Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Cormac’s neck itched. A mosquito buzzed around his ear as the forest inhaled and exhaled around him. Time dribbled on and on, one slow second reaching for the next.
It was excruciating.
He checked his watch. Lucy would be in the middle of her pitch by now, blowing all those executives away. And if they weren’t blown away, they didn’t deserve her genius.
Maybe he didn’t deserve her either, but it was too late. He’d found her, and now she was his. He’d move heaven and earth to be with her—and that included the criminals in the hunting lodge less than fifty feet away.
“ Incoming ,” a voice in his ear crackled.
He glanced at Rick, who arched his brows. “You stay here,” the detective warned—again.
Cormac nodded, hoping his face didn’t betray the boiling impatience threatening to overflow inside him. He’d stay here, as he’d been ordered—but he’d watch, and be ready. If anything went wrong, if any one of those assholes inside decided to make a run for it, they’d have to get through him first.
After this takedown, he and Lucy would have a clear runway to launch the rest of their lives. She was worth the muddy forest floor soaking through his knees. She was worth the mosquito feasting on his exposed neck. She was worth the unbearable, excruciating wait.
Because Lucy had shown him everything he’d locked away. He didn’t want to keep himself apart from her the way he did when they’d first met. Yes, he wanted to protect her, but that was who he was. The crucible of his childhood had molded him into what he was today. A protector. A defender.
Today, he’d do it for her.
A car rolled down the gravel driveway. Cormac peered through the trees and saw the redhead behind the wheel, his blood pounding a little bit harder. She’d come back to this grimy, godforsaken place. She’d regret that.
It felt like the whole forest held its breath as the car parked beside the wood-paneled Crown Vic. Birds stopped calling, and the leaves became still. Even the hungry mosquito stopped buzzing around Cormac’s ear. Beside him, Rick watched with predatory intensity.
Rhonda cut the engine and got out of the car. She stood beside the driver-side door and regarded the hunting lodge for a moment before yelling, “Come out, you idiot! I haven’t got all day!”
The side door banged open. Cormac was on the opposite side of the house, so he could only hear the heavy footsteps along the porch, then a short moment of silence before Meaty appeared in the driveway.
He held up a box in one gigantic hand. “You got the cash?”
Rhonda reached into her purse and extracted an envelope. “Every dollar.”
“Hand it over.”
The envelope disappeared into the purse once more, and Rhonda crossed her arms. “You hand it over.”
“Lady, I haven’t got all day.”
“Listen, you brainless lump of meat. I pay you for the goods, not empty cardboard boxes. Open it up and let me see.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Not as far as I could throw you,” Rhonda sneered, looking the big man up and down.
Meaty grumbled, then ripped the tape off the top of the box. Beside Cormac, Rick shifted his weight. His eyes were glued on the exchange. Cormac’s pulse pounded. His hands opened and closed at his sides, itching to pound his fist into that man’s face just one more time.
But there was someone else who was responsible for the explosion that almost took Lucy’s life. Someone else who needed to be taken down. Someone who was calling the shots.
Cormac listened to a new set of footsteps on the porch, leaning forward, then let out a disappointed breath when Lanky appeared. Where was Phillips?
“What are you waiting for?” Cormac breathed.
“Need to see the exchange,” Rick replied, not taking his eyes off the three people outside the cabin.
Lanky ambled over and crossed his arms, glowering at Rhonda. She paid the two men no mind, plucking a bundle of bills out of the box and flipping through it. She rummaged around the box, then huffed and nodded. “Fine.”
“Give us the cash.”
The woman rolled her eyes and grabbed the envelope from her purse once more. She slapped it into Meaty’s meaty hand and took the box from his other. “Nice doing business with you,” she said, and the forest erupted.
“ POLICE, FREEZE! ” a dozen officers shouted, jumping from their hiding spots to rush the group.
Beside Cormac, Rick rushed forward, gun in his hands, barking orders.
Meaty whirled, face an ugly shade of purple, fists balled up and ready to punch. Rhonda let out an impotent scream. Lanky looked terrified and immediately dropped to the ground with his hands outstretched.
Officers streamed out of the forest and surrounded the cabin. Cormac drifted closer, eyes peeled, looking for Phillips. He took a step toward the door and Rick barked, “Back off, McKenna,” so Cormac froze.
He was utterly useless. His face must have been the same shade as Meaty’s, because all he felt was a burning-hot frustration. His eyes scanned the scene, the officers, the criminals. He heard shouts of “Clear!” coming from the hunting cabin, and his breaths became short and staggered.
An awful feeling gurgled in his gut. He hurried along the side of the cabin, peeking in windows, checking under piles of junk. His heart pounded harder and faster as the minutes dragged on, until he was jogging around the cabin and searching the nearby bushes.
Then he heard the words that confirmed what he feared to be true: “He’s not here, boss,” one of the officers told the detective. “But you’re going to want to see this.”
Rick, in response, swore so loudly a bird flapped away from a tree with a squawk. Cormac watched it go, surprised it had lasted this long with the din the police had made. And then he let the reality of the situation settle over him like a dark cloud.
Phillips had gotten away—again.
Hands balled into fists, Cormac stomped down the path at the back of the cabin, needing a moment to compose himself. His pulse rattled. His chest was hot and tight. His vision was hazed in red. The fury roiling in his gut needed an outlet, and he was afraid of what he’d do if he didn’t get it under control.
Tromping down the narrow dirt path, he sucked in deep breaths of loam-scented air and tried to get himself together. Flying off the handle wouldn’t help Lucy. He needed a clear, calm head to find Phillips and bring him to justice.
That’s when he saw the flash of pale fabric between the trunks of two distant trees. He was sprinting before he consciously decided to move. Branches tore at his clothes, clinging to his arms, trying to hold him back. Leaves obscured his vision. Roots and lichen and ferns conspired to rise up and make him stumble.
But Cormac ran on.
And—there! Someone darted around a copse of pine trees.
He slapped a tree and used it to push off at an angle to intercept. His breaths burned through his lungs, great gasping inhalations that propelled him forward. Thighs burning, arms pumping, Cormac ran as fast as the forest allowed, leaping over a bush to finally crash into the person who was trying to get away.
A woman howled as he brought her to the ground. Her hat tumbled off, revealing iron-colored ringlets. One liver-spotted arm clawed forward, as if she could pull herself out of Cormac’s grasp.
“Get off me!” she screamed.
Cormac, horrified at having tackled an old woman, scrambled up. But, wait, why had she been hurrying away from the cabin? No one lived in these parts—no one for miles except the farmer whose land they’d used to corral their vehicles.
The woman darted off, faster than Cormac expected. She found a little animal trail that slipped through the trees and took it, making it a good ten feet before Cormac wrapped his arms around her and lifted her kicking feet off the ground.
“Let go of me!”
“Who are you?”
“Put me down, you animal!”
“ Who are you ?” Cormac roared.
She stopped wriggling, but he could feel the tension vibrating in every inch of her body. She was heavier than she looked, but he could still hold her above the ground without too much trouble. He gave her a little shake.
She harrumphed, then turned her head to the side so he could see her sneer in profile. “You’ll never get your precious girlfriend back now. It’s too late.”
Ice jetted through Cormac’s veins. “What?”
“You heard me.”
He dropped the woman to her feet and spun her around. There was something about her face… Where had he seen her before?
She saw him looking and tipped her head back, cackling. “Recognize me, do you? Those damn reporters had my face plastered all over the television for months after my sister got caught.”
Recognition slammed into Cormac. This was Mrs. Gordon, Amelia’s old neighbor. She’d been a fence; she and her sister would steal precious goods and resell them for profit. She’d gone on the run when her sister was found out, and though the press in Stirling and the surrounding areas had been relentless, the trail had gone cold.
They’d discovered that Gordon wasn’t the sisters’ surname at all, but Brown.
“Ethel Brown,” the woman confirmed, laughing at Cormac’s shock, “at your service.”
He wrapped a hand around her bicep and turned toward the cabin. “Keep laughing, Ethel. You can cackle all you want when you’re behind bars.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so rash,” the woman said as she hobbled beside him. “Don’t you want to know where my son took your sweetheart?”
Cormac stopped. Turned. Stared into the dark, dark eyes of the sneering old woman at his side. “What did you say?”
“I said, don’t you want to know where my boy took your Lucy?”
“Your son is Aaron Phillips?”
Those dark eyes went flat. She clicked her tongue and shook her head, as if disappointed. “He tries, the poor dear, but he doesn’t have the stomach for this life. That stunt he pulled with that girl’s car was pure lunacy. And those two idiots actually went through with it. It’s so hard to find decent help these days.”
Cormac stared at her, his hand still around her upper arm. He had the feeling that if he let go, she’d turn into a snake and slither away in the leaves and grass and ferns that littered the forest floor.
“I know, I know,” she continued, clearly enjoying herself. “You don’t believe me. But I had nothing to do with that explosion. I told him that Lucy wasn’t in the business. You’re in it as many years as I am, you get a nose for this stuff. But he insisted. He said he’d prove it to me. And what could I say? He’s my son. I told him to go ahead, and next thing I know there’s a car blowing up in broad daylight. I mean, honestly, what was he thinking? I knew it would end in disaster. Tried to warn you off, too, but I couldn’t get past that bulldog you call a receptionist.”
Cormac frowned, then remembered the call Karin had told him about. Ethel had had the guts to call his place of business. She was brazen. Delusional.
She let out a sigh, still speaking. “And this morning, when I heard engines in the distance, I had a bad feeling. Took no time at all to convince those idiots to stay at the cabin while Aaron and I took our leave. When I heard your people crashing through the trees, I figured it was time to go.”
Cormac leaned forward, staring into those soulless eyes. “Where is she?” he hissed, the words burning as they crossed his tongue. “Where’s Lucy?”
“By now?” Ethel grinned. “Who knows? Maybe she’s no longer of this world.”
Cormac never thought he’d hurt a woman, but at this moment, his grip on her arm tightened. “Stop playing games, Ethel. Where’s Lucy?”
She arched a brow, staring at him through the wrinkled face of a long life spent doing terrible deeds. The bones of her face spoke of beauty, decades ago, but Ethel Brown was the ugliest woman he’d ever seen.
“It seems to me you have a choice to make, boy,” she told him, savoring the words. “You can let me go and save your sweetheart, or you can do the right thing and drag me back so those police officers can lock me up. What’s it going to be? Do you choose your ethics, or your woman?”
If he were a better man, a more moral man, Cormac might have hesitated. He might have considered the pros and cons of each option, might have wanted to bring a criminal to justice so she wouldn’t hurt anyone else. This woman deserved to rot in jail until she died.
But Cormac’s moral code started and ended with the people he loved. He let go of her arm. “I choose Lucy,” he said, and the old woman began to laugh.