Colt

 

My eyes are dry and gritty, but I ignore the sensation. Bryce and I have set up camp in the living room, and the photos of the two victims haunt me. He’d been reluctant to show me the before and after photos of the women, but I’d needed to see them.

“You should try to get some sleep,” Bryce advises.

I look at him as if he’d suggested I take a bubble bath. I don’t give a shit that it’s one in the morning. We’ve been waiting for Janke to contact me, but so far, my phone has remained silent. At least the APB for the stolen electrician van had come through for us. It’d been found abandoned on a street, and the police had gone door to door in the neighborhood, searching for Quinn. As we’d expected, Janke had left the van in a random part of town, and nothing had been found except one of the cell phones he’d used to contact Quinn. The van is still being looked over carefully by a team at the department, but so far, there’s nothing that points to her whereabouts.

Gabe had managed to talk Harper into going to bed about an hour ago, and Sebastian couldn’t handle sitting around, so he’d left and hasn’t been back since. Channing and Ash are still at the hospital. Thankfully, Ash had regained consciousness in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. However, the concussion is serious enough that it required an overnight stay.

“Colt, you’re going to be no help if you’re half-asleep on your feet,” Bryce tells me.

I shoot him a look, daring him to suggest I go to sleep one more damned time. I’m certain Quinn isn’t sleeping, and somewhere deep within me, I’m terrified of what she’s suffering. I’m not going to go downstairs and lie in a fucking bed, trying to sleep when she’s going through hell.

Bryce sighs. “Okay, fine.” He sits back on the sofa and looks at me again, his expression determined. “We need to revisit the idea of setting a trap for him.”

I rise to my feet and stand, feeling restless. “There’s no guarantee he’ll give up Quinn’s location. We both know he won’t arrange anything near the vicinity of where he’s keeping her.”

This fucker is smart and twisted. The profile that the department profiler put together is going to keep me awake until Quinn is back in my arms. Janke is most certainly insane, and he’s not afraid to take chances. He’d proved that by sending the photo of his second victim to Quinn. He might as well have signed his real name on it along with his fingerprints. This means he’ll do whatever he has to in order to carry out his plan, even if it means he might get caught in the end.

I rub my face, feeling the rough beginnings of a beard on my jaw. Janke’s final move will be to kill Quinn. All the pieces are supposed to fall into place before that point, but if he can’t get his hands on me and the police are closing in, he will kill Quinn.

“Colt, we need to set him up,” Bryce insists.

The photo of Janke catches my eye, and I lean over and grab it off the coffee table so I can study it again. The photo had been taken before he’d left Canada and murdered the woman in Maine. He looks about nineteen in the picture, twenty at the most, and his hair is blond, his face thin with sallow cheeks. The boy in the picture is lanky and weak, but his eyes…

Those eyes are pure evil.

Janke didn’t change his appearance until he’d fled Canada, and he’d had to have worked damned hard to gain all that muscle and weight. Add the dyed hair and the tattoos that Quinn said he has, and he looks nothing like his former self. Smart fucker.

I toss the photo aside and turn my attention on Bryce. “Say we set him up, what happens when he refuses to tell us where he has Quinn holed up?”

“It’s a risk,” Bryce levelly agrees. “At least with Janke in custody, he can’t kill her.”

“If we can’t find her, and she’s injured and somewhere secluded, there’s no guarantee she’ll get herself out on her own.” I shake my head. “It’s too much of a risk. We’re better off following him.”

“Back him in a corner, and he’ll kill Quinn so that you can’t have her. So that no one can,” Bryce argues. “If he barricades himself with her, she’s done. Colt, it’s risky either way you look at it. At least with him out of the way, her life expectancy is extended.”

“I agree with Bryce,” Gabe says as he enters the living room.

Bryce looks at him. “She sleeping?” he asks, referring to Harper.

Gabe sighs and drops down onto the sofa, scrubbing his hands over his face. “It wasn’t easy, but she’s down. At least for now,” he adds, looking exhausted.

He should really get some sleep too, but I don’t blame him for refusing. Even if there’s nothing that can be done at this point to help Quinn, it feels like we’re abandoning her if we go to bed as if nothing has happened.

Gabe looks at me. “Setting him up is Quinn’s best chance of getting out of this alive,” he says quietly.

I turn and walk away, leaving the room and going down to my room. They’re shoving this plan down my throat, and I don’t want to give into it. When I enter the room, I pause in the doorway and stare at the bed—the bed that Quinn should be sleeping in right now. She should be here, safely in the shelter of my arms.

My fingers curl into my palms, forming fists. I want her back so fucking bad. A piece of me feels like it’s missing without her. Then, there’s the thoughts of what she might be enduring. Torture. Rape…

I can’t breathe.

I lean against the doorframe, struggling to draw air into my lungs. It’s killing me inside not knowing where she’s at and what’s happening to her. If I get her back, she won’t be the same. I know that.

Fuck.

I don’t care how she comes back to me, just as long as she comes back home. I’ll help her put back all the pieces. I’ll be whatever the fuck she needs, I just need her back.

My ass vibrates, startling me for a moment until I realize it’s my phone. I yank it out of my pocket. I have a text from an unknown number, and I know it’s him. I’m afraid I’m going to find a photo of Quinn, but I open the message anyway and find a written text. It’s the address of a storage building on the edge of the city. The text includes a unit number and a lock combination. The last sentence warns me to come alone.

If things go south with trying to follow Janke, or if he figures out he’s being followed, he could take it out on Quinn. At least if he’s in custody, he can’t hurt her. That still leaves a chance that he won’t give up her whereabouts, but at least we’ll know she’s still alive, and that will hopefully give us a chance to find her.

Now that the decision has been made, I hurry upstairs. When I enter the living room, Bryce and Gabe look to be in the middle of a serious discussion. Sebastian has arrived home, and I can tell he’s been out drinking instead of fucking. He’s not happily buzzed though, instead, he looks very subdued and grumpy as he sits on the couch listening to Bryce and Gabe.

Bryce looks up when I enter the room. Before he can say anything, I signal that I’d received a text and hold the phone out to him.

He takes it and scans the text. When he’s finished, he looks at me, his eyes intent. “We doing this?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Let me put together a unit so we can surround the building.” He gives me a warning look and hands back my phone. “Do not leave the house until we’re ready,” he warns.

“Make it quick,” I tell him.

He nods and turns, leaving the living room as he pulls out his phone. His voice disappears down the hall where he can talk in private.

Gabe looks at me, his eyes grim. “What’d the text say?”

I fill in Sebastian and Gabe.

“This could go south really fast,” Sebastian says quietly.

I nod in agreement. “We’re going to have to hope that isn’t the case.”

We all fall quiet as a heaviness settles over us.

Bryce returns a minute later, and he nods my way. “Let’s go,” he says, heading for the front door.

“I’m supposed to go alone,” I remind.

He opens the door, and we step outside. “You will. We’re meeting the team two blocks from the site, then from there, you’re going in alone with a wire. It’s a risk you’re taking,” he warns.

“She’s worth it,” I say flatly.

Bryce nods. “Let’s go bring her home.”

I’m then briefed on possible scenarios and what to do if Quinn is present. If she is, and I have to shoot the bastard, I can do so. But if she’s not present, I’m not to touch Janke unless it’s self-defense and my life is in jeopardy.

Then, I’m on my way.

My fingers wrap tightly around the steering wheel as I drive the last few blocks by myself. After waiting excruciatingly long hours for Janke to contact me, the last hour has flown by.

When I reach the large storage facility, I drive around to figure out where the unit is. It’s in the very back, and I park the truck and look around. There’s no one present. The parking lot is empty, and the unit door is closed and looks to be padlocked.

He’s not here.

“There’s no one here, and the unit is completely locked. I think this is a test, because he’s too smart to let himself be cornered,” I murmur, knowing Bryce and the others can hear me. They’re hidden in the shadows, probably closing in on the building this very minute. “I’m getting out to see what’s waiting in there,” I add.

Even though I doubt Janke is nearby, I stay alert as I carefully climb out of the truck and cautiously walk to the door. I pull out my phone and check the screen for the combination. Bryce had warned me not to open the door all the way, that I had to be careful in case Janke rigged it in some way. Explosives aren’t really his thing, but you never know. I’m a civilian, so I’d had to be briefed about all the possible risks.

“I’m entering the combination,” I say under my breath. The padlock releases, and I ease it out of the rung. Now all I need to do is pull up the door.

I kneel down and hold my breath as I carefully inch the door open, checking for wires that might be attached. “Looks clean, and there’s a light on inside.” I brace myself for what I might find and open the door all the way, quickly stepping back and grabbing my gun, aiming it. I’m certain my gun isn’t the only one trained on the unit, and I blink and process what I’m seeing. There’s a tall light in one corner, and a mattress splotched with blood in the other. The rest of the unit is empty.

I slowly walk towards the wall where HIS had been written in smeared blood. My chest tightens, knowing that it’s Quinn’s. There’s also a photo attached where the top circle would be located above the I. With great dread, I approach it and gaze at the photo.

Quinn’s on her knees, clad in the black lace bra and matching panties that she’d put on this morning. Her pink hair is a mess, and there’s blood smeared all over her chest. As much as the sight of her blood bothers me, my eyes focus intently on her face.

I move closer, staring hard. There’s no visible tears and no mascara streaks. She doesn’t look scared, she looks pissed, and her eyes are blazing mad.

That’s my girl.

She’s in a shit situation, but she’s not going to let it break her. She’s going to fight to get back to me. There are words printed on the bottom of the photo, and I scan them. Next time come alone.

I hear a footfall behind me, and I spin around, gun ready.

“Easy,” Bryce says, entering the unit.

I lower the gun.

Bryce studies the photo and sighs.

“Now what?” I ask, irritated that we’d done exactly what Janke had anticipated.

“We bag the scene and go back to square one,” Bryce says reluctantly.

I release a frustrated curse.