Chapter Thirty-seven – Don’t Give Up On Me
Chapter Thirty-seven
Parker
DON’T GIVE UP ON ME
Performed by Andy Grammer
TEN YEARS AGO
HIM: You’re hurt. You’re hurt because I left.
HER: I’m hurt because Theresa smacked me with her gun. That has nothing to do with you.
HIM: I shouldn’t have left you, damnit.
PRESENT DAY
I jerked awake with the scent of fuel filling my lungs and the haze of smoke burning my eyes. The crash! Fallon!
I rolled to my knees and screamed her name.
I stumbled to my feet. Blood trickled down my forehead that I ignored. I scanned the runway, flipping back to the plane’s wreckage when I didn’t see her.
I jogged toward the Cessna on unsteady feet. How had she gotten me out? And where the fuck was she?
Sirens shrieked. Too far away yet. Too damn far.
Flames licked at the tail of the plane. The dry grass of the runway ignited.
I pulled myself up into the open doorway. “Fallon!” I shouted.
It was empty. She wasn’t inside.
Had she gone for help?
I spun around, eyes searching the runway and the buildings on the far side. A black sedan peeled away from the Harrington hangar .
Confusion settled like a fog over me for a second too long.
The blast on the plane. The crash.
It had all been planned. Carefully executed.
Goddamnit!
Why the fuck hadn’t I checked the plane for bombs? Because I’d been too distracted by Theo’s blank face, and Fallon’s fear, and Puzo’s goddamn games.
I forced my legs to move, racing across the tarmac just as the plane exploded behind me, sending me to my knees once again.
Fire engines lit up the runway, heading toward the flames.
I jerked myself to my feet and sprinted toward the hangar.
The side door was locked when I yanked on it. The roll-up door was down and bolted. I jogged in the direction the sedan had gone.
The tower. They’d have cameras. They’d have an ID on the license plate.
Something bright and shiny caught my eye. The realization of what it was hit me in the chest with the strength of a fist. Several of the beads from the bracelet Theo had insisted on buying Fallon were scattered on the ground.
He’d taken her.
She’d been taken on my watch.
I reached into my back pocket for my phone and came up empty.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I’d wasted too much time already. The sedan was long gone. He was at least five minutes ahead by now. My truck was locked in the goddamn hangar, which meant he’d be at least ten minutes away by the time I found a vehicle to go after him.
I turned back to where the fire truck had stopped by the plane’s wreckage. They’d already hauled their hoses out and were dousing the fire with foam retardant. An ambulance screeched to a halt next to the truck. Voices shouted out orders.
As I tore back across the tarmac, an EMT turned toward me. His eyes went wide. “Sir. Sir. Were you in the plane?”
“Phone. I need a goddamn phone!”
“Have a seat. We’re trying to find the other person. Do you know where she is?” he asked.
I shoved his hands aside as he tried to propel me toward the back of the ambulance. “She’s gone. He took her. I need a fucking phone!”
“Calm down. You’re bleeding. Confused.”
I swiped at my aching forehead and came away with blood. I’d have a knot that matched hers when I found her.
And I would. I would fucking find her.
I grabbed the man by his shoulders, flipped him around so his back was to my front and my arm was pressed into his neck, and demanded, “What I need is a phone. Hand yours over.”
“Parker? It’s Parker, right?”
My eyes jerked up to see a firefighter making his way toward us. His eyes were narrowed as he glanced from me to the EMT I had in a chokehold. The firefighter was the guy who’d been at Fallon’s side the day of the cabin fire. He put a hand out as if to calm me down.
“I’m Beckett. This is Fallon’s plane, right? Can you tell me where she is? She was onboard with you? Piloting?”
“She’s been taken. I need a fucking phone.”
Beckett’s eyes narrowed. “Taken. Kidnapped?”
“For fuck’s sake. Yes. I need a goddamn phone.”
He whipped his out of his pocket. “Let Jon there go,” he said with a nod toward the EMT. I shoved the man away from me, and he stepped back, anger pouring off him as he grabbed his throat.
Beckett placed a call. Wylee. He was calling the damn sheriff. I needed my team! I needed Cranky and Sweeney.
“I need to get to the ranch,” I bellowed, but no one moved. No one listened. I wasn’t their commander. I wasn’t their teammate. I needed mine.
Tortured thoughts of what Ike would do to her pounded through me.
I acted on instinct, heading for the driver’s side of the ambulance.
“What the hell are you doing?” the EMT’s buddy demanded as I pushed past him and into the driver’s seat. I smacked my knees on the steering column. The keys were in the ignition. I started the ambulance as people yelled and shouted outside the door.
The last thing I saw as I put my foot to the gas was Beckett’s scrunched face shouting into the phone he had clutched to his ear.
I was out on the road and heading toward the ranch when the ambulance’s radio squawked.
“Parker Steele, this is Sheriff Wylee. Stealing an ambulance is not the way to go about this. We’re assembling a team. We will find her.”
I didn’t respond, taking the corners as fast as I dared in an unfamiliar vehicle.
I’d failed her. Again .
I pounded my hand on the steering wheel. Once. Twice. A dozen times. I’d have bruises to add to the cut on my head and the pain radiating up my right shoulder. I didn’t have a gun. But I had my hands, and I’d been trained to use them. I’d killed before using nothing more.
Where had he taken her? How long did I have before he ended her life? He needed her to lure Rafe here, and Rafe would expect to hear her voice, expect to know she was alive before he dragged his ass to California. Except, Rafe was already on his way.
Fuck.
I shook my head, focusing back on Fallon.
Ike would have to hide her somewhere.
Puzo had a place nearby, didn’t he?
Goddamnit, I needed my teammates. I wasn’t clearheaded enough to see all the angles.
The longer it took me to reach the ranch, the farther away she’d be.
It seemed like an eternity before I flew through the gates and down the drive of the resort.
I was screeching to a halt in the nearly empty parking lot before I remembered she’d shut the resort down.
Thousands of acres of emptiness. Was he stupid enough to come back here?
Would he think he was safe because he knew where some of the cameras were?
But he didn’t know about the new ones we’d installed.
He couldn’t. Not unless Lance was involved, and I hadn’t seen any signs he’d turned on us.
Cranky jogged toward me as I climbed out of the ambulance .
“Fuck. You’re hurt,” he said.
I swiped at the blood again. “He took her. Ike took her.”
He gave a curt nod. “Wylee called. We’re pulling up the cameras now.”
“Lorenzo Puzo has a place in the hills not far from here,” I told him as we raced toward the security hut. “I need a gun. Comms.”
“Slow down, Baywatch.”
Anger and hate, primarily self-directed, spewed from me. “I’m not fucking Baywatch today. He took her. He has every intention of killing her. I have to find her before Rafe does exactly what Ike wants and shows up. If he does, Ike won’t hesitate to put a bullet in both of them.”
We’d just reached the security hut as a horse and rider flew up the crest beyond it. Every defensive instinct kicked in, and I shoved my teammate into the hut’s exterior wall seconds before I realized it was only Chuck on the horse’s back.
The kid was wild-eyed as he pulled the reins tight, jerking the horse to a stop as dirt kicked up around us.
“Fallon!” Chuck said, sliding off the horse. “He has Fallon!”
“Where?” I demanded, grabbing the kid’s shoulders and shaking him. His eyes turned even wilder.
“I was watching the hawks through my binoculars,” he said, pulling up the ones he had strapped around his neck. “I was across the river. It was closer to come here first. To get help.”
“Where the fuck are they?”
“Off the fire road. Above where we were shot at. I was surprised to see her because I didn’t know she was back yet. And then I saw the g-gun… He had it a-aimed at her. They d-disappeared into the trees.”
I ripped open the hut’s door. Lance and Sweeney were inside, bent over the screens, searching the cameras.
I went directly to the gun cabinet, punched in the code I’d been given by my father, and yanked it open.
The rifle was too big. It would only slow me down.
I grabbed a leg and a chest holster, loading weapons into both. Cranky did the same next to me.
Behind me, Sweeney’s deep voice said, “Stop. There.”
I turned to the screen and saw the dark sedan I’d watched leave the airport stop in nearly the same spot where the offroad motorcycle had been parked the day of the shooting.
“Stupid to come here.” Cranky swore under his breath.
I watched as the man got out of the passenger seat. Hat. Sunglasses. Gun tucked in his waistband like a loser. He popped the trunk and tossed zip ties inside as he pointed a second gun at her. I couldn’t see her, couldn’t see if she was hurt or bleeding from the crash. From his hands.
Rage consumed me.
Another few seconds went by as he spoke to Fallon while she was still inside the trunk before hauling her out. She stumbled, but he just grabbed her arm and dragged her along the dirt.
My fury turned into an all-consuming inferno.
Her hands were zip-tied, but he’d made the mistake of letting her tie them in front of her. It was easier to get out of them from that angle, although I doubted Fallon knew it. Still, it was another mistake in a sea of them Ike had made in the last hour.
Fallon’s face was white as snow, and her hands shook as she pushed her hair from her eyes.
Even hurt and afraid, her beauty shimmered around her. So fucking brave and strong.
And alone.