“C’mon, c’mon,” he muttered impatiently as he listened to the phone ring against his ear.
Her phone rang a total of four times and then he heard her voice. “This is Felicia. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave your name and number and a short message, I promise I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a nice day.”
“C’mon, Felicia, pick up. Pick up,” he coaxed. But she didn’t. “Look, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said what I said to you earlier. And I shouldn’t have put any pressure on you to tell me about your past. That’s your business. I should have let you tell me when you were ready to let me into your life.” He was pacing as he spoke into the phone, willing her to pick up. “But you have to understand, I was just worried. About you, about Mom. Just come back and we can work this all out—”
That was when he heard her cell phone disconnecting against his ear.
“Damn it,” he muttered, utterly frustrated.
Nicole was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs when he came out of the room. “Did you get her?” she asked hopefully.
He shook his head as he came down. “She’s gone, Mom. She took her things. I tried calling her, but she’s not picking up.”
“I guess maybe she’s too angry to talk to you right now,” Nicole told him.
That made the most amount of sense, he thought. “Maybe if you call her,” he suggested. He just asked that she was all right and that nothing had happened to her. Until he heard the sound of Felicia’s voice, that was still up in the air.
“I’m way ahead of you, dear,” Nicole said as she took her phone out of her pocket. She quickly tapped out Felicia’s number.
The moment Felicia’s cell phone connected with hers, Nicole found herself on the receiving end of the same message that Aaron had listened to.
Growing concerned, Nicole pressed her lips together. “Fee, please call us,” she said. “We’re all very worried about you.”
Saying that, Aaron’s mother closed her phone and addressed her son. “She’s not picking up.”
“I can see her ignoring me. She’s angry with me, but she wouldn’t just ignore you,” he told his mother. “Something’s definitely wrong. Do you have any idea where she went?”
But Nicole shook her head, feeling helpless. “No, I don’t. I really wish that I did, but she never talked about any place but here.”
Aaron was back on his phone. This time he was calling the number that Damon had given him, getting in contact with the person Damon had said could do some research for him by looking on the dark web. His brother had sworn that the man could find things out that weren’t normally available or even known to the average computer tech.
He crossed his fingers that Damon’s contact was as good as his brother had said and that he could locate Greg’s whereabouts for him.
Aaron had a feeling that somehow, Greg was at the bottom of all this.
The only thing that his brother had told him was that the contact’s name was Ryan. If “Ryan” was a first name or a last name or just a code name in this case, Aaron had absolutely no idea, nor did he care. He just wanted help—as fast as possible.
The phone on the other end rang an inordinate number of times.
Where the hell is this Ryan? Aaron thought impatiently. He was about to hang up and try again, thinking maybe he had misdialed.
And then Aaron heard the phone being picked up.
He began talking immediately. “Ryan, this is Aaron Colton. I got your number from Damon. He thought you might be able to help me.”
In contrast to Aaron, the voice on the other end was exceedingly calm and soft-spoken. “Yes, Damon explained the situation to me.”
The man had a slight accent, but Aaron couldn’t really place it. Again, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting results. And the faster he could get those results, the better.
“I’ve taken the liberty of doing a little research into this Greg Harper that you’re trying to locate,” Ryan was saying.
“And?” Aaron asked, trying not to sound too impatient, although he really couldn’t help himself. Truthfully, he had no idea what to expect or what he was actually hoping for. But if Ryan could give him a location where he could get his hands on Felicia’s abusive ex-husband, then he felt he had a very real chance of saving her.
Because he really believed it had come down to that and he damned himself for not being more careful when it came to watching out for Felicia. He had dealt with at-risk kids on a regular basis, and he of all people should have seen the signs much earlier and been protective of her.
He tried not to dwell on the fact that he had failed her. What mattered was that he intended to find a way to save her.
“He’s here,” Ryan told him simply.
Even though he was really hoping that Ryan could provide him with a location, the fact that Ryan actually did stunned him.
“Here?” Aaron repeated incredulously. Could it actually have been just that easy?
“Yes. I’ve tracked this Greg Harper down and he’s registered in a motel on the outskirts of Chicago. It’s not all that far away from where Damon said your old home is located,” he informed Aaron. “From what I managed to find out about your guy, he hasn’t held down a job for any length of time in about three and a half years.” He was silent for a moment, as if reviewing something. “There’s something here about charges being brought up against him, but nothing seemed to stick and eventually the charges were dropped. Tell you one thing, he doesn’t sound like a nice guy,” Ryan commented.
Aaron could feel his jaw clenching. “He’s not. That’s why I need to find him as soon as possible. What’s the address of the motel?”
“It’s really a hole in the wall,” Ryan told him. “You know, one of those places where you pay by the hour, or by day, or occasionally, by week. Even by those standards, it comes across like a real hole,” he added, then rattled off the address for him. “You got that? I can repeat it if you need me to,” Ryan offered.
“No, thanks, I got it. I owe you,” Aaron told him in all sincerity. “Big-time.”
“No, you don’t. I’m just paying Damon back what I owe him. The guy saved my life,” Ryan said matter-of-factly as if it was an everyday occurrence. “Anything else?”
“Not unless you have something more to add,” Aaron told him.
“Nope. I’m good. Tell Damon the debt’s paid.”
And with that, the connection terminated.
Only then did Nicole say anything to her son. “So, did you get an address for where this worthless waste of flesh is staying?”
“Yes, I got an address for that lowlife,” he confirmed. He really looked angry with himself.
Nicole saw his expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Felicia kept behaving as if she was being stalked. If she actually was—” and he now had no reason to believe that she wasn’t “—then this Greg character knows where she is. If he doesn’t, I can still make sure that he stops bothering her.”
Nicole knew that tone of voice and what was behind it. “Aaron, Nash is back in town. Take him with you.”
“No, Mom,” he told her, rejecting her suggestion, “I need to handle this on my own. Don’t worry. One way or another, I’ll find Felicia and bring her home.”
“You said you had the address of the motel where her ex was staying. What is it?” she asked him.
“The Highland Inn,” he told her. Aaron realized that his mother was picking up her purse. Worried, he moved directly in front of her. “Hold it, where do you think you’re going?”
“With you,” Nicole answered simply.
“Oh no, you’re not,” he told her. “Mom, I don’t need to worry about you, too. If Felicia was right, then this Greg character is capable of anything. I need to know you’re safe, do you understand? I promise I’ll call yo
u the minute I know where she is.”
Nicole looked at her son doubtfully. “Do you promise?” she asked him even though Aaron had said as much.
“I promise,” he told her solemnly. And with that, he was gone.
* * *
Aaron’s heart was in his throat the entire way to the run-down motel. If anything happened to Felicia because he had been inaccessible and put pressure on her, he would never forgive himself.
When he’d gotten behind the wheel of his car, he was barely aware of driving to the motel. All he knew was that it was taking him too long to get there.
* * *
Damn it, she had let her guard down. Knowing everything that Greg was capable of, she hadn’t been nearly alert enough. Focused on getting to the bus depot and getting the first bus leaving the state, she had somehow allowed him to come up behind her when she parked her vehicle in the bus depot parking lot. Part of her inattention was due to the fact that her car was on its last legs and she was just praying that it lasted long enough for her to get to the depot.
If she hadn’t been that preoccupied, she was certain that she would have heard Greg coming up behind her.
But she hadn’t.
She had parked in the first available space she could find, got out and grabbed her suitcase. She hadn’t even been aware that there was someone directly behind her until she felt Greg grabbing her roughly by the waist.
She gasped, ready to fight him off, knowing in her heart it had to be Greg. But he’d caught her so tightly that he stole her very breath away.
“Finally!” she heard Greg declare. “Thought you could get away, didn’t you, you little bitch? Haven’t you learned by now that I’m cleverer than you?” he asked maliciously.
Felicia tried to pull away, but he had pinned her arms against her, tightening his hold. And then, the next moment, he yanked her almost savagely over in front of him.
Suddenly, she was being shoved into the trunk of a car.
His car, she guessed, although she didn’t recognize it.
“Now you’ll stay put, won’t you?” Greg laughed in satisfaction, mocking her. The next moment, the lid of the trunk slammed shut on her and she was completely encased in darkness.
For a second she panicked, unable to breathe.
Calm down, Fee, calm down.
She knew that she had to calm down. Otherwise, it would all be over with far too quickly—and then Greg would finally win this confrontation.
She hadn’t come this far just to give up, Felicia told herself. She refused to die here in Greg’s dirty trunk, refused to give him the satisfaction that he had won. That he had finally gotten the best of her.
He wasn’t a winner. Greg was a loser and he would lose this battle. She just needed to keep her head.
Calm, stay calm, Felicia told herself. Deep breaths.
It took some doing, but she managed to reach into her pocket and extract her cell phone. Holding on to it tightly—because if she dropped it, it would be over with—she managed to turn it on.
If Aaron was trying to find her, she needed to give him a signal to track.
Now all she had to do was pray that he was trying to track her and that he hadn’t just decided to write her off as a lost cause, a ship that had crossed him in the dead of night and then sailed away.
With effort, shifting carefully, she put the cell phone back into her pocket.
Now start looking for me, Aaron.
Please.
Chapter 24
Felicia realized that the car had stopped moving.
She braced herself, knowing she would have only a split second to react once Greg opened the trunk again.
Even so, when the lid popped open, light came flooding in. Felicia felt as if she was temporarily blinded. So much so that she couldn’t react immediately.
The next second she felt Greg grabbing her arm and roughly hauling her out of the car’s interior.
Desperate to focus, she thought she made out the glint of a rifle barrel in the trunk, but she wasn’t sure. It had felt like she had been lying on something exceedingly hard and unyielding.
Greg had almost wrenched her shoulder as he got her out of the trunk. It took everything for her not to gasp out loud in pain.
Mind over matter, she told herself.
Her ex-husband looked disappointed. He’d obviously expected her to cry out. “You’ve gotten tougher in the last two years, Fee. Did your new boyfriend give you an education in working out?” Greg taunted her.
He was still holding on to her arm tightly, all but cutting off her circulation. He was giving every indication that he wasn’t about to let her get away, not this time.
“There is no new boyfriend,” she told him through clenched teeth.
There was no way Felicia would admit anything to Greg. She knew him, or at least the man that Greg had turned into, and there was no way she would give him an excuse to hurt Aaron, or any of the members of his family.
“Don’t give me that,” he snarled. He had parked his car on the far side of a rear lot, deliberately out of sight. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to allow anyone to rob him of this. “I know you. I’ve got eyes. You get your claws into a man and then just suck him dry, like you tried to do with me,” he mocked. “I’m tired of putting up with that, tired of seeing you use men for your perverted purposes. Well, no more Mr. Nice Guy. This time, there’s not going to be any forgiveness. This time, you’re going to pay for making a fool out of me.”
Felicia had no idea what he was talking about. Somehow, in his mind, he’d switched their roles, made himself her victim instead of the other way around. She had absolutely no idea how to begin to bridge the chasm he had created between reality and what he believed was reality.
“I never made a fool out of you, Greg,” she told him. But she could see that her words had no effect. They didn’t even penetrate. She wanted to add that if he felt like a fool, that was his own doing, but if anything, that would only incense him and there was no point in doing that.
Greg couldn’t see reason anymore, much less be reasoned with.
He was bending her arm behind her back as he pushed her toward a run-down building. A motel, she realized. Leaning forward, he whispered a warning into her ear just before they entered.
“Don’t get any ideas about asking the guy behind the desk for help. I’ve got a gun in my pocket and the minute you call out to him, he’s a dead man, understand? Your choice,” he all but barked, punctuating it with a nasty laugh.
She would have said he was bluffing. He didn’t have a gun on him. When she was with him, he hadn’t even known which end of the gun to point. But those were definitely weapons in the trunk of his car. She could have sworn that there was more than one because she had lain on them. She couldn’t risk some man’s life on the supposition that Greg was lying. So she said nothing as they walked by the front desk.
Greg continued holding on to her arm, shoving Felicia ahead of him and walking her toward the stairs that led to the motel’s second floor.
“Smart girl,” he told her nastily.
The man behind the desk barely looked up from the magazine he was reading.
For just a second, despite her best intentions, Felicia debated crying out to the short, overweight man, asking him to call the police. But if Greg did have a gun on him the way he claimed, she knew he wouldn’t hesitate to use it. She just couldn’t risk that.
Reaching the landing and out of the desk clerk’s earshot, Greg laughed nastily at her restraint.
“Still the bleeding heart,” he mocked. “I guess that some things never change.”
The way he said it, she was almost certain Greg had been lying about the gun. And even if he wasn’t, she didn’t care. They were out of the clerk’s range and if Greg did have a gun on him and shot her, that was still preferable to allowing hers
elf to be tortured at his hands, and she was certain that Greg had escalated to that point.
That was behind her, Felicia thought. She was not about to be that accommodating, meek little victim ever again.
She saw that Greg was momentarily distracted as he tried to fish his key out of his pocket in order to open the door to his room.
Felicia seized her opportunity and twisted around, wrenching her arm away as she got away from him. Cursing, Greg grabbed her by her hair, yanking her back to him.
Tears of pain filled her eyes, but she still managed to sink her teeth into his arm, biting down so hard that she actually drew blood.
Greg hollered in pain, letting out a string of vicious curses. Rather than try to get away, Felicia swung around, doubled up her fist and drove it straight to his throat.
Caught by surprise, Greg began choking and coughing violently. She used the opportunity to drive her fingers into his eye sockets. It wasn’t easy for her because the very act turned her stomach, but she knew it was a matter of Greg or her and she had sworn to herself that it wasn’t going to be her ever again.
Another string of curses emerged from his lips as, breathing hard, Greg tried to grab her hair again. But this time, because his eyes were tearing up, he missed.
Spinning around on her heel, Felicia took off and ran back toward the stairs. It was the only way out of the motel. With one hand on the railing to steady herself, she flew down the steps.
Greg was directly behind her.
“You’re going to pay for this, bitch!” he promised angrily, determined to make her regret attempting to fight back.
Felicia’s heart sank when she didn’t see the desk clerk behind his desk. He had obviously gone somewhere, maybe on a food break. This wasn’t the kind of high-class place that had employees subbing for one another because they were leery of leaving the front desk unattended.
It didn’t matter, she told herself. She didn’t need the desk clerk. She could make it out of the motel on her own.
Colton 911: Secret Defender Page 21