pressed the screen. “Yeah. It’s me. If I’m deciphering this right, it’s the storage place at 5977 Whitesville Road. You were right about it being this side of town.” He flipped through her phone again. “Looks like the unit you’re looking for is D-4 and the combination is probably 00-12-30.”

  And just like that, the men who’d pursued her knew everything. As the ambulance made a gentle turn, she swayed with it, helplessness weighing her.

  They were hardly stopped before the doors swung open to reveal two men, guns trained on them. For one heartbeat, Andrea sagged in relief. She was safe.

  But then the barrels turned to her and she knew… There was no way she was getting out of this alive.

  *

  By the time Josh yanked open the door to the apartment, his lungs were near exploding. A shot of cool air burned in his chest, and it was a moment before he could call out for her. “Andrea!”

  Nothing. The only movement in the entire room was the window blind swaying in the breeze.

  He was in the middle of the kitchen when Detective Simmons and two other officers bolted through the doors. “They here?”

  Josh aimed a finger at the hallway, the habit of command driving him to take charge, to do something. “Check the rest of the place.” He hoped against every negative thought in him that this Martin character had locked her in her bedroom and hadn’t somehow managed to make off with her right under everyone’s noses.

  The kitchen and den looked no different than when he’d left a couple of minutes before. He spun back into the hallway in time to catch Detective Simmons’s curt head shake.

  Andrea and the fake detective couldn’t have disappeared into vapor. He gripped the back of his neck. Then again, Cameron had done the same thing to him just a few days ago. Vanished, evaporated. He rolled his eyes heavenward. Only this time, there was no way they’d crawled through the ceiling.

  “Has anyone left the scene?” One of the uniforms near Simmons spoke into his radio and waited for an answer.

  The squawk came immediately. “Just the ambulance. About five minutes ago.”

  Josh’s stomach seemed to hit the soles of his running shoes. The ambulance. The one he’d stepped aside to let pass in the parking lot as he made the mad dash back to the building with the officers on his tail.

  Detective Simmons’s mouth drew into a grim line. She snatched the radio from the officer’s hand. “Track down that ambulance. Now. Our suspects have Andrea Donovan in it.” She smacked the radio against the officer’s chest and stalked across the room to Josh. “We will find her.”

  She was gone with the other officers before he could respond, leaving him alone to kick himself in the teeth. He sank onto the same ottoman where he’d comforted Andrea two days before. This was it. This time there was no denying his culpability. He’d killed her.

  No. Even as he thought it, he shot to his feet. There was no way he’d give up, not until he had her back. Not until every last option died in front of his eyes. This was different than staring helplessly at charred wreckage. This time, there was hope.

  *

  The danger hadn’t fully seeped in when Martin stepped down from the ambulance then reached up and, ironically, helped Andrea to the ground. She was shuffled into the backseat of a white SUV and seated between the new guys with guns before she could get her bearings. By the time her trouble sank in all the way and she figured out they were in the parking lot of her church, the ambulance and Martin were gone.

  “Well, Ms. Andrea. Here we are.” A familiar voice drifted from the front seat, washing relief over the fear and ebbing the tension from her muscles.

  Safe! She was safe. Only… She still sat here between two armed men. A wave of relief crested on panicked uncertainty. As strange as everything had been up until now, this really felt like her sanity was gone. “Mr. Miller?”

  The man turned from the front passenger seat, his round face hard behind eyes that glittered. “You should have listened early on. Then we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

  This was not the man who daily brought her coffee. Who smiled and laughed and teased her about whom she should marry someday. This was a man with a jaw set into a hard line by contempt. “I’m not… I don’t…” Her thoughts wouldn’t form; the words couldn’t come. The world felt as if it were spinning out of control. Seeking a solid place, her fingers sought the edge of the seat, but grasped the knee of the giant beside her instead.

  He laughed.

  Jerking her hand back, she clasped her hands between her knees so tightly her fingertips went numb. “I don’t understand.”

  “What is there to understand? When you moved into the building, I first thought having you near would be a nuisance, at best. But then I realized the easy pickings of a rehab clinic right next door. So I tried a little experiment with Mr. Cameron. As it turns out, it doesn’t take much to tempt a man back into old habits.”

  An experiment? On Wade? Why would it matter to Mr. Miller whether or not Wade stayed clean and sober? Unless… The SUV seemed to wobble beneath her, and she clasped her palms tighter together, biting the inside of her lip.

  One of the gunmen shifted away from her. “If she loses her breakfast, I’m shooting her.”

  “Weak stomach, Taylor?” Mr. Miller shook his head. “Never would have thought that of you.”

  “You know better. I got new shoes.”

  It was too bad the nausea waned as the seconds ticked away. Ruining expensive leather might have been fitting payback, even if it did get her killed. Still, it took a minute for her jaw to ease so she could speak. “You’re the reason Wade relapsed? You’re the one selling drugs? Y
ou’re the reason I was under surveillance by the cops?” Anger rose and squashed fear. Every accusation that had been leveled at her had come from this man, who had pretended to be her friend so he could keep an eye on her patients, on her. “You listened in on my sessions to find my patients’ weaknesses and turn them into your customers?”

  “Just Cameron so far. We were just getting started.”

  The betrayal didn’t fuel the fire half so much as his callous indifference toward Wade. “You ruined his life.”

  “Good thing it was a short life.”

  Andrea lunged at him, her shoulders nearly clearing the front seat before one of the guards grabbed her hair and yanked her back, shooting fire through her scalp. Tears clawed at her eyes, but she refused to let them come. These men weren’t dealing with a weak-kneed crybaby who’d back down just because they threatened her. If they wanted something from her, they’d have to fight for it. In spite of the pain, she prepared to lunge again, but a corded forearm pressed against her neck, forcing her back in the seat.

  She breathed hard and forced her muscles to relax. There were too many questions, and if these men planned to kill her, she planned to make them talk as much as possible before they did. “Why try to shut me down?”

  “You started talking to the cops. Your little operation was more liability than profit maker at that moment. You should have taken off like we asked you to.”

  “Asked? Or bullied?”

  He shrugged, bouncing slightly as the driver pressed the gas and tore them out of the parking lot toward Veterans Parkway.

  “I started talking to the police because your friend tried to kidnap me.”

  “Nice try. You’ve been watching us and feeding information to your fake homeless friend for quite some time, have you not?”

  “What? Dutch?” Again, everything made less and less sense. “He’s a homeless vet who empties my trash.”

  “He’s a detective.”

  “What?” The word would have been a whisper even if the giant beside her hadn’t pressed harder on her windpipe. All of those missing puzzle pieces clicked into place. Dutch’s near-constant presence. His questions. The gun. He’d been watching her all along, likely seeing her friendship with the gas station owner as convicting evidence.

  Somehow, Dutch’s true identity hurt worse than that of the man in front of her. Her chest ached. Nobody was who they seemed to be.

  Except Josh.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t know.” Mr. Miller drew his head back and arched an eyebrow, flicking a glance at the men on either side of her. “That’s the first move in every informant’s playbook.”

  “I didn’t.” She hated the way her voice pleaded like a teenager, whining about how unfair life is. Ironic, since it was likely Andrea was pleading for her own life.

  “Nice try. You befriended me way too easily.”

  “I could say the same of you and your daily coffee deliveries.”

  With satisfaction, Andrea watched something like frustration flash on his face. They’d expected her to back down, to knuckle under quietly and give them everything they wanted. She refused. Something told her this belief she knew something was the only thing keeping her alive, and if she had to play coy with them to survive, she’d do it to the last ounce of her strength.

  Beside her, the two men tensed as the atmosphere in the car changed. Apparently, this attitude was something nobody saw coming.

  Good. Maybe this was her salvation. If she had information they needed, they wouldn’t kill her. And there had to be some soft spot for her in her former “friend.” He’d been much too kind to turn on her completely. The longer he stalled about killing her, the more time there was for Josh to find them, and she had no doubt he’d find her. If nothing else, he could have the cops track her location through her cell phone, which Miller still held. She had hope.

  It was the ring of Miller’s cell that distracted his gaze from her. He jerked the phone to his ear. “What?” As his mouth settled into a grim line, he nodded. “You took him out on Weaver Road? Good. One less bit of hush money to pay out. Head over to this address. If the cops show up, take out our guys first.” He rattled off the address to the storage facility and killed the call.

  Andrea controlled her breathing. “Just like that? You’d kill your own men just like that?”

  “I’d rather sacrifice them than risk them talking if they’re taken into custody.”

  The swift coldness of the statement snuffed Andrea’s last hope for compassion. Anyone willing to kill his own people would never let her live.

  The car slowed to a stop at Veterans and J.R. Allen, preparing to make a left onto the highway. Beside them, a high school kid with his windows down bobbed his head to the thumping rhythm from his speakers. If she could just gather enough leverage to get to the door…

  The man to her left shifted. “Boss.”

  It only took a quick survey for Miller to read her intentions. “If you try it, I won’t have them shoot you. I’ll have them shoot the kid.”

  Their guns reappeared, both aimed at the boy in the next car. An innocent life with no clue that death was mere feet away.

  Her muscles robbed of strength, Andrea sank against the leather seat.

  “Wise choice.” Miller nodded, and the men lowered their weapons again. “Wouldn’t want someone else to die in your name, would you? Because you know, Wade Cameron stole those drugs to protect you.”

  Her head jerked up. “What?”

  “He caught wind of the fact we’d tapped your office to mark the easy targets and that we found out you’ve been working with Dutch. He took out an insurance policy to protect you. Stole a mighty large stash he’d agreed to deliver. Said he’d only return it if we backed off and left you alone.”

  When Andrea gasped, the men beside her chuckled. Wade had died protecting her. He’d tried to warn her and she’d suspected him, tried to save her and she’d turned her back to what he was saying. If only she’d bucked Josh that night and let Wade talk in the lobby. All of this might have been prevented.

  Josh. By now he was bound to have noticed she was missing. Their head start hadn’t been that large. Right now he was probably planning a rescue.

  “I have to hand it to the kid, though. He’s one of the few people who has ever played me. He robbed us clean, hid our stuff from us and tried to extort us.” Miller shrugged. “He should have known you don’t mess with the big guns.”

  “I guess that’s you?”

  “Hide behind that tough front all you want, Ms. Andrea. You’re not fooling me.” Then he did the unthinkable. He popped the battery out of her phone and dropped it onto the floorboard, stomping the screen into fractured pieces. “Wouldn’t want them to track you the same way we have.”

  With that possibility shattered, she was down to only one. It was a slim hope, but it was all that she had. If Josh could get to the storage unit ahead of them, he’d save her. Please, God, show them where I am.

  *

  Andrea’s apartment parking lot filled rapidly with more people than Josh could count. He stood at the fringes, listening, knowing he shouldn’t be a part of this little powwow and hoping against hope that no one noticed he was there.

  “I think you’re right.” Detective Simmons tapped something on the hood of a vehicle. “That’s Whitesville Road. It’s a self-storage place.”

  Someone’s cell phone rang and silenced the conversation.

  Every nerve snapped to attention, but Josh knew none of them could match his readiness. Just tell him where to go. He’d crawl if he had to.

  An officer braced a hand to Josh’s chest, and he realized he was leaning forward far enough to pitch onto his face, as though that would get the news to his ears faster.

  Detective Simmons listened to the caller for a moment, then simply said, “Where?”

  The way she said it told everyone in earshot the news wasn’t good. Josh fought to breathe in the oppressive July humidity. If they said Andrea was dead,
he’d dedicate the rest of his life to wiping the guys who did it off the face of the planet.

  Simmons cut the call and stood tapping her finger on the screen, seeming to formulate the words in her head. She stared across the asphalt at the building and didn’t address anyone directly. “They found the ambulance on Weaver Road. Looks like the same sniper who hit Cameron hit the ambulance driver.”

  One of the officers hardened his gaze. “They’re tying up loose ends.”

  Simmons nodded. “If they’re taking care of their own, then they must think they have what they need. We know they’re headed to the self-storage place over on Whitesville. We need more guys out there, but tell them to stay back unless absolutely necessary.” She turned to a plain-clothes officer on her right. “We’ll have to be careful, because that place is wide open and easy to watch.”

  Josh moved to step with them, but Simmons pinned him into place with a hard gaze.

  She spoke before he could. “Go home. These guys have already proven they’ll kill anyone, whether they’re a threat or not. We’ve got to worry about Ms. Donovan. There’s no reason to worry about you, too.”

  They were gone before Josh could argue, but anger still blew through him like the tornado that had struck post a while back. He’d been to combat more times than he cared to count, was probably more highly trained than any three of them combined and they seated him on the sidelines like an injured rookie. He planted the side of his fist in the hood of his rental car, leaving a dent in the dull beige metal. His fist stung and his elbow yowled, but the blow to his masculinity was more than enough to cripple him.

  Josh tugged on the hem of his T-shirt and paced to the other side of the parking lot.

  A young officer standing nearby glanced at him and smiled sympathetically. “Dude, you’re wearing me down.”