Texas Twin Abduction

by Virginia Vaughan

  The only flaw in her plan was that she didn’t know if they’d activated the child locks on the back doors. But then, she’d seen Baxter open the door from the inside. Maybe they hadn’t thought of it or maybe they’d believed their guns would be enough to keep her under their control.

  And maybe they would be. She might jump free only to have them shoot her. It was a risk she had to take. The future they had in mind for her frightened her more than dying. She wouldn’t continue to be a victim any longer.

  God, please be with me.

  She grabbed the handle and opened the door. Just as Baxter realized what she was doing, she jumped.

  Both men shouted at her to stop as the SUV screeched to a halt. She leaped to her feet and took off running as the sound of doors opening and closing reached her ears along with Baxter’s shouts to Lenny to go get her.

  Good, they weren’t firing at her. They wanted to chase her down. That meant she might be able to hide from them long enough to escape. Maybe they would give up and let her go.

  Or maybe they’ll hunt you down and shoot you.

  She couldn’t think of that. She only had to figure out the perfect place to hide. She’d grown up here, on these hills, hidden from her parents and grandparents, and spent many hours alone soaking in the sunshine and learning the lay of the land.

  Bree hurried up a mound and ducked into a bushel of trees, crouching down and stopping to look back as the two men spread out, guns raised to search for her.

  She’d done it. She’d escaped them. Now, she only had to survive.

  TEN

  They captured and arrested six men and enough contraband to make even the DEA happy with their acquisition. It sickened Lawson to see a drug trafficking ring operating out of his hometown, on properties that good families had given their lifeblood to work, but he had bigger concerns right now.

  Bree wasn’t here, and there was a possible turncoat among them.

  He let Colby pass that bit of information along to Josh, but as he glanced around, every deputy he saw was suspect. He didn’t know who to trust. Someone in his own office had betrayed them by working with Baxter. He glanced at Cecile, who was demanding answers from one of the men they’d captured. She looked tough as nails and had always seemed completely loyal to Josh, but was it all an act? Had she been feeding Baxter information all along? His eyes moved to Deaver, Marks and Mahoney. Any one of them could be the leak.

  He marched over to where Deaver was loading men into the back of a van for transportation to the jail. Lawson grabbed one of the detainees by the arm and pulled him aside. “Where is she? Where is Bree Taylor?”

  The man’s only response was to demand a lawyer.

  Frustration bit at him as he returned the guy to the van, then headed to the on-site ambulance where Ashlee, the real Ashlee, was being tended to. Thankfully, her injuries were not life-threatening. They’d gotten to her in time, but it looked like these men had put her through the wringer for the past few days.

  She saw him and reached out from the gurney on which she was lying. “Lawson, did you find Bree? Is my sister safe?”

  He glanced at the EMT, who gave him the okay to speak with her. “She’s not here, Ashlee. Neither is Baxter. They must have gotten away as we breached the compound.” They hadn’t gone out the front entrance or else Lawson and the team would have seen them. “Any idea where he was taking her?”

  “I don’t. Travis took something from them besides money—a notebook. They thought I knew where it was. That’s why...” She touched the bruises on her face. “Anyway, Bree thought she might know where he hid it, but she never told me where.”

  Lawson watched her talk and the odd thing was that he heard every difference in her voice compared to her sister’s. He was used to the smooth, cool way Bree talked and it soothed him. Ashlee definitely had more of a lilt to her voice. How had he missed that?

  She wrung her hands. “She sacrificed herself for me. I begged her not to do that, but she wouldn’t listen. She was determined to put herself at risk.”

  He nodded, thinking of how she’d sneaked away from him to go help her sister. “She’s good at that, isn’t she?”

  Ashlee took a deep breath before answering. “She is now.” He could see she meant that in a good way.

  Something had changed in Bree. She wasn’t the same Bree Taylor he’d remembered and talked down about behind her back before he’d known she was Bree and not Ashlee. He kicked himself for his attitude, but he was glad to have confirmation that she had changed—that she truly was everything he now believed her to be.

  “What happened back there? How did Bree end up in your car with amnesia and all that money?”

  Ashlee explained about the parking lot abduction—and the confusion over Bree’s dress. “They thought I was Bree and when I heard who they were, I knew I had to play along and let them keep thinking that, not only for my sake, but for hers, too. I was hoping to keep her out of danger.”

  “You were looking out for her the same way she was looking out for you tonight.”

  “I guess so. Anyway, I know they called Travis. They told him that they had Bree and would kill me unless he returned what he’d taken.”

  “I thought she and Travis broke up. Had they gotten back together?” Lawson asked, telling himself he had no right to feel jealous.

  But Ashlee was shaking her head. “No, they’ve been over for ages. She was just the only leverage they could use against him. They couldn’t threaten to kill him—if he died without revealing his hiding place, then they might never get back what he’d taken. And there was no one else they could threaten other than Bree. She was the only person he’d ever cared about. That was why she stayed with him for so long. He did bad things, but he really did love her. She gets down on herself sometimes—thinks she isn’t deserving of love.”

  Ashlee’s stare felt oddly pointed and Lawson willed himself not to blush as she continued. “She doesn’t get that she deserves someone madly in love with her—someone who’ll appreciate how sweet and smart and loyal she can be.” She paused, frowning. “I never thought Travis was right for her, but I did believe he’d do anything for her. I still don’t understand why he never showed up at the compound.”

  “He died a few days before I found Bree,” Lawson explained. “Accidental overdose.”

  She scoffed. “That explains it, then. He must have been in such a panic about Bree that he didn’t pay attention to the dose. So Bree was stuck trying to negotiate my release by herself. She tried to make the trade, but she wouldn’t give them the money until she saw me. It was all a ruse, though. The money wasn’t all they wanted. I don’t think they really cared about it as much as they did about the notebook Travis took from them.”

  “But you don’t know what was in it?”

  She shook her head. “No. They never told me that. Just kept insisting I knew where he’d hidden it. But Baxter did tell Bree it held incriminating evidence about their operation.”

  Lawson sighed and took off his hat, annoyance more than anything else eating at him. Annoyance at Travis for putting them all in this situation—for being involved with Bree in the first place. “So Travis started this whole mess and then died before he had to deal with any of the consequences. Bree should have left him sooner—or better yet, not gotten involved with him in the first place.”

  “Travis wasn’t always bad. When we were young, he was a good kid. It wasn’t until he got mixed up in drugs and dealing that everything changed. The drugs changed him. I think Bree always saw that young boy she fell for in him—but if he kept anything of himself from then, he only ever showed it to her.”

  “Wait, you knew Travis from when you lived here? He grew up here in Courtland County?”

  “Sure. His father worked for my grandfather as head stableman. That was back before they lost everything. We used to spend all our free time together
, running those hills on the back of the property. The three of us always had a blast back then hiding and trying to find each other.”

  “Why did I never know any of this?”

  “This was before we started school. Momma and Grandma homeschooled us for the first eight grades, but then her health got worse and they sent us to high school in Courtland.”

  “Where we met.”

  “Yes. Bree was already half in love with Travis even back then. Once, I even found them kissing in this cave on the property. It isn’t very big, but it was big enough...” She trailed off and looked at him. “The cave! That must be where Bree is taking Baxter. Travis was always fascinated by it when we were kids.”

  “Where is this cave?”

  “On the east end of my grandparents’ property by a cluster of trees.”

  Lawson started to turn away to find his brothers and share this new information, but Ashlee grabbed his arm.

  “Do you want to talk about what’s happening between you and my sister?”

  He cringed. Even her words had a sharper tone to them. He should have recognized that. He should have seen the difference. “No.”

  She sighed and put her hand on her hip in a motion he recognized from when she’d been frustrated with him—another leftover from six years ago. He would know that gesture in a heartbeat, yet he hadn’t seen Bree do it even once. That should have been a clue for him. He just hadn’t been paying attention because he’d thought he’d finally gotten what he wanted—an Ashlee who fit perfectly into his life.

  “I’m thankful you found Bree and helped her.”

  “I helped her because I thought she was you.” Her eyes widened and he continued. “She couldn’t remember who she was and we all just assumed she was you. And somewhere along the line, she made me care about her. She made me...” He took off his hat and pounded it against his leg in frustration. “She made me fall for her. But then we started to realize that she might be Bree, after all, and I pushed her away. I was angry, I was hurting—I lashed out.”

  Ashlee put her hand on his back. There was a time when just her touch would have sent him reeling with passion, but today her touch didn’t make him respond.

  “Let’s face it, Lawson. What we had ended a long time ago. I am sorry for how it ended. I wish I had had the courage to leave earlier—and to tell you in person. I let it go on for too long because I did care about you. We were just too different.”

  Lawson nodded. He couldn’t dispute her words. He’d come to the same realization. He’d loved her, but at some point, he’d realized that it would never have worked between them. They’d wanted different things out of life. Yet he hadn’t ever really been able to move on.

  “I think I’ve been in love with the idea of you for a long time.”

  She nodded, seeming to understand what he was saying.

  “I don’t know what happened between you and Bree, but I trust in her, Lawson. I believe in her. God has changed her heart. She won’t care that you lashed out. She’ll forgive anyone she loves.”

  Ashlee had put her finger right on the thing he was struggling to admit to himself. He’d finally accepted that Bree was the one he wanted, not Ashlee. But would they be able to move past the harsh way he’d treated her? Ashlee seemed to think so. “And how would you feel about that?”

  It shouldn’t matter to him how she felt about it, but he wanted to know.

  She smiled. “I love my sister and I want her to be happy. If you’re the man who’ll make her happy, then I think that’s wonderful. But you don’t need my blessing, do you?”

  He shook his head. “No, we don’t, but I sure would like it, Ashlee.”

  “Then you have it. Now, go find my sister and bring her home.”

  He slipped his hat on and flashed her a smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

  He hurried to find his brothers to work out a plan to rescue the woman he loved.

  “Did she have any information?” Josh asked as Lawson joined them.

  “She’s not sure, but she thinks Bree might have taken Baxter to a cave on the east side of her grandparents’ property. We need to spread out and go searching for Bree.”

  “We don’t have the manpower for that, Lawson,” Josh stated. “Not while we have an unidentified mole. Plus, we have to interview the men we captured. It’s possible they’ll have information about where their boss has gone.”

  “But until then, Bree is with him in danger. What if he has a plane stashed out there somewhere? If he takes off with her, we may never find her.”

  Paul spoke up. “Lawson’s right. We need to start searching. Josh, you and Colby start interviewing these guys and see what information you can get from them. Lawson and I and two deputies will spread out and start searching. It’s the least we can do.”

  Josh glanced around at the deputies. “Okay, but take some of the Clayton County deputies instead of ours. We still don’t know who we can trust and who we can’t.”

  Lawson hopped into his truck and took off in the direction Ashlee had told him about, the abandoned Taylor Ranch. Paul and the Clayton deputies he recruited would try to cover the Tillman property. The manpower was spread thin and it would take time. Lawson was glad Josh had agreed to Paul’s plan because he was determined to search regardless.

  God, please keep her safe until I can reach her.

  * * *

  Bree ran, her mind focused on nothing but getting away from Baxter. Her side hitched, but she didn’t stop. She tripped over a rock and tumbled down a slope, hitting the bottom. Pain rushed through her, but nothing indicated a specific injury—there was just a dull, aching, I’ve-had-enough-of-this-abuse reaction from her body.

  She didn’t move right away, choosing instead to stare up at the night sky, stars sparkling against a black backdrop. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen a night sky so clear and bright. It was certainly a change from the overcast sky dulled by light pollution that she usually saw in Dallas. Out here, everything was so much clearer.

  Even her life seemed more in focus in Courtland. If she survived this night, if Baxter didn’t kill her, she knew in her heart and soul that this was the place she wanted to be. Going back to Dallas wasn’t even an option. She never wanted to leave the clean air and countryside that she’d grown to love.

  And Lawson. She didn’t want to leave Lawson. But she wouldn’t have a choice about that.

  Her heart broke at what she was losing. She hadn’t meant to fall for Lawson and she knew she could never be with him. He’d made his opinions about her clear many times. He didn’t care for her or the way she’d lived her life.

  Her regrets poured over her despite the verse in Romans that said there was no condemnation in Christ Jesus. She’d clung to that verse after leaving Travis and her old life behind for good, yet it seemed someone was always trying to remind her of her past mistakes. Only Ashlee had been on her side. Her sister had always been there for her even when she didn’t deserve it. No, especially when she hadn’t deserved it.

  It gave her some comfort to believe Baxter when he said Lawson and the others had raided the compound and rescued her sister.

  God, please take care of Ashlee and Lawson. I pray for a happy life for them and a bunch of happy children.

  It was the life she’d hoped for, dreamed of for herself, but it was never to be. Lawson would never forgive her for not being the woman he truly loved—and for being the cause of all this turmoil.

  God, please help him to forgive me. I never meant to hurt him.

  I love him.

  “There she is!”

  The booming voice above her sent her scrambling to her feet and taking off running, but this time, Lenny was right behind her. He tackled her to the ground, pressing the gun against her until she stopped fighting.

  She heard the squeal of brakes and the door of the SUV slam as Baxter approac
hed. “Don’t do that again,” he demanded, taking her arm and dragging her to the SUV where he shoved her into the backseat. Once inside, he barked at Lenny, “Head to the plane. We’re getting out of here now.”

  Lenny jammed the vehicle into gear and took off.

  Bree knew her time was limited. If Baxter got her on that plane, as soon as he got out of the state, he would kill her and possibly dump her body—or worse, turn her over to that trafficking guy he’d mentioned. She had to get out of this SUV and get out now.

  She glanced at Baxter who seemed to sense what she was thinking. He raised the gun just as Bree kicked at him. The gun fired, but the bullet whizzed past her and through the driver’s head before cracking into the windshield.

  She kicked at Baxter again, knocking the gun from his hand. He scrambled to pick it up.

  They’d sped up as Lenny slumped over the steering wheel, his foot still pressing down on the gas pedal. She had to stop the SUV from roaring out of control or get out of it before it was too late. She reached over the front seat, but the blood spatter on the window told her Lenny wasn’t just wounded. He was dead.

  Baxter swore and grabbed her shirt, pulling her back into the seat where he backhanded her, slamming her against the door. Her head hit the glass and a sharp pain ripped through her, causing her to gasp for air. Darkness danced around her eyes. She was losing consciousness, but she was alert enough to know the SUV was careening wildly.

  Baxter leaned over the seat to try to stop the vehicle, but the tires hit something and the SUV flipped, over and over again.

  Bree couldn’t even scream as it splashed down into a lake until water began to seep in.

  Fear covered Baxter’s face as he tried the door. It wouldn’t open, so he tried to crawl into the front seat.

  Bree knew she had to try to escape, but she couldn’t move. She couldn’t do anything but pray as water seeped into the vehicle and the darkness pulled her down.