Chapter Fifteen #2
Crew pulled the headset on, eyes narrowing as systems came online. Rain battered the windshield.
Suddenly, the door was ripped open and a big body landed in the cockpit beside him.
Upchurch grabbed the free headset and smashed it over his ears. “You’re not going up alone, Diaz.”
He shot his brother a dark look, anything he might say would drown in the roar of the rotors as the helicopter lifted.
As the helicopter clawed into the driving rain, a brutal truth lodged in Crew’s chest.
To a man who loved, time wasn’t measured in minutes.
It was measured in heartbeats—and Crew was counting every damn one.
If he was right—if Reed had Fern—then this was a race he couldn’t afford to lose.
Reed only cared about making Crew pay for what happened to Conner.
And he’d decided Fern was the price.
* * * * *
Fern turned off the main road and onto the narrow mountain stretch. She’d spent a lot of time exploring the area surrounding Willowbrook, but she’d never come this far or gone into the mountains.
The trees crowded in on either side like they were closing ranks. The pavement faded into gravel and the curves tightened as the incline increased.
She’d met a few people who had cabins in the mountains and they always raved about the privacy and the beautiful views. Before getting behind the wheel, she was excited to discover this for herself…but the drive had her nerves hopping.
She checked the clock on the dash. She could meet with the client and get to the Black Heart Ranch in plenty of time to meet Crew for their watch party.
She didn’t want to let him down—he seemed excited about her “meeting” his sister Callie.
It was a big step in their relationship, one she was nervous about, but she was looking forward to their night.
As she rounded the first bend, her purse slipped on the passenger seat and her notebook fell out. She left it in favor of keeping both hands on the wheel.
When she mapped the route earlier, it said it wasn’t more than a mile up the mountain road. Marla told her Theo had called the greenhouse and said it was okay to go.
The rain started as a mist, barely worth noticing, just enough to smear the windshield and soften the edges of the road ahead.
Then it thickened.
Fern eased her foot off the gas as the mist turned into a fast-moving sheet, water streaking sideways as the wind picked up. Visibility dropped fast. The trees blurred into dark shapes, the road slicking beneath her tires.
Pressing her lips into a line, she listened to the instinct that told her this wasn’t smart.
She slowed more, then pulled over at the first narrow shoulder, heart thudding harder than it should have. Rain hammered the roof, loud and insistent. She reached into her bag for her phone to send a quick update, to say she was turning back—
Her fingers closed on fabric. Pens. A couple seed packets she planned to take to the community garden.
No phone.
Her breath caught.
She dumped the bag onto the seat, hands tensed. Searching through her belongings again, slower this time.
Nothing.
Her stomach cramped. Where was her phone? She remembered slipping it into her purse after her lunch break. If she’d known she didn’t have it, she never would’ve driven this far.
Never would’ve taken a mountain road with weather closing in like this.
“Okay,” she muttered. “Okay.”
The solution was simple. Turn around. Go back down.
She shifted into reverse and began the careful maneuver, rain lashing sideways as she tried to angle the car around on the narrow stretch. It felt like a thirty-point turn, and her pulse spiked with every inch she backed up.
The drive back down the mountain was just as tedious as going up. Then her headlights swept across the road before her—and her heart stopped.
A tree lay sprawled from one side to the other.
“Oh my god!” Her whisper was drowned out by the rain slapping the car.
The tree was too large to drag. Branches tangled across the narrow descent like a barricade. It hadn’t been there minutes ago.
Fern stared through the fast-moving windshield wipers, pulse roaring in her ears as she tried not to panic.
But there was no way down. She could turn around again and drive back up, hoping more trees didn’t block the road. There must be more than one road on the mountain, but she couldn’t locate a route without her phone.
Her hands were locked so hard on the wheel that her fingers grew chilled.
She slammed the car into park and sat there, rain pounding the roof, heart hammering so hard it made her chest ache. She dumped her bag again, even though she knew better. The phone wasn’t there.
She dragged in a deep breath. “I took all the precautions. Sometimes life just isn’t perfect.” Speaking the words solidified them in her brain and chased away the last remaining echoes of Chris’s voice in her head.
Headlights flared in her rearview mirror, and she sucked in a sharp breath.
A truck emerged through the downpour behind her, dark and solid, headlights cutting through the rain. Relief hit fast, loosening something tight in her chest before logic could catch up.
A black truck.
The ranch trucks were black.
The rain came down too hard to make out logos or markings. She let herself believe—just for a second—that someone had noticed she hadn’t checked in. Crew. Maybe even Upchurch.
The thought steadied her enough to breathe.
She stayed in the cab, watching as the truck pulled in behind her and stopped.
Her relief didn’t erase her caution. She didn’t open the door right away. She cracked the window instead, rain splashing in, cold against her skin.
The driver’s door of the other truck opened.
A man stepped out.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark jacket plastered to him by rain.
Not Crew.
Her stomach tightened.
He didn’t approach immediately. He stood there for a beat, rain streaming down his face, then took a few steps closer—but not too close.
Just like Upchurch had that day.
Fern pushed her door open and stepped out cautiously, rain drenching her in seconds. She stayed beside the car, one hand braced on the door. “The road’s blocked,” she called. “Tree down.”
“I know,” the man said.
His voice carried easily through the rain.
“I saw it fall.”
Something cold snaked down her spine.
She didn’t move closer. Didn’t relax her grip on the door. “I’m waiting it out,” she called to him. “Storm should pass.”
He nodded, like that made sense even though the tree blocked her way. “There’s shelter up ahead. An old cabin. Safer than sitting out here.”
Her gaze flicked past him, up the mountain and the dark stretch of road. Every instinct screamed at her to stay put.
He studied her for a moment, rain plastering his hair to his forehead. Then he reached into his pocket.
“I’m fine where I am,” she said evenly. She started to slip back into the car.
The bright flash hit her eyes, blinding white against the gray gloom. Fern gasped, stumbling back as her vision fractured into spots and the wet thump of boots drummed in her ears.
“What the hell—”
Pain exploded at the back of her skull.
The world tipped sideways. Sound roared in her ears, then cut off abruptly.
Black swallowed everything.
* * * * *
Fern surfaced to pain.
A deep, pounding ache wrapped around every inch of her head and nausea rolled hard in her stomach. She groaned softly and tried to move.
Fire lanced through her wrists.
Her eyes flew open.
Dim light filtered through a small window, rain streaking down the glass. The air smelled of damp wood and old dust. Her hands were bound in front of her, rough plastic biting into her skin.
Memory slammed back in jagged flashes. The rain, the truck, the light—
Her breath hitched.
Across the room, a folded flag sat on a small table along with other objects, all neatly arranged with reverence.
Her gaze slid upward, heart pounding harder with every inch, until she saw the photographs on the wall behind it.
A smiling young man in flight gear.
Another photo of the same man in Navy uniform with a fabric name patch anchored to the bottom of the frame.
Bear.
Crew’s copilot.
Air rushed out of her lungs in a hard shove.
“So you know.”
Her mind reeled, trying to place where she was and the voice that was almost familiar.
The man stepped into view, and the memory came rushing back. He was the man from the truck on the mountain road.
She raked her gaze over him, searching for something—anything—to prove that he was from the Black Heart Ranch. Her stare snagged on his wrist and her stomach cramped.
He was wearing her bracelet.
The beaded green one Crew had made her stretched around his wrist like it belonged there.
Even through the ache in her head and her rioting senses, everything snapped into place.
“This is about Crew.” Fern forced the words past her dry throat.
He smiled. Not wide. Not cruel. Just…satisfied.
“Crew needs to suffer, like my family has suffered.”
Her heart hammered. Crew said that he didn’t get closure from writing to his copilot’s family. Now this guy wanted revenge—by taking her.
“W-what’s your name?” she managed.
“Crew didn’t tell you? Of course he didn’t—why would my name be important when my brother’s wasn’t?
Crew thought writing letters would make up for what he did to my brother.
I wrote him a lot of letters back. I sent him cards on my brother’s birthday and holidays.
But he didn’t respond to them. That’s when I knew I had to take away something that mattered to him. ”
Her decision to get out of her car on that mountain felt like a hot coal in her gut. She’d been so stupid to believe it was a truck from the Black Heart Ranch.
“I’m Reed.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a phone. As soon as she saw the green case, panic washed over her like a wave.
“How did you get my phone? And my bracelet?”
His grin was insidious, his eyes unhinged with madness. “You and your boss aren’t very aware of people coming in and out of that greenhouse. All those fans running silence any noise, and the place has so many rooms…”
She gulped.
“I was in there dozens of times, Fern. Didn’t you ever notice things being moved?”
She swallowed the scalding lump in her throat. Her stomach heaved, and she breathed shallowly, thinking she might be sick.
“It was easy enough to disable your car too.”
Oh god. Crew, please find me!
She had to keep Reed talking. Crew would find her. No way would he let her down.
“You don’t have to do this. Whatever you think this will fix—it won’t.”
He laughed softly. “You must be his therapist as well as his girlfriend.”
“Then listen to me,” she shot back. “Holding on to this grudge against Crew won’t bring Bear back. It just keeps you stuck.”
His eyes darkened, and a scowl pinched his features.
“Losing Conner killed our mom,” he said flatly. “She died of a broken heart. I hope Crew is satisfied.”
The truck she’d seen on the street had been this guy all along. He’d followed her, moved things around and made her doubt reality. He stole her bracelet and her phone, sabotaged her car. Hit her over the head and brought her here.
He went on, tone light with a hint of craziness. “When I came looking for Crew, I saw him on the street with you, laughing. Living like nothing ever happened.”
Fern’s voice was steady despite the fear crawling under her skin. “You kidnapped me. You’re already ruined, Reed. Letting me go is the only way you’ll get out of this.”
Something flashed across his face, like he hadn’t thought through his plan well enough.
“I just need him to come after you,” he said quietly, turning her phone over and over in his hand.
Her stomach pitched and heaved like she was floating on a boiling sea instead of tied up in a cabin. If Reed hadn’t already alerted Crew, he would. And that message would bring the man she loved running right into danger—to save her.
She willed her tears to retreat. She didn’t have time for tears. She had to keep Reed from summoning Crew to the cabin.
She raised her jaw a notch. “The tree is blocking the road.”
“Silly woman. You must realize there are more ways up the mountain than that one road.”
Biting down on her lip, she turned her head and looked toward the small window. The sky was dark with rain, and the glass was so streaked, she couldn’t make out anything beyond the pane.
Everything inside her felt just as empty and gray.
But Crew would come. He was there for her, and nothing would keep him away.
Only that terrified her more, because if he came, he’d be stepping into a trap meant for him.
And if she didn’t survive long enough to warn him, neither of them might make it out alive.