[27]

Steven and Quinn drove the route the bus had planned to take. “There’s no way we’re going to find them this way,” Steven muttered. He spun the wheel and took the next turn a little too fast. He braked and wished he could slow his racing heart as easily.

“She said I-20. Just keep looking.” Quinn held his phone to his ear. “Yeah, I left the car at the restaurant,” he said. “I had an emergency to take care of. Get someone out there ASAP to take our place. We still need to have someone trying to catch these guys. Yeah. Thanks.”

Quinn hung up and Steven’s phone buzzed. He took the call with his Bluetooth speaker. “Yeah?”

“This is Christina. I need a bomb squad and an explosion detection dog at Harry’s Mud and Mulch off I-20,” she panted.

“What? Where are you?”

“Had to find a phone. He made me toss mine. Listen up. The guy buried the kids and chaperones in a bus at Harry’s Mud and Mulch off I-20, you got that?”

“I got it.” He exchanged a worried glance with Quinn.

“Not sure exactly where he buried them,” Christina said, “but there’s an area that looks different. If you can get a dog over here, he can confirm it or find the right place. Probably need a Bobcat driver to remove the debris he dumped on the bus. And someone needs to call the owner.”

“Okay, slow down. Hang on.” Haley’s students had been kidnapped? His heart thudded even while he noticed Quinn going to work with the information.

“Christina,” Steven said, “where’s Haley?”

“I don’t know. It’s a long story and I tried to stop him, but he forced her into his black SUV, plates GKS555. Probably stolen. But I managed to toss her cell phone through the window. I’m pretty sure it hit the back seat, but I don’t know how long you have until he finds it.”

“You get that, Captain?” Quinn listened, then nodded at Steven.“He said they’re working on it now.”

Steven took the exit ramp.

“That Mud and Mulch place is about five miles back,” Quinn said. “Let’s get back there and make sure no one shows up and accidentally stumbles on the right pile and blows everyone up.”

Steven nodded. “We need people out there looking for Haley.”

“As soon as we get a hit on her phone.”

Haley drove with gritted teeth. Her side pounded out a new rhythm of pain that she fought to ignore. Christina was alive. She’d escaped, so there was hope.

He took her off the highway and through back streets she’d not gotten around to exploring since living in Columbia. “Left at the stop sign.”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked.

“I don’t get into the whys of the job, I just do it.”

“Money.”

“Lots of it.”

“All right. Who hired you, then?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She snapped her head sideways to look at him. “It might not matter to you, but he’s the one who wants me dead.”

“Then he can tell you. You’re going to see him shortly.”

“He wants me dead—and you were hired to kill me. But now you’ve kidnapped me, so now he needs me alive,” she muttered. “Why does he want me alive?”

“Shut up and drive.”

He wasn’t going to tell her anything. She flexed her fingers on the wheel and thought about running the vehicle into the nearest solid object. After several seconds, she decided against it. She simply couldn’t afford to take the risk. She followed his directions and realized he was taking her on a road she’d already been down. They were driving in circles. But why?

To kill time?

He’d glanced at his phone several times but hadn’t texted or called anyone.

He was waiting for instructions.

She watched the clock even as she formed and discarded one plan after another.

But the added time was good. Each minute that passed gave Christina more time to figure out how to find her and her kidnapper. Because Haley had a feeling when they arrived at their ultimate destination, she was going to be in for the fight of her life.

Steven’s phone buzzed and he snagged it before the ring ended. “What?”

“It’s Captain Nelson. Our tech guy got back to me about Haley’s phone and I wanted to call you myself.”

“And?”

“Her GPS is turned off.”

“What? No.”

“I’m sorry, son. We’ll keep trying in case she comes back online, but we’re going to have to figure out another way to find her.”

Steven drove into the mulch yard, spotted Christina waving at them, and pulled up beside her. Quinn got out of the car.

Steven didn’t move for several seconds as he listened to his captain lay out his plan, including searching traffic cams. “All right, thanks, Captain. I’ll let Quinn know.”

“Keep me updated.”

“Will do.” He hung up and frowned. Then he pushed his door open with a grunt and stepped into the muggy air.

Quinn stopped midsentence with Christina. “He find Haley?”

“Her GPS isn’t on.”

“He hacked her phone,” Christina said. “I didn’t have time to do anything but throw it in the car before he started shooting at me. We couldn’t call for help because he knew every move she was making on it.”

“The captain is on it,” Steven said. “He’ll figure it out. He’s also got someone searching the traffic cameras.”

“Pull over under those trees right there.”

“Where?”

“There!” He jabbed her temple with the weapon. “Pull over!”

Haley winced and glared at him, then drove the car onto the shoulder of the back road and put the gear in park.

“Keep your hands on the wheel. If you move them, I’ll blow you away.” He pulled cuffs from the side of his black cargo pants and slapped one on her right wrist. “Slide out the passenger door after me.”

Haley obeyed. Self-defense moves flicked through her mind, but she knew if she killed or escaped her current captor, another would just come after her. She let him drag her out of the vehicle, only to be surprised when he opened the back door, shoved her onto the back seat, and cuffed her to the door handle.

“Try to get out before I’m ready and your friends die. I still control the bomb strapped to the bus. You understand?”

“I got it.” She thought they had traveled way too far for him to be able to detonate the bomb, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have someone close enough to do so—or that it couldn’t be detonated by phone. She couldn’t take any chances at the moment.

“Now lie down.”

Haley swung her feet up on the seat and did as ordered as best she could with her hand cuffed to the door. She scanned the back seat while her captor went around to the driver’s side and climbed in. He shut the door and pulled back onto the road. Haley’s pulse pounded. She wouldn’t deny she was afraid, but she was also angry. Very, very angry.

Someone had been behind the deaths of her family twenty-five years ago and, as a result, changed the course of her life.

“You are one tough chick, you know that?” he said.

“Thanks.” The sarcasm slipped out before she could bite it off.

“You have more security and are harder to get to than a celebrity,” he said.

So he’d figured out her weak spot and exploited it. She bit her lip and prayed for the safety of the kids and chaperones. He didn’t seem to expect a response from her, so she stayed silent, hoping if she didn’t respond, he’d keep talking.

The back of the vehicle was clean. No stray paperclip to unlock the cuffs, no ballpoint pen, no hairpin. Nothing.

He made a sudden left and she held on to keep from sliding off the seat. He didn’t seem inclined to say anything further, so she said, “Christina will find me. You know that, right?”

“She’ll be too busy rescuing your friends from the bus.”

“But I have other friends who’ll be looking.”

“Let them look.”

“Why haven’t you killed me?”

“Because I was told not to. Yet.”

His words chilled her and she glanced around once again. An object tucked just under the driver’s seat caught her attention. It hadn’t been visible only moments before. He turned again, another left, and the item slid further toward her.

Her phone! But how . . . ? Christina. That’s why the woman had taken the risk and tackled her and her kidnapper. It had allowed her the time to toss the phone in the window. She’d wanted to give Haley a fighting chance if she could actually get the phone. Or a way to track her if she couldn’t. That meant help was on the way!

But being handcuffed to the back door on the passenger side wasn’t going to allow her to grab the device. She stretched and placed her foot over it and slowly started dragging it toward her.

He spun the wheel to the right and braked. Her foot slid off the phone and she nearly groaned in frustration. She pressed her foot back onto it and slid it further, then reached down to grab it, when her door opened and pulled her arm. She gave the phone a quick kick and knocked it back under the seat. There was no way she wanted him to find it.

She’d have to find a way to get to it later. She didn’t think he was going to leave. Instead, she had a feeling he was planning to finish the job once he had the green light.

He unhooked the cuff from the car and shoved her toward the building. A log cabin overlooking the lake behind it. She had no idea where she was.

That could be a problem.

But she took note of her surroundings and the dark sedan sitting in the gravel drive. Older pines gave the area a private feeling—a sense of seclusion.

That could also be a problem.

He continued to hold the weapon on her as he gripped the loose cuff hanging from her wrist.

Her heart thudded in her chest. Whoever was on the other side of that front door was responsible for the deaths of her parents, her younger brother, for her life as she knew it. And he’d paid a hit man to take her out.

“Open the door.”

Haley twisted the knob and the door swung inward. She immediately noticed the den area connected to the kitchen. A true open-concept layout, the den held a comfortable leather couch that faced a brick fireplace. Above the mantel was a large flat-screen television that played a national news channel. French doors led to the back deck that overlooked a green yard and a wooden dock floating on the placid water. Footsteps to her left caught her attention and she turned to see a figure in the hallway walking toward her. Their eyes connected and Haley felt the breath leave her but refused to show her emotion.

Instead, she raised a brow. “You?”