ONCE TUCKER’S TIRE was changed, it was late, but that wasn’t going to stop him. Now more than ever, he wanted to talk to Rip. This was all about Madeline, but there was more than her involved. He didn’t think it was a coincidence that after he’d told Jayce he was going to talk to Rip, he’d come out to find his tire cut.
So who had Jayce called? Madeline? Or her accomplice? How deep was his old friend in all this?
The body shop itself was dark by the time he got there, but a light burned in the apartment upstairs. Tucker parked and got out. Gilt Edge wasn’t the kind of town that had a dangerous neighborhood. But there were good and bad areas in town. The good had neat, well-kept houses and yards. The bad had piles of junk, broken-down cars, dirt yards often with at least one big barking dog.
Rip lived in the large apartment over the shop just as his parents had until their divorce when only his father had lived there until his death. Tucker remembered Rip’s father as a disagreeable man with powerful, strong-looking arms and constant grime under his nails. Rip, even as big as he was by junior high school, was scared of his sour and often angry old man.
Tucker walked to the side of the building to where the stairs led up to the apartment. He could hear loud music as he took one step, then another. When he reached the top of the stairs, though, he stopped, surprised to find the music blaring—and the door standing open. All his instincts told him something was very wrong.
* * *
KATE FELT HERSELF going in and out of consciousness. She woke to the murmur of voices. For a few moments, she didn’t know where she was or what had happened. But it came back quickly when she realized that her hands were bound behind her, her mouth was gagged and something had been tied over her eyes.
Lying in the back of a lurching vehicle, her stomach roiling from whatever drug they’d injected her with and car sickness, she fought to not throw up.
“Stop complaining and just let me drive,” said a male voice from behind the wheel. She recognized the voice as the smaller of the two men.
“Come on, this is crazy. What are we supposed to do with her?”
“Keep your voice down.”
Kate heard the second man’s seat squeak as if he’d turned to look toward the back of what she realized must be a van. “She’s still out cold. If not dead. What did we shoot her up with, anyway?”
“Stop worrying so much.”
“Easy for you to say. I wish I’d never gotten involved in this. If anyone is to blame, it’s you.”
The sound of the motor drowned out whatever else they were saying as the driver slowed and then turned onto a bumpy gravel road. The engine roared, giving her the impression the van was climbing up a mountain road.
Her heart pounded, fear making her all the more sick to her stomach. Where were they taking her? And why had they abducted her to begin with?
* * *
STANDING AT THE open doorway to Rip’s apartment, the music was deafening. Since this part of town was more industrial, there were no close neighbors. Otherwise, there’d be a deputy here by now arresting someone for disturbing the peace.
Tucker knocked on the open door and knocked again as loudly as he could. Finally, he stepped in, fighting the urge to put his hands over his ears.
“Rip!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “Rip!”
There was no one in the living room area and he couldn’t see into the other rooms from where he stood. He spotted the stereo, though, and quickly stepped to it and shut it off.
The silence was deafening. He let it sink in for a moment. “Rip?”
No answer.
Moving toward what appeared to be the kitchen, he called again. The first thing he noticed was the pizza and beer bottles on the table. It appeared that Rip had had a dinner guest.
Tucker touched one of the cans of beer. It was half-full, the can still cold to the touch. A good portion of the pizza was still congealing in its cardboard box, appearing that the meal had been interrupted.
“Rip?” He listened, but now, with the stereo off, he heard nothing. Wouldn’t someone have come out the moment they heard the stereo go off? And why so loud? Loud enough to drown out raised voices? Or gunshots?
He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as he moved down the deathly quiet hallway. Tucker knew he had no choice but to see what was wrong. Because something was very wrong here.
Maybe Rip had gotten a business call and he’d left to go pick up a wrecked car. But he’d seen the wrecker sitting out front as he’d come in. Or maybe they’d gone out back. There was a door off the kitchen that might be an exit from the apartment to the steep wooded hillside behind the shop. He tried to imagine something that would make Rip and his friend leave behind their beer and pizza to go out the back way unless...
Had they seen him coming? Known he was going to want answers? Had Jayce called Rip to warn him that Tucker was on his way? Why else would his tire have been slashed?
“Rip?” The sound of his own voice as he looked into each room was no longer comforting. Ahead, he could see one room at the end of the hall. The door was open. Tucker told himself that if he didn’t find anyone in it, he was out of there.
Fighting a bad feeling, he eased on down the hallway. He was almost to the open door when he heard a moan. He closed the distance to the doorway. The first thing he saw was blood, splotches of it on the dark filthy carpet. He hadn’t realized it was blood, though, until he saw it smeared on the wall. Next to him was one large handprint in deepening red.
A figure came flying out of a room. Tucker had no time to react. Caught off guard, he tried to duck. Something hard and cold struck him in the head before he was slammed backward. He went down hard as the person nimbly slipped past him and was gone.
As he fought to get to his feet and turned, all he got was a flash of dark clothing as the person turned into the kitchen. He heard the back door open and slam and the thunder of footfalls. By the time he reached the door and looked out, whoever it had been was long gone.
He was fumbling out his phone when he heard the sound of a moan again from down the hallway. He hurried back down the hallway to the last bedroom—the one the figure had come busting out of minutes before.
Rip lay on his back, one hand trying to hold his guts in from the long gash in his stomach. His eyes were open along with his mouth. Tucker pulled out his phone again and hit 911 as he rushed to Rip.
“Who did this?” he demanded as he grabbed some discarded clothing on the floor and tried to staunch the flow of blood. “Rip? Who did this?”
The big man’s lips moved. The word came out on a dying breath. “Madeline.”
Tucker felt a chill wrap its icy tentacles around his neck.
Rip grabbed his free hand, but his fingers loosened, his hand dropping to the floor as his eyes glazed over.
“Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?” said a female voice on the phone.
* * *
BOUND, GAGGED BUT no longer blindfolded, Kate was dragged from the vehicle. She stumbled along what seemed to be a rocky path. Still weak and sick from the drug and the van ride, she fought to make sense of where she was and what was happening.
She felt as if she’d been in the back of the van for hours. Her body ached. As she looked around in the darkness, she didn’t recognize her surroundings from anything she could see. The starlight was bright, a half-moon hanging over the mountain ahead of them.
That earlier feeling that she’d spent hours in the van came back to her in a rush. This wasn’t Helena with its fog and low clouds. But where had they brought her?
She knew her life might depend on knowing where she was being taken. If she had any hope of escaping... Escaping was her only hope since no one knew where she was. No one would be looking for her. Her mother would just assume she’d gone back to Gilt Edge—just as her father and Peter would. While Tucker would think she was in Helena with her father.
She felt a tremor of panic wind through her. She breathed in the night air, trying to keep calm. Pine trees. The air was colder here, too. They were in the mountains. She listened, praying there might be other people around. That if she got the chance to scream, someone would come to her aid.
But she heard nothing but the grunting and groaning of the men as they half dragged her up the mountainside to the flicker of the first man’s flashlight. She fought the terror at the back of her mind that she would die here in this isolated spot. That this was the end. That she would never see her family and friends. But mostly, she realized with growing panic, that she would never see Tucker again. He would never know what happened to her. No one would.
The thought was too much to bear that she might never see him again. That she might never get the chance to tell him how she felt about him.
Lost in her grief and panic, she hadn’t realized at first what she was hearing. Water. Rushing water. She took another step and the ground seemed to drop out from under her. Kate knew she would have fallen if one of the men hadn’t had hold of her. She saw then that she was standing on a precipice next to a waterfall. The rocky land dropped away below her as water roared off the mountain to pool far below her.
The sound of rushing water grew louder as the men dragged her along a trail of sorts. Her heart began to pound harder. She was terrified of water after almost drowning when she was thirteen on a vacation in Hawaii. The sound of the water made her legs go even weaker.
The men swore, forced to take even more of her weight between them. Where were they taking her? Surely not up a mountainside to drown her. She told herself that if they had wanted to kill her, they could have done that anywhere along the drive to wherever they were now, but it didn’t help stem the growing alarm inside her.
She was at the mercy of these men. She had no idea why they’d taken her. Worse, what they planned to do with her now.
They stopped near the bottom of the mountainside and she could make out what appeared to be several concrete structures. The man holding her up set her down, steadying her. The drugs had worn off some more. She could feel the cold, sense the deep damp darkness around her, as well as the isolation. Wherever they had brought her, there was no one else around.
Something loud made a scraping sound and then she was pushed forward a half dozen yards toward the smaller of the buildings. She was led toward an open doorway. She couldn’t see inside the blackness, but when she took a step, she felt a solid floor. The air was colder in there, though. A dank smell rose up, terrifying her.
Kate stopped abruptly, desperate to be back out in the fresh air. She hated cramped places. Worse, cramped dirty, cold, smelly places.
A hand shoved her hard. She pitched forward into the darkness. She fell, landing on her shoulder. A muffled cry escaped her as her cheek scraped against what felt like a rough concrete floor.
“What the hell did you have to do that for?” the larger of the men snapped. “At least untie her. What is wrong with you?”
“You really are of no help,” the smaller of the two said. She heard him approach, felt him sawing away at whatever was binding her wrists. Her wrists free, she flexed her hands and rolled over onto her back. Her first instinct was to make a run for it, but she knew she couldn’t get past both of them. She could see both men silhouetted in the doorway, both still wearing their masks.
That was fine with her since she feared that once she saw their faces, they would feel they had no choice but to kill her when they were done with her.
It was the when-they-were-done-with-her part that worried her. What did they want? Why bring her here?
“Leave her,” the smaller of the men said. She heard the scrape of the door, closing out even the starlight. Cloaked in blackness, she was alone.
She sat up. Her shoulder hurt, her cheek was scraped, but nothing felt broken. She worked to get the gag untied, happy to spit it out.
Listening, she heard nothing but the faint roar of the creek. Were they gone? Were they just going to leave her here? What if they never came back?
Tears burned her eyes as she pushed herself to her feet. She wouldn’t lie here on the floor in the fetal position and wait for whatever they had planned.
The first thing she had to know was what kind of room she was in—and if there was any way out. She wasn’t going to die here. She wasn’t going to die. Not without putting up a fight.