23. Wade
23
WADE
We followed Ellie’s dot all the way out of town—a good twenty-minute drive under normal circumstances—but it was rush hour, so traffic was bad, doubling our travel time. Her dot had been stopped for at least ten minutes, and I was panicked. I tried to draw on my Army training to stay focused and calm, but I was struggling.
Vince’s phone rang, and he answered it through the car speaker.
“What have you got?” he asked, straight to the point.
“We’re here at Beth’s place,” Axel explained quickly. “ She’s not here. Car isn’t here, and we got in the apartment and she’s not inside either. Do you want us to go look somewhere else for her?”
“No, just go back to the office and help Tammy and Ruthie with the police. Thanks , man,” Vince said as he ended the call.
“Where the fuck did she go?” I said out loud.
“Turn here,” Archer yelled out. “ Her dot’s at the end of this road.”
“Wade, listen to me,” Vince said sternly. “ You are not going in half-cocked.”
I started to growl and interrupt him, but he held up his hand.
“No, dude,” he continued. “ We have no idea what we’re walking into. If he has a gun on her, you storming in there could make it worse. We have to do this the smart way. We all do this the smart way. Archer , text Ruthie our current location and have her send the cops here.”
“I don’t want the cops involved, because I will kill him if I find him,” I snarled.
“Wade, why do you think we waited this long to give them our location?” Archer asked, and I knew what he wasn’t saying. He’d done it this way to give us time to take care of it ourselves, or at least a decent head start.
We pulled up the drive but stopped short so no one heard our vehicle. As we got out of the car quietly, we saw two cars—one that looked like Beth’s blue Corolla and a black SUV with Tennessee tags. This was it.
“Beth’s here,” I told them. “ That’s her blue car.”
“Okay, we don’t know for sure, but it appears she’s in collusion with him, so we need to be careful of both of them,” Archer said, always being the voice of reason, which I desperately needed at this moment. “ Here are some comms,” he said, handing us earpieces. “ Do you both have weapons?”
“Yes.” I usually didn’t carry it while working at the pub, but since I was upstairs in the security office, I hadn’t taken it off yet. Not that I needed one—the Rangers had trained me to be deadly enough with just my hands and body.
“Yeah, I do,” Vince replied. “ Her dot’s definitely in that building.”
“Let’s go,” I said as I opened the door to get out.
We closed the doors as quietly as we could, then started moving toward the house. Archer whispered in the comms he’d go around to the back of the house to check for alternate exits. Vince and I went up to the front. As we got to the front door, I heard a man yell in what sounded like agony. Vince signaled me that he had my cover and to try the front door. It opened freely, which was not a good sign. If the bastard wasn’t worried about Ellie escaping out an unlocked door, then she must be restrained.
The first thing I saw was Beth . Her prone body was on the floor and there was a lot of blood under her. I signaled to Vince , and he covered me while I crouched down to check for a pulse. There wasn’t one, which didn’t surprise me, given the amount of blood and the gunshot wound to her head. I whispered quietly in my comms to alert Archer that Beth was DOA (dead on arrival). I started to stand back up, when I heard a scream and recognized that voice to be Ellie’s . My entire body stilled, and I felt chills on every inch of my skin.
I started to move toward the sound, when I felt Vince grab my arm. He signaled for me to stay slow and quiet. I knew the only thing we had going for us right now was the element of surprise. We needed to maintain that since Beth was already dead and we didn’t want to add Ellie to that list.
We quickly but quietly stalked down the hallway to the right where the noises were coming from.
The long hallway appeared to be lined with bedrooms and bathrooms. We came up to the last one on the left, and what I saw would haunt me for the rest of my life. A man’s body on top of Ellie’s , with his hand on her neck, suffocating her. I knew it wasn’t the smartest move tactically, but I launched myself at him, ripped him off her, and threw him to the ground. I pinned him there and got several good, hard punches into his head before Vince grabbed my arm.
“I got him. Go check Ellie ,” he said sternly.
I released the dickhead and turned around for Ellie . I would never forget how she looked in that moment. Tears on her face, her neck covered in red finger marks, and her arms tied to the bed. She was gasping for air but looking right at me, and then her eyes closed.
“Ellie, wake up, sweetheart,” I told her, putting my hand on her cheek and trying to get her to open her eyes again.
I vaguely noted Vince talking behind me but didn’t register what he was saying or who he was even talking to.
Ellie wasn’t responding to my pleading to open her eyes, and I didn’t want to shake her in order to wake her because I didn’t know the extent of her injuries.
Just then, Archer appeared next. “ An ambulance is on the way.”
“She won’t open her eyes. I can’t get her to open them,” I told him, frantically hoping he could help me.
“She might have passed out from shock,” he said to me calmly, putting his hand on my shoulder. “ If she’s still breathing and has a pulse, she’s okay. Let’s cut those off her wrists.”
He pulled out his pocketknife, and worked delicately to remove the ropes from her wrists. I quickly cataloged any other injuries she may have had and then picked her up and proceeded to carry her down the hallway so I could get her on the ambulance as soon as they arrived. I left Archer and Vince in the room to deal with that asshole. I didn’t even care at this point if he lived or died. I would kill him myself right now, but Ellie was my priority, and she needed me. I carried her bridal-style out of the house just as an officer was getting out of his car.
I yelled, “ She needs medical attention immediately!”
He pointed over his shoulder. “ The EMTs are right behind me.”
I looked up to see the ambulance pulling up to the house. “ Two of my guys are in there with the suspect on the ground, and there’s a body just inside the front door.”
The EMTs got out of the ambulance, and they met me as I strode toward them.
I quickly explained her injuries, at least the ones I knew about, as I moved to put her on the stretcher myself. “ He was strangling her when we got here. There’s a handprint on her face, so he must have slapped her, and she’s got a big knot on the back of her head.”
The first EMT tried to wave me away and tell me which hospital they were transporting her to, but I hopped into the back. I wasn’t leaving her side for one minute. The man either understood or was too scared to argue with me in my current mood, so he climbed in, closed the doors, and we took off.
While the EMT assessed her, I pulled out my phone to text Archer and Vince , letting them know I was going to the hospital with her.
The ride took less than ten minutes, but it felt like one of the longest rides of my life. I took her hand in mine, gently rubbing the marks on her wrist where that bastard had tied her up.
I felt her hand move under mine and looked up to find her eyes on me—filled with tears. She wasn’t sobbing, but she was clearly experiencing an emotional dump now that her adrenaline rush had worn off.
“Hey, baby,” I tried to say calmly, trying to remove all murderous thoughts about her ex so I didn’t scare her.
“It’s really you,” she rasped and then coughed a little.
“Try not to talk too much until we can check out your throat,” the EMT said. “ We want to make sure your larynx, trachea, and vocal cords weren’t damaged.”
She nodded back and then moved her eyes to me and gave me a small smile.
“You’re safe now,” I told her, and I moved my hand from her wrist to her hand and squeezed it gently.
My words registered to her, and then it appeared she began to think back to what had happened before I got there, and the fear returned to her eyes.
“Randall,” she whispered.
“Ma’am, please try not to talk until we get there,” the EMT reminded her politely.
“Don’t worry about Randall , baby. He’s not going to be a problem anymore,” I told her, putting my free hand on her cheek. “ You’re safe now. We just need to get you checked out at the hospital.”
She nodded and continued to stare into my eyes until the heaviness took over and she fell asleep. The EMT assured me it was fine to let her sleep, as her vitals were improving.
I had to believe him because I couldn’t lose her now.