Chelsea
My shoulder aches from bouncing around on the hard trunk floor. I’m conscious enough to know I’m trapped in my own car. Unfortunately, my hands are of no use. I’m wrapped like a mummy from shoulder to wrist with my arms secured at my sides.
The method is overkill in keeping me from using my hands. It also keeps me from injuring myself with the binds. That’s the scariest part. Someone doesn’t want it to look like I was kidnapped.
When the car comes to a stop, I’m utterly clueless as to how far or the direction we traveled. I wouldn’t have to guess if I were wearing my Knot Corp. watch. I could check the built in GPS. Stupid me took it off and put it in my purse, wearing a dainty new bracelet to dinner instead. Shit.
I don’t have my phone, either. My best hope is for Birdie to start searching for me when I don’t check in tomorrow. Hopefully, I won’t be dead.
The trunk lid opens, and the dark-haired stranger from my house reaches into the compartment. I feel a sting at my hip, and the darkness swallows me again.
When I wake up, I don’t know where I am. I’m tied to a chair in an unfamiliar house, the binds just as careful as in the car. As the effects of the drugs wear off, my mind clears, and my dizziness lessens enough that I swivel my head to study the house. A loud thud sounds from the next room just before the bastard kidnapper enters the dining room where I’m being held.
He doesn’t speak as he approaches, walking around the back of my chair. Grabbing the top, he turns me around and drags the chair across the floor. When he spins me around in the next room, my heart plummets. “Jackson!”
He’s unconscious, lying in a heap on the tile floor. “Jackson, wake up! What did you do to him, you bastard?!”
The man doesn’t answer, pissing me off. My next words come out screeching. “What have you done to Jackson?”
“Jesus. I should have dosed you higher.”
I focus on that angry voice, racking my brain for any prior memory of it. Coming up short, I demand, “Who the fuck are you, and what do you want?”
“I’m someone who doesn’t like parasites. You, Knot, and all the others are leeches.”
Oh God. This has to be Harding’s Pentagon contact. “If you don’t like us, you should take your complaints to the people who hire us.”
The traitor is silent, meaning he has no interest in bragging to me that I’m beaten. Instead of lashing out like I want, I settle into a different role. “Where are we?” I ask softly, glancing around the simple, clean kitchen.
“You don’t recognize your husband’s home?” he taunts. “I would act surprised, but we both know you’re not his wife. Any idiot could have looked up Bennett’s record and seen that he never married.”
“Harding didn’t, and I’m pretty sure he was an idiot. Isn’t that why you picked him to do your dirty work? I bet the dumbass only thought you were sharing stories of tragedy and negligence. He had no idea you were the one responsible for the death of those men.”
My theory is met with more silence, but I’ve only just begun to piss him off. “Oh, come on. This is bad-guy one-oh-one. The damsel is in distress. The hero is down. This is the part where you brag about your brilliant scheme and leave me in a precarious situation.”
The traitor dips his hand into a bag, coming out with two medicine bottles and syringes. “No, this is the part where you commit suicide after killing a decorated SEAL. The same way you killed the congressman.”
My heart stutters in my chest, but I refuse to show fear. “That’ll be kind of difficult with my hands tied.”
Now, the man snickers. “I’ll help, but don’t worry. I’ll make sure you get all the credit.”
“So…how did I kill the congressman?”
The man ignores the question, but then all hell breaks loose when a knock sounds at the door. The unexpected visitor fills me with hope until keys rattle in the lock and a voice like a younger Jackson calls out. “Dad. Captain was going apeshit. I had to bring her home. Please don’t be naked.”
My first instinct is to call for help, but this is Jackson’s son. I would never forgive myself if I let something happen to him. I have to try warning him away. Sensing I’m about to yell, Harding’s mole shoves a forty-five-caliber barrel pistol to my temple. I have maybe seconds before Caleb finds us. I expect it’ll take Captain even less.
As I feared, Captain’s growl precedes her nose around the corner. “Captain, what’s wrong?”
Caleb walks into the kitchen behind Jackson’s boxer. Captain’s head is lowered, and she’s still growling. “What the_oh shit.”
“Well, . Looks like you’ll get to take credit for three murders.”
I throw my head back, hoping to give the younger Bennett a shot. “Caleb, run!”
The traitor fires behind me, but it’s not the big blast from the forty-five. Caleb takes off, and a second shot is fired. The younger Bennett rounds the corner, so I know he’s not dying yet. Captain charges the bastard planning to kill for her family, but the boxer’s back legs fail when she tries to jump.
Whatever she was hit with is working fast on her much smaller body. I can only hope it’s not a lethal dose, whatever it is. Regardless, if I don’t get us out of this, it’s only a matter of time before we’re all dead. The traitor takes off after Caleb. I begin frantically searching the room, but even if there was an M16 on the table next to me, I couldn’t get it, trussed up like I am.
I shift my upper body, testing the binds. They’re too tight to move my arms any which way but further behind my back. As I check my range of movement, I notice the other chairs. These are straight ladderback chairs. If I can lift straight up, I might be able to slide off. I’ll still be bound, but the straps should be loose enough to work my arms out.
The rest of the chairs have leg stabilizers across the front, so I lift one foot, planting a heel on the bar. It takes a bit of shimmying and muscles burning to inch my way upward. My heartbeat thunders in my ears like a countdown. I don’t know how far Caleb ran before passing out. I’m hoping the bastard is taking the time to tie him up and will then carry him inside. That would give me more time. Of course, he could have just killed him and is on his way back right now.
I keep pushing, shifting my foot on the floor to the seat. A few more inches, and I should be off.
My legs scream from the prolonged power squat and balancing my unsteady heels on the chair cushion. The first band clears the top, making each subsequent one more manageable. When the last one slides off the chair back, I nearly topple onto the floor. I manage to correct my balance and immediately work to free my arms from the straps.
My priority now is finding a weapon. I check the mole’s bag, striking out for a gun. Spotting a magnetic knife strip on the wall, I grab the biggest blade and set it on the counter near Jackson.
I drop to my knees beside him, checking for a pulse. He’s alive. I shake him, smacking his cheek and whispering, “Jackson! Jackson, wake up!”
His eyelids flutter, but that’s all I get. There’s nowhere to move him that would be protected. All I can do is eliminate the threat and see about signaling for help.
Grabbing the asshole’s bag of chemicals, I peek around the dining room wall down a hallway to the back door. I don’t see Caleb or the mole, so I race through the room, looking for a phone. There’s one on the floor in the hallway. It’s probably Caleb’s.
I activate the screen, knowing I can at least make an emergency call if I can’t unlock it. The call goes through, and I cut off the dispatcher. “A man is trying to kill me and two other people. Trace my location. Please hurry!”
I shove the phone beneath the couch cushion and keep moving. The first door in the hallway is to a half bath. The second opens to a large bedroom. This has to be Jackson’s.
A door closes somewhere in the house, telling me the mole is finished with Caleb. I carefully close and lock Jackson’s door and tear through the room, searching for his service pistol or any other weapon I can find.
Hurried footsteps tell me the assassin has noticed my absence. I’ve got precious few seconds before he finds me, and there are no weapons to be had. Jackson appears to be a responsible gun owner, keeping everything locked up. Damn.
The bedroom door jiggles, indicating my time is up. The only thing I could do now is escape through a window, but leaving Jackson and Caleb won’t save me. The mole plans to kill them and pin it on me. He’ll do that whether I’m here or not, and I have no intention of letting the Bennett boys die.
I open the bag in my hand, reading the labels on the glass bottles.
“, open the door.”
The cold voice outside the bedroom makes me shiver, but I won’t crumble. I have a bit of time here. This bastard doesn’t want a busted door frame to call into question the murders. Doing the only thing I can think of, I rush into Jackson’s bathroom and open the shower door. I fastball the bottles against the tile wall one by one, shattering them. It’ll leave a mess, but the killer will have to pause and reset.
Only when every last one is broken do I open the window. The drop to the ground is short, but running on these wedges isn’t easy, especially on the spongy earth.
The sound of the bathroom door frame shattering echoes through the open window. Guess he’s given up keeping things neat. My feet hit another gear and I’m soon around the front of the house again. I rip my shoes off and enter the front door, locking the deadbolt behind me. Rushing past the kitchen, where Jackson is still out, I slam the back door closed and secure it as well. The bathroom window I left open is next.
After a brief search for Caleb, I find him unconscious and tied up in a guest room. I don’t stay long, knowing a locked door won’t keep the mole out for long. He could cut and run, but he won’t. I’ve seen his face. Plot or no, he can’t leave me here alive.
I tiptoe back toward the kitchen, turning off lights as I go. Wood slivers from the shattered door frame stab into my feet, but I can’t stop. The emergency call is still active when I retrieve the phone, so I put the device to my ear. “Are police on the way?”
“Yes, but the phone’s location is turned off. I can only pinpoint your location to a certain range.”
Damn it all to hell! “I’m at the home of Jackson Bennett of the US Navy.”
A window shatters, and the glass lamp beside me explodes. Shit, that was close. I drop the phone and crawl to the kitchen, shredding my clothes and belly on the broken glass. The lights are still on in here, and Jackson is a sitting duck, lying beneath a window.
I jump up to hit the light switch and dive over Jackson a split second before a bullet pierces that window. Fire erupts across my shoulder blade, and fear pierces my chest. It’s all over now.
More glass shatters, but it’s just the gun knocking the rest of the broken pane from the frame. The low sill gives the traitor a perfect bench height from his stance on the ground outside. “A valiant effort, , but your time is up.”
I bury my head in Jackson’s chest and whisper, “I’m sorry, Jackson. I love you.”
Then I close my eyes and wait for the kill shot.