Rescuing Melissa (ALPHA TEAM: Guardian Hostage Rescue Specialists)

52. The Calvary

FIFTY-TWO

The Calvary

CJ

CJ gathered everyone and explained his conversation with Sam.

“Are we really going to do nothing?” Jon asked.

“Fuck that,” Brett said, slapping Jon’s back. “What’s the plan, CJ?”

He glanced at Mac, who gave a nod. Mac would support him.

Jenny stood with Charlie, the two women looking diminutive next to the men. Appearances were deceiving, however. He sparred against Jenny, and while he was still getting to know Charlie, he bet the pretty blonde held a few surprises. Everyone seemed eager to do something, but what? Sam’s directive had been clear. He wasn’t to enter the house.

He clapped his hands together. “All right…Brett and Jon, you’re on recon. We need to know access points. Vulnerabilities. Water. Power.” He didn’t have to go into excessive detail. Brett and Jon knew what kind of intelligence was required.

“Mac and Charlie, you take the yard and garage, make sure there aren’t any other entrances. Look for storm doors and basement entrances leading to the outside.”

“What does that leave for me?” Jenny turned to him, confused.

“You and I will explore the vacant lot next door.” He wanted to be at the house, doing recon himself, but he was too vested in this operation. It was best to keep a bird’ s-eye view, stay away, and he needed Jenny to stop him if he did anything stupid.

“Fine.” She twisted her face into a dissatisfied scowl.

“That lot makes my skin itch,” he said in a flat tone. “Only house in this entire development on a double lot? If he wanted privacy, his yard already butts up next to the forest. Why buy the lot next to him? It sticks out.”

He rubbed the back of his neck, thinking out loud. “We’ll be spread thin. I’m okay with that, but we need to regroup in ten. We don’t even know if Melissa’s in there, or Henrietta for that matter. I need someone to get inside.”

“I’ll do it.” Charlie flipped her bleach-blond hair. “If he’s into kidnapping girls…” She made a suggestive gesture with her hands, emphasizing her curves, “let’s give him someone he wants to bring inside.”

Jon pulled Charlie to him, wrapping an arm around her waist and tugging her close. “No way in hell are you going in as bait.”

Brett stepped close, sandwiching her between him and Jon. “Ditto.”

Charlie pressed her palm to Jon’s chest and gazed into his eyes. “It’s the best way to see what’s inside, and we have tactical gear in the car. It’ll be easy enough to get past the door, and I don’t mind being bait.”

“I don’t like it,” Jon huffed.

Brett twisted his lips, considering her proposal. “Let’s send Jenny in with her.”

CJ shook his head. “Can’t risk it. Jenny saw him at the bar, so we have to assume he’s seen her. Charlie goes in alone.”

Charlie beamed. She rose to her toes and kissed Brett on the cheek. “I’ll be fine.” She turned to CJ and put her hands on her hips. “We’re doing this then?”

“Recon first,” CJ insisted. “Brett and Jon, you’re on the exterior with Mac and Charlie.” He shook his head. Sam was going to be pissed. “I’ll check out the empty field with Jenny. We meet back in ten minutes, and if everything looks okay, Charlie goes in.”

“I don’t like it,” Jon said, but he didn’t argue against the plan.

CJ didn’t like it either, but if they could get Charlie inside for even a moment, it would make breaching the home that much more successful. “It’s up to you,” he said, giving Charlie a chance to back out.

She batted her eyelashes, doing a wonderful impression of a flirty co-ed. Then she unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse, showing even more of her voluptuous cleavage.

“I’m in,” she pronounced.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s do this.”

Brett and Jon jogged ahead of Mac and Charlie, leaving Jenny and CJ strolling on the sidewalk.

“Sam confirmed Channing was a pen pal of Patterson?” Jenny asked.

“Yeah.”

She turned to face him, placing both hands on his shoulders. “Are you ready to face what we might find in there?”

“No.”

It wasn’t the answer Jenny wanted to hear, but it was the truth. She wanted to know he’d established emotional distance, and that she could count on him, but that wasn’t true. His insides screamed at him to rush inside that house, guns blazing, and save Melissa. It would be precisely the wrong thing to do, and more likely to get her killed. He knew this. Jenny knew this. Hell, Sam knew it, too.

“If this goes south, you can’t kill him. I need you to promise you’ll keep your cool.”

He nodded, but he couldn’t promise Jenny anything. He just found Melissa, and if he lost her before he explored whatever was happening between them, he’d be gutted for life. And, if Scott Patterson was inside that house, little could stop him from putting the motherfucker down for good.

He leveled a flat stare at Jenny. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

“You scare the living shit out of me sometimes.”

As they skirted the outer edge of the property, his gaze cut to Brett and Jon ghosting around the outside of the house. Their movements were a study in economy of motion. In broad daylight, he wouldn’t have seen them except he knew to look for them. Mac and Charlie had stationed themselves outside one of the windows of the garage. Something had captured their attention. He veered toward them, only to be pulled away by a tug on his arm.

“Keep to the plan,” she said.

Their exploration of the vacant lot turned up nothing more than a manicured lawn, boulders too big to move, a culvert leading out the rear of the property toward the tree line, a dirt road, and a large storm drain. A glance at his watch told him it was time to regroup with the others. Sam would arrive in less than an hour.

CJ planned to be inside before then.