“That’s disturbing,” she told them playfully. “Let’s go.”
Holly, Sarah, and Kate walked down the stairs and out of the building. By the time they hit the street, Holly was over her embarrassment and back to enjoying her day.
As they made their way toward the diner, the three women chatted about this and that and playfully insulted each other back and forth. Holly really liked these two women and knew she would always be their friend.
When the topic turned from Kate’s new horse to Sarah’s job at the library, Holly added her opinions and commented when necessary. It wasn’t long before they were pushing through the door to the diner and sitting at a window seat.
Holly picked up the menu and looked it over. The waitress approached, and she ordered an iced tea, while Kate and Sarah both had juice. She went back to looking over the food selections when a shiver ran down her spine and she got the sense that someone was watching her.
Holly looked around the diner and then out the window, but she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary and went back to perusing the menu.
“Do you know what you want?” Kate asked. “I’m having the chicken salad.”
“You are so not,” Sarah replied, laughing. “You’ll order the burger, just like always.”
Holly smiled as Kate glared daggers at her sister. She had heard the story of when Grayson had changed her order of chicken salad to a burger without telling her. Kate had a temper and often let it fly at Grayson. He took it as a challenge and often did things to get her riled up.
“I think I might have the BLT,” Holly said. “I need bacon.”
“Yum,” Sarah said. “I’ll have that, too.”
The waitress came back with their drinks. Sarah and Holly placed their food orders and looked over at Kate.
“I’ll have the burger and fries,” Kate grumbled. “Don’t you two say a word.”
They both held their hands up in surrender, but Holly couldn’t help the giggle that escaped. She was having fun. She didn’t get out much.
The three of them settled in to wait, and Holly told them about Candy and how after their fight in the toilet, she had received a life ban from Silk Ties. The girls were shocked, but not surprised, telling her that Candy had it coming and should have been kicked out months ago.
Holly wondered why their men hadn’t told them already. It had happened a while ago now. Holly was just about to ask when she looked out the window and across the street.
She stared at the man, standing there looking back at her. She was positive it was Steve her ex, but he was too far away to be sure.
“Holly,” Kate called. “Did you hear me?”
Holly looked back at her friend, before looking back out the window. “What?” she asked absentmindedly. She looked back across the street, but the man was gone.
Holly jumped up from the table and walked toward the diner door. Kate called out to her, but she simply waved back and went outside. She looked up and down the street and thought she could sight of the man walking around a corner.
Sarah and Kate caught up with her, when she took off after him. She had to know if it was him. She wanted to know why he would be in Merricks. How did he know where to find her? And where was her damned money?
“Holly,” Kate said. “Slow down.”
“What’s going on?” Sarah asked.
They walked down the street and around the corner. Moving farther and farther away from the diner. They were headed toward the old part of town and the mushy creek bridge.
“Holly,” Kate snapped. “You need to tell us what’s going on, right now.”
“I thought I saw Steve,” Holly replied. They were practically jogging now. She caught sight of him again, walking over the bridge.
“Over there,” she said, pointing.
“How do you know that’s him?” Sarah asked. “He is miles away.”
“I don’t,” she replied. “That’s why I’m following him.”
They crossed the bridge and walked toward the post office and old general store. The man was walking toward the school grounds, and Holly wondered where he was going.
Was he taking them into a more secluded part of town? Or was Holly’s imagination running away with her? She didn’t care and she knew that was stupid, but if it was Steve, she wanted answers.
They followed him through the school grounds and lost sight of him behind a building. Holly grabbed Kate and Sarah’s hand and tugged them along, running in the direction they last saw him.
They slowed as they rounded a corner and Holly stopped. They had lost him. Whoever he was, he was gone. She sighed and tried to catch her breath.
“We lost him,” she said. “Let’s head back.”
“Sorry, Holly,” Kate told her. “Maybe it wasn’t him.”
Damn. Holly really wanted to see who it was. She was going to stew about it for days until she either saw him again or the feeling went away. Holly mentally shook her head and started to walk back to the diner.
“Not so fast, baby doll.”
* * * *
Holly froze at the sound of Steve’s voice and the pet name he used for her. Kate, Sarah, and Holly all turned back toward him. Holly screwed her face up in disgust. Steve was pointing a gun at them, with a smug smile on his creepy face.
He looked disheveled since she last saw him. His usually neatly styled hair was unclean and knotty. He wore ratty black pants and an old flannel shirt over a gray T-shirt. His clothes were wrinkled and looked like he had been wearing them for days.
Holly had to wonder what she’d ever seen in this man. He was average height and average build. Even at his best, he had nothing on Chase and Jarrod, and all at once the broken heart she was carrying for this man fled. All that was left was a burning anger at what he had done.
He had been a shitty boyfriend with an even shittier attitude. He had ridiculed her and made her feel worthless. Then he had taken off with all her money. She had loved him, despite everything, and would have given him anything he wanted.
Now she knew how real men treated women, and she wouldn’t take anything less than she deserved. When she saw her men next she was going to grab onto them and never let them go.
“So, it is you,” Holly said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ll ask the questions, baby doll,” he replied. “I’m the only one with the gun.” Holly doubted that. She knew Sarah had taken to carrying a gun after the drug cartel had caught up with her, and she thought Kate might have one too, since they had come looking again.
“Stop calling me that,” she snapped. “You lost the right to call me that when you took off with my life savings.”
“I think I earned that money, having to have sex with your fat ass day in and day out.” Holly heard Kate and Sarah’s indrawn breaths, but she wasn’t fazed by his words. The love Chase and Jarrod had shown her had made her strong. Strong enough that anything he said to her just washed over her.
“You still haven’t said why you are here?”
“Not here. Get moving. There is a place down the road where we won’t be disturbed.” Steve waved the gun at them to get them moving. Holly stood her ground and then walked in front of Kate and Sarah.
“Let my friends go,” she said. “They have nothing to do with this.”
“I let them go and they go running back and letting those men you are with know where we are. Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Actually, I do,” Holly quipped. Steve reached out and slapped her across the cheek in retaliation to her words. Pain exploded in her face, and her head snapped to the side with the force of the slap.
“They stay,” he told her. “Now get moving.”
Holly, Kate, and Sarah walked together in the direction Steve pointed. They were headed behind the town hall. Holly thought that was odd, since they were moving toward the sheriff’s office.
She needed to think of a way to get them out of this. All three of them had left their bags back at the diner and had no
way of calling for help. On a positive note, that meant that their absence would be noted.
When they approached the back of the town hall, Steve told them to stop. Still pointing the gun at them, he walked over to a trap door, Holly didn’t even know existed.
He pulled open the heavy door and ushered them inside. The room went black, and Holly froze. Now was the time to do something, anything, but her mind was blank and the opportunity passed.
The light flicked on and they all descended the stairs, moving farther and farther down under the town hall. When they reached the bottom, it was to find a heavy door.
“Open it and get in,” Steve told them.
Holly pulled the heavy door open and walked inside. The room was cavernous with thick cement walls and steel bracings. It was filled with shelving and old dusty supplies. Rows of cots with woolen blankets lined the back wall, and clothing hung from racks to their left.
“What is this place?” Sarah asked. “I didn’t even know it was here.”
“It’s an old bomb shelter,” Steve replied. “I scouted out the town when I arrived and stumbled across this little gem. The walls are three feet thick on all sides. No one will find you.”
Holly moved further into the room and shivered with the cold. It was moldy and musty down here and looked like it hadn’t been touched in years.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked. “You took my life savings. What more could you want?”
Steve walked closer still pointing the gun at them. She backed up once more and placed her body between the gun and her friends. She had gotten them into this mess, and she would get them out of it. Why did she have to follow him? She should have stayed in the diner, where the men knew they were and they were safe.
“You are a stupid woman,” Steve said. “Always were. You were so infatuated with me that you didn’t even notice the women I fucked all over our apartment.”
“Why?” Kate asked. “Do you have that small a penis that you had a point to prove?”
“Kate! You are not helping,” she snapped.
“You have got big balls for someone with a gun pointed at them.”
Holly wished Kate would just let her handle this. She knew Steve and knew he liked his ego stroked. Bad mouthing him wasn’t helping.
“You weren’t the first moron I fleeced, either, and you certainly won’t be the last.” He went on. “I had another woman already on the hook. Younger than you, and prettier, too. Until someone warned her.”
“What?” she asked. “You think that was me?”
“Who else?” he answered. “I came home to our house one day to find three big men helping her move out. She told me they had shown her evidence of my previous fraud. I knew it had to be you. It wasn’t hard to track you down.”
“I wasn’t the one on the run.” Holly wondered who those men were and how they knew about Steve? Were the police investigating him? Or had another woman he had fleeced been on his tail?
“It wasn’t me,” she told him. “I was moving on with my life. I’m happy.”
“Don’t lie to me, baby doll. It had to be you. Now all I need to do is take you out of the equation and I can get back to business. Looks like I have to kill more of you than I had planned, but if that’s what needs to be done.”
Steve raised the gun higher at Holly, and she sucked in a breath. This was it. She was going to die in some abandoned bomb shelter. Chase and Jarrod would never know how much she loved them.
She needed to save Kate and Sarah. If she did nothing else before she died, she needed to get them to safety. Holly closed her eyes and leapt at Steve.
Chapter Eighteen
Chase paced back and forth, bored out of his mind. Jarrod was in the barn fixing a stall door, and his folks still hadn’t returned from their romantic weekend in Helena. Holly was in town having lunch with her friends, and he missed her already.
She had only been gone a few hours and he was already going stir crazy. He should have made her stay home and made love to her again. They could have curled up on the couch and watched a movie or just lay in bed all day.
Maybe he should go to the barn and help his brother or better yet head into town and get some work done at the clinic. Chase ran upstairs and grabbed his shoes. He swiped his keys on the way out the door and walked down the porch steps.
He had just opened the truck door when his cell vibrated in his pocket. Looking down at the screen, it flashed with Grayson Carter’s number.
“Hi, Grayson,” he said. “What’s up?”
“Have you spoken to Holly lately?” Grayson’s deep voice came through the speaker. Chase froze at his question.
“No,” he answered. “She is supposed to be with Kate and Sarah at the diner.”
“I just received a call from Ethel at the diner. The women were there, and then they just took of leaving their bags behind. They never came back. That was an hour ago.”
“Shit. Have you tried their cells?” he asked. Where the hell would they have gone?
“I’ve tried all three. They were all in the women’s bags. They have vanished.”
“Do you think it’s the cartel again?” Chase hoped to hell not. They were vicious and had no morals. They had already come for Sarah twice. He thought they had seen the last of them, now that both brothers were dead.
“We aren’t ruling anything out at this stage, but we just don’t know. We aren’t ruling out Holly’s boyfriend either.”
Chase had forgotten about him. So much had happened since Jarrod had asked Wolf to have his connections in Seattle to intervene. Would the bastard come here looking for revenge? Chase wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t taking any chances either.
“I’ll get Jarrod and meet you at CUSS.” Chase turned toward the barn and broke into a run.
“Roger,” Grayson said and disconnected.
Chase pocketed his phone and started to sprint. He called out Jarrod’s name as he went. His brother met him at the barn door, wiping his hands on an old rag.
“What’s all the yelling?” Jarrod asked with a worried look on his face.
“Holly, Kate, and Sarah are missing,” Chase replied. “We have to get to CUSS, ASAP.”
“When was the last time anyone saw them? Did they make it to the diner?” Chase and Jarrod ran back toward the trucks. They dove in, and Chase sped down the drive.
“They made it to the diner and then took off again. No one knows where to or why.”
“Blake and James are going to be in a killing rage.” Wasn’t that the truth. This was the third time Sarah had gone missing. Maybe they needed to limit Holly’s time with her. With Holly’s bad luck and Sarah’s perchance for getting kidnapped, they were a dangerous combination.
They made it to town in record time, not caring about the speed limit or getting pulled over for speeding. Blake would have the whole station searching for his woman.
Chase pulled the truck into the CUSS parking lot and parked next to Jarrod’s truck. It was still where Holly had left it. That was one less line of inquiry.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Chase burst through the doors, his brother close on his heels. They walked through the reception lobby and into the offices, to the conference room.
Filled to capacity, all the men of the town stood around to discuss their next move. Brock sat at his laptop, frantically typing whilst Pierson stood looking over his shoulder. James was standing at the window on the phone, yelling swear words at whoever was on the other end. Hawk and Wolf stood talking with Grayson, whilst Trace and Cole Jackson sat at the table over looking maps.
Tank stood at the back of the room leaning against the wall with a deadly expression on his face. Chase walked over to him and Jarrod went to sit next to Brock.
“Any news?” Chase asked, getting Tank’s attention.
“No,” Tank replied. “Blake is questioning the townspeople, but no one has seen them since they ran past the general store window.”
“That’s something at least,” Chase
said. “We know that they were on foot.”
“I did not rescue those women from a drug cartel, just for them to go off and get themselves killed. They need a good spanking.” Chase couldn’t agree more, and Holly was going to be in for one hell of a punishment when he found her. After he made love to her and thanked the heavens that she was safe.
Chase left Tank to stew and approached his brother.
“Okay, people,” Grayson said. “Listen up. Wolf’s contacts in Seattle have just informed us that Steve has shot through. They had the house watched, but it seems he had done a number on them.”
“Ethel said that Holly bolted from the diner,” Pierson said. “Maybe she saw Steve and went after him. Kate and Sarah following.”
“Blake is sending a deputy to check out the motel,” James added.
“I’m going to look around the back of the town on foot,” Jarrod said. “If they were last seen going past the general store, then that’s where I’ll start.”
“I’m coming, bro,” Chase told him. He couldn’t sit around here and wait. He needed to be active, and if all he could do was search the town brick by brick, then that’s what he would do.
“Brock,” Grayson said. “You stay here to man the base. Wolf and Hawk, search along the creek toward the old cheese factory. Trace and Cole, search the creek in the other direction. Tank, you can take the school and James and I will take each end of the highway.”
They all piled out of the building and ran toward the bridge. Once they hit the old part of town they broke off into their groups and started to search.
Chase and Jarrod walked past the general store and stopped. The school was the only thing in this direction. Why would they have come this way?
“Tank is searching the school,” Jarrod said. “Let’s circle around and head toward the church.”
“Okay,” Chase replied. “But it seems unlikely they would head back toward the sheriff’s office.”
* * * *
Holly launched at Steve and tackled him to the ground. She grabbed onto the gun as they rolled around the floor struggling for dominance.
The Trouble with Holly [Merricks, Montana 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) Page 15