Chapter Fifteen
He was going to die.
Callen pressed his feet into the floor as the river rushed inside the truck.
Shocking cold water worked into his boots and up his calves.
Faster than he expected. The truck was sinking at an alarming rate, tipping to one side in a losing battle against the current.
Any minute now and the entire thing would roll with him inside.
His breathing shallowed to counter the burn of the freezing temperature, but every new inch gained sent his nervous system into overdrive.
The hood of the truck disappeared beneath the river’s surface, whitecaps cresting against the black metal and illuminated by the headlights.
He’d taught every client of his—including his family members and Maeve—how to escape zip ties, but Callen couldn’t get the angle right on breaking free from the steering wheel.
Every shift, every tug cut deeper into his skin and threatened to sever the nerves and tendons running the length of his hand.
He wasn’t going anywhere. Well, that wasn’t true.
He was going to the bottom of the river.
His skull hit the headrest, shooting sparks of pain and lightning across his vision.
The water reached his waist, his jeans clinging to him and filling with ice-cold water.
The Virgin River wasn’t normally this active in winter, but an excess of snow and an unusually hot summer had sloughed enough runoff out of the mountains for this moment.
Callen twisted his torso toward the center console.
He’d had a hunting knife stashed in the back pocket of the passenger seat.
If the killer hadn’t gotten to it, there was a chance he could cut himself free.
Except the bastard had claimed to know where every weapon Callen stashed in this truck had been kept.
He didn’t know how that was possible unless the bastard had somehow gained access to his vehicle, but he couldn’t think about that right now.
His wrists screamed at the increase in pressure, but he gritted his teeth through it.
Until blood swelled and dribbled into the river water cresting his navel. Damn it. He’d trained for this. How to escape a sinking vehicle. How to use force and momentum to break through zip ties. The combination, however, would be what killed him. Callen kicked at the truck’s floor. “Come on!”
Water skimmed along the bottom of the steering wheel, and the truck’s headlights flickered. It’d gotten to the electronics, and before he had a chance to prepare himself, the entire truck went dark.
He couldn’t see the level of the water, only feel it creeping up his chest. No amount of struggling or shifting his weight would stop it.
His skin burned everywhere it touched until he couldn’t take a full breath.
It was those first few seconds of a cold shower after a workout, jarring and short-circuiting his brain.
He had to calm the hell down. There was a chance he would have more to work with while underwater.
Where the lights and the water levels and the fact that he couldn’t get his legs free wouldn’t distract him.
Closing his eyes, Callen sucked in a shallow breath, then another in quick succession.
Forcibly hyperventilating expanded his lung capacity.
As soon as the water filled the cab or the truck hit the bottom of the river, he could use his feet as leverage to break the ties.
It was the only plan he had. One that would guarantee he’d reach Maeve in time.
Because the son of a bitch had locked her in the storage container, and while he had every reason to believe she could take care of herself, the man with the mask had made it clear this plan had been in progress for a long time.
There was no way the bastard would just let her walk away.
And Callen wanted that. More than anything, he wanted Maeve to be free of this threat, of this case, of him.
She deserved that. She’d spent the past year trying to make up for a single mistake that had altered the course of her life, and all it’d gotten her was heartache.
Grief, rejection, loneliness. Despite being there for his parents and doing what Callen couldn’t in holding his family together, he was sure Maeve had only accomplished it by sacrificing herself.
Because that was the kind of woman she was.
Strong, confident, tenacious. All at the expense of her mental and physical health. She’d risked her career coming to Zion, to work a case that the police had already given up on, and Callen couldn’t let it end like this.
He had to get out of here. He had to get to her.
Freezing rapids skimmed his chin, then his bottom lip.
He sucked in the deepest breath he could manage as water covered his mouth and nose.
Shutting his eyes against the burn, he counted off the seconds, giving his vision a chance to adjust to the shocking cold and limited light from the flickering headlights.
Then waited as the last air pocket escaped through the cracks in the door.
The truck was fully submerged. If he had any chance of getting free, it had to be now. Prying his legs free from the limited space between the driver’s seat and the pedals, Callen walked his feet up enough to set his boots against the steering wheel—and pulled.
But the steering column refused to budge, and the zip ties remained.
Pain lanced through his hands as he shifted for a better angle.
He just needed enough leverage to snap the plastic, but his movements were slowing, his joints aching.
The cold was getting to him every second he remained submerged, and the pressure in his chest tightened to the point he was already starting to feel the need to inhale.
The truck rocked to the left, the passenger side caving to the river’s demands before setting itself right again.
Damn it. Callen secured his numb fingers around the steering column and set his feet against the dashboard.
Weren’t these damn things supposed to detach easily?
Or had the killer altered the truck somehow, ensuring he wouldn’t be able to escape?
Bubbles raced past his lips and out through his nose as he groaned through another attempt.
Pressure popped in one ear, filling the canal with freezing water.
The effect disoriented him for a few seconds as he blinked to regain his balance.
His lungs screamed for release, every second another lesson in facing his own death.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. He’d known the chances of recovering Lauren after a year were slim.
He’d even accepted that poking around the investigation might come back to bite him in the ass, but not like this.
Not when he was so close to bringing her home.
When Maeve had just come back into his life.
Because no matter how much he wanted to deny it, these past two days had shifted something in him.
Reminded him of the man he used to be, the one who hadn’t hardened himself against feeling anything for anyone other than his parents and brother.
The man who’d looked forward to shucking off the tactical gear, locking up his weapons and falling into the woman who caught him every time.
He’d gotten a second chance with her coming to Zion. And he’d blown it.
Now it was too late. There weren’t enough minutes left to tell Maeve he appreciated what she’d done for his parents.
That without her, he might’ve lost them for good.
There wasn’t enough time to fix what he’d broken between them and reassure her that she was worth more than the mistake she’d made, even if it’d taken losing her to realize it.
She had deserved better, and she needed to know that.
So he wasn’t giving up.
Black vines tendriled at the edges of his vision.
Gritting through the cutting pain in his wrist, he focused the rest of his draining energy not on prying the steering column free, but on snapping the zip ties.
The mechanics made sense. The more force he used, the weaker the binds, but he couldn’t get the right angle in such a limited amount of space.
His fingers had started aching more than a few minutes ago.
From his dropping body temperature or from the lack of oxygen, he didn’t know.
Maybe both. He didn’t have time to think about it or any of the other signs of his body giving out.
The headlights cut off once again. Only this time they didn’t light back up.
Water had finally short-circuited the truck’s electrical system.
He was drowning in pitch darkness, with the mere hope he’d manage to determine which way was up when he got out of the damn vehicle.
Because he was getting out. He was going to get to Maeve.
He was going to stop the man who’d killed his sister, stop him from hurting her.
Trying to break through the zip ties by force wasn’t working, and he’d already wasted too much time.
He had to come up with another plan. His chest felt as though it would suction in on itself if he didn’t get air in the next thirty seconds, but he’d hold out.
There was no other option. Bringing his right leg into his chest, he worked his boot free, then stretched his foot into the back seat.
The killer had made a show of disarming Callen’s weapons right in front of him, but there was no way the bastard had known where he’d hidden every blade.
Shoving his foot deep into the passenger seat back pocket, he skimmed his boot along the bottom of the leather.
And hit something solid. A small, serrated flip blade that might’ve gone unnoticed by most people, even those riding in the back seat. Getting to it with only one foot posed a problem, but if he could—
The current caught the right side of the truck.
He didn’t have time to brace for what came next.
In a split second, the whole world flipped upside down. Callen latched on to the steering wheel to keep some semblance of control, but it was no use. Rushing water pressurized in his ears as the truck rolled. Once. Twice.
Pain exploded along the left side of his body as the vehicle caught on what Callen assumed was a log or boulder.
His head hit the driver’s-side window, and the last of his air reserves escaped.
The inky blackness of the river seemed to grow darker, colder as he blinked to keep himself conscious, but it was a battle he was quickly losing.
A rush of water beat against his skin.
Then something warm. Like a hand slipping over his forearm.
Piercing light cut through the darkness, focused on his bleeding wrists still tied to the steering wheel.
Biting pain sliced across his skin, but his hand lifted of its own accord.
Was this what dying felt like? This weightlessness?
Clarity interrupted his drifting thoughts.
He hadn’t imagined that. Another moment of pain and his opposite hand floated free from the steering wheel.
Long fingers fisted in his T-shirt, pulling him across the truck cab and through the passenger door, and Callen’s brain finally caught up.
He homed in on the flashlight filling the vehicle and the figure bracing her legs against the truck’s frame to get him out.
Someone had come for him. Relying on the last few molecules of oxygen in his lungs, Callen fought the current working to entomb him beneath the surface and followed the retreating ray of light upward.
His movement felt slow and uncoordinated—most likely due to the beginning of hypothermia and head trauma—but within a few seconds, he broke through the surface. That first gasp of air burned stronger than he expected, but he would take it over suffocating any day.
Dizziness wavered his vision—just for a moment—as he forced one hand in front of the other to get to the riverbank. Movement registered ahead, his rescuer collapsing down into a section of weeds, out of breath.
Callen dropped to all fours on dry ground, recognition flaring. “Maeve?”
“Miss me?” She dragged herself to her feet.
He had. He put everything into getting upright. “You have no—”
“Well, looky at this happy little reunion.” That drawling voice cut through the night. Masked as before, the killer stepped into the pool of light cast from one of the streetlights. “Sorry to be the one to tell you it’ll be short-lived.”
Maeve’s hand went to her waistband. Her empty waistband. Her attention cut over to the pile of belongings she’d made a few feet away. Including a sidearm. “I take it you’re the one who locked me in the storage container.”
Callen clocked it, taking a single step toward the weapon. This son of a bitch had tried to kill him. The least he could do was return the favor.
“Nah, ah, ah.” Unholstering his own pistol, the killer took aim. At Callen. “Now, I’ve been nice up until this point, but I’m getting real tired of you getting in my way.”
The sound of the gunshot ricocheted off the cliffs lining the river.
But the pain never came.
And Maeve dropped in front of him.