Sawyer

by Delores Fossen

  Sawyer huffed. “Genius, she wants proof that her brother’s still alive,” he spelled out to the person on the other end of the line. He didn’t bother to take the sarcasm out of his voice, either. “Now, here’s the part where you provide that proof, or this conversation ends.”

  Silence. For a long time.

  Grabbing on to his jacket sleeve, Cassidy frantically shook her head. Probably because she wanted him to stay quiet.

  Sawyer ignored that.

  In the next couple of minutes, he was going to have to ignore a lot of head-shaking and just about anything that she was saying. Because there was no way he was going to let her leave to face these kidnappers alone—no matter how much proof of life they provided.

  There was some mumbling and cussing on the other end of the line. “Here he is,” the man snapped, and the phone dinged, indicating there was a message.

  Cassidy hit the button, and a moment later the video loaded. There was Bennie, all right. His hands were tied with a rope to what appeared to be wooden beams on a ceiling. He was stretched out like a moth in a science experiment.

  “Oh, God.” Cassidy pressed her fingers to her mouth, but she didn’t manage to silence the gasp. “You’ve hurt him.”

  Sawyer had to agree with her on that point. His face was bloody and bruised, as if he’d taken a good beating. His hair was matted, maybe with more blood, and even though he was moving and mumbling, he looked like a man on the verge of losing consciousness.

  Or dying.

  “Why are they doing this to you?” Sawyer asked Bennie.

  But just like that, the video ended. “That’s all the proof you’ll get. Now, it’s your turn. Get that photo here,” the caller demanded. “You got thirty minutes, or we finish him off.”

  “Why?” Sawyer repeated. He needed to keep them talking. Needed to find out their location and anything else he could learn about them. He spotted his cousin, Sheriff Grayson Ryland, in the doorway of the barn, and Sawyer motioned for him to come over.

  But Grayson had barely made it a step when there was a flash of light. Since his body was on full alert, it took Sawyer a second to realize that it had come from the camera.

  Cassidy had snapped his picture.

  With the baby.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, and Cassidy took off running.

  Chapter Two

  Cassidy didn’t look back, but she could hear Sawyer cursing at her and shouting for her to stop. A moment later, she heard more than just his voice.

  She heard footsteps. Someone running. And she had no doubt that it was Sawyer coming after her.

  Her heart was past the racing stage now. Breath, too. And her hands were shaking so hard that she was surprised and relieved when she managed to open the truck door. She jumped in and immediately threw the gear into Reverse. She had to get out of there now and get the photo back to those men.

  The images of her brother’s battered face flew through her head. Images of the shock on Sawyer’s face, too, when she’d handed him the baby. Later, if there was a later, she’d need to deal with him.

  Except later came a lot sooner than she’d planned.

  She felt the thud and looked into the rearview mirror to see that Sawyer had jumped into the truck bed.

  Mercy.

  She didn’t need this.

  He no longer had the baby. He’d obviously handed the newborn off to the other man who’d been approaching them when Cassidy had snapped the picture. And now that Sawyer’s hands were free, he was making his way from the back of the truck bed and toward her. If looks could kill, that glare he shot her would have hurtled her to the hereafter.

  Still, Cassidy didn’t stop. In fact, she slammed her foot on the accelerator and threaded the truck through the sea of other vehicles. Not the best time to attempt something like this with all the partygoers around, but she hadn’t exactly had a choice.

  She didn’t want to hurt Sawyer, but she couldn’t have him go to the kidnappers with her, either. Earlier, they’d warned her if she didn’t return alone, her brother would die. That couldn’t happen. She couldn’t lose Bennie.

  The moment that she was in a small clearing, Cassidy jerked the steering wheel to the right to try to toss Sawyer off the back. It didn’t work. He held on, and it only made his glare a whole lot worse. Still, she tried again.

  Again, no luck.

  Sawyer held on, bouncing around on the metal surface of the truck bed. He managed to hang on to his gun, and she was afraid he might use it on her if he got the chance. He already hated her, and this certainly wasn’t going to make things better between them.

  Cassidy sped across the driveway that coiled around the sprawling main house and the barns, and she finally reached the ranch road that would take her to the highway. She’d lied when she told Sawyer she didn’t know where the kidnappers were.

  A necessary lie.

  If he had learned their location, he’d just go in there with guns blazing, and Bennie would be caught in the middle of a firefight. Of course, that might still happen if she couldn’t ditch Sawyer before she made it to the abandoned building where they were holding her brother.

  Cassidy tried again to toss him from the truck, but she failed that time, too. Sawyer not only held on, he made his way toward her. Inch by inch.

  There was a small slider window that separated them. Not nearly big enough for him to crawl through, and it had a lock that would prevent anyone on the outside from opening it. Thank goodness. Still, that didn’t solve her problem of getting rid of him.

  She was already going too fast, and as if fate and Mother Nature were working against her, the drizzle turned to a hard rain, making the road even more slick than it already was. Cassidy tried to focus on her driving. On ditching Sawyer. And getting this photo to the kidnappers.

  But Sawyer obviously had other ideas about the ditching part.

  He lifted his gun, took aim. Not at her. He aimed the barrel of his gun at the passenger’s window.

  “No!” Cassidy shouted.

  Too late.

  He turned his head and fired, the shot blasting through not just both windows—the side and back—but the sound seemed to rip through her, too. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and she hit the brakes. Not the best idea she’d ever had, but it was hard to make a good decision with the pain from the noise crashing through her ears and head.

  The truck tires fishtailed on the wet asphalt, slinging Sawyer and her around. Even though she was wearing her seat belt, her shoulder slammed so hard into her door that she swore she saw stars. She certainly lost her breath.

  Unlike Sawyer.

  The truck hadn’t even come to a full stop yet when he reached through the gaping hole in the safety glass on the passenger’s side and unlocked the door. Opened it. As if it were a routine maneuver for him, he slid from the truck bed and into the cab.

  He put his gun to her head.

  “You will tell me what’s going on now,” he growled. His glare was even worse, and the tendons in his neck corded.

  “I’ve already told you all I know.” She tried to sound tough as nails, like him. And she failed miserably. She wasn’t tough. She was terrified, exhausted and just wanted this ordeal to end. “Now, get out.”

  “Not gonna happen.”

  There it was. That smart mouth that she used to think was funny and a complement to his bad-boy persona. It had been the very thing that had lured her to him. But his mouth and his tenacity weren’t much of a lure now. Nothing was.

  Well, except for that brief slap of attraction she’d felt when she first saw him in the barn.

  That slap might have to be a real one that she delivered to herself, because an attraction to Sawyer should be the last thing on her mind.

  “They’ll kill Bennie if you’re
with me,” she reminded him. Somehow, she got the truck moving again because like everything else, time wasn’t working in her favor.

  He shook his head, cursed her again and slung the water off his face. It didn’t help. The rain coming in from the window just walloped him once more, soaking his jacket, white shirt and jeans. His hair, too. The drops of water slid off those dark brown strands and dripped onto his face.

  “Who says they won’t just kill you when you give them the photo?” he asked. “You should have taken this to the cops and not tried to handle it yourself.”

  “I didn’t go to the cops because they said they’d kill Bennie.”

  “Kidnappers always say that,” he snapped. “And they always tell the mark to cooperate and that you’ll get your loved one back in one piece. Maybe you will, maybe you won’t. But they could just as easily put a bullet in you as Bennie.”

  Obviously, he thought she was stupid.

  “They won’t do that because I haven’t given them all the ransom money yet, that’s why. The other half won’t be transferred to their account until Bennie and I are away from the pick-up site. And I’m the only one with the bank account information. If they kill me, they don’t get the other half million.”

  He mumbled something she didn’t catch. “You’re paying a million dollarsʼ ransom for your brother?”

  “You’d do the same for your brother.”

  “Yeah. Because he’s a good guy and not some low-life weasel. What’d Bennie do this time to get himself in this mess?”

  “I don’t know.” Her voice cracked, and she could feel what little composure she had cracking, too. “At this point, it doesn’t matter. Bennie’s the only family I have, and I’ll give them every penny I own to get him back.”

  And while a million wasn’t every penny she owned, it was close. It would wipe her out financially, but there was no way she could live with herself if she hadn’t agreed to the kidnappersʼ every demand.

  Including that photo.

  “Is the baby yours?” she asked. Cassidy took the turn too fast toward the town of Silver Creek, and the tires squealed on the road.

  “I don’t know,” Sawyer said after several long moments. He slung off more water, swiveled in the seat and looked around.

  “You don’t know if you had sex with a woman about ten months ago?” Cassidy pressed.

  Yes, she sounded irked about that. And was. She’d always been attracted to the bad-boy types, but it never felt good to know that she was in a mountain-high pile of women that Sawyer had discarded.

  Even if she’d contributed a lot to the reason he’d discarded her.

  “There’s someone,” he admitted. “I’ll call her as soon as I’m finished with this. But I’m pretty sure if she’d gotten pregnant, she would have told me.” And he took out his phone. “I’m calling my cousin, the sheriff.”

  “No!” Even though she had to take one of her hands off the steering wheel, Cassidy did it so she could grab his phone. “No cops. No anyone but me.”

  He leaned in, a major violation of her personal space. So close she could smell wedding cake on his breath. “I’m going to the drop site with you. Close your mouth,” he added when she opened it. “Because arguing won’t help. You’re taking me to those kidnappers so I can find out why they want the photo. And why they took Bennie.”

  Sawyer fired off a text message. Probably requesting backup that could make this mess a thousand times worse.

  “I could stop the truck and refuse to go there,” she lied.

  And the flat look Sawyer gave her with those blistering blue eyes let her know that he, too, knew she was lying.

  “Where’s this place?” He sounded like the tough FBI agent that he was.

  “Just off Miller’s Road.” She checked the time on the dash clock. “And I have less than ten minutes to get there.”

  “Where on Miller’s Road?” Sawyer didn’t address that time was ticking away, either.

  “It’s an abandoned building.” Now she was the one to get in his face. For a brief glare, anyway. “Don’t you dare make me regret telling you.”

  “Abandoned,” he repeated. “The Tumbleweed? It used to be a bar.”

  She nodded. The sign had been rusted and battered, but the name was still partially visible. “You know the place?”

  “Yeah.” And that one word held a lot of emotion. Or something. “I was raised in Silver Creek. The Tumbleweed used to belong to my grandfather.”

  Oh, mercy. Cassidy doubted that was a coincidence. “So, what does Bennie’s kidnapping have to do with you?”

  Sawyer lifted his shoulder. “Like I said, that’s what I intend to find out. Take that next left.”

  “That’s not Miller’s Road.”

  “I know. And that’s why we’re taking it. Turn!” he growled.

  It was the second time in the past few moments that she’d hoped she didn’t regret this, but Cassidy took the turn. It wasn’t a road but an old ranch trail with thick underbrush on both sides. Not exactly a good driving surface with the rain, and the first pothole she hit made the truck bounce, and their heads struck the ceiling.

  “Slow down and stop up there,” Sawyer instructed, and he pointed to a pile of limestone boulders.

  Again, she did as he said, but the moment she stopped, Cassidy took hold of his jacket and forced eye contact. “I know you think Bennie doesn’t deserve to live, but swear to me that you won’t do anything to make this worse.”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m an FBI agent, sworn to uphold the law. That includes upholding it for people who don’t deserve it. Like your brother. Now, kill the engine and wait here.”

  As if she would take that order as gospel, which she did, Sawyer stepped from the truck, his gun ready, and he climbed to the top of the boulders.

  Cassidy couldn’t be sure, but she thought that Miller’s Road might be just on the other side. She’d been so frantic when she’d driven out of there earlier with the baby, that the only thing she had paid attention to was the GPS that the kidnappers had programmed with the directions to the Ryland family’s Silver Creek ranch.

  What the two men hadn’t told her was there would be a wedding reception going on and that she’d have to get that photo with dozens of witnesses milling around. But certainly the kidnappers must have known because they’d told her that’s where she would find Sawyer.

  So, why take the photo there?

  Too many things about this didn’t make sense, and that was yet more reason to get Bennie away from these men.

  “I have less than five minutes now,” she reminded him in a whisper.

  Sawyer didn’t respond to that, fired off another text, and then without warning, he scrambled over the rocks, out of sight. That got Cassidy moving from the truck, and she hurried to the boulders to see where he’d gone.

  She didn’t have to look far.

  He was there, just on the other side, crouched down by yet another heap of boulders. Beyond that was the road.

  Then, the Tumbleweed bar about fifty yards away.

  It wasn’t much of a place. Rust-streaked tin roof. Weathered clapboards. Eye-socket windows with vines coiling in and out of them. What was left of the neon sign was connected by a single electrical wire, and it creaked back and forth with each gust of wind.

  Sawyer gave her a stare down even though he was looking up at her. “Think hard. Do you remember me telling you to wait in the truck?” He didn’t give her a chance to respond. “Because that’s exactly what you’re going to do. My cousin Grayson will be here soon to watch you.”

  She huffed. “I don’t want a babysitter. I want to help.”

  “And you’ll do that by waiting here.” He tipped his head to the building. “No vehicles. Were there any when you left?”

  “No. They brought
me here in the truck. They already had Bennie tied up inside.”

  It hurt just to think of seeing him that way. To see the terror on his face. To know that he’d seen the same on hers. She was the big sister. Had always taken care of him just as she’d promised.

  This time, she’d failed.

  Sawyer started to move but then stopped and caught her gaze. “If you follow me, it could get all of us killed. Nod so I know you understand.”

  Her stomach twisted, the acid rising to her throat. But she nodded. “Please, hurry,” she begged. “Save him.”

  Sawyer scowled as if insulted that she had to ask, and he put his hand on the top of the boulders to lever himself up. However, he didn’t make it an inch before they heard the sound. A sound that Cassidy definitely didn’t want to hear.

  A bloodcurdling scream.

  Chapter Three

  Sawyer had to take hold of Cassidy to keep her from bolting toward the building. He had to fight his own instincts, too, because that scream was the sound of someone terrified.

  Maybe even dying.

  “We have to help him,” Cassidy insisted.

  And there was another scream. Like the first one, it didn’t sound like a man’s, either.

  “Who else was in that building?” Sawyer demanded, and because she was still in fight mode, he had to snap her to him so that her face was just a few inches from his.

  Cassidy was breathing through her mouth now, her chest pumping, and she shook her head. “No one that I saw.”

  The third scream got to him. Since Grayson wasn’t there yet and because he knew for a fact that Cassidy wouldn’t stay put, Sawyer shoved her behind him. “If I tell you to get down, you’ll do it,” he barked.

  Whether she would was anyone’s guess, but he couldn’t wait while a woman was murdered. Heck, it could be the baby’s mother.

  Sawyer didn’t waste any time getting Cassidy across the narrow dirt road. The mud caked on the soles of his boots, but he forced himself to run. Cassidy ran, too, despite the flimsy flip-flops she was wearing. They darted behind some trees, using them for cover so he could make his way to the Tumbleweed.