by Sophie Oak
The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.
The bottom dropped out of Ben’s stomach. He turned to his brother.
A grim look crossed Chase’s face. “I wondered about that. I think we have to consider the fact that Tate has finally gotten his ducks in a row. It was either a mistake or a trap. Now that he’s been forced to take Natalie with him, he had to change his play. They’ll move the auction or delay it. All because the receptionist got caught with her hands in the cookie jar and Natalie had the fundamental nasty luck to walk in at the wrong time.”
Jack Barnes frowned. “So Melissa was blackmailing people?”
“Gretchen. She was blackmailing Gretchen.” Chase had hacked into the receptionist’s e-mail immediately. There had to be a reason they’d taken her system. Luckily she wasn’t the smartest blackmailer to live. She’d kept a personal e-mail account in her own name and every nasty note she’d sent out had been right there. Apparently the receptionist knew about Gretchen’s long-term affair with Stan Kirkman and had, for a fee, been putting out rumors that it was Natalie and not Gretchen who was screwing the Furniture King. She’d gone so far as to send Juliet Kirkman nasty little notes about Natalie’s meetings with her husband. She’d even let Juliet inside the gates and given her access to Natalie’s apartment with Gretchen’s help. Yes, he wasn’t sad the woman was dead.
“Why was Gretchen sleeping with Stan? I thought she was in love with Tate,” Sam asked.
“Stan knew about the drugs.” Chase hit a button on his system and the printer in Barnes’s office started firing up. “His store was likely one of the places where they moved the drugs. It’s innocuous. It’s safe. It would make the less seedy members of the community more comfortable than going out to Wispers. He could have his salespeople quietly sell pot and a little meth, but I think he got nervous about the China White.”
“Heroin? They’re selling heroin here in Willow Fork?” Sam asked, his jaw dropping.
“Yeah, we’re just coming up in the world, aren’t we?” Barnes laughed, a nasty little sound.
“According to Natalie, Stan has been coming to see her for months. Likely right around the time Tate joined the resort. It was also the time the cops started seeing a rise in meth distribution. Before that they were only worried about marijuana, but Tate would need cash. I bet he lost a bundle when Hawk got taken down. One of the little snippets of information the police found in Hawk’s desk was a transaction number to a foreign bank account. As far as I’ve been able to tell, it was a deposit to him for one point two million.”
“For Natalie. Tate was paying for Natalie,” Ben surmised.
“Very likely,” Chase replied. “She was a luxury item, and she wiped him out financially. He must have wanted her very badly. Now he’s making up for his losses by becoming a drug kingpin here.”
“Why have Gretchen sleep with Stan?” Sam asked.
“Because the spa was a good place to hand off the drugs. Stan was already seeing Natalie for his back. He convinced her to let him ‘sleep’ the last hour of his appointments, and that was when Gretchen would sneak in, hand over the drugs, and take care of Stan’s extra business. She wasn’t connected to him formally. Natalie was.”
“Her best friend set her up to take the fall in case things went south?” Sam sounded horrified. He looked over at Jack as though his whole fucking world would crumble if anything happened to him.
“Gretchen was never her friend.” Jack put an arm around his partner. “I wonder if she’s seeing this as some form of revenge on Natalie.”
“Because Natalie killed her Master,” Ben concluded. Gretchen was mentally ill, but it wouldn’t stop Ben from taking her out. “And now Tate has set up Gretchen as the one who killed Melissa, and he’s probably got a decent case for her killing Stan. If he can just get rid of us, he’ll likely get away with it.”
“But Natalie will still be missing,” Sam said, leaning into Jack just a little.
“And Natalie has a history of problems since her kidnapping,” Chase pointed out. “The sheriff will decide she’s run off or that she’s killed herself. He won’t look for her. Tate will find a way to smuggle her out of the country. He’s probably got the money for it now. He’ll likely kill the two girls he’s taken or find quick buyers. I see a South American brothel in those girls’ futures. They’re always looking for cheap, exotic women. If we don’t find her, it’s where Georgia will end up.”
Barnes moved toward Chase. “One of those girls is my hand’s niece, and that means she belongs to this family. She might have gotten herself in trouble on a couple of occasions, but that damn straight doesn’t mean I’ll let her be sold. We have to search for her, and we have to do it now. They’ll hunker down while the heat is on, but they’ll move or kill those girls in the next forty-eight hours.”
Barnes was right. They had very little time. “How far away are these places?”
Chase set out the printouts. “They’re all over the place, but each within driving distance of both the resort and the strip club. Tate can’t be gone for too long. Someone at the resort would notice and question his absences. He needs time to train these women. It’s what he loves to do. The drugs are a sideline, a way to make money. Breaking women to his boot, that’s what he loves.”
“And he has my Nat?” A soft, but firm voice broke through the office.
“Joshua, I told you to stay close to your momma.” Jack Barnes turned to his son, who looked so like a mini version of himself.
“I heard y’all talking. We need to find Nat if someone has her. We need to find all of our women and bring them back. I can get Liv’s BB gun.”
Sam picked up his son, hauling him close. “Not on your life, buddy. You’re staying here, but I promise you those two men there are going to find Nat and bring her home. They won’t ever stop.”
Maybe Chase was right about one thing. The kid needed to understand. He was too much like his dad, too serious and a little ruthless, even at four. “We’ll find Natalie because she belongs to us.”
Josh frowned, his small brow furrowing. “She don’t have a ring on her finger yet.”
Yep. The kid would prove an admirable adversary. But not today. “She will as soon as we get her back.”
She would have a ring on her finger and one day a pretty collar around her neck because he would show her that belonging to the Dawson brothers wasn’t a cage. It was a haven and one from which she would never want to leave. They belonged to her as much as she belonged to them. They were a family. Those ties would bind but never chafe.
“Let’s go find our wife.”
His brother was at his back as he walked out of the house.
Chapter Nineteen
Natalie came to in utter darkness, her head pounding.
God, no. Not again.
Cold concrete sat under her. She reached about and found the bars. She could feel them, cold under her hands.
“Nat? Are you awake now?” A quiet voice called out for her. Hands touched her body, but they were soft, feminine. Georgia.
Oh, god, they’d taken Georgia. She’d pulled Georgia straight into her nightmare. Nat forced herself to sit up. She had to find a way out. She had to save Georgia. Georgia was innocent. Georgia was her almost family, and she had to save her.
“Shhh, it’s all right. I think we’re alone. That crazy creepy chick is gone. I know this sounds weird, but I think we might be underground. I don’t know. When she left, the light was overhead and then it closed off. It was weird.”
“Keep quiet. We can’t know if we’re alone.” Her hands were shaking. Violently.
“We can. I think it’s worth the risk.”
A flash of light startled Nat.
“Holy shit.” She kept her voice quiet because they had to have some way to watch them. Maybe not. She got the feeling that her kidnapping was one of extreme opportunity. “You still have Logan’s phone?”
“Yeah. I’ve been afraid to pull it ou
t because I don’t want to lose it. We might only have one shot, and I don’t exactly know where we are yet. I think we’re a couple of miles away. I counted the turns, too. Two lefts. One right. Then another left. Then we went straight for a long time. I think we were on a highway. Then another left and we were here. It took about twenty minutes. You’ve been out for forty. Then up some stairs and down a ladder, but I couldn’t risk opening my eyes. And also they kind of flung me over some smelly guy’s shoulder and then used some weird pulley thing to get me down. I had to pretend to still be out. I’m sorry. I was scared. I should have risked it. They put that cloth thingie over my face, but I didn’t breathe. I pretended to and that Gretchen chick isn’t as thorough as the dude.”
“Don’t apologize.” Nat forced herself to sit up. The dim light of the phone showed that they were indeed alone, but the small room was far from empty. There were stacks of white-colored bricks.
The drugs. This was where they kept the drugs.
“Is that what I think it is?” Georgia asked, shining the light in the direction of the small desk.
“I would say that’s heroin. It could be cocaine, but they found heroin with Stan. God, what has Gretchen gotten herself into?”
The light went out and they were left in utter darkness. Nat hated the darkness. Except for last night, when she’d been wrapped in their arms. She’d been able to sleep, nestled between Ben and Chase. Every now and then, they would turn and she would find herself in the other’s arms, but she was always cuddled close.
The darkness hadn’t been scary then.
“I heard them talking. Gretchen was on the phone with the douchebag. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she was crying and begging him to keep her. I think she screwed something up because it doesn’t sound like they were ready to do something, whatever it was they were planning on doing, but the dead lady screwed it up and Gretchen killed her.”
What the hell? “I can’t believe it. Call Chase. His number has to be on there. Tell him about the turns and stuff. He can find us.”
“Okay. Sorry I didn’t do it before, but I was scared someone might still be watching, and I wanted to wait until you woke up before I did anything. I can’t carry you out. And I was also contemplating how crappy this cage is. There’s not even like one of those little gerbil feeder things. I’m kind of hungry, and I could definitely use a drink. Vodka. I bet they have crappy vodka here.”
She had to keep Georgia on task. “Georgia, phone.”
“Oh, okay.” She pulled it up and a little light came through. “Wow. He’s getting a call. OMG. It’s totally Logan’s mom. Well, Mom Number 2. What’s up with that? Maybe it’s his stepmom. I’ll put her on speaker.”
“Georgia, seriously?” Was she thinking at all?
“Hello?”
A gruff, only slightly feminine voice came over the line. “Logan Green, I am gonna tan your hide. Your momma and I didn’t send you to Texas so you could go to a bar. Teeny is crying. I don’t like it when Teeny cries. I swear, I am going to have such a talk with that Julian Lodge. He thinks he’s a big man, but I can tan his hide, too.”
Logan’s Mom Number 2 sounded kinda scary.
Georgia cleared her throat. “Uhm, ma’am. Logan can’t come to the phone right now.”
“Who is this? I was not informed my son has a girl.”
“Could you ask her to call the police?” Nat asked because somehow, someway things just fell apart around Georgia.
A low growl came across the line. “There are two of you? You find Logan. You tell him there is no way we accept that. We’re traditionalists. If he wants to join the freaky lifestyle we have around here, then he can find a friend and share a girl with her. Or you two nice girls can join us together but that kind of love is sacred.”
Nat’s frustration welled. “Ma’am, we need to hang up now because, you see, we’ve been kidnapped and put in a cage. So we might only have a few seconds to call someone to save us.”
Sure enough, she could hear someone moving overhead. The ceiling squeaked.
“I would ask you to call your son, but I kind of stole his phone, but only after he tossed mine in a lake, so it’s really not my fault,” Georgia was saying. “It’s his fault. It was rude what he did.”
A few things fell into place for Natalie.
“Holy shit. You know where we are? You have his phone tracked?” Hope started to rise, but that squeaking was getting closer. “Where are we?”
“Well, my boy’s phone says he’s at some strip club. I didn’t raise him to go to strip clubs. If he wants to watch naked ladies, he can go up to the nudist camp like the rest of the men. It’s more civilized. Now, why are you two young ladies in a cage?”
Brilliant light stormed into the room, temporarily blinding Nat. Her time was up.
Georgia hung up the phone and tried to shove it back between that impressive cleavage of hers, but it was too late. Gretchen dropped down into the hole they were in. She flicked a switch and a low light came on. The whole room was small, but there was space to move. And they weren’t really in a cage, not the kind she’d been kept in before. This was more like a storage locker. She wondered if they’d had to move the drugs out of here to put her and Georgia in.
“Give it up.” Gretchen looked different in the low light, as though every bit of softness had been stripped out of her, leaving something hard and brittle in its place. Gretchen had never been particularly lovely, but now Nat could see the nasty edge to her features. “I know about the phone. This is where Cooder and the boys cut the drugs. Do you think we don’t have a camera in here? We watch every move those boys make through a security camera.”
“Why are you doing this?” Nat had to ask. She struggled to get to her feet, holding on to the bars of the cell for balance. Georgia got up beside her.
“I’m doing this because my Master ordered me to and I’m not like you, Natalie. I’m not some pathetic wannabe. I’m a slave. A good one and Master Tate recognizes that. He will reward me for my service.”
“Lady, you’re butt-fuck crazy. Seriously, you need a shrink.” Georgia wasn’t going to be particularly helpful here.
Gretchen brought her right hand up, showing off the nasty pistol she was carrying. “Give me the phone, bitch, or I’ll shoot you. I’ll make sure it doesn’t kill you. The Master thinks you’ll bring in a decent price once we manage to get out of here.”
“Price? Ewww. What the hell happened to sisterhood?” Georgia frowned as though this was a sorority sister throw down. “You’re kind of a cow, you know. I wouldn’t use that phrase on many people, but you totally deserve it.”
“You can’t get away, Gretchen.” Panic wasn’t going to win the day. She had to see if there was an ounce of reason left in Gretchen. “We already made the call. We know we’re at a strip club. How many of those could there be in Willow Fork? Ben and Chase are on their way. They won’t let Tate have me.”
A nasty little smile lit her face. “Why do you think I let you do it? They won’t find you. This room is hidden and soundproofed. They can look all they like. My Master could be in here taking what belongs to him and they would be two feet away and never the wiser. So let the cops come. It will only make your men look stupid. My Master is smarter than those posers.”
“No one is smarter than my brother. My brother will figure it out, and then you’re in trouble because Chase won’t give a crap that you’re a girl. He’ll kill you,” Georgia said.
A loud report reverberated through the room. Nat gasped as Georgia’s body jerked and slumped down. Blood. There was blood coming from her arm.
There was no sanity left in Gretchen.
“Give me the phone or I’ll shoot her again,” her former friend said. “And don’t even tempt me with shooting you, Natalie. It’s what Hawk should have done. He should have simply slit your throat, but the Master thought he could fix you. Now Master Tate thinks the same thing, but I believe he’ll learn. He’ll fuck you for a while, but he will come ba
ck to me. I am his true slave.”
Nat got to her knees. She had to reach into Georgia’s shirt for the phone. Georgia’s face was tight, pain filling her eyes, but she kept quiet for once. She bit her lip as Nat extricated the phone. It had been their only chance and her bluff about talking to Ben and Chase hadn’t worked. They had to hope that Logan’s mom called someone, anyone. More than likely she thought it was a bad joke perpetrated by her son’s good-time girl. How many people in the whole world would believe a story like theirs?
But she had to protect Georgia.
And she had to stay alive.
She handed the phone to Gretchen. She had no intention of telling Gretchen her plan, but it formed instantly. She’d always known that if this happened again, she would find a way to die. She would take herself out before going through the pain and humiliation again.
She was wrong. They were worth it. Her parents were worth it. Her real friends were worth every ounce she could endure. Her future was worth it.
For the first time, she acknowledged the truth. She was worth the pain. She was worth it.
It had taken the love of those men to prove it. She wouldn’t fight. She wouldn’t scream and rebel. Oh, she would kill him if she could, but she wouldn’t rage against him, inviting the possibility of death. She would wait.
Because they would come for her and they would love her no matter what Tate managed to do.
And if she managed to survive, she would take their collar and join them because this was her life and her choice and no amount of torture would take that from her again.
“Here.”
Gretchen grabbed the phone, frowning. “He’s going to break you. Or he’ll kill you. Either way, it’s what you deserve.”
He wouldn’t. Hawk might have been able to, but Nat had Kitten to buoy her. She could see it now. Kitten had given her a reason to fight. Now she had more reason than ever. She had Ben and Chase. They would never stop looking. They would look until they found her, and she intended to be waiting. She could be old and gray and broken, but the moment she saw them again, she could begin her life anew.