Mountain Captive (Eagle Mountain: Criminal History #4)

Chapter Seven

Chris sank onto the sofa, head back, eyes closed. That kiss! She hadn’t even realized she was interested in Rand that way—that climb-his-body, take-me-now, where-have-you-been-all-my-life, passion-turned-up-to-ten kind of way—and then she was. When had she ever been kissed like that? Never. She had never been kissed like that. She didn’t let men get that close. But Rand had vaulted right over her defenses and ambushed her with that kiss.

And she had willingly surrendered. Except it hadn’t felt like losing—it felt like winning a grand prize. The rush of victory was overwhelming. It had been all she could do to pull herself together enough to send him away. At least she had that much of a sense of self-preservation left. After years of caution, she wasn’t going to leap off that cliff just yet.

Harley climbed up onto the sofa beside her and began licking her cheek. She opened her eyes and hugged the dog. “I’m okay,” she said. “Everything’s okay.”

Whomp!

The sound jolted her upright. Harley barked loudly, the ridge of hair along his back at attention. Something heavy had hit her door. It came again, an impact that made the door rattle in its frame. Heart pounding painfully, she jumped up, scrambling to free her phone from her pocket. A third impact shook the door, and Harley’s barking became more frantic.

She stabbed at the phone as she moved toward the back door. “Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?”

“Someone is breaking into my apartment.” She reached the kitchen just as the glass in the door’s small window shattered inward. “Please hurry!”

“What is your location, ma’am?”

Chris rattled off her address as she grabbed the chef’s knife from the magnet by the stove. She looked around for anything else she could use as a weapon. The frying pan? A rolling pin? Then she spotted the fire extinguisher and pulled it from its bracket on the wall. “Come on, Harley,” she called, and headed toward the bedroom. She heard the back door give way as she dove into the closet and shut the door behind her and the dog. They would find her soon enough, but she hoped she would be able to hold them off until help arrived.

R AND GROANED AND tried to sit, but a wave of dizziness dragged him down again. He was aware of noises—someone shouting, pounding footsteps. Then hands grabbed him roughly. He fought back, punching out, and tried to shout, but no words emerged. He tried to open his eyes yet saw nothing but blackness.

“Hey, it’s okay. You’re all right now. You’re safe. Lie still.” The voice was firm but reassuring. Strong hands urged him to lie back, and he surrendered to the pull of gravity. A bright light shone on his face, and he squinted against it. A man he didn’t know peered down at him. “Who are you?” Rand managed to force out.

“I’m Lee. I’m a paramedic with Rayford County Emergency Services. Looks like you hit your head pretty hard. Can you tell me what happened?”

Rand closed his eyes again, trying to remember. “Someone jumped me,” he said.

“Lie still, okay? You’re still bleeding a little. Do you know who hit you?”

He was starting to think more clearly, and the memory of what had happened before he was hit came flooding back. “Chris!” He tried to sit up again, though the EMTs held him down. “Is Chris all right? I have to go to her.”

“Is Chris the person who called for an ambulance?” Lee asked someone out of Rand’s field of vision. He was still holding Rand down. Rand lay back, gathering strength for another attempt to rise.

“No. Someone named Susan, in the apartment across the alley,” a female voice answered. “She said she heard a shout and looked out the window to see someone fall to the ground and someone else run away. She called 911, and they dispatched us.” A woman with strawberry blond hair and freckles leaned over Rand. “A sheriff’s deputy is on the way. I hear the siren now.”

Rand heard it too—a high-pitched wailing that grew louder and louder. He sat up again. This time no one stopped him. The woman probed at the back of his head while Lee unwrapped a blood pressure cuff from around Rand’s left arm.

“Your vitals are good,” Lee said. “How are you feeling?”

The dizziness and nausea had subsided. His head throbbed, but he could live with that. “I’m better,” he said. “I have to check on Chris. The person who hit me could have got to her.”

Lee’s forehead wrinkled. “This Chris person was with you when you were attacked?”

“No. She lives upstairs, over the art gallery. I was just leaving her apartment. Whoever hit me must have been waiting in the alley.”

“If she’s upstairs, she should be all—” A loud crash interrupted him. He turned to look toward the sound behind him, and Rand staggered to his feet.

“Sir, you need to be still—”

Rand ignored the words and started for the building. He was certain now that his attacker had been waiting to disable him so he could go after Chris. But he had taken only a few steps when a sheriff’s department SUV turned into the alley. The wail of the siren bounced off the buildings, and Rand instinctively put his hands to his ears. “Freeze, with your hands where I can see them!” a voice from the SUV ordered.

Rand did as he was asked and squinted in the glare of the spotlight centered on him. Then the light cut off, and a man stepped out from the car. “Rand, what are you doing here?”

Jake Gwynn moved toward Rand, converging on him at the same time the two EMTs caught up with him. “You need to check on Chris,” Rand said. “I had just left her apartment when someone attacked me, but I think their real target was her.”

“Chris called 911 and said someone was breaking into her apartment.” Jake looked at the outer door. “Gage is on his way.”

“We don’t have time to wait,” Rand said. “I’ll back you up.”

Jake’s gaze shifted to Rand’s head. “You’re bleeding.”

“I’ll be fine. We don’t have time to loo—”

A woman’s scream overhead launched him toward the door, with Jake right behind him. But the door was locked. Jake pounded on it. “Open up! Sheriff’s department!” he shouted.

But the only reply was scuffling noises overhead and another loud crash. “Is there a back way in?” Jake asked.

“I don’t know,” Rand said. He tried to remember anything about Chris’s apartment, but he hadn’t been paying attention, and he hadn’t been past the living room. “Maybe a fire escape?”

“Stay here. I’m going around back.”

As soon as Jake was gone, Rand turned his attention back to the door. It was a heavy metal door; he doubted he could bash it in. He couldn’t pick the lock either. Could he ram it with his car?

A second siren’s wail filled the air. “That must be Gage,” Lee said.

Rand moved to the middle of the alley and stared up at what he thought was Chris’s window. “Chris!” he shouted. But no answer came.

A second black-and-white SUV entered the alley, and Sergeant Gage Walker stepped out almost before it had come to a complete stop. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Chris is upstairs,” Rand said. “She called 911, saying someone was breaking into her apartment. I had just left her, and someone must have been waiting for me. They attacked me and knocked me out. I came to when the paramedics arrived.”

“Dispatch sent us over in response to a call from a neighbor about a man being attacked in the alley,” Lee said.

Gage pulled out his phone. “I’ll call the building owner and see if we can get a key.”

Rand shook his head and started around the corner of the building. Jake met him at the corner. “Where are you going?” he asked, his hands on Rand’s shoulders.

“I’m going up the fire escape,” Rand said. “I’m not waiting for a key.”

“The stairs aren’t down,” Jake said. “No one’s been up there.”

“Or they’ve been up there and pulled the stairs up after them,” Rand said. He pushed past Jake and headed toward the fire escape. As Jake had said, the bottom of the stairs was ten feet overhead, out of his reach.

Rand pulled out his phone and dialed Chris’s number. It rang five times before going to voicemail. “I can’t take your call right now...” He ended the call and shoved the phone back into his pocket. By this time, Jake had caught up with him. “She’s not answering,” Rand said. “I know something’s wrong.”

Gage called to them from the corner of the building. “The landlord is on the way,” he said. “She said she’ll be here in five minutes.”

Rand looked up at the fire escape again. If he parked his SUV beneath it, he could climb on top and maybe reach the bottom of the ladder from there. He pulled his keys from his pocket. “Where are you going?” Jake asked.

“To help Chris.” Waiting was only buying more time for her to end up hurt. Or worse.

C HRIS HEARD THE SIREN , growing louder by the second until the wailing was directly below. Then the sound shut off. Help was almost here. She just had to hang on a little longer.

The intruder was in the house now, footsteps lumbering as they—because it sounded like more than one person—searched the apartment. Something heavy, a piece of furniture, fell to the floor with a crash. “We know you’re in here, Elita!” a man—Jedediah?—called out.

Harley growled, a low and menacing rumble. Chris buried her fingers in the thick ruff at his neck. “Quiet!” she hissed. They needed to remain hidden until the deputies arrived. What was taking them so long?

The footsteps entered the bedroom. Chris’s heart hammered. She let go of the dog and gripped the knife in her right hand, then thought better of that and slid it into her pocket. She hefted the fire extinguisher and looped her finger into the metal ring on the handle.

Crash! A scream escaped her as something hit the closet door, causing it to bow inward. Harley lunged at the door, barking furiously. Chris braced against the back wall of the closet and stood, shoving clothes aside and balancing the fire extinguisher on one thigh. Her pulse sounded so loud in her ear she could scarcely hear anything else, though the dog’s barking echoed in the small space.

The door burst open, splinters flying. Chris pulled the ring from the handle of the fire extinguisher, aimed the hose and squeezed the trigger. She hit her intruder right in the face. When the second man shoved the first out of the way and lunged for her, she got him, too, white powder billowing up and coating his glasses and hair and filling his mouth when he opened it to shout.

When the extinguisher was empty, Chris swung it like a club. She hit the second man hard on the shoulder. When he staggered back, the first man rushed forward, and she thrust the bottom of the extinguisher into his forehead, connecting with a sickening thwack —like a hammer hitting a watermelon. The first man grabbed on to the door of the closet but remained standing, only to be driven farther back by Harley, who rushed forward, teeth bared.

“Freeze! Sheriff’s department!” came a shout from the front room.

The first man turned; then the second grabbed his shoulder. “We better get out of here,” he said. They raced from the room. Chris dropped the fire extinguisher and sank to her knees, arms wrapped around Harley, who was still barking and lunging.

That was how Jake Gwynn found her. She had to calm the dog before he could approach, but once she had convinced Harley that everything was okay, Jake helped her to the end of the bed, where she sat and contemplated the closet’s shattered door and the carpeting coated with white powder.

“There were two men,” she said. “They broke in, and I hid in the closet with Harley. They ran when they heard you coming.”

“Gage went after them,” Jake said. “Do you know who they are?”

“Oh, I’m sure they were members of the Vine,” she said. “They’re the only ones who would want to hurt me. One of them might have been Jedediah.”

“Did you get a good look at them?” Jake asked. “Could you identify them?”

She shook her head. “By the time I saw them, they were covered in the powder from the fire extinguisher.” She closed her eyes, replaying those few split seconds. “And I think their faces were covered. They wore ski masks or something like that. And gloves.” She had the image of black-gloved hands reaching for her fixed in her mind.

“Chris!”

Rand’s cry made her sit up straighter. “We’re in the bedroom,” Jake called. “Don’t come in. You could contaminate evidence.” He indicated the footprints in the powder on the carpet, which he had avoided when he entered the room. “Those are from your attackers. We might be able to match them to their shoes later.”

Rand appeared in the doorway. “Chris, are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m fine.” She passed a shaky hand through her hair. “They never laid a hand on me.”

Rand surveyed the chaos around the closet. “What happened?”

“She let off a fire extinguisher at them,” Jake said, a note of admiration in his voice.

“I hit them with it too,” she said. “And there’s a kitchen knife in my pocket. I would have used it on them if I had to. And I had Harley.” She hugged the dog, as much out of affection as to keep him from bounding across the powdered carpet to Rand.

“You shouldn’t be in here, Rand,” Jake said. “Go back outside and wait. Let the ambulance crew finish looking you over.”

“Ambulance?” Chris turned to Rand. “Are you hurt? What happened?”

He touched the back of his head and winced. “Whoever went after you was waiting for me. They knocked me out, but I’m fine. Just a bump on the head.”

Gage moved in behind him. “They got away down the fire escape,” he said. “I didn’t even get a good look at them. Two men dressed in black, covered in flour or something.”

“Most of the contents of a fire extinguisher,” Jake said. “Chris let them have it when they came after her.”

“Good thinking.” Gage studied the footprints on the floor. “I’ll call for a forensics team. Are you all right, Chris? Do you need the paramedics?”

“I’m okay,” she said.

“We’ll need to get your statement,” Gage said. “Jake, bring her in the other room.” He turned to Rand. “We’ll need your statement too.”

Jake directed her in picking her way around the path the intruders had taken when they fled the apartment. She guided Harley, who wasn’t in a cooperative mood, out of the apartment and down the stairs, where she found two patrol vehicles, an ambulance, two paramedics, her landlord and half a dozen curious onlookers.

Rand moved in beside her. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, his gaze taking her in from the top of her head to her feet.

She nodded and hugged her arms across her chest, having released Harley to sniff around, knowing the dog wouldn’t go far. “I was terrified for a few minutes. Now I’m just exhausted.”

Her landlord, Jasmine, approached. With no makeup on and wearing a sweatshirt pulled over plaid pajama pants, she looked very different from the polished professional Chris was used to. “Honey, are you okay?” Jasmine asked.

“I’m fine. I’m sorry about the apartment doors.” She looked at the doors, both bent inward.

“The cops did that,” Jasmine said. “I guess they couldn’t wait for me to get here with the key.”

Chris shuddered. “They got to me just in time.”

“Who cares about doors, as long as you’re okay.” Jasmine patted her arm. “Don’t worry about it. I have insurance. But is there anything else you need?”

“No, thanks. I’m okay, really.”

“Your friend here looks a little worse for wear.” Jasmine flashed a smile. “Still very easy on the eyes, mind you.”

Chris studied Rand. His face was paler than usual, the fine lines around his eyes tighter, as if he was in pain. And was that blood in his hair?

“Rand, you’re hurt!” she exclaimed.

“I’m okay. The paramedics have seen me.”

“Jake, get Rand’s statement,” Gage said as he joined them. “Chris, you come with me.”

She ended up sitting in the front seat of Gage’s patrol car, reciting all the events of the evening, leaving out the part about her and Rand kissing before he left her and returned to his car. “I’m sure those two men were from the Vine,” she said. “The group has made it clear they want me back.”

“To marry their leader—have I got that right?” Gage asked.

She nodded. “It sounds ridiculous. I’m a grown woman. I’m not a member of the group anymore. They can’t force me to marry someone. Especially since he’s already married to someone else. But logic doesn’t really matter. They think they can make me do this. And they believe they’re above the law.”

“Did the two men who broke into your apartment say anything?” Gage asked.

“One of them called me Elita,” she said. “That was the name I used when I was a member of the group—when I was a little girl. That’s one more reason I’m sure they were from the Vine. No one else knows me by that name.”

Gage made a note. “Anything else you remember about them?”

“I thought the voice sounded like Jedediah. He’s the man who confronted me at the fire the other day. I had seen him on a hiking trail the day before that, when search and rescue responded to a man on the Anderson Falls Trail who had heart trouble.”

“We’ll have forensics go over the place,” Gage said. “You won’t be able to stay here for a while. The front and back doors to your apartment were forced open.”

“How did they get in from street level?” she asked.

“Best guess is they blocked the door from closing all the way while you and Rand were upstairs. He came down, and they ambushed him at his car, then went in the door and locked it behind them to delay anyone’s ability to get to them.”

“And to slow me down if I managed to run from them,” she said.

“We had to break open the outer door to get to you,” Gage said. “I was going to wait for Jasmine to bring us the key, but Rand insisted. I guess it’s a good thing he did.”

She said nothing, feeling Gage’s eyes on her. She wondered what he thought of the tattoos and dyed hair. Of her strange past with a cult that seemed kooky to most people. “Have they threatened you before?” he asked. “Since you left?”

“Mom and I were approached a couple of times by members who recognized us.” She shivered, remembering. “No direct threats. I think they’re too clever for that. But if you had lived with them the way we did, you’d know how things that sound innocent can come across as really menacing.”

“Give me an example.”

She shifted in her seat, then blew out a breath. Why was this so hard to talk about? “If someone approached you and said, ‘The Exalted is worried it will be really bad for you if you don’t fulfill your destiny,’ that sounds innocent enough, right? A little out there, but harmless. But when I hear that, I’m not thinking they’re concerned about my karma or my mental health or even the threat of eternal damnation—I’m hearing code for ‘If you don’t do what we want, you could end up dead.’”

“Did that happen to other people who disobeyed the Exalted?” Gage asked.

“Oh yeah. No one ever used the word murder . They got sick. They had an accident. One young woman drowned.”

“Were any of these deaths investigated by law enforcement?”

She shook her head. “They weren’t even reported, as far as I know. The victims were buried in the woods, wherever we were staying. That was the way we did things. Everyone said, ‘We take care of our own,’ and it was considered a good thing. We didn’t need outsiders interfering.”

Gage closed his notebook. “I’ll probably have more questions later. Do you have some place you can stay? Or I can find you a bed at a women’s shelter.”

“I’ll find a place.” She could always go to her mother’s, though the idea left a sour taste in her mouth. Hadn’t she said she was tired of running away? And what about bringing the danger with her?

At a tapping on the glass, she turned and saw Rand outside the SUV. Gage rolled down the window. “You can’t stay here,” Rand said. “Come back to my place. No one from the Vine knows where I live.”

“Rand, you’re hurt,” she said. “You should have someone look at your head. You might need an X-ray or stitches.”

“I’m fine. I have a headache, but no dizziness. The bleeding has stopped. I know enough to go to the hospital if any concerning symptoms pop up. In the meantime, these people don’t know where I live, and I have a good security system. You’ll be safe there.”

“I told her I could find her a bed in a women’s shelter,” Gage said. “The local animal shelter would look after your dog for you.”

She didn’t want to go to a shelter, and she wasn’t going to leave Harley. “Can Harley come to your place?” she asked Rand.

“Of course.” He opened the door. The dog was standing next to him. “He’s ready to go.”