Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Thanks for picking such a nice private location. This time you’re going to tell me what I want to know, bitch.”
Rachel tried to contain her fear, but she felt herself trembling in his grip. They’d been wrong. Somehow he’d be able to find them.
“Come on. We’re getting out of here before your boyfriend gets back.”
“No, please,” she tried to plead, but it was only a muffled gasp.
“There’s something going on with you two, and I will find out what the hell it is.”
Just as he had at her shop in New Orleans, he’d come prepared with handcuffs, which he pulled out of his pocket. “If you scream, I’ll bash these across your face. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
He took his hand off her mouth.
“Put the cuffs on.”
With no alternative, she clicked first one cuff around her wrist, then the other. But at least her hands were in front of her.
“Why are you after us?” she gasped out.
“The Badger wants to know what you’re up to. But it’s more than that.”
“The Badger. That’s a person?” she asked, struggling with her own confusion.
“You’re not the one asking questions,” he shot back as he grabbed her arm.
Jake’s foot bounced on the accelerator. He needed to go back.
Clearing out to lure Smithson in had seemed like an acceptable idea at the time.
Now the knowledge that Rachel was back in the cabin alone sent wave after wave of cold through him.
With a curse he pulled to the side of the road.
He was getting ready to make a U-turn when he saw a truck barreling down the road behind him.
Hands clamped on the wheel, he waited for it to pass.
The sides were rickety wooden slats and behind them he could see cages of chickens.
Obviously the driver was in a hurry to get them to market.
When the rattling vehicle had passed, Jake turned and followed.
Ahead was a sharp curve. The other driver took it too fast, the rear end of the vehicle swaying back and forth—just before the front end slammed into a tree.
In seconds cages flew in all directions with chickens spilling out.
Scores of the birds escaped, flapping across the highway in a white cloud of feathers, their terrified squawks adding an unnerving soundtrack.
Jake slammed on his brakes, stopping just in time to avoid rear-ending the bigger vehicle or plowing into the chickens which were now scattering across the roadway and into the landscape.
Jake cursed again. The stupid driver had done this to himself, but he might be badly hurt. Under other circumstances, Jake would have stopped to help. Instead he pulled out the burner phone and called 911.
As the operator asked him to report his emergency, he gave her the information about the accident and the location while he cautiously angled his car toward the opposite lane.
Chickens flapped around in his way. Getting out, he made shooing motions with his hands, yelling at them to clear out and sending them a mental message to flee from danger.
The performance seemed to work, and finally he cleared a path wide enough for him to drive around the truck and make his escape.
He glanced at his watch. How much time had that incident cost him? He wasn’t sure, but a sudden sense of danger screamed that he had to get back to Rachel—quickly.
Rachel could try to fight her captor with her mind, but she knew it wouldn’t do much good, not with Jake gone. He’d managed to generate a thunderbolt alone, but it hadn’t had much power. And she’d only done it with his help.
She tried to send a desperate message to him, but it was as though she were flinging her thoughts into a vast white cloud.
When the man hustled her toward the door, she dug her heels into the rug, but he pulled her along, his fingers making marks on her arm.
Panic shot through her as they stepped outside, and he began marching her toward a car parked in front of the cabin. Oh Lord, this wasn’t supposed to happen.
She looked wildly around and saw no people and no other cars. Apparently no other guests were near this section of the grounds, which meant screaming for help would do her no good.
Still, in desperation, she silently cried out to him.
Jake, Jake, he’s got me. Please get here before he takes me away.
When he didn’t answer, she knew she was going to have to try something herself.
“Come on.”
The man pulled at her arm, hustling her toward the car.
If he got her in there, she knew she was dead. Just like Evelyn Morgan. Dragging her feet, she struggled to summon up mental energy. As he yanked the car door open, she sucked in her will and hit him with as large a bolt of power as she could muster on her own.
He staggered back.
“What the hell?”
Instead of replying, she ran. She got partway across the parking pad when the kidnapper caught up with her and clamped a hand on her arm.
As she tried to summon another energy bolt, he slapped her across the face so hard that she almost blacked out.
Falling toward the ground, she felt him catch her under the arms and drag her toward the car. By the time they reached it, she had recovered enough to stiffen her arm and make her body rigid as he tried to push her through the door.
When he socked her between the shoulder blades, she lost her grip on the doorframe and fell into the backseat, but she wasn’t going to give up yet.
Whipping around, she kicked out, her feet hitting him somewhere in his midsection.
“Bitch,” he growled in anger, coming at her again, but her head had cleared enough for her to gather some strength to send another feeble blast at him.
Probably it wasn’t much worse than a bee sting, but as it struck him, his curse filled the car’s interior.
“What the hell are you doing?”
She didn’t waste energy answering.
But he apparently was too incensed now to think clearly. He lunged at her, coming down on top of her, closing his hands around her throat.
She tried to drag in a breath, but there was nothing there. Panic gripped her. Spots danced behind her eyes as she struggled to hold on to consciousness. Was this how it would end?
Smithson cursed, eased up on the pressure.
“Got to question you,” he growled as though reminding himself that he couldn’t kill her.
Her moan almost drowned out a sound that came to her from far away. Tires on gravel.
And inside her head, Jake’s desperate question.
Rachel, Rachel, oh Lord, Rachel.
She tried to answer, but her brain was too fogged.
Jake’s feet made the gravel fly as he charged toward them.
But apparently her attacker figured out it wasn’t just the woman and him anymore. He lurched out of the car, going for the gun he had stuck in the waistband of his jeans.
With Smithson’s hands gone from her throat, Rachel dragged in a breath. Even as she started coughing, she kicked his hand, sending the gun flying into the gravel parking lot.
The guy cursed, but now Rachel’s attention was on Jake, as his eyes flashed to her.
Can you help me?
Yes.
Everything happened very fast then.
Jake didn’t have to tell her what to do. Still coughing, she let him direct the process, feeling a ball of power form in his mind. Even in her weakened state, she was able to add to it, feeling it grow and build. Jake flung it from him, slamming it into the man who had tried to kidnap her.
He staggered back, hitting the wall of the cabin, and she climbed out of the car as Jake launched another blast of energy that propelled Smithson backward through the doorway.
Jake leaped forward, grabbing the assailant by the collar, hauling him up and slamming a fist into his face, and she knew that he’d needed the physical impact, not just the mental one.
As the guy went limp, Jake looked around the parking area, making sure that no one had been watching them.
Desperate to free herself from the shackles, Rachel knelt beside the kidnapper and fumbled in his pocket for the handcuff key, which she extracted and tried to fit into the lock.
But it was hard to work with her wrists cuffed together. Jake helped her, and they pulled the restraints off her wrists, then clicked them onto Smithson. When he started to stir, Jake socked him again.
Together they hauled him into the cabin, across the carpet, and onto the bed, attaching the handcuffs to a bedpost.
“Be right back.”
Jake charged out again, heading for the guy’s car. When he returned, he was carrying a length of rope. Quickly they tied the attacker’s feet to the end of the bed so that he was pinned down at wrists and ankles.
When he opened his eyes and started to buck, Jake gave him a piece of advice. “Settle down, if you don’t want to get hurt–very badly.”
The guy gave them a murderous look but stopped struggling.
Jake turned away and pulled Rachel into his arms. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
They switched to silent communication.
I’m so sorry, Jake said.
It was my idea. Making him think I was defenseless.
Yeah, but it put you in too much danger.
The white cloud she had seen when she’d tried to contact him before, filled his mind again, but this time it resolved itself into a wrecked truck and a mass of chickens.
She blinked. “What?”
That mess is what held me up.
I don’t think either one of us was quite prepared for unforeseen disasters, she answered. You can tell me about it later. We’ve got work to do.
But he still couldn’t let it go. He almost had you in the car.
I would have kept pounding him with my mind.
If you’d still been conscious. Thank God you’re okay.
He hugged her tightly, and she clung to him, thankful that he’d gotten back in time.
Finally, she turned to the man on the bed. “You’re going to give us some answers.”
“Like hell.”
“I suppose you’re prepared to hold up under torture.”
Even tied down, the guy was defiant. “Try and make me talk. See where it gets you.”
Jake shrugged. “Yeah, we’ll see.”
“When he thought he was getting me out of here, he told me he worked for someone named the Badger,” Rachel volunteered.