Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” I declared. “You’re dropping me off at the DG then you’re driving away. You’re gonna keep that gun in your lap and you’re gonna use it if you have to.”
“Okay.”
“Dylan, you have Ally’s number. Track her and check in.”
“Liza—”
“We don’t have time for another argument,” I spat. “This is what’s happening.”
“I’m not gonna argue with you,” Dylan placated. “I’m going to remind you there are no cameras on sight. We don’t have a visual. I’m also not going to talk you out of this. You’re right, Tucker wouldn’t make you wait. I see returning that and I respect it. But I want you to promise, if you cannot get eyes inside or it’s not safe, you do not enter, and wait for Greg. He’s thirty minutes out. Our team is forty-five. You have backup coming. Play this smart. We don’t need them to have two hostages. And them using you against Tucker would be catastrophic.”
Shit . I hadn’t thought of that. Tucker would lose his mind if they had me to torture in front of him.
Something to think about but not a deterrent.
“There’s a basement!” Nick shouted in the background.
“Hold on, Liza, Nick has the blueprints that were submitted for the remodel.”
“Have you ever been in the back of the coffee shop?” I asked Ally.
“No. Colleen has, but I’ve never been back there.”
A few moments passed before I lost patience.
“I’m almost there.”
“Alright, there’s a back exit,” Nick supplied. “No windows in the back, so they’ll be in the kitchen or in the basement. The door to get to the basement is going to be to your right when you enter the kitchen. There’s a freezer, a storage room, then the basement door.”
“Third door on the right. Got it. Anything else?”
Nick hesitated briefly before he returned, “You could be walking into a trap.”
I could be but I’d take my chances.
“You’ve got two blind spots.” Lenox reentered the conversation. “The kitchen and the basement. I’m more concerned with the basement. You’ve got a fatal funnel and no element of surprise. Once you start down the stairs, you’re gonna have to be quick. You won’t have time to clear and assess.”
Lenox had turned back into his role as commanding officer. If my heart wasn’t in my throat and all sorts of horrible scenarios weren’t coasting through my head, I would’ve had a smartass retort. But I was too busy shoving my fear aside to come up with something.
“Where’s your head?” he asked me, like he could read my thoughts over the phone.
“On getting Tucker out alive and in one piece.”
“Liza—”
“Give me this,” I interrupted. “Don’t call me on my lie. Let me have this so I can get to Tucker.”
Fear up.
Focus and accomplish my mission.
“Okay, darlin’,” Lenox murmured. “You’re there. Get eyes on the shop and call us back.”
“Copy.”
The interior of the car went silent.
No more background chatter of men at work trying to pull together a battle plan with no intel. No more Lenox or Brady to argue with.
Just me.
No backup.
My father’s nasty voice was pushing its way into my thoughts. All the times he told me I was lacking—never good enough.
What if he was right?
What if I screwed this up and made it worse for Tucker?
Was I rushing in alone to prove a point—play hero to show Tucker I was good enough for him?
“No.”
“No?” Allyson repeated.
Good Lord, now I’m talking to myself out loud .
“Don’t mind me.” I waved off my outburst. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah. Are you?”
“What do you see?” I asked when I slowed to pass the coffee stop.
“Black, jacked-up, four-door pickup,” she called out. “No lights on. And I don’t see any other cars in the lot.” Allyson twisted in her seat to look behind us. “No cars in the lot across the street, either.”
That’s what I saw, too.
But the Family Dollar and Dollar General were both still open, thus there were cars parked in their shared lot.
Still, the truck parked in the coffee shop parking lot, instead of hiding the fact they were there…
Five people tops could fit in the truck.
Tucker plus four.
Not great odds, but doable.
“Now answer me, Liza. Are you ready for this? And why haven’t you called the police?”
“They’ll slow us down,” I told her.
“You mean you. They’ll slow you down. But you don’t have backup.”
Her voice was rising, panic setting in.
“Everything’s gonna be fine.”
“Now you sound like my sister when she pulls the ‘I’m the big sister’ card.”
I parked in front of the DG, not directly under the light, but neither in the dark. I didn’t want Allyson in any more danger than she already was.
I left the car running and turned to face her.
“Truth? Everything could go to total shit. I could be screwing this up by going in there alone. But I know if I wait and something happens to Tucker, I would never be able to live with myself. I would rather go down with him than sit out and wait knowing he’s in that building and in danger.”
Allyson took a deep breath and nodded.
“Go get Tucker. I’ll circle the block.”
“No. Go drive away?—”
“You think I’ll be able to live with myself leaving you and Tucker behind? You go. I’ll drive around but I’m not going far, and you call me as soon as you have him and I’ll swing by and get you.”
Was this what it was like having real friends?
A colleague would put themselves in danger for the mission, to provide cover. Unless that colleague was Frank.
But a civilian?
Weird.
Allyson’s attention went over my shoulder, her eyes got huge, and she started violently shaking her head.
“Is that smoke?”
I whipped my head around, and sure as shit there was smoke.
Not a lot.
But enough.
Three men calmly walked out the door. One stopped to pull the door closed while the other two walked in the direction of the truck.
Fuck .
I jumped out of the car, kept close to the Dollar General building, until I was around the corner. Then I sprinted to a hedgerow and ducked behind it. The scrubs were shit cover but they were all I had.
The truck was ten feet away. The coffee shop fifteen.
My gaze went between the two.
The fire or the perps?
No contest, Tucker was in that fire.
The bad guys could get away for all I cared.
“Mackenzie’s gonna be pissed, Jake.” I heard one of them say.
“Mackenzie can fuck off. I told her it was time to move on when that stupid bitch started asking questions. She didn’t listen. Now it all burns to the ground. I’m done swinging my ass out there because she doesn’t want to let go of her hippie shit. Fuck her and fuck that.”
A door slammed.
“Tug’s gonna be proud,” another man cheered.
“Fuck yeah, he will. Motherfucker got what he deserved.”
My heart lurched.
My finger slid into the trigger well.
More doors slammed.
My finger put pressure on the trigger. The need to shoot was near overwhelming. But if Tucker was still alive I needed to get him out.
Fire.
Tires screeched.
I had to get to Tucker.
As soon as I saw the taillights on the main road I gave up my cover, ran full speed to the coffee shop, and yanked on the door.
Locked.
I looked around for something to break the window.
Nothing.
Think, Liza, think!
I ran back to the hedgerow, grabbed the two biggest rocks I could find, and ran back. I threw the first one as hard as I could. It ricocheted off, barely making a crack.
Slow is fast. Fast is slow.
I blew out a breath. Focused and threw the second rock. A spiderweb of cracks appeared. Another deep inhale; with that I braced for the pain and used all of my body weight to slam my shoulder into the glass door. I heard it crack more. I tried again, this time essentially throwing myself at the stupid door. Pain radiated through the right side of my body, my shoulder taking the brunt of the impact, until the glass gave way and I fell through, landing hard on my hip.
I scrambled to get up, glass poking through my jeans, my palms, my forearms—anywhere it touched it cut.
The smell of smoke was getting stronger. No flames, just the haze of smoke that got thicker as I entered the kitchen. The left side of the room had two industrial ranges. All the burners were on, towels, rolls of toilet paper, and cartons of napkins were piled on top. I quickly turned off all the burners, which took time since they were hot as fuck and flames were already licking the ceiling.
“I got this!” I heard Allyson yell from behind me.
Then I heard pots and pans banging together, clattering as they hit the tile floor.
She shouldn’t be in here .
“Ally—”
“I saw them leave so I called nine-one-one. You need to find Tucker before this gets worse.”
She was right.
I turned to the basement door. Smoke rolled out from under it.
The sight of the smoke almost brought me to my knees.
In hindsight, I should’ve grabbed a wet towel to cover my face. Or I should’ve pulled my shirt up over my mouth. But I was so hellbent on getting to Tucker I didn’t do either, which meant by the time I made it down the stairs I was choking on the putrid smell of burning plastic.
Saliva pooled when I saw Tucker’s body tied to a chair. His back was to me, head bent forward at an awkward angle, hands tied behind his back.
The source of the fire was easy to find. Four 3D printers were all burning. Next to them were five-gallon buckets stacked against the wall, the flames getting dangerously close to igniting whatever was in the buckets. There were pressure cookers, beakers, hoses, and mason jars.
Their meth lab.
Not at the compound, at the coffee shop.
“I can’t put it all out!” Allyson yelled from the top of the steps.
“I need a knife!” I yelled back as I attempted to pull the chair and Tucker away from the flames.
The chair didn’t budge.
I moved to Tucker’s front and gagged.
“Are you okay?” Allyson shouted as she ran down the stairs.
“Stay…there,” I choked out. My nostrils clogged with unshed tears. “Slide the knife over here.”
“Liza—”
“Quick, Ally, he’s hurt.”
Allyson tossed the knife across the room like she was skipping a rock.
“Do you have your phone on you?”
“Yeah,” she answered.
“Take a video or pictures of the printers and stuff. Doesn’t matter which.”
Allyson pulled her phone out as I went for the knife.
“What is all this?”
“Meth lab.”
I cut the rope around Tucker’s hands. His arms fell to his sides.
He made no sound.
No movement.
“What’s that on the floor?”
Allyson didn’t wait for my answer before she started toward the burning printers.
“Don’t get close.”
“It’s a thumb drive,” she said, using her toe to slide it closer to her.
I knew the moment she got a good look at Tucker. I heard her suck in a breath then choke and cough until she was spitting out bile.
“Is he…is he alive?” she stammered.
Tears and smoke stung my eyes. The heat from the fire was getting hotter. But that wasn’t what blistered my heart.
Tucker was…a mess.
Blood covered his face, his neck. His shirt was soaked with it.
So much blood.
Too much.
“Liza! Is he alive?” she screamed.
“I don’t know.”
“Shouldn’t you check?”
“No.”
I’d wanted to save Ally from seeing him, save her from the carnage, but it was too late and I needed her help to get him up the stairs.
“No?”
“Either way, I’m not leaving him down here.”
“Liza.”
“I can’t know. Not yet. Just help me get him up the stairs.”
Sympathy infused Allyson’s features.
“Just tell me what to do.”
“Grab his feet. I’ll get under his arms.”
Compassion morphed into determination, which in turn bolstered my resolve.
We could do this.
No. We had to do this.
I needed Tucker and Allyson out of the fire.
A few seconds later, I learned a hard truth: resolve and determination were no match for physics.
I could want to get Tucker up the stairs, I could be more determined than I’d ever been in my entire life, but the reality of carrying a two-hundred-pound man up a flight of stairs while he was dead weight and smoke was filling up the room had nothing to do with how badly I wanted to get Tucker to safety.
“You need to leave me here and go,” I told Allyson.
“I’m not?—”
“Ally, the basement is going to explode any second. Go. Get the hell out of here.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she grunted as she went up another step.
“Ally—”
“Go. Pull harder,” she demanded.
I hefted up a step, slipped, landed on my ass. Tucker’s big body trapped my legs under him.
Attitude is a sign of weakness. Unintelligent women use brash behavior to hide their stupidity. No man will put up with bickering with a nagging woman because she’s too stupid to admit she’s wrong.
I love you and right now you don’t want to hear those words, but it doesn’t make them any less true.
God, I wanted to hear Tucker tell me he loved me.
Mine .
Mine. Tucker was mine.
We were all going to blow sky high if I didn’t pull my shit together.
“Ready?” I asked Ally.
“Ready!”
My heels found purchase on the edge of the step. I used all the leg strength I had and got my ass up to the next step. Then up another and another. On my ass, using my thighs to hold Tucker, I basically crab-crawled up the stairs while Allyson used Tucker’s legs to push him forward.
One more step to go.
One.
But the fire had engulfed the kitchen.
“There’s a back door. Did you see it when you came in?” I asked as I pulled Tucker out of the doorway so Allyson could climb over his feet.
“Yeah.”
“Can you find it in the smoke?”
“I hope Tate Archer gets the electric chair.”
That was the most violent thing I’d ever heard Allyson say.
Who knew Sweet Ally could be so vicious.
“Ally! Can you find the door?” I yelled over the fire.
Something I learned in Chelsea’s barn—fires are loud. When you’re in the middle of one they don’t snap, crackle, and pop. They roar and sizzle and make really scary fucking sounds.
“Yeah.”
Ally coughed and got on her belly.
I held Tucker.
Then I did something I’d been too afraid to do.
I put my lips to his ear and whispered.
“We’re getting out of this, honey.” I brushed my lips over his temple, uncaring I tasted his blood when I added, “I love you.”
No sound.
No movement.
The next thing I knew the floor under me shook and flames shot out of the basement door.
I rolled over on top of Tucker and closed my eyes.
“Love you, Tucker,” I repeated.
Then everything went dark.