Once he got her inside, he got one good smack in before sitting on her and holding her down so he could plaster the duct tape over her mouth. Lesson learned, there. He’d bought stronger rope for this go ‘round, too, triple knotting the ends like the good little boy scout he pretended to be whenever his demons left him alone for more than five minutes, which sure as hell wasn’t now.
This bitch wasn’t going anywhere.
The way her eyes widened with fear as he tightened the rope around her neck gave him a superhuman surge. He felt untouchable. Powerful. No one was going to get the better of Earl Harlan. Not little Miss Laine Morgan, and certainly not this wiggly cunt underneath him now.
Another whack and the muffled screams stopped. He took advantage of the quiet, searching through her purse and digging through her wallet until he found her driver’s license, all the while smiling to himself. Maybe that’d be his new thing. Start a collection of driver’s licenses from all the women he was going to fuck up and teach a lesson to.
He pocketed the plastic on a chuckle and crawled over to the driver’s seat, perching himself in the captain’s chair and pulling down the scarf covering his face as he turned the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered then roared, and off he chugged, nonchalantly heading out to the boonies first to do what needed to be done. After, he’d head back into town and make his way over to 420 Syracuse. Convenient that she lived close by, but he knew it’d be best to do the dirty work somewhere out in the sticks. Less of a chance of being seen that way. And heard.
He blasted some vintage Judas Priest through the tinny speakers as he drove along. The tunes pumped him up, tickling his frontal lobe and blurring any decent judgment that might’ve been left to clog up his brain.
He needed his anger. His hatred. But then, just as importantly, he needed to release it. In order to feel halfway normal the rest of the time, he needed to…use it.
Fifteen minutes later, he parked on a dead end road out in the middle of nowhere, killing the headlights and the engine at the same time while twisting the key all the way back so the tunes stayed on. He turned sideways in the driver’s seat, pushed in the lighter to heat up and pulled a joint from his front pocket. He lit up, sucked back the sweet smoke and held his breath.
He had a vision in his head of how he wanted this to go.
It didn’t take too long before his bundle in the back began to squirm, as if she were anticipating all the shit he was so clearly envisioning. He just sat there and watched her, watched as she fully came to, watched the terror on her face as her circumstances flooded back to her. His heart started to pound, his palms moistened and itched. He took one last pull on the joint before repositioning his scarf over his chin and the scar on the side of his face. He smiled a little underneath it as their eyes met when he moved into the flood of moonlight pouring in through the windshield.
She stiffened when he crawled over to her, which gave him a rush like none other. Squatting beside her, her muted whimpers sang through his veins louder than the music coming through the speakers. He slipped his hand behind her neck, gripping her hard as he lifted her face toward his.
He chose his words carefully.
“You’re here because I have a message for you to deliver. But first, I think you and me need to have a little fun.”
Chapter Fourteen
Tye shot straight up to the blare of his phone ringing—and to an empty bed. It took only a second to orient himself before he tossed the covers back and grabbed his phone from the nightstand on his mad dash toward the door.
The caller ID told him it was Mac. As Tye rushed out into the hallway, he swiped his finger across the phone’s screen to answer it.
“Carter.”
“Hey. It’s Mac.”
“I know.” Tye’s tone was curt, but he didn’t give a shit. Not right now. Not without knowing exactly where Laine was.
“Something wrong?”
“Give me thirty seconds to answer that.” He pounded his way into the living room where he came up empty, damn it. But he got a whiff of…
Coffee.
He took the five steps it would normally take to get a visual on the entire kitchen in two giant ones. His heart started to beat again the instant he caught sight of Laine standing by the window at the rear of the kitchen. “Jesus,” he muttered.
“That better be a good Jesus,” Mac said over the line just as Laine glanced at him from where she stood gazing out the window.
Tye flattened his palm on the counter for balance as his adrenaline rush hit him full-throttle. “It is.” He took a deep breath, trying his damnedest to calm his raging heart. “What’s up?”
Mac replied, but Tye didn’t catch a single word. Everything fell away as Laine started to walk toward him. She had on the dress shirt he’d worn last night, and fuck him, she had the thing completely unbuttoned. She treated him to a great glimpse of her subtle cleavage, to the creamy skin leading down to her bellybutton, to the perfectly trimmed triangle of hair covering the most tempting pussy he’d ever had the privilege of touching.
Lifting one eyebrow, she set the mug on the counter separating them and leaned over a little, peering past the counter’s edge and dropping her gaze before plastering on a teasing, devilish smile—which, of course, made his cock harden in an instant. It also made him very aware of how naked he was.
Not that he cared. Around Laine, naked was how he preferred to be. As long as she was, too. Which had him thinking…
“Tye? You there?”
Mac’s voice snapped him out of his lust-filled trance. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry,” he said, regrouping by running a hand over his hair as Laine let out a little chuckle. “I didn’t catch that. What’d you say?”
“That I’ll be there in twenty. There’s some issues we need to discuss. Is Laine still with you?”
Hell yes, she was. “She’s here.”
“Good. There’s a possibility…” He let out a curse and paused. “You know, it’s best if we just wait until I get there so we can discuss this in person.”
Well shit, that didn’t sound good. If it had anything to do with Laine or her attack, then Tye knew Mac was probably right. Bad news was always best delivered personally.
“In twenty, then.” He didn’t wait for any kind of response before he ended the call and tossed the phone on the counter. “Mac’s on his way.”
And just like that, with those innocent words, her demeanor shifted from sexy and inviting to tense and, if he wasn’t mistaken, a little freaked.
“Why?”
“Not sure. He said he didn’t want to get into it over the phone.”
“Oh.” She glanced into the depths of her coffee mug. “That’s really not a good sign, is it?”
He came around the end of the counter and slid up behind her. “Truthfully? No, it’s probably not.” He rubbed her shoulders, digging in somewhat to work out the knots he found there. “Not to mention that it definitely puts a kink in my morning plans, too.”
The smile she tossed over her shoulder was halfhearted at best. Mac coming all the way out to the ranch had her worried. Truth be told, it had him worried too. He just wondered if they were concerned for the same reasons. He knew Mac, trusted him, but she never mentioned how he handled that night at Euphoria. She never said anything about him other than she’d attempted her confession on him first and that it hadn’t gone all that well.
Which had Tye fighting back an odd surge of envy—something he wasn’t remotely accustomed to feeling.
“Whatever he has to tell us, we’ll deal with it,” he told her. “Never underestimate the ingenuity of two very determined sheriffs.”
As she leaned back against him, she slumped her shoulders and sighed. “I don’t. I just hate the whole not knowing what he might say thing.”
He wrapped his arms around her and dropped a kiss to her neck. “You won’t have to wait long to find out. Come on,” he said, turning them out of the kitchen. “He’ll be here soon. We’d better get dresse
d.”
When they made it back to the bedroom, Laine told Tye she wanted to take a fast shower before Mac got there. He didn’t have the chance to protest or ask to join or say anything before she slipped into the bathroom and closed the door.
He hated that she was going to have to relive the attack all over again. He knew, just as she did, that Mac would most likely grill her again—down to the tiniest detail—simply because if the tables were turned and it was Tye’s jurisdiction they were talking about, he’d want to grill the hell out of her too.
He also hated her being alone in a shower that was definitely big enough for two. He wanted to be in there with her, damn it, washing her, touching her. Reassuring her. He wanted another opportunity to feel her and take her in all the ways he hadn’t last night.
She’d fallen asleep after they’d made love, which hadn’t really surprised him. The last week had been such a whirlwind for her, one filled with both highs and lows that bounced from one end of the spectrum to the other. Combine the lingering effects of her injuries with the intensity—both physical and mental—of the sex they’d had last night, and who could blame her for knocking out the second he lay beside her and held her in his arms.
Not him, that was for damn sure.
For the time being though, he was going to have to set all those thoughts of his night with her aside. He showered too—in that damn guest room again—dressed quickly in jeans and a black t-shirt, and made it back to the kitchen to pour his own cup of coffee just as Mac drove up to the house. Tye waited until Mac got to the porch before taking a sip of coffee and motioning through the door’s window for him to come on in.
It’d been a few months since he’d last seen his old friend. They’d met up for beers and burgers at Pete’s Tavern and ended up staying late to watch the last of a down-to-the-wire NBA finals game. They’d gotten loud that night, maybe even a little drunk and raucous. Still, it had been a good time. A fun time.
Too bad there’d be no replay of that good or fun time today.
“Hey,” Mac said as he closed the front door behind him, laid his black Resistol hat on the back of the chair by the entryway and made his way over to the kitchen. He didn’t offer Tye a handshake, he didn’t say anything more than that one word in greeting, which sure as hell wasn’t typical. The way the man held himself so tight and tense had Tye mentally preparing himself for the worst.
Mac slid onto one of the barstools and hitched his chin toward the coffee pot. “Got an extra cup of that?”
“Sure,” Tye replied, gauging Mac and his mood further. The set of his jaw and the hardness in his eyes spoke volumes. Mac was all business this morning, which had Tye steamrolling in that direction as well. “It’s that bad?”
Mac took a huge gulp of the hot coffee Tye handed him, grimacing a little as he swallowed it down. “Certainly has the potential. Where’s Laine?”
Fucking great. “Showering. She’ll be out in a few minutes.”
Mac raised an eyebrow at that, but Tye didn’t grab the bait. He meant what he told Laine last night. What they did when they were alone was no one’s business but theirs.
“Did she ever come out and tell you exactly where she was Friday night?” Mac asked.
An itch ran up Tye’s back at the question, but this wasn’t the time to hold back information that could be important to the case. “She did.”
Mac simply nodded. “Good. It’s easier when everything’s out in the open.”
True enough. Still, Laine had her reasons for initially holding back. “She was scared, Mac.”
“Of telling you?” He chuckled at that. “Sorry. I’m not laughing because it’s funny. I’m laughing because it’s ironic. You’re one of the most accepting people I know. Especially about something like that.”
“You know as well as I do that her hesitation wasn’t so much about where she’d gone.”
“No, I know. It was more about taking that first blind step toward finding what she wants.” Mac swirled the last few swallows of coffee in his mug and glanced up at Tye. “Has she? Found what she wants, I mean?”
There was a certain big-brother protectiveness to the question that Tye both understood and hated. He understood it because he felt the same way about protecting her, and he hated it because… Well, damn it, she was his to protect. Not Mac’s.
He didn’t get the chance to say—despite not being able to come right out and answer for her—that hell yes, she’d find everything she wanted, both in and out of the bedroom, and she’d find it all right here with him. And as he held his tongue when she rounded the corner from the hallway, he knew that to be true. He knew it to his bones. He saw it in her eyes. Felt it in her kiss. She was exactly where she was supposed to be.
She’d dressed simply in jeans and a plain white t-shirt, and wore her dark hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Toying with the neckline of her t-shirt, she tossed a weak smile toward Mac as he stood to greet her.
“Ms. Morgan.”
Mac didn’t move to shake her hand either, which Tye figured was more on purpose than the standoffish way he’d acted with him when he first came in. This was more about consideration, more typical of the way he’d treat an assault victim—with respect and genuine concern. Pissed Tye off that the need was there for that, but he appreciated Mac’s compassion nonetheless.
“I think we moved past the formalities the other night, didn’t we?” Laine replied with a soft chuckle.
Mac gave her a soft smile. “I suppose so. I didn’t want to presume anything.”
She came around him to stand at the end of the counter. “It’s fine, really. Call me Laine, please.”
Mac nodded as he sat back down on the barstool. “And like I said that night, just call me Mac. Or Jack. I answer to either one.”
She flicked a glance to Tye before she nodded as well. “I will, thanks.”
A moment of quiet hung between the three of them, like none of them really knew how to get started, or where they should even begin. Her gaze hopped from Tye to Mac, not just once, but twice.
“The similarities between you two really are incredible,” she said. “Are you sure you’re not related somehow?”
The comment caught Tye off guard. Similarities? Other than both of them having dark—albeit starting to gray—hair and being tall, he didn’t see any. Not that he’d ever thought that much about it, though.
Mac huffed. “Him? No way.”
“Yes, him. It’s in your eyes. And your presence. You both hold yourself so…” She blushed a little then and stepped around to Tye’s side of the counter. “Maybe it’s a cop thing.”
Tye slid up behind her and rested his hands on Laine’s waist. Over the top of her head, he narrowed his eyes and said, “Speaking of cop things, Mac, what have you got for us?”
The edge of Mac’s lip quirked, but he’d gotten the meaning. Tye didn’t know why, but the unspoken message was one he needed to send—Laine was his. Do yourself a favor and don’t get any ideas.
Mac stood and headed toward the connecting living room. His humor disappeared as he leaned on the back of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest and his ankles out in front of him. He lowered his chin a fraction, along with his voice. “There’s been another attack.”
Laine’s entire body stiffened, but this was exactly what Tye suspected he’d say. “Where? When?” he asked.
“Last night, around midnight. Abduction happened about two blocks from Euphoria.” He focused on Laine then. “I’m guessing that’s where you had parked as well?”
She only nodded.
“That’s what I figured, too, going by the attacks before,” Tye added in. When Mac sighed as Tye spoke, he knew there was more to his story. “Might as well fill us in on the rest,” he said.
“This time around, there’s a few differences. Some subtle, some not so much. The not so much part being that our current perp let this particular victim go. The guy five years ago never would’ve done that, not so soon. Not within on
ly a few hours.”
“He let her go?” Laine asked, sounding a little too hopeful. Tye could tell, however, just from Mac’s body language, that the woman didn’t get away scot-free. Not even close.
“He did. Her neighbors found her outside her apartment at three this morning, beat to hell and bloody. She was unconscious, suffering from the same injuries you had, only not as severe.”
Laine croaked out a deflated, “Oh God.”
“She told us that he let her go so she could deliver a message.” Mac spoke directly to Laine again. “To you.”
Tye tightened his grip on her waist, trying like hell to let a little of his strength flow through to her. He was failing at it miserably, simply because after hearing that, he wasn’t so sure he had all that much left over to give.
“Me?” Tye didn’t miss the quiver in her voice.
“Fuck,” he murmured at the same time.
Mac glanced at Tye. “My thoughts exactly.”
“What was the message?” Laine asked.
Mac didn’t hesitate. “That no matter where you try to hide, he’ll find you.”
Laine fisted her hands on the counter in front of her and blew out a long breath. Goose bumps swept up her arms on a faint shiver. “I shouldn’t be surprised.”
Tye wasn’t. He wasn’t remotely shocked. He was, however, quickly recovering from Mac’s verbal sucker-punch. What he was becoming, as a result, was pissed.
“Did this new victim get a look at him?” he asked.
“No. Same as with Laine, he covered his face and head. All she said was that he was big, and not in an athletic way. More like in a triple cheeseburger kind of way.”
“He was,” Laine said. “But it wasn’t so much that he was overweight. He was just big all over. Tall. Wide. His fingers were beefy. His hands were, too.”
Tye stroked up and down Laine’s arms, but he doubted he was helping her. And if he were being honest with himself, he’d have to admit that he was touching her more for his own sanity. The recurring images running through his head of the perp’s hands on her, of him tying her up, of him messing with her mind and her body…
My Tye Page 17