SAFE BY HIS SIDE (MANHUNT) (15 page)

“If you bring that fucking cop, everyone dies,” Simpleton growled. “Including your lover boy.”

Lenora gasped and scanned the woods beyond the terrace. How could he possibly know she’d slept with Micah? Was he watching her?

She inhaled for courage. “Just tell me where to meet you.”

“Go down the stairs and get in the car. I’ll text you an address.”

Lenora tiptoed to the French doors just as the phone went silent. Tears blurred her vision as she yanked a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from the closet and hurriedly dressed. Then she grabbed her gun from the drawer where she’d hidden it and jammed it in her purse.

She was reaching for her keys, when suddenly she felt someone behind her.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

She winced, desperate to tell Micah. Desperate to save him.

She couldn’t live with herself if he died because of her.

“I just needed some air, to think,” she hedged.

“There’s air on your terrace.” Micah spun her around to face him. His eyes looked feral. “What’s going on, Lenora?”

“I…it…was just too much,” she said, lying. “I need to be alone for a while.”

He stared at her for a minute, disappointment in his expression. “Then I’ll go downstairs.”

“Just leave, go home,” she cried. “I don’t want you here anymore.”

“You may regret making love to me, but I’m not leaving you alone, not while that maniac is out there.”

Lenora trembled. “Please, Micah, just go…”

“No.” He glanced down and saw the phone in her hands. A muscle ticked in his jaw as reality dawned, and he jerked it from her. “He called you, didn’t he?”

She bit her tongue as Micah checked the caller ID log. He flipped it around to confront her. “There it is, an
Unknown
.”

“Micah, please let me handle this.”

“What did he say, Lenora?”

Anger shot through her. “He has my mother.” Her voice cracked. “For God’s sake, Micah, I have to go and I have to do it alone or he’ll kill her.”

He would probably kill her anyway. Kill them all. But she had to try to save them.

“Where did he tell you to come?”

“He’s going to text the address to me.” She jerked the phone from his hand, jammed it in her pocket and reached for her keys. “Now, let me go.”

He pulled her back into his arms. Terrified for Nan and her mother, she pushed at his chest, but he wrapped his arms so tightly around her that she couldn’t move.

“You are not going alone, Lenora. He’ll kill all of you. I can’t let that happen.”

“Please, Micah,” she whispered. “My mother…”

“I know, baby, I know.” He pressed a kiss in her hair and she fell apart. For a full minute, she allowed herself to cry. He rocked her in his arms, soothing her. When she finally took a breath, he framed her face with his hands.

“Listen to me. I’ll hide in the back. He won’t know I’m even there until I jump out and surprise him.”

“He knows about you, us. What if something goes wrong?”

“I’ll text my partner and tell him to keep a trace on my phone. He’ll know where we are and have back-up waiting.”

A war raged in her mind, but she finally agreed. She didn’t want Micah to get killed, but she was terrified for her mother and friend.

He threw on his clothes, holstered his weapon, and they hurried downstairs together. He called his partner as she reached for the door. As soon as he set up the trace, he nodded for her to go outside.

She stepped on the front stoop and headed toward her car. Micah followed her, but a shot rang out behind her.

She screamed and spun around just as Micah hit the ground. A second later, Simpleton grabbed her and shoved a gun to her back.

“Get in and drive, Lenora. It’s time we got the party started. Sorry to say but lover boy won’t be joining us.”

Micah roused from unconsciousness, dragged himself up from the ground, and pressed a hand to his shoulder where the bastard had shot him. Blood oozed from the wound, but he didn’t have time to deal with it.

Simpleton was getting away with Lenora.

He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, tucked it inside his shirt to absorb the blood, then called his buddy, Mitchell.

“He has Lenora, Mitch. I need your help.”

“What can I do?”

“Get an APB out on Lenora’s car.” He gave him the make and license plate. “I’m phoning the tech team now for those locations to check out.”

“I’ll get on the APB and pick you up at the ranch with the chopper.”

Micah ended the call, then phoned tech.

The analyst cleared his throat. “I was just about to email you the map and coordinates of the areas we narrowed down.”

“Send it now. Simpleton has Lenora. I have to hurry.”

He hung up, rushed inside the condo, hurried into the bathroom, dug under Lenora’s sink and found gauze and tape. Pain shot through his shoulder as he stripped his shirt and examined the wound. Dammit, the bullet had lodged inside.

Too deep for him to remove himself. Besides, he didn’t have time.

He poured antiseptic on the wound, gritting his teeth as he cleaned it. Blood still oozed from the bullet hole, but he applied pressure with some gauze, tossed the bloody gauze away, then packed it with more gauze. Using his teeth, he ripped off tape and wrapped it around the gauze and his shoulder, securing it tightly to keep the pressure on his injury.

His phone dinged that the email was coming through from the tech. Three different areas, all near small private airfields.

From the topography maps and photographs, there were two different Victorian houses that had been abandoned in isolated areas near airfields.

Was Simpleton taking Lenora to one of them?

It was a long shot, but the only lead he had.

Pulse hammering, he jogged outside to his SUV, jumped in and drove to his ranch.

The few minutes it took him to get there felt like an eternity. Every second he imagined Simpleton with his hands on Lenora.

He was going to kill the creep.

He barreled up the drive, the sight of his ranch house usually a welcome reprieve from the ugliness of his job. Yet tonight, he couldn’t enjoy it.

He threw the SUV into park, relieved to see Mitch waiting by the chopper, and hit the ground running.

“The APB’s been issued,” Mitch said. “Do you have a place to start?”

“A couple, yeah. Let’s go.”

He jumped in the chopper and Mitch fired it up. A second later, they were flying across the treetops. He watched the horses running in the pasture freely and vowed Lenora would see this place soon.

She had to.

He couldn’t bear it if he lost her.

Lenora clenched the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip. “Did you hurt my mother?”

Simpleton waved the gun at her. He’d already confiscated hers, dammit.

“I’ll let Mommy tell you what we did together,” he said in a singsong voice.

Revulsion seized Lenora. She wanted to kill this man more than she’d ever imagined possible. The thought of his hands on her mother, on Nan…

She blinked to make the images disappear. She had to focus. Figure out a way to save the three of them.

And Micah…God, what if he was dead? She’d heard that gunshot. He’d gone down. And she’d seen blood pooling on the ground.

What if he didn’t make it?

For now she was on her own. There was no one to save Nan and her mother but her.

Simpleton had taken everything from her once.

Not this time.

“Turn there,” he growled.

She swerved onto a side road that looked as if it led to nowhere. Darkness shrouded the woods and land, the sounds of silence along the deserted road eerie and unnerving.

“Is Nan still alive?”

He rubbed a hand over his head. He looked so different from when she’d last seen him that she barely recognized him. He was leaner, more muscled up. He’d had scraggly hair and a beard when he was arrested. The mustache and fake side burns made his face appear longer. But his eyes still glittered with the same evil that had dominated his expression when he’d held her captive. And the skull and snake tattoos on his head and face made him look even more menacing.

She shivered. No matter what abuse he’d suffered as a child, he was evil. Pure evil.

“Alive and waiting on you.”

Lenora considered ramming the car into a tree to shut him up. Maybe the impact would kill him. It might kill her, too, but it would be worth it to stop him from hurting anyone else.

But if she did, she might never find Nan and her mother.

She slanted him a hate-filled look. “What did you do to her?”

He traced a finger along her cheek. “Tsk, tsk, tsk, my sweet Lenora. We’ll all be together soon enough.”

She swallowed in disgust but didn’t comment. Instead she took the turn to the left that he pointed out, driving them deeper and deeper into the bowels of the woods and the horrors that waited for her.

“There.” Micah pointed to a section of land by the river. “There’s supposedly an old house that matches the description near that ravine.

Mitch scanned the area, searching for a place to land the chopper. “There are too many damn trees.”

“How about to the right?” Micah suggested. “If you can’t set it down, you can drop me and I’ll hike in on foot.”

“Let me try it first.” Mitch expertly guided the helicopter over a dense patch of woods, then lowered it onto the ground. As soon as he cut the engine, Micah jumped out. His shoulder throbbed like the devil, but at least the bleeding had slowed.

Micah checked the map and led the way along the river using his flashlight and compass to guide them. They hiked through patches of briars and over tree stumps, the scent of wet earth and moss mingling with the stench of a dead animal.

Praying this was the spot, Micah jogged along the creek until he spotted the old house in the distance. He sped up, drawing his gun and searching the area for signs indicating Simpleton had been near the house.

When he reached a clearing in front of the place, he hesitated, using his binoculars to get a better view.

“See anything?” Mitch asked in a low voice.

“Not yet.” Micah spanned the front of the house, then the sides but didn’t find a car or any sign of life. “Simpleton may not have gotten back with Lenora yet.”

Or they could be at the wrong place, wasting precious time…

They wove through the trees, inching up to the front door. Micah checked the windows, but they were either locked or painted shut. The house was rotting, paint peeling off, revealing evidence of raccoons nesting and trashing the place.

Mitch gestured that he’d look around back, and Micah jiggled the front door. It stuck, but he managed to pry it open. The inside was dark, cold, and smelled like rotten food and mold.

He shined his flashlight inside, boards screeching beneath his boots as he entered. Unlike Simpleton’s childhood home, this one was deserted, had no furniture. He made his way to the kitchen and saw no evidence anyone had been there.

Mitch crept inside, his gun at the ready.

“Nothing in here. You search the upstairs, I’ll look for a basement,” Micah said.