Chapter 19
Chapter 19
R idge walked to the car, got in, started it, and sat for what felt like a long time. Leaving Maggie felt wrong, but he had a job and he had his orders. At last he reversed the car out of her driveway and pulled onto the road, fighting a wave of his own nausea that had nothing to do with an empty stomach. The night had been a train wreck.
What he said to Maggie was true, and he meant it. She had done an excellent job, even better than he expected. She was so sweet, innocent, and unaffected. He had no idea how she would react to the debauched atmosphere of the party. But after her initial shock, she had adjusted like a pro, taken herself to the food table, and begun asking probing questions, garnering them a treasure trove of information about the house and its inhabitants.
When she disappeared with the man, Ridge wanted to go after her. But what could he do when she had already established that he was a casual date intent on making business deals? It was the right way to play it, but he had hated it. Seeing her go with a man whose intentions had been clear from the start had felt like sending his favorite calf to the slaughterhouse, only much, much worse. When the man put his hands on her, Ridge gave up any pretense of trying to maintain his cover and began sprinting away, down the long hallway. But Sam got there first. And that was when things really went downhill.
It was one thing to hear her being manhandled by a creep and another entirely to hear her relive the worst heartbreak of her life. Her grief and pain had been raw, the wound re-opened by an assignment that forced her to relive it in the worst possible way. He had felt sick and guilty and ashamed they were using her so, and for what? On the speculation something big was about to go down? What if they were wrong? They had been wrong before. What if they had put Maggie through the wringer for nothing? How would he live with himself if that were the case?
And then there had been the confessions of love and all the kissing. It was obvious to anyone with ears Sam was still in love with Maggie. The question, at least in his mind, was whether Maggie felt the same.
Finally, as an apex of the emotional train wreck they had all been riding, he’d had to watch Maggie get hit, smacked so hard he had wondered if she might have a concussion. And there hadn’t been one single thing he could do about it. Not only would he have blown their covers, but he understood why the man did it, and that made him feel even more angry and helpless. If their situations were reversed, he supposed he would have tried to do the same, but could he have done so? Could he have belted his precious Maggie in the face? Maybe, to save her life, as Sam had doubtless done. The uncles had been coming for her. If he hadn’t showed up and Sam hadn’t put on his little display, they might have tried to take her still. Armageddon could have broken out in the hallway with his guns and their guns and his team and their guards all shooting it out for supremacy. But Maggie, his poor, sweet, lovely Maggie, had been the scapegoat that saved everyone. Now she was a bruised flower, sick, exhausted, emotionally spent, swollen and in pain. And he had left her there when he should have remained, holding her and putting the broken pieces back together.
He didn’t know he was going to turn around until he did a squealing U-turn in the middle of the road. And then he was speeding back to Maggie, far faster than he had gone away. How could he have left her like that? For what? He had his laptop, he would do the debrief from her house. Why hadn’t he thought of that in the first place?
He tried to call her, to tell her he was on his way back and see if there was anything she wanted. There was no answer. He was tempted to stop at the store and pick up a snack, but a pervading sense of doom and urgency drove him onward. Something felt off, something felt wrong. He’d had the feeling before, when missions went wrong, and he had always been correct in his premonitions of disaster. Why had he left her? Why?
As soon as he screeched to a halt in front of her house, he saw the door standing open and called in his team. He had no idea what lay before him, but it was sure to be something bad. He wouldn’t think the worst yet. Maybe they had simply tried to scare her, to warn her away.
There was no waiting for backup in the field, not when Maggie’s life may hang in the balance. He withdrew his gun from its holster and crept up to her house. The lights were off and there was no greeting woof from Samson. Ridge rounded the corner of the door, gun in hand. He paused, letting his senses adjust to the darkness and silence. His gut told him the house was empty, but his brain told him to make sure. They might have left someone inside to tie up loose ends; they might have booby trapped it to explode. He had seen both, and was prepared for anything.
He swept the house, quickly and efficiently. There were no trip wires and there were no humans. What had happened? He flicked on the lights, and that was when he saw the blood.