High Seduction

by Vivian Arend

  She lifted the canopy and dropped the tailgate, but the only things in the back were the two small gym bags they’d had with them on their holiday. “We must have dropped it at headquarters with the rest of the gear from the chopper, but I’m not sure.” Desperate to make sure there was a reason for them to stay alive.

  John growled his frustration. “Get in the back,” he ordered, jerking the keys from her fingers.

  Shit. Erin moved slowly, but followed his directions, bruising her knees on the hard metal, bare fingers cold on the chilled truck bed. He put his hand on her hip and shoved, toppling her off balance. By the time she’d made it upright, he’d flicked up the tailgate, dropped the canopy cover, and locked her in. She had plenty of room to move—the canopy cover was as tall as the roof of the truck cab. There were windows on all four sides, but being able to see wasn’t reassuring at the moment.

  She was still trapped.

  “Don’t make a fuss. We’ll be bringing out your boyfriend, and if we find a group of neighbours gathered, it won’t be good for anyone.”

  John walked back to the house, head pivoting from side to side as he kept an eye on the nearby houses. Erin checked as well, but it was early enough in the day that most of the people in her area were still at work, and there were no children on this section of the block, thank goodness. Last thing she needed was to have kids get involved.

  Tim appeared in the doorway, Ken immediately after him. John closed the door, and the three of them headed toward her.

  Only Ken split off, taking Tim with him. The two of them got into a second truck parked just down the street, Tim behind the wheel. Erin struggled to see anything that might be helpful—license number, truck model.

  Loud banging made her jerk back from the glass.

  John scowled in at her. “Stay down. We’re going to your headquarters, and if you’re telling the truth, we’ll be gone in no time. You do anything stupid, I call Ken.”

  Erin lowered herself into the corner, head below the level of the windows.

  John could still see her through the double glass separating the truck cab from the canopy, but she was out of reach. And out of control when he shot forward from the curb with a jolt that rolled her toward the tailgate.

  Erin thrust out her arms to brace against the truck sides.

  She stayed low, counting corners as John followed Tim. After the first few, though, she got lost when they didn’t head in a straight line toward HQ, instead taking smaller residential streets to go through most of town.

  There was only so much distance to travel in Banff, though, and they were going to be at the business park end soon enough. What was she going to do?

  She crawled on her belly, easing toward the tailgate so she could double-check the canopy locks, but there was no way to disengage them easily from the inside.

  The road under the tires switched to gravel, and she knew they were almost there. She checked her watch. Five P.M. There shouldn’t be anyone at HQ at this time of day—not with them being on a break.

  She risked a peek over the edge as she shuffled to a safer position near the cab, and braced for the brakes to be slammed on.

  Alisha’s car was in the parking lot, which made sense once their training on the coast registered. There were no signs of anyone else, and Erin’s heartbeat slowed one notch. At least more of her friends wouldn’t be unnecessarily involved with these crazy people.

  John parked, the second vehicle pulling in beside them.

  She sat up, hands pressed to the glass. John ignored her as he stepped past, joining with Ken as he led Tim to the front door of the building.

  Tim punched in the security code, then glanced over his shoulder a bare second before he was pushed into the building. The three of them vanished from sight, and Erin swore violently.

  This was one of those moments when there was no way she could sit and wait. Whatever it was that Ken and John were looking for, they had no reason to worry about keeping Tim safe once they’d found it.

  She had to help him.

  Erin changed position and put her feet on the canopy cover over the tailgate. Raising both feet at the same time, she slammed her heels into the glass. The entire flap shuddered.

  She did it again, harder this time, carefully aiming at the extreme corner where the small turned lock was the only thing holding the lid down.

  With a horrid noise, the lock broke and the glass twisted. She was still trapped, but there was a small space open between the two closures.

  Erin scrambled forward, put her shoulder to the glass, and with it wedged open, snuck her hand out to undo the tailgate. The metal slammed downward loudly, and she rolled out as quickly as possible. It might be wasted energy to hide that she was free, but she closed the tailgate before twisting her way to the side of the truck and staying out of sight from any casual glance out the HQ windows.

  Half the battle. She was free. Now she had to get into HQ and find a way to save Tim.

  Only that.

  She ran for the side of the building, her feet sinking into the snow on every step. There were plenty of tracks, though, and she followed a set as the snow got deeper. Not until she was safely out of sight up against the side of the large industrially built structure did she stop to make some plans.

  There was more than one way to get into the building, including doors that would set off the silent alarm Marcus had installed. Tim had shut off the main-door alarm, but she’d bet anything that was the only one he’d turned off. The snow complicated matters, but it was more her concern of wanting to go quickly that made her breathing hitch and her heart race.

  How long before they found the backpack and whatever they were looking for? How long before Tim became a burden to deal with?

  Erin slipped to the hangar door, pausing before she reached the spot when the motion-sensor light would be triggered. Instead, she carefully climbed on the storage units stacked outside the door, moving upward as close to the building as possible until she could reach out and unscrew the bulb.

  Down on the ground again, she struggled to open the storage combination lock in the dark, fumbling as she squinted at the tiny, faint numbers. She got the door open and rushed in, tapping her fingers on the shelves until she’d found the flashlight stored there.

  Her other prize? The spare key for the door off the training-yard side.

  Silence lay thick over the industrial area with only the rare car driving through other buildings, their tires muffled by the snow on the road. The noise of the Trans-Canada Highway was far enough away to be nothing more than a faint hum.

  The sense of being alone was nearly overwhelming.

  You’re never alone. You’re in my heart.

  Tim’s voice whispered inside her head, and it was more than enough to drive the courage she needed to the forefront again. Erin climbed over the chain-link fence defining the training area and made her way to the door. Once she got inside, ideas of how to help Tim were still foggy, but she was going to do the one thing she knew would help—set off the alarm—and the rest she’d make up as she went along.

  Slowly, silently, she turned the key. The door opened an inch at a time as she pushed it, careful to slip inside before the wind could pick up and announce her presence.

  On the wall beside her, the small green light that shone when the alarm was armed had turned to a faintly blinking red.

  Erin closed the door behind her and stepped into the dark unknown.

  CHAPTER 28

  Tim moved as slowly as he could without prompting a shove between the shoulder blades that would send him to the ground a second time.

  He’d fallen to his knees in the moments after entering Lifeline, Ken and John looming over him. The temptation to lash out with a leg sweep was strong, and if it had only been him to worry about, he’d have taken the risk. But with Erin supposedly trapped in the back of the truck, he exercised a little caution, until he’d given her enough time to get out and go for help.

  Right now
it was a waiting game. He’d gotten stuck in the back of a truck once by drunken friends who thought it was a hilarious joke. Even with his blood alcohol running on high, it hadn’t taken much to figure out a way past the locks. Erin should be out in no time.

  Once she was free, he calculated it would take another five minutes to run to the highway and flag someone down. Use their cell phone and get the police on the way. If he could stall for a good fifteen minutes, the two assholes tormenting him would be out of his and Erin’s life for a long time.

  “Find the damn backpack,” Ken demanded again.

  Only the hall lights lit their path. “If I could turn on more lights—”

  “Nice try, but no. We don’t need anyone spotting the place lit up.”

  “It’s not that strange,” Tim insisted. “My truck is outside, and this is a search-and-rescue base. People come and go at all hours around here.”

  “Just find the bag.”

  John stepped past him into the staff area and started going through lockers, jerking contents to the floor. Heavy coats, personal storage bags, all of it a mess underfoot.

  “That first storage area you checked—is it the only one in the building?” Ken asked.

  “No, I’m working my way through them logically. It’s how we do a search—”

  He bit back his grunt of pain as Ken hit him in the back of the head with a fist. “I’m not interested in the lessons, flyboy. Think. Where would they have put that pack?”

  “Do you know what was in it? I mean other than what you’re looking for?” Tim moved toward the second storage center. “Ropes? First-aid supplies? That makes a difference where someone would unpack it for storage.”

  Meanwhile his brain was ticking down an imaginary timer. Erin should be free by now. She should be nearly at the road by now . . .

  Ken paused. “Plastic bags filled with gel. Water bottles,” he offered reluctantly.

  Shit. Tim nodded slowly as if deliberating hard, careful to keep his expression neutral. This one was too easy if the ass used his brain instead of the damn gun. “Definitely storage area,” he lied. “That’s where the extra medical supplies like that are kept.”

  He opened the door to the oversized room and stepped forward, jerking to a halt as he spotted an arm disappearing around the shelving stack in the right corner.

  My God, that was Erin. His heart raced again. What the fuck was she doing here instead of getting help? He paused as if trying to figure out the right direction to go, but his brain was spinning. This changed everything.

  Keeping his cool in stressful situations wasn’t usually an issue. Not losing his shit over the woman he loved being back in danger? That was tougher.

  Academy Award–quality acting time. He pointed to the left. “Best guess is over here.”

  Ken motioned him toward the large set of storage lockers, and Tim went willingly. He opened one set of doors at a time, pushing aside the front items. Taking things down carefully and putting them back into place.

  John was still missing, and from the sounds in the background, he was still in the staff room causing chaos.

  “There. What’s that?” Ken asked as Tim swung open the doors on the transport bag cabinet.

  “This is where the large bags are kept,” Tim explained. “It might have been misplaced in here.” It was also the location for his medical bag. One step forward, and he pulled aside the front couple of bags, a huge sense of relief sweeping in as the brilliant red of the cross on the label shone at him—

  Then vanished as the room flashed into darkness.

  Tim ignored the shouts behind him and focused on dragging open the zippered compartment under his fingers.

  * * *

  Erin slipped her hands off the master power switch, turning without a pause toward the main area of HQ.

  She’d seen Tim and Ken in storage, leaving John as the one now fumbling in the dark in the staff area. With the set of night vision goggles she’d pulled off the shelf, she had a definite advantage, adding to her knowledge of the building layout.

  Before Ken’s shout of dismay had faded, she was at the staff room door, the glowing green form of a body shuffling toward her with his arms extended to the sides.

  Erin gave in to her frustrations and lashed out with a rapid kick to his chest. With no advance warning to brace himself, John went flying backward, a loud crash sounding as he hit the floor.

  She grabbed the door and slammed it shut, engaging the lock. Two steps put her at the side of the tall metal filing cabinet.

  With mental apologies to Marcus for making a mess, she put her shoulder to the top. It took two rocks to set the heavy object in motion, but once it started, it didn’t stop until it, too, hit the floor with an enormous clang that echoed off the walls.

  “Don’t move,” Ken ordered, his shout ringing in the storage area.

  Bullshit on that. Her heart might be about to pound out of her chest, but she wasn’t done.

  Erin grabbed a spray can from the shelf as she stepped carefully down the hall. The open door to the storage area was up ahead on the right. She walked with her arm extended in front of her, finger on the top of the plastic plunger. Her hand was steady, and she forced herself to breathe slowly, calming herself as she took the final steps forward.

  The ghostly images of two bodies appeared, one close to her, one by the shelves. All three of them silent, only the pounding of John’s fists on the staff door drifting down to them.

  Staccato. Harsh.

  Ken adjusted his hand to the side, as if trying to track Tim in the dark.

  Tim remained silent. The glow of his outline decreased in size as he got down on the floor. Smart man—smaller target for Ken if he did take a shot.

  Only Ken was backing up, one hand running along the wall. Was he looking for the exit? Trying to escape? Erin pressed herself back against the hall, waiting until the moment was right . . .

  The keys stored on the wall jingled under Ken’s fingers. Tim was on his feet, body doubling in size, arm rising.

  As if observing a slow-motion video, Erin spotted her mistake. With her move forward, and Tim’s adjustment along the floor, it wasn’t only Ken who stood in the potential line of fire. If that was a gun in Tim’s hand, she was hooped. She had only an instant to react. She shouted the first thing that came to mind.

  “Spider.”

  Layered on top of each other came the responses.

  Ken whirled toward her. A shot rang out. Erin pressed the top of the can.

  Chaos broke.

  CHAPTER 29

  Tim had been in soul-shredding spots before. He’d leapt off cliffs, for fun and for work. He’d made the occasional wrong decision that had left him seconds from potential death. None of those situations compared to the nightmare unfolding in the darkness before him.

  High-pitched screams sounded, one after the other. A tortured, skin-crawling sound that had his heart in his throat as he lowered his unfired weapon to his hip.

  Erin.

  Another clatter, metal on concrete, and everything that could have gone wrong flashed like a whip across his nerves.

  “Tim, are you okay?” Erin called over the persistent cries.

  Thank God. Tim finally took a breath.

  And tasted pepper.

  “Shit, Erin.” Tim squeezed his eyes shut as he inched toward where the exit was. There was nothing to see in the pitch black anyway. “I’m fine. You got Ken contained?”

  “I got his gun. John’s locked up. Police are on the way.” She sneezed violently.

  Tim wrapped his fingers around the doorknob. “Watch your eyes, I’m opening the door.”

  “Roger.”

  Fresh air pushed the pepper scent away from him and farther into HQ. A narrow beam of light snuck in the door off the distant climbing tower beacon, like the curtain going up at the theater to dramatically reveal the current setting. Ken on his knees, his fists pressed hard to his eyes as he rocked and wailed. In the distance John had foun
d something metal and was smashing it into the door again and again.

  Walking toward him, Erin held Ken’s gun in her left hand, a can of bear spray in her right. Her forehead was hidden under a set of night vision goggles, the viewing scopes currently tilted toward the ceiling. The cocky smile gracing her lips was one hundred percent Erin.

  If he hadn’t already been there, he would have fallen head over heels in love. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”

  She laughed, a bright sound that smashed away the last of the fear in his soul. The gun was carefully put aside before she threw herself into his arms and kissed him, cold fresh air whirling around them as Ken continued to serenade them with his crying.

  The life-and-death adrenaline that had filled Tim’s veins for the last thirty minutes transformed into heat of another kind. He wrapped his arms around her and took what she freely offered.

  When she pulled back, he stroked a finger over her cheek. “Smart-ass. Spider?”

  “I wanted you to stop what you were doing, but thought it might confuse Ken a little more than simply shouting stop.”

  He shuddered involuntarily again. “Darkness, a gun in my hand, and you bring up spiders. Damn it, woman . . .”

  Blue-and-red lights flashed in his peripheral vision, interrupting her soothing, yet teasing apology. Their backup had arrived, running on silent mode.

  “The police. I’ll go let them in,” Erin offered, holding out the goggles.

  Tim glanced at Ken, but the man wasn’t even attempting to get off the floor. “I’ll turn the main power back on and meet you at the front door.”

  By the time he’d set the panel back to rights, two full teams stood in the Lifeline gathering room, waiting for orders. Their main contact within the RCMP looked up as Tim stepped forward, Erin already explaining what had happened. Marcus stepped through the doors and joined them.

  James nodded, motioning to his teams. “Get the man in the staff room first. Once he’s secured, move the man in the back, and take them to the station.”