Passion's Fury (The Doms of Passion Lake Book 2)

by Julie Shelton

  “Ash!” Caleb’s voice, louder this time.

  Leah’s eyes blinked open, but her stare was vacant, and Ash was swept with a terror so cold it froze his blood. What the fuck had happened here?

  “Ash!” Caleb’s shout finally made itself heard over the drumbeat of Ash’s heart. “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Trouble,” Ash ground out. “Get your ass over here! Get Lucas and Clay over here, too. Now!”

  Dropping his phone into Leah’s lap, he slid his arms beneath her back and knees, rising with her. He carried her back into the store, immediately spotting Sharon, who was just coming out of one of the dressing rooms, hanging onto the doorframe as if it were a lifeline.

  “Sharon, what happened? Where’s Kylie?”

  She just turned her head and looked vaguely toward the room next to the one she’d just exited. “I—she’s—”

  Cursing beneath his breath, Ash ran into the vacant dressing room and deposited Leah carefully on the padded bench, not even bothering to shove the discarded dresses to the side. When he started to straighten up, she grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him back down. “Kylie. She was in here…”

  “She’s gone,” he said grimly, pawing through the dresses on the bench, searching for Kylie’s purse. He found it and opened it, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t find her cell phone. But there it was. Their only lifeline to Kylie. And he was holding it in his hand. He looked over at Sharon standing in the open doorway. “Did you see who did this?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No, he came up behind me. He put his hand around my neck, I thought he was going to choke me to death. Then…nothing.” She lifted her hand to her neck, rubbing it gingerly. “I just…sort of…blacked out.”

  “Sleeper hold,” Ash said grimly. He turned his head to see what the sudden commotion at the door was. It was Caleb, striding swiftly across the floor toward them. “Stay with Leah!” Ash barked at Sharon. “I’m gonna go check outside.” He ran to the back door of the toy shop and yanked it open.

  There was nothing outside to show that anyone had been there. Except…he ran down the stairs and picked up the black ballet flat that Kylie had put on this morning. He looked up and down the empty alley. Nothing. Not even tire tracks in the hard-packed earth. Agony ripped through him. God damn it! Bullard! He snatched her right out from under my fuckin’ nose! I should have been with her! Inside the store, where I could have prevented this! I should have—how the fuck did he get past me? Ash’s shoulders slumped and he barely kept himself from dropping to his knees and howling with anguish. His throat grew so thick, he feared he would suffocate. Straightening with difficulty, fighting tears, he went back inside, carrying the shoe. He handed it to Caleb, whose haunted expression was a mirror of his own.

  “What about her cell phone?” Caleb asked through a throat tight with unshed tears. “It has GPS. Maybe we can track her—”He stopped as Ash shoved Kylie’s pink phone at him.

  Another commotion at the door heralded the entrance of Dr. Lucas McKay, followed closely by Clay Nighthorse and Simon.

  “Where is she?” Clay demanded before he was barely inside the door. Ash knew he wasn’t referring to Kylie, so he pointed to the dressing room where Leah was. Lucas McKay went straight to Sharon. Grabbing her wrist in one hand, he checked her pulse, while touching his fingers to her forehead, noting her dilated pupils. “Sleeper hold?” he asked Ash without looking away from Sharon.

  “Looks like.”

  Clay scooped Leah up and sat on the bench with her in his lap, rocking her back and forth, trying to soothe her

  “Did you see who took Kylie?” Caleb asked. “His car? Anything?”

  ‘No.” Ash could barely choke out the words. “It had to be John Bullard. He must have entered through the restaurant. I didn’t see a damn thing.”

  “I’ll go check with the hostess,” Simon strode off toward the door connecting the two businesses, urgency in every step.

  Caleb nodded absently, dialing a number on his cell phone and pressing speaker.

  “Caleb, what’s up?” Jason Ingram’s voice sounded a bit distracted.

  “I need all the information you can find on one John Bullard, a Philadelphia PD detective. His finances, his car, most importantly, any property he owns either separately or with his wife, Lenora Righetti. Or any property left to him by his parents or grandparents.”

  “When do you need it?”

  “Now,” Caleb snapped. “And by now I mean yesterday. He kidnapped Kylie.”

  “Holy Shit!” Jason no longer sounded distracted. “I’ll get right on it and get back to you ASAP.”

  Ash walked over to the dressing room containing Clay, Lucas, and Leah. “How is she, Luc?”

  “She’s still a little groggy. I don’t like how long it’s taking her to come out of this. Sharon’s faring only a little better. I’d like to take both of them to Marshall County Medical Center for an MRI. You can’t take any chances with a sleeper hold. Brain damage is always a possibility, so we need to check that. I’ve already taken the liberty of arranging transport for them in a private ambulance.”

  “Oh, Sheriff Rafferty, I’m so sorry, I had no idea!” A very distraught Naomi, accompanied by Simon and Granny Grace rushed into the store. She approached him, wringing her hands, tears rolling down her cheeks. “He seemed so nice, said his name was Ben Halliwell. Made reservations for dinner tonight. He was going to propose to his girlfriend and he wanted to get her a gag gift from the toy shop.” Her face crumpled and she buried it in her hands. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. This is all my fault.”

  “Nonsense, Naomi,” Granny Grace said sternly. “This is absolutely not your fault.” She looked at Caleb. “Sheriff, is there anything we can do to help? Anything at all?”

  “Did anyone notice him come into the tea room?” Caleb asked. “Or see what kind of car he was driving?”

  “No one,” Simon answered, running his hand frantically through his thick, black hair. He looked at Ash, unable to hide his fear. “There’s nothing outside? No tire tracks? No—”

  “Damn it, don’t you think I looked?” Ash snapped. “Don’t you think if there was anything there, I would have seen it?” The tears in his eyes finally spilled over. He didn’t even bother swiping them away.

  Simon clapped his hand over the nape of his brother’s neck and hung his head. “Sorry, bro. I’m not blamin’ you—”

  “You should!” Ash’s tone was bitter. “God knows I blame myself! I never should have let her and Leah come in here alone.”

  “There’s no way you could have anticipated this, Ash,” Caleb looked down at the screen on his phone. “We’re not wasting one second of our time blaming either ourselves or one another. This is a retrieval op and we’re going to work it like one. We’ll find her, if it’s the last thing we do. Meanwhile, we need to concentrate on finding out where he might be taking her so we can get her back.” He closed the distance between himself and Naomi, showing her the image on his screen. “Is this Ben Halliwell?”

  “Yes.” Naomi nodded her head. “That’s him. E-except he was wearing dark-rimmed glasses and had a little mustache and goatee.”

  “Thanks, Naomi. Granny Grace, we’ll be outta here in just a few minutes.”

  “Take all the time you need, Sheriff. We are officially closed for the rest of the day. Naomi, dear, would you flip the sign, please?” As Naomi went to the door to turn the sign from Open to Closed, Granny Grace looked up as Sharon approached, leaning on Dr. Lucas McKay’s arm. “Sharon, dear, how are you feeling?”

  “I’m fine, Granny. But Dr. McKay insists that I get an MRI.” She looked up at him. “Do you mind if I get my purse?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’ll get it,” Grace Porter offered. “Is it behind the counter?”

  “Yes, under the cash register.”

  The elderly woman walked regally over to the end of the counter and around behind it, bending down to retrieve Sharon’s purse. She handed i
t to Sharon, who dug around inside, looking for her cell phone. “Thanks, Granny. I’ll call you as soon as the doctor releases me.”

  “Balderdash! I’m going with you!”

  “Oh, no, ma’am, I wouldn’t dream—”

  “Kindly do not argue with me, young lady,” Grace said with a trace of asperity. “It’s a waste of time and energy and at my age, I don’t have much of either left to spare.”

  Car doors slammed outside. “I believe the ambulances have arrived,” Lucas murmured. Clay emerged from the dressing room carrying Leah just as two teams of paramedics entered the shop pushing gurneys.

  “Clay, put me down,” Leah insisted, “I can walk.”

  “I don’t want you to get dizzy.”

  “I won’t get dizzy, I promise.”

  He eyed her skeptically, but he finally put her down, not fully releasing her until he was certain she could stand on her own.

  She walked straight over to Ash and threw her arms around his waist. “I’m so sorry, Ash. It all happened so fast, I-I feel like I let her down. I let all of you down.”

  “Nonsense, Leah,” Caleb said briskly. “It wasn’t your fault.” He glared at his two brothers. “It wasn’t anybody’s fault.”

  “Please find her,” she begged them. “And when you do, I want you to give the asshole who took her a swift kick in the nuts for me.”

  Clay cleared his throat, hiding the bark of laughter that nearly slipped out. “Caleb,” Clay said as he approached, “if there’s anything I can do to help—”

  “Thanks, man, we can handle it. You look after your woman.”

  Leah looked at the doctor. “Lucas, I don’t need to go to the hospital. I want to stay here and help.”

  “There’s nothin’ you can do here,” Clay assured her. “Caleb and his brothers know what they’re doin’, sugar. We need to let them do it. And we need to get you to the hospital.”

  “But there’s nothing wrong with me. Honestly, I feel fine.”

  “It’s just a precaution, Leah.” Luc gave her an assessing look. She was still a bit too glassy-eyed for his liking. “Cutting off the blood supply to the brain like Bullard did, by squeezing the carotid artery and the jugular vein, is extremely dangerous and often results in permanent brain damage. Not that I think there is any in this case,” he added hastily, “but I’ll feel a lot better if I can see that for myself.” He turned to Clay. “Clay, you wanna ride with me or in the ambulance with Leah?”

  Clay snorted. “Like there’s any question?”

  Luc just grinned. “Grace and I will follow in my car, then, so I can bring everybody back home.” He sketched an elegant bow. “Mrs. Porter?” he murmured, extending his elbow for Granny Grace to take.

  “Why, thank you, young man.” She tucked her small hand in the crook of his elbow and inclined her head with a regal hauteur befitting an Edwardian grande dame. “Such lovely manners. So rare in this day and age.”

  The paramedics assisted Leah and Sharon onto the gurneys and started rolling them toward the door, followed by Clay, then Luc and Granny Grace. “Naomi, dear, would you lock up after us, please?” she called back over her shoulder.

  The Rafferty brothers followed the odd little procession out the door and down the steps to the waiting ambulances. Clay shook all their hands and pulled each of them into a brief hug. “Promise me you’ll call the instant you find her,” he said. “Leah will worry herself sick until she knows that Kylie’s safe.”

  “We promise,” Caleb clapped him on the shoulder. Lucas McKay backed his Escalade out of the parking space and followed the ambulances out of the lot. The ambulances hit their lights and sirens and took off down Main Street.

  Caleb, Ash, and Simon walked over to Caleb’s patrol car, a black Land Rover with Passion Lake Security painted in gold letters on the door. Caleb placed his phone on the hood of the car and leaned over it, bracing himself on his hands, staring at it as if he were willing it to ring. “C’mon, Jason, c’mon,” he muttered over and over. “Hurry up. Tell us what we need to know.”

  “You think he’ll take her back to Philly?” Simon asked.

  “I doubt it. He’s a wanted man. Too many people lookin’ for him in Philly. I think he’ll take her to someplace where he feels safe. Someplace secluded where he can be alone with her. We just need to figure out where that place is.” He looked at Simon, trying to keep the despair from showing in his eyes. It sliced into him like a million icy blades, freezing him to the marrow of his bones.

  “We don’t even know what kind of car he’s driving,” Ash muttered.

  “Well, I doubt he’s driving his own car. If he’s smart, and he obviously is, he would’ve ditched it and paid cash for a different one.”

  Simon slammed the heel of his hand on the hood of Caleb’s car. “God! I feel so fucking helpless!” He looked at his older brother, unable to hide the worry prowling in his eyes. “Why are we just standin’ around here when every tick of the clock takes her farther and farther away from us?”

  “There are at least a dozen roads leading out of the area,” Caleb pointed out. “And only three of us. Which roads do you suggest we take? What kind of car should we be looking for?”

  A growl erupted from Simon’s throat, like the cry of a wounded animal, and he braced himself on the hood of the car, his head hanging down “I’m sorry, bro,” Caleb’s voice broke. “I-I’m just as scared as you are. I feel like my insides are bein’ ripped apart. But we can’t go harin’ off all over the countryside just because you’ve got a wild hair up your ass. We’ve got to approach this like any other op. With our heads and not our hearts.” His vibrating phone clattered against the metal car, startling all three of them. Caleb immediately punched Talk. “Yo, Jason. Whatcha got for us?”

  “Okay,” Jason Ingram’s voice was clipped, all business. “The news is not good, I’m afraid. His personal vehicle was found ditched on a side street in South Philly. So, whatever he’s driving, he must have paid cash for it. There has been no activity on his credit cards since Tuesday, but that’s not surprising. He emptied out his bank accounts yesterday, over seventy thousand dollars, so he’s paying cash for everything. I couldn’t find any property either bequeathed to John Bullard, purchased by John Bullard or leased by John Bullard. There is a small house near Hanover, PA, south of Harrisburg that was left to Lenora Righetti Bullard by her grandparents. I’ve hacked into a satellite feed and have that property under surveillance. So far, no activity. But, Caleb?”

  Caleb’s heart sank. Uh-oh. More bad news. “Yeah?”

  “I can’t see him going there, especially if he still has Kylie. I mean, if the media are camped out at his home, it’s entirely conceivable that Bullard’s wife would want someplace to hide out for a while. I don’t think Bullard would want to risk his wife walking in on whatever he’s planning to do to Kylie.”

  “Shit!”

  “Wait, Caleb,” Ash said, excitement in his voice. “Didn’t Thomas Dwyer say that Bullard went all through school with his step-father’s name? That he didn’t go back to the name Bullard until after graduation? Fuck! What was it?”

  “He didn’t say!” Simon had caught his brother’s excitement and was fishing around in his jeans pocket for his wallet. He extracted Thomas Dwyer’s business card, grabbed his phone and dialed the number, putting it on speaker.

  “Hang on, Jason,” Caleb said as the line was picked up.

  “Dwyer.”

  “Bullard’s got Kylie.”

  “What? Fuck!” The agent’s shock came clearly through the connection. “How did that happen?”

  “You said he had a different name in school. We need to know what it was. We’re hoping he might own property under that name.”

  Dwyer conferred briefly with someone they assumed was his partner, Roscoe Sweeney, then came back with, “Cavaletti. His stepfather’s name was Paul Cavaletti.”

  “Did you hear that, Jason?” Caleb asked.

  “I’m on it,” Jason said briskly. “Ju
st gimme a minute, okay?”

  “You got it.”

  While Jason was keying in the latest information, Simon and Ash briefed the two FBI agents.

  “Okay, boys and girls, it seems we’ve hit the jackpot.” Jason’s voice was filled with glee. “Ten years ago, Paul Cavaletti bequeathed a property, a hunting cabin west of Harrisburg on the edge of the Tuscarora State Forest, to one John Cavaletti. It sits on fifteen hundred acres and is the only dwelling for miles. It’s perfect! And I can keep my eye on both places using the same satellite.”

  There was an audible sigh as everyone sagged in relief. “Great work, Jason. We owe you—big-time.”

  “And I’m gonna insist on collecting, too,” he laughed.

  “Bullard just left here, so it will be a while before he gets to his target destination. He’s probably sticking to back roads. You let us know the instant you spot a car approaching either place.”

  “Copy that. What are you gonna do?” Jason asked.

  Caleb looked up at Simon and Ash, who were hanging on every word. “We’re gonna fly to Harrisburg and wait for you to tell us where he is.”

  Jason chuckled. “Now that’s a plan. Let me know the minute you land, okay?”

  “You got it.” Caleb thumbed the phone off.

  “We’ll meet you there,” Dwyer said over Simon’s phone. “We want him as badly as you do.”

  “Good,” Caleb said. “Ash or Simon will text you with our ETA.”

  “Thanks. Dwyer out.”

  Caleb hunched his shoulders, shoving his hands in his pants pockets. “You two go get the plane ready. I’ll meet you there in about an hour.”

  “Where you goin’?” Simon asked.

  “Shoppin’.” Caleb walked around to the driver’s side of the Land Rover and opened the door before looking back at his brothers. He knew they were expecting him to carry off this miracle. His throat closed up. “We’re gonna get her back.”

  Ash and Simon gave him two thumbs up. The three of them climbed into their separate cars and drove off.

  * * * *