by Mia Malone
“Calling every-fucking-one.”
“I’ll get in touch with the boys on this side. We’ll lock down Montana and Wyoming for you. Tony will bring your boys and his men from Seattle. Get him to call his cousin. He’s a good man. He’ll call his people, cover Oregon and south from there.”
“Yeah,” Black said. “The Brothers, Wolves, and probably a few more will come in straight from the south.”
“Shit, man.”
“Spread the word, Boog. Thor is closing the border to Canada. Not a single fucking soul crosses unless it’s via the legal stations. Anyone brings even a goddamned puppy across, and they deal with me.”
“With you?”
Black knew what the man asked.
“As of five minutes, yeah. They deal with me, and you can spread the word on that too.”
“Right, talk to you later. We’ll have a fucking party when we’ve found your woman.”
“Yeah. Later.”
And so it went on. Call after call, with offers to help coming in from everywhere. They didn’t always agree, and some were fucking assholes Black never talked to, but they all had old ladies, or wives and daughters, so they all got to work and the ring slowly closed around the mountains.
The clubs would spread out and cover the roads, check houses and talk to people as they slowly and meticulously made their way toward the center.
Someone would find her.
The next hour he was busy. Planning. Talking to people. Doing practical things because it was all he had to hold on to and letting go meant falling apart. And he couldn’t do that because she was out there in the hands of a madman.
“Jesus,” Ice said and put his phone down. “Mom just called. Desiree borrowed a car from someone. Headed out toward us, says she can’t just sit and wait. Says she has to get to her mom.”
Their eyes met, and Black shook his head with an exasperated sigh. He should have known the girl would do something like that because it was what Cassandra would have done. Then he pulled out his phone and walked off to stare out the window while he waited for her to pick up.
“Desiree,” he said sternly. “I get it. I do. But you’ll drive carefully, and if you start crying, you stop. Mom and Dad are heading your way, so if you have to, then just stop, and they’ll get to you.”
“I am not crying,” she said, and he heard that she didn’t. “If you find out that Mom is dead then I will but not yet. No way. That fucking asshole.”
Black straightened, and a slow grin spread on his face. Jesus, that was Cas’ daughter alright. How he ever could have thought that they were two girly and soft creampuffs he did not know.
“Okay, sweetheart. I just –”
“He’s evil,” Desi said quietly. “Black, he’s really, really evil. He’ll kill her but not yet. He will play with her and try to hurt her first. For as long as he can get away with it, at least.”
“He’s a dead man,” Black said.
“I know.”
They were silent for a short while, and then Black asked, “What do you think he will do? Where will he take her?”
“He’s going to find somewhere to hide with her. Some house. Cabin. I don’t know. And he’ll hurt her.”
Her voice cracked slightly, but then she went on, “Mom is super-strong. She’ll kick him in the nuts.”
“Absolutely,” Black said and thought about the shouts they’d heard.
And the shots.
“You’ll find her?”
Desi’s quiet question cut into his thoughts, and he turned toward the table where they’d laid out a big map.
“Yeah, honey. I will,” he said. “Gotta go. Have shit to do.”
“Okay.”
“You have my number, and Gee’s. You need us, you use them, okay?”
“Okay.”
They closed the call, and he walked over to lean over the table.
He’ll try to find a house somewhere…
He’s taking me toward the border…
They knew when she’d left Portland, so they knew roughly when he got to her. She’d called a couple of hours later. He’s taking me toward the border…
What would the fucker do?
Black traced the roads with his fingers.
Thor was waiting for him, spreading out with their allies, holding down every way across into Canada.
The border…
“Ice!” he roared. “Brooks!”
“What?”
“We’re messing this up. The asshole is taking her toward the border but not this one.” He traced the long northern border. “It’s what we would do because it’s our backyard. We know this stretch and have contacts on both sides. But he doesn’t.”
Black raised his head and looked straight into his brother’s hard, angry eyes.
“He’s going south. He’s taking her to his backyard.”
“Shit.”
“From Sprague, he’d go this way. Couple hours, then he can’t hold back his anger, so he stops… here.” Black circled an area. “She calls me, things go south. Either they’re still somewhere there, or if they moved on, then by now they’d be somewhere… Here.”
He circled another area.
“Idaho?”
“If they moved on then yeah, the fucker is in Idaho.”
“Raz was in goddamned Boise, he’s heading toward us. Jesus, Black. If you’re right, they’re gonna drive straight into his arms.”
Raz. A friend of a friend, ex-army, ex fucking everything that was bad. He was a dangerous man, and what he’d done in goddamned Boise of all places, Black didn’t know. And didn’t want to know either.
“Call Raz, give him a heads up.”
Black knew he was right. He felt it in the vibrations in his whole body and the way his gut suddenly clenched, and for the first time, he got what his father meant when he said he just knew shit.
“They could be on –”
“Ice,” he said quietly. “I smell it in the air, brother. Start making calls, we’re moving everyone that way.”
***
Cassandra
My shoulder hurt from the bullet and my ribs from where he’d kicked me, but I refused to let it show. I wouldn’t give the asshole the satisfaction of seeing me cry and pretended that I had fallen asleep while he drove like a madman along roads heading south. I’d realized early where he was heading but wondered if he really thought he’d make it all the way down to New Mexico. He’d shot me in the shoulder, and he’d only grazed me so the bleeding had slowed down almost immediately but anyone seeing me would wonder.
Someone would stop us and ask what was going on.
Or else he would have to sleep, and I’d try to get away.
Then he turned off on a narrow road leading up the mountain and into what seemed to be a residential area. Vacation homes, for people wanting to have a small getaway where they went on the weekends.
There were few cars in the driveways, and my belly hurt when I realized that he’d find another house where no one lived.
And I knew what he’d try to do then.
He’d rape me.
Or torture me.
Or kill me.
Or all of that, and in that order.
I pretended to sleep while I planned what I would do. My hands were tied together, but the purse was on the floor of the car. He must have grabbed it from the parking lot after shoving me into the trunk, and I needed to find a way to bring it with me. If I did, then I’d have a chance.
Roddy had said that he smelled shit in the air, and I’d shrugged it off because, how could he? We hadn’t known that Sheriff White escaped, and no one would have expected him to come after me anyway. I had nothing to do with this, and neither did Desi, not really. Everything had been based on what they found on his laptop and the police work that came after going through that.
Except, the asshole somehow figured out that the guys from Thor had stepped in, and he was fucked anyway, so he wanted revenge.
And somehow, Roderick Hag
en had felt that in the air.
I hadn’t believed him, and I’d shrugged it off, but the way he watched me when I put my overnight bag in the back of my car unnerved me. Our gazes had held for a second, and then I’d told Black I forgot my lip balm, walked inside and took his gun from the bedside table. I still didn’t have a license for it so I shouldn’t have done that. It would have pissed Black off, and I would have been in trouble if someone from law enforcement found out, but I’d done it anyway and had tucked it into my big tote-bag.
“Out,” he grunted and snarled when I leaned forward to grab the bag. “Leave it.”
“I need to use the bathroom,” I said quietly, which was true but would also give me a chance to pull out the gun.
“Don’t need your fucking purse for that.”
“I have my period, so yes, I do,” I lied, hoping that he’d be like any man and become uncomfortable about the profoundly normal bodily function of menstruating.
Which I hadn’t done in almost twenty years.
“Shit.”
He got out of the car without another word, which I assumed meant that I could grab the purse and carry it inside. The cable ties cut into my wrists, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold it well enough to shoot with my hands strapped together, but I wouldn’t give up. I had my bag, so I had the gun.
When we’d entered the house from the kitchen entrance at the back, he looked around and pushed me toward a door.
“That’ll be the bathroom, go do whatever the fuck you have to do.”
“Can you untie me?” I asked.
“No fucking way. You’ll just have to deal.”
I nodded and walked into the bathroom and closed the door. There wasn’t a proper lock, but I latched the small hatch which wouldn’t hold anyone out if they pulled hard enough.
Then I did my business quickly, rummaging through the bag as if I was looking for hygiene products. I couldn’t hold the gun very well, but I flicked the safety off and was about to pull it out when I suddenly felt my phone.
Jesus. I’d forgotten that I had my phone.
“Hey,” he snarled, and the door rattled. “Get out here.”
“I’m not done,” I called out.
The door rattled again, and then he tore it open. I straightened from flushing with my hands tied together.
“I’m almost done,” I said with my most innocent face and turned to wash my hands.
“Get out here,” he said and pulled me along.
I managed to grab my purse, but he pulled it out of my hands and threw it on the floor next to the couch. Then he shoved me in the chest, and I fell backward with a cry. I thought I’d land on the floor, but I hit the armrest of the couch and fell into the pillows, landing on my injured shoulder.
I screamed loudly and heard him snicker in a way that shot right to my belly.
He was crazy and desperate. He’d try to hurt me, and then he’d kill me.
“I’m hungry as hell,” he muttered. “Can’t do you since you’re on the damned rag. Disgusting so I won’t. You’ll stay there, and I’ll see if they have food.”
The house was small and had an open layout so I couldn’t get away. Slowly, I inched my way over toward the end of the couch where my purse was, but he watched me, and I knew I wouldn’t manage to reach for the gun or my phone before he got to me.
“Fucking hell,” he muttered, and our eyes met. “Stop fucking staring at me.”
I closed my eyes and heard him grunt something, but then I felt a tear leak out of my left eye, and then another. He’d kill me, and I never got to tell Black that I loved him. I’d never see Desiree again. Wouldn’t be there when she got married. Would never become a grandmother.
He opened and closed cabinets, and I heard him fry something which smelled like bacon, and then a toaster popped. I opened my eyes and stared straight at him. He was eating a sandwich and froze with the sorry-looking piece of shit halfway to his mouth.
“What?”
“Please don’t kill me,” I said quietly and tried to sit up.
“Huh,” he said and started chewing again. “That’s what she said. Your daughter.”
“Desiree.”
“Yeah. She has your eyes. Always watching. Wish she’d been here to see this, but I’ll take what I can get.”
Something caught my eye, and I suddenly knew without a doubt what would happen. There was no use pleading or begging. He wanted me to, and he’d enjoy it, but it wouldn’t help. My lie about having my period would make him not rape me, but it wouldn’t stop him from killing me. That small twitch just by his eye and the nervous way he was moving told me he would do it and that he didn’t intend for me to get out of that house alive.
So, this was it.
Fuck it.
I would not go down quietly.
“You know,” I said and moved to get up on my feet. “I’ve fought all my life, and I still have one more fight in me.”
“Get back on the couch.”
“No.”
I took a few quick steps toward my purse, pushed my hands into it and felt the gun, but couldn’t get a grip, so I was fumbling with it inside the bag as I swung around.
Sheriff White was standing up, and he had his own gun aimed at me.
“Move, and I’ll shoot you,” he said.
I saw how he tensed and took aim, so I braced, scrambling desperately to get a good grip of the pistol.
“Fuck you!” I snarled.
He would shoot, and we were too close. He couldn’t miss at that range.
If I could get a grip of the goddamned gun, I might hurt him, but he would surely kill me.
Then several shots rang out simultaneously.
One hit Sheriff White in the shoulder, so the shot he’d fired didn’t hit me straight in the chest. It hit me in my ribcage.
The Sheriff swung around and fired several shots at whoever was outside and then he turned back to me with a sneer.
“Got him, and now I’ll get you.”
I raised the purse in front of me, and he chuckled.
“Do you really think a goddamned canvas bag will protect you?” he asked.
“No,” I snapped right back. “But this will.”
Then I pulled the trigger, again and again until the pistol in my hands only made a clicking sound.
The Sheriff looked down at the stain spreading over his clothes, and then he crumpled into a pile on the floor.
I should pull my phone out, but I couldn’t.
Everything around me had turned a soft gray, and I fell backward slowly.
While the world became darker, I tried to pull in air, but it hurt, and there was a rattle in my chest.
“Desiree,” I breathed. “Einar.”
Then everything went black.
Chapter Fifteen
Survivor
Black
Black was tearing off his saddle bags and anything else that would slow him down from his bike and had pulled out the helmet he rarely used. He’d wear it this time because Ice had fitted it with communication gear he could connect his phone with.
Then he’d head south.
They’d found the place Cas had been in when she called him. There was blood on the floor, and they’d found a broken phone, but the local police had barged in and closed the place off.
She could have been alive when they left.
If she were dead, he would have left her.
He had to believe that.
“Call Raz,” Black said and narrowed his eyes. “I fucking feel it in my bones. They’re out there, and he needs to stay sharp because they’re heading down the road he’s on.”
Before Ice had gotten his phone out, two women came running.
“Not now,” Brooks grunted. “Janie, Marisha. Not a good time.”
“No!” Janie called out. “Please listen. We just heard about Cassandra. Please –”
“I didn’t mean to use it,” Marisha wailed.
“Lea –”
Black ra
ised his hand to cut Brooks off and turned toward the women.
“You have two minutes,” he growled.
“I’m so sorry,” Marisha sobbed. “She came to us and told us about how she grew up. How she made it and how I could do it. And she hired Mom when no one else will. But before that, I was so pissed. So –”
“Marisha,” Black barked. “What?”
“I’m good with numbers,” Marisha shouted. “I saw her, and I memorized it because I thought she was a bitch, but she isn’t. She’s the be –”
“Marisha,” Black barked again.
“I have her password.”
Everyone froze.
“What?” Black breathed out.
“Not all of it. It’s her daughter’s name and some numbers and then something else that I didn’t see.”
“Her password to what?” Ice asked slowly.
“To her Apple ID.”
“Jesus,” Ice said and whipped his phone out and started fiddling with it.
Brooks cursed loudly, and Black turned to the sobbing girl in front of him.
“I’m sorry,” she cried.
“Give it to us,” Black ordered.
“It’s Desi and then numbers. Forty-five, thirty-six, ninety-eight. And then there’s some more text at the end, and I don’t –”
“Give me Cas’ email,” Ice snapped.
Black told him the email address he’d stared at so many times as he read and reread the short email she’d sent him a year earlier. God, he prayed. God, please let her have used that one.
“Desi,” Ice murmured, “Repeat the numbers, Marisha.”
The girl mumbled the three numbers, and added, “But there’s more, and –”
“Deria,” Black said calmly. “Desi, the numbers, and then deria, no caps.”
“Huh,” Ice mumbled and moved his fingers.
“It’s her mother’s name,” Black explained. “Desideria. Ria. She’ll have her girl and her mother in her password because that’s her family.”
“I’m in,” Ice called out. “Let’s see –”
He cut himself off and stared at the screen.
“What?”
“I got her. I fucking got her. On find my fucking iPhone.”
Black looked down on the screen and saw the small blue dot.
“Ah, Cassandra,” he breathed out. “There you are.” Then he straightened. “Who’s closest?”