“The guy he stole the car from keeps a loaded .45 under the seat. The details are sketchy at best, but when Connor took off, he went looking for his sister. Beck is trying to find them now.”
Rory slid his hand over the back of his neck and squeezed his tight muscles. He tried to think what Connor would do. Would he hurt his sister? He’d never done so in the past. Not physically, but if he was tweaking hard on drugs, out of his mind, and looking for retribution, he just might be capable of anything.
“We need to find Sadie. She’s not picking up her cell.”
“I’ve got someone checking her work,” Agent Cooke assured him.
“Not good enough. We need agents on my property.”
“We’ve searched everywhere and found nothing.”
“Yeah, well, we should have had Sadie look at the pictures with us. She found him. That’s why he’s after her. She threatened to turn him in unless he did so himself.”
“Why didn’t she call me? If she’s giving him time to escape—”
“It’s nothing like that,” Rory cut him off. “She wanted him to do the right thing. To see he’s got no way out of this and if he keeps going down the path he’s chosen, he’ll only end up dead.”
“Fine. I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.”
“Trust me. As much as she doesn’t want to see her brother behind bars, it’s a better option than burying another member of her family.”
“You got that right. I’m headed your way. We’ll land the chopper on your property like we did last time. You can point out the location we need to check and we’ll see if we can’t end this thing before dark.”
Rory stared out the window at the sun sinking fast. They had only a couple of hours before nightfall. He wouldn’t get his picnic with Sadie.
“I need to know where Sadie is. I’ll call the diner, see if I can find her.”
“Too late,” Agent Cooke said with a distinct note of inevitability and regret in his voice. “I just received word. Our agent checked the diner. She left thirty minutes ago at the end of her shift according to staff, but her truck is still in the lot. The agent found her purse tossed in the truck bed.”
“Which means she doesn’t have her phone. You’re sure?”
“The agent found some distinct tire treads in the lot. Someone peeled out of there in a hurry.”
“Connor grabbed her.”
“It looks that way.”
“But what does he plan to do with her?” Rory didn’t want to think about it. “Get here as fast as you can. I’ll be ready.” Rory hung up and went to the gun cabinet. He pulled out three rifles and the shells and loaded each and every one of them.
The car bumped over ruts and skidded around corners, the back end swinging out around a curve in the dirt road her brother drove down way too fast. Sadie rolled toward the backseat, hit her shoulder on the top of the car, and threw her hands in front of her to stop her momentum as the car came to a jarring halt.
She rolled to her back and held her breath when the car door opened, then slammed. She put her hands up in front of her, ready to ward off an attack. If her brother brought her to Derek with the devil tattoo and evil intentions, she’d need all her wits about her to either talk her way out of this situation or fight him off before he hurt her. She tried not to let her mind go to the baby, but the worry for her child had grown into a living thing inside her that made her heart race and her insides grow cold with fear.
“Connor, please, let me out of here.” The suffocating stale oil- and gas-tinged air threatened to choke her and send her into a panic attack. She tried to remain calm, but the too warm, cramped compartment closed in on her. Her whole body broke out in a sweat in the stifling interior. She desperately needed some fresh air and water.
Metal scratched metal and a snick sounded a second before the trunk popped open. Dim light filtered in. She blinked away the temporary blindness and scrambled out of the trunk. She launched herself at Connor, smacking him on the shoulder.
“What the hell? You can’t just dump me in there and drive off with me.”
“I guess I can and I did.”
A black Mustang pulled in behind her brother, skidding to a stop and sending up a cloud of dust. Trigger jumped out, his eyes narrowed, his lips pulled back in a tight line. “What the fuck did you do?”
“Where the hell did you come from? You can’t be here. If Derek finds you here, I’m dead.”
“You’re already dead, dumbshit. That fucking cowboy comes for her, he’ll kill you.”
Sadie fisted her brother’s shirt in her hands and shook him. “It’s over, Connor. Rory knows about this place.” She hoped she wasn’t bluffing. She hoped he got her note and read its meaning. She kicked herself for not being explicit and putting a big damn X-marks-the-spot on the photograph. She should have done what her father expected and done the hard thing. “I should have turned you in the second I discovered this place. If there’s a bad choice and worse choice, you choose to make things worse every damn time.”