In the Arms of a Stranger (Entangled Ignite) (24 page)

If he could get her family back safely, maybe, just maybe, there was a chance she’d understand. If she did, maybe they had a chance at a real relationship.

…

It was a good thing Abby was sitting down. Her knees were shaking so badly she would fall if she’d had to walk. But that’s what they had to do. To get Cole and Steve back.

JP punched a button on his cell phone.

“It won’t work,” she said. “The towers are too far away. Just use the house phone.”

“I don’t want to risk Brooks interfering at this point. The house phone is probably bugged.”

“We’ll have to drive toward town then, or the freeway. You can usually get a roaming signal there.”

“Let’s go,” he said, pocketing the phone and the note. “I’ll send the pictures to someone I’m pretty sure I can trust before I make the call to Boyle.”

They walked down the hall to the kitchen. When he turned off his penlight, she did as well. He looked out the windows, focused on the woods where they’d parked the car.

“We’ll go out the same way we came in.”

Moments later they were again in the woods, walking toward the car. The sun wouldn’t set for another hour but had fallen behind the trees, casting them in flashes of light and shadow.

JP stopped. Abby nearly bumped into him. “What?” she asked in a whisper when he signaled for her to stop. She strained to hear anything except the sounds of the summer afternoon. The insects and frogs had quit calling the moment they drew near, but she could hear others singing farther away. Nothing disturbed the quiet.

JP aimed the shotgun into the shadows, completely and utterly alert.

There
. She heard it now. Rustling in the undergrowth. The sense that something or someone was there. Her heart raced. She held her breath.

With a signal for her to stay, he moved forward. One step, two. Patiently. Silently. As if he weren’t there. As if he were stalking prey.

She was sure he could hear her heart pounding. But his entire concentration was on whatever he’d heard.

He signaled her to move forward. She tried to move as he had, place her feet in the places where he’d stepped, crushing down the weeds noiselessly. But she heard her footsteps. Loud. Obtrusive.

Again, with incredible grace and silence, he moved closer toward the car. She could see a bit of it now, between the shadows and trees, in the evening glow.

“Drop it, Blackmon.”

The disembodied voice made her gasp. JP didn’t even flinch.

“I’m aiming at her,” the male voice said. Deep. Smooth. She recognized it.

Brooks
.

“Throw it to your right,” the order came. “Not even you can get me before I pull the trigger.”

JP threw the shotgun to one side. It thudded against the ground.

“Now, Abby,” Brooks said, “step toward him.”

She was sure it was Brooks, wasn’t she? A flash of light caught her attention. She looked down.

A small red dot. On her chest.
Oh, God
. He had one of those laser things to help him aim, like she’d seen in movies. “Brooks?”

“Move, Abby,” Brooks said. “JP, don’t even consider it.”

The red dot stayed with her, steady and menacing. She was sure she’d fall as she took the few steps she needed to stand next to JP.

“She has no part in this, Brooks. None,” JP said.

“Put your hands on your head. Both of you.”

Somehow, stiffly, Abby managed to raise her arms. JP raised his, too, his hands on the back of his head.

“Ron has my son, Brooks. Let us go so we can—”

“What is she talking about?” Brooks asked JP, as if she didn’t exist.

“Local guy named Ron Hodges is really Frank Boyle. I’m guessing you already know that. He’s holding Cole Price and Abby’s brother, Steve,” JP replied. “I have to call him before seven or they’re dead. There aren’t any cell phone towers around here. We have to drive toward town.”

“You found it, then,” Brooks said. There was a pause. “You drive, Abby. Move to the car.”

“Brooks, please, my son—”

“Shut up and move!”

Fear robbed her of thought, but she walked toward the car. It took a lifetime to reach it. She still couldn’t see Brooks. He was just a voice off to one side.

“Where’s your spare gun?” Brooks asked.

“Duffel,” JP replied.

But it wasn’t, Abby knew. He had it on him. She didn’t know where. He’d dropped his holster in a Dumpster in Amarillo before they’d arrived at the airport.

“Put your palms flat on the front end of the car. Abby, get JP’s bag. And don’t either of you think you can do anything. I still have my gun on Abby.”

The little light was still shining on her—a tiny red dot that followed wherever she moved. It wasn’t always on her chest. Sometimes she could tell it was on her neck. It had flashed in her eye once.

“She doesn’t know what Wade left,” JP said. “Let her go.”

There was silence from the woods. After a hesitation, Brooks spoke. “Wade didn’t tell her anything, did he?”

“No. He wouldn’t do that.”

“Good old Wade. We wasted all this time recording her phone calls, monitoring her movements. And the whole time she didn’t know a thing.”

“I don’t understand,” Abby said finally.

“Brooks is no better than Frank Boyle,” JP said in disgust.

Then it all became clear. She’d thought Brooks was doing this because she was here with JP, helping him. But that wasn’t it at all.
Brooks was part of this whole mess
. Maybe he hadn’t known Ron had kidnapped Cole and Steve, but that didn’t matter to him. He just wanted what Wade had hidden.

“Makes no difference,” Brooks replied. “Frank won’t be with us much longer.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Shut up and get the duffel. JP, keep your hands on the car, legs back and spread.”

Brooks was afraid of JP, she realized. Afraid he’d pull a gun and shoot him. With good reason. He would find a way to get them out of this. When she opened the car door and reached inside, she had to move her bag to grab JP’s. She didn’t want to turn, afraid Brooks would shoot her.

Coward
. She had to get through this. For Cole and Steve.

For JP.

She turned, the duffel in her right hand. Brooks was in the clearing now. He wore no suit coat, but his slacks were carefully creased, his dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, still looked crisp, and he held a gun in his right hand.

“Toss it out in the woods,” he said.

She glanced at JP, hoping he’d somehow figured out what to do and would tell her, as he had in Ocean Springs. But he was staring at the car hood.

She threw the bag out, slinging it in an arc.

“I’m not going to frisk you,” Brooks said to JP. “I don’t need her alive. I know you have a weapon. Get rid of it. You so much as
think
about turning around and she’s dead.” He waited.

JP reached into the back waistband of his jeans, beneath the shirttail of his denim shirt, and tossed the handgun into the woods.

The little red light stayed on her the whole time.

“Good. Now, JP, reach in your pocket and put the keys on the car.”

She waited, breath tight in her throat. All she needed was a signal. Something.

The keys jingled as JP put them on the car.

“Get the keys, Abby,” Brooks ordered.

With the tiny red bead on her shoulder, she walked toward JP. He must have a plan now. He’d give her some instructions.

She took the keys. JP did nothing.

“JP, passenger seat,” Brooks said from just behind the rear door on the driver’s side. “When he’s inside, Abby, you get behind the wheel.”

“Where are we going?” she asked as soon as they were both in the car.

Brooks got in the backseat and closed the door. “Go toward the freeway,” he ordered.

She couldn’t see it, but she sensed the menace of the red dot on the back of her head. Now she realized JP wouldn’t do anything for fear Brooks would kill her.

It was all up to her.

Chapter 15

All JP needed was a chance, a tiny opening, but Brooks was being careful to the extreme. And he held the trump card—a gun at Abby’s head.

“Keep your hands on the dash,” Brooks ordered him as Abby started the engine. “One false move from you and she dies. I don’t give a damn if we crash.”

That told him the son of a bitch had nothing left to lose.

Abby drove down the path and onto the dirt road. “Which way?”

“I said to the freeway,” Brooks repeated.

She was terrified, she had to be, but she was gutsy. She didn’t even flinch at Brooks’s harshly worded command. She turned onto the dirt road, then onto the county road that led to the freeway.

“My gun is still aimed at her head. Take out your cell phone,” Brooks ordered. They rode in silence as JP slowly pulled it from his jeans’ pocket, careful not to give Brooks any reason to shoot.

“Hold it up so I can see it,” Brooks said. “Don’t want you calling anyone.” When the freeway came into view, he said, “Abby, pull over to the side of the road.”

Abby did as he ordered and brought the car to a halt.

“Here’s the way it’s going to work, JP,” Brooks said. “You’re going to set up a meet with Frank. You need a nice isolated spot—”

“Boyle’s going to set the terms—”

“Your job is to make sure you can get a shot at him,” Brooks interrupted.

That’s what JP figured was going on. “He’ll know what I’m doing.”

“That’ll make it more challenging, won’t it?”

“What about Abby?”

“She’ll be safe with me until you come back. If you don’t, she’s dead.”

“What about my son and my brother?” Abby sounded surprisingly in control. But he could hear the undertones of fury. And fear.

“That’s up to JP.”

“Ron could shoot Cole and Steve. Or JP could accidentally hurt—”

Brooks laughed. “JP doesn’t have that type of accident, do you? JP’s one of the best. Better than Wade, better than Frank.”

This was definitely going where he didn’t want it to go. Abby did not need to hear this.

He had to get Brooks to talk about what
he’d
done, not what JP and Wade did for the Agency. “The job in Jordan. That’s why you picked us, isn’t it? The report you filled out on the op after it went to hell would make sense if you used us.”

“Wade always said you were a quick study.”

“I’ll take care of Frank as soon as I get the boy and his uncle to safety.”

“You’re not in any position to negotiate the terms here,” Brooks replied. “I call the shots. You do as you’re told. Now, hand Abby what you found in the house.”

JP waited a second, hoping Brooks would move his pistol away from her. If he could just distract the man long enough to get her out of the car and send the pictures on his cell to Ethridge.

“I said, give her what you found.”

JP reached inside his jeans’ pocket and pulled out the note. He turned slightly to hand it to Abby, in an attempt to see as much of Brooks in the backseat as he could, hoping for an opportunity to make his move. But all he needed to see was that Brooks did, indeed, have his gun aimed at her head.

Abby took the paper.

“Hand it back to me, over your shoulder.”

She did as ordered.

A moment passed. “This is in code,” Brooks said.

JP didn’t bother to answer. He heard the crumpling sound of paper as Brooks wadded up the note.

“Call Frank, set up the meet,” Brooks ordered.

There was nothing JP could do without risking Abby. He called Frank Boyle.

It rang several times before Frank answered. “Found it?” he asked.

“I have it.”

“What is it?”

“A note.”

“Gotta hand it to Wade,” Frank said. “No high-tech stuff, but he was detail-oriented. Bring it to the electrical substation on County 45, six miles west of the freeway.”

“Let the boy and his uncle go.”

“After.”

“Let me talk to them.”

“The boy’s calm. He thinks we’re playing a game. Let’s don’t upset him. Abby wouldn’t like that,” Frank chuckled. “Let’s make it…oh, eight o’clock.”

JP heard the line go dead. It would be dark by eight. Boyle planned to use the night as cover.

“Is Cole okay? My brother?”

“They’re fine,” JP said, knowing they could actually be dead.

In the backseat, Brooks shifted. “Where?”

“The substation, on the county road west of the interstate,” JP replied.

“When?”

“Eight.”

“We have plenty of time, then.”

“Time for what?” Abby asked. “The substation is only a few miles away.”

“Start driving,” Brooks said.

“Where? It’s too early,” she said.

“Go under the overpass. I’ll tell you where to turn.”

Abby pulled out. There was no traffic, not on the freeway and not on the county road. They were headed west.

Brooks had forgotten the phone. All JP needed was a chance, just one.

Brooks rolled down his window. But JP didn’t dare risk making any noise sending the pictures to Ethridge, not with the laser on Abby’s neck. A smoky smell filled the car.

“There goes your proof,” Brooks said.

One look in the side view mirror and JP watched the small paper, engulfed in flames, hit the road behind them and scatter in a burst of flying sparks.

He pretended to be upset. “Why the hell did you—”

“Here,” Brooks interrupted, ignoring his outburst. There was a dirt road running to the right. “Turn here and drive until I tell you to stop.”

Silence stretched as Abby turned and slowed to handle the bumpy road.

“Now,” Brooks said finally. “Hand over your cell phone. Carefully.”

Shit.
He’d have nothing. Not Wade’s note, not even a picture of it.

“Now, JP.”

And so he handed over the last hope of clearing his name.

The dirt road dead-ended at another dirt road, more of a track, where a large SUV came into sight.

“Stop.”

“What are we doing here?” Abby asked.

“You know, don’t you, JP?” Brooks asked.

He did. Brooks wanted Frank gone. Dead. Whatever his boss’s role in the events that had destroyed Wade and JP, Brooks didn’t want anyone to be able to tie him to a single thing. And he wanted JP to do the job.

“I bet sweet little Abby doesn’t know, do you?”

Brooks would tell her. Tell her and destroy what little she had left of the man she’d once loved. And there would be no chance for him. For them.

Reality was worse than a kick in the balls.

And if everything worked out as Brooks intended, only Brooks would walk away alive.

“Your dear departed husband was our top man,” Brooks said, his tone mocking. “And the best shot. That is, until he recruited your friend here.” He paused. “Wade wanted a Delta sniper. Did you know that they’re called long-gunners? Their job is to watch for days, sometimes weeks, get to know their quarry, then blow their brains out. JP’s much better than Wade ever was. He’s a master assassin.”

Even in the semidarkness, JP saw Abby flinch, saw her turn toward him, expecting him to deny the truth.

But he’d tried so hard not to lie to her. He let the ugliness of Brooks’s words rip open the distance between them, widening it irreversibly. He couldn’t look at her face, couldn’t see how she’d reacted. And he refused to explain, or make excuses. It was what it was.

All he could do was save her, her son, and her brother, by doing what Brooks wanted. For that, she might be willing to look at him with something other than utter horror.

Maybe.

…

Assassin
. The word sounded wrong. Out of place. Out of character.

Wade. JP. Assassins.

The secrets, the lies, all because of this one word.

She tried to wrap her mind around such a crazy idea, tried to think of when she’d seen an indication of it and totally missed it. But she couldn’t.

And now Cole’s life, Steve’s life, depended on that very, terrible thing the two men she loved were—assassins.

Yes, she had loved Wade. And she did love JP. No point in denying it. No matter what they’d done. It had to be some sort of flaw in her, something that drew her to men like that.

Apparently all it took was complete ignorance.

Or denial?

“You’re going to get a .338 Lapua with a FLIR scope, just like yours, from my car. It’s not loaded,” Brooks said. “No point in trying anything. Get out and bring it back here.”

JP nodded. He never once looked at her, wouldn’t even turn his head. His jaw was clenched, his profile hard, intense. Did he really think she could condemn him, repudiate him, over a single horrible word?

“You and Wade, always such qualms about collateral damage. That was something you never understood—that I could never afford the luxury. And I certainly can’t now.”

Without comment, JP got out, walked to the SUV, grabbed something from the backseat, and turned, holding a rifle in a camo cover.

When he climbed back in the car, Brooks said, “Take it out.”

Abby didn’t dare look at JP. She was afraid he would make his move and she’d flinch, giving him away. He took the rifle, a big one with a scope, out of its protective cover with the easy movements of longtime practice.

Delta, he’d said. Delta Force.

“Drive, Abby,” Brooks said finally. “I’ll tell you which way to go.”

Still JP did nothing. It was like waiting for a snake to strike. The rifle cover lay on the floor at his feet, the rifle cradled across his thighs, pointing toward the door. She could see it even without glancing down.

Brooks ordered her to drive to within a mile of the meeting place and pull off the narrow track. The last light had faded from the sky. When she stopped the car beside a cluster of hardwoods, he said, “Put it in park, roll down the window, and turn off the engine.” He got out, the little red light steady on her.

Standing just beyond her window, far enough away that he didn’t have to bend to see her or JP, who was still in the front seat, he said, “JP, get out.”

“I need the ammo,” JP replied.

Brooks threw something beyond the car, into the woods, on JP’s side. “You got it,” he said.

JP turned back toward the windshield. “Trust me,” he whispered, his lips barely moving. “Do whatever you have to do. Stay alive. I’ll get them back, I promise.”

“Get out!” Brooks shouted.

“Remember Ethridge,” JP added, turning away. “Trust me.”

From her position in the driver’s seat, she saw him lift the rifle, open the door, and get out. She couldn’t see his face, just the relaxed grip he kept on the rifle.

“Back here. One hour,” Brooks said. “That’s all you have if you want her to live.”

JP didn’t turn, or hesitate, just kept walking away. A deadly stranger, a professional killer, holding the instrument of his trade.

She should be sickened. She should be horrified.

She waited for revulsion to sweep through her. But it never did.

Instead, she felt a trickle of hope. Hope that JP, with his training and experience, could end this nightmare, and keep them alive.

On the heels of that hope came profound terror. Terror that they’d miscalculated the evil surrounding them.

And as he disappeared into the trees, she felt an even greater terror.

That she’d never see him again.

…

Even though it was almost completely dark, it took JP only seconds to find the box of ammo in the weeds. By then, Brooks had already ordered Abby to drive away.

He didn’t want to think about her reaction to Brooks’s over-the-top description of what he and Wade did, so he ruthlessly pushed that image away. But other images, of her in the barn, the sunlight shining on her and Cole, her laughter at unexpected moments, the look in her eyes as he’d made love to her—those he clung to. Clung to those for sanity. To get him through this.

Alone in the rapidly fading light, he quickly scanned his location. He had never completed an op stateside—it wasn’t in the Agency’s jurisdiction. But he knew this area. Silently, he thanked Wade for insisting he visit and understand the land close to his family. Wade must already have suspected Frank. That was why he’d wanted to show JP around, to give his family a fighting chance if things went wrong.

Damn
. How could he ever have thought the man could be disloyal to him or his country? Everything he’d done was to protect those he loved. And he’d died doing just that.

It was up to JP now. Up to him to salvage the situation, to make it all work. To protect Wade’s family. Any way he could.

He opened the box he held in his hands. His heart plummeted to his stomach.

The damn bastard
.

Brooks had given him a single bullet.

…

The minutes dragged by in slow motion. Brooks wouldn’t let Abby start the car again. The interior was getting hot, stuffy. Stifling. A trickle of sweat rolled down her chest, another down her right temple. He must have been sweltering, too, because he finally ordered her back out of the car. They waited at the edge of the woods as dark enshrouded them.

She needed a miracle, but Brooks, silent and sinister, gave her no opening to run. Finally, out of nervous desperation, she asked, “Why are you doing this?”

He kept quiet for what seemed like an eternity, then finally said, “The opportunity for a fortune. Isn’t that what anyone would grab?”

She ignored his question. “And Ron—Boyle? Why is he involved?”

“Boyle’s not used to staying put. We gave him a new identity and he got tired of it. Said the backwoods weren’t for him. His skills were still good, so he started marketing them. We decided we’d both benefit by working together.”

“And Wade? What did he have to do with it?”

“Nothing. I have no idea how he stumbled onto Boyle, but he did. Found him in this Godforsaken backwater when he decided to settle down here. Then he started asking questions. Wade with a bone to pick was a real nuisance.”

“So you killed him, just like that.”

“We let it play out a while, but Boyle said he asked too many questions.” Brooks shook his head. “Wade was stubborn. There was nothing else to be done.”

He sounded so matter-of-fact. As if killing an innocent man was nothing to him. She remembered how Wade had looked in his casket. “You tortured him first.”