WITSEC

Chapter 3

Chapter Three

I took off my wedges in the car as soon as I parked in Desert Stone Fitness’s parking lot. There was only one other vehicle in the lot. It was a truck I knew belonged to the sheriff, parked near the entrance.

Because it was the middle of the night, all the lights should have been off and the doors locked. Yet I walked right through an unlocked front door into a brightly lit, empty gym. Even the music that normally played through the built-in speakers in the main room was on. With the lack of people inside, the music felt louder.

I didn’t see Colt or the sheriff in the main room, so I was going to have to search for them. With my gun held out in front of me, I started with the offices behind the front desk, then I moved to the locker rooms. My heart, which had already been trying to beat its way out of my chest, boomed painfully each time I stepped into a different room.

By the locker rooms was the entrance to the indoor pool. I headed there next. Slowly, I opened the door and stepped inside. The smell of chlorine instantly filled my nose. The only lights on were the lights inside the pool, which gave the room a dim bluish hue.

The moment I saw the sheriff standing at the other end of the long, rectangular pool, the sound of the door closing behind me echoed loudly in the room. He held a gun to the back of Colt’s head, who was sitting in a rolling desk chair at the very edge of the pool with his feet dangling over the water. If he tried to stand, Colt would fall right in. His ankles were bound together and his eyes were covered with thick black tape. There was a rag shoved into his mouth. His hands were behind his back, which told me they were bound as well.

Sheriff McAllister greeted me with a menacing smile, and he tracked me with his cruel eyes as I made my way closer, gun aimed at him.

“Took you long enough,” he said. “I’m surprised you were the first one to get here.”

My stomach dipped with fear at his implication. I was relieved I was here first, but the thought of Mr. X walking through the door at any moment made my breathing turn shaky. However, it would be better if Mr. X came here. Because if he was here, it meant he wasn’t with Knox, Keelan, and Creed. It meant that they could get away to somewhere safe without being followed.

“I’m here. What now?” I replied.

The sound of my voice made Colt sit up straighter and he tried to speak around his gag.

“We wait,” the sheriff said.

For Mr. X.

“Then let Colt go,” I said as I stopped walking about twenty feet from him.

The sheriff pushed the barrel of his gun against the back of Colt’s head, making him lean forward. “He stays to make sure you cooperate.”

My mind raced. If Colt was still here when Mr. X arrived, Mr. X would kill him. I eyed the pool and a far-fetched plan came to me. “If you push on Colt any harder, he will fall into the pool.”

“Then you better be good,” the sheriff said.

“But then you’d lose your leverage, and my boyfriend happens to be an amazing swimmer.”

Everything in me stilled as I hoped and waited for what I said to click for Colt. It couldn’t have been more than a second or two after I spoke, but it felt like an eternity until Colt lunged forward and fell into the pool.

I watched the sheriff’s eyes widen before they shifted to me. I should have pulled the trigger right then. I’d had such confidence that I could do it before being faced with this decision, but my finger hesitated. No matter how evil the sheriff was, he was still a human being—a life.

That hesitation gave the sheriff time to aim his gun at me. There wasn’t any hesitation in his eyes. I tried to jump out of the way. The sound of a gunshot filled and echoed in the large room. Searing pain ripped across my upper arm, making me cry out. I landed on my hands and knees on the hard floor. Ignoring the pain in my arm, I aimed my gun back in the sheriff’s direction and pulled the trigger twice.

I missed him both times as he bolted through the door that led to the men’s locker room.

When he was out of sight, I got to my feet and ran for the pool. Colt was at the bottom of its deepest part. Gun still in my hand, I dove into the water, spearing down toward him. I kicked as hard as I could to get to him faster. As soon as he was in reach, I pulled the rag from his mouth, wrapped my hurt arm around him, and pushed off the bottom of the pool to help propel us up. That boost only helped so far. I wasn’t a strong swimmer to begin with, and with the pain in my arm and the extra weight of pulling Colt, the surface felt so far away. My lungs began to burn and panic built in me.

Just when I was about to succumb to that panic, my hand breached the surface. The instant my head was above water, I sucked in delicious air and brought Colt’s head up.

He gasped for air. “Shiloh.”

“I got you,” I said as I swam us toward the edge of the pool, breathing loudly.

“Take your time. Don’t overexert yourself,” Colt instructed.

Too late. My body was already feeling weak. The only reason we were staying above water was the strength in my legs.

I got us to the edge of the pool and a small bit of relief hit me. It was short-lived, though. We didn’t have time to waste.

Using the pool deck, I pulled us to the shallow end. Once Colt was able to stand in the water, I got to work helping him remove the tape around his eyes. I tried to be gentle, but he still hissed when the tape pulled on his hair.

I let out a whimper at the sight of his aquamarine eyes. He leaned forward and rested his forehead against mine. “It’s okay. We’re okay.”

No. We aren’t.

I gave him and myself three seconds to comfort each other before pulling away. “We need to get out of here.”

I had to go underwater and use my teeth to rip the tape from around his ankles. The last thing bound were his wrists. They were handcuffed. “I don’t have the keys,” I said in a panic.

Colt shifted in the water, moving his cuffed hands under his butt and legs until he had his hands in front of him. “This is fine for now. Let’s get out of here,” he said, nodding toward the closest pool ladder.

I climbed out first and turned to help him. Water fell from us and our soaked clothes, drenching the pool deck.

Colt grabbed me just above my elbow, his eyes wide as they locked on to where the sheriff had shot me. “You’re hurt.”

I finally looked at the wound. Blood was spilling down my arm from a long, narrow gash across my upper arm. “It’s not something we can worry about right now.” I grabbed one of his wrists above where he was cuffed and pulled on him as I walked quickly toward the door.

“I heard gunshots when I was in the water. Did he shoot you?” Colt asked as he kept up with me.

I let go of him to open the door into the main room of the gym. “I was stupid and hesitated pulling the trigger. I barely had time to get out of the way.” I was lucky to be alive. If I hadn’t jumped out of the way when I had, the shot would have killed me.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, babe. Shooting someone isn’t something you should not hesitate doing.”

I didn’t respond to that. This wasn’t the time or place to argue.

As we walked into the main room of the gym, I froze after a few steps.

“What’s the matter?” Colt whispered behind me.

I brought my gun out in front of me before continuing on. “The music is off.”

The front desk was where the music was controlled, and I doubted the sheriff had decided to turn it off before he left.

I let go of Colt’s wrist so I could hold my gun with two hands. “Stay behind me.”

He did so quietly as we walked through the gym.

“What are you guys doing here?” a voice asked when we were passing the front desk, heading for the exit.

Colt and I spun around. Gun pointed at the source, I was surprised to see that it was Derek coming up behind us. He was out of his Desert Stone uniform, dressed in jeans and a forest- green T-shirt that made the red in his hair stand out. His eyes widened and he froze next to the front desk. He put his hands up slowly. “What the hell?”

“What are you doing here?” Colt asked.

“I was driving home. I saw that all the lights were on and a truck was speeding out of the parking lot. Keelan’s Jeep is out front. So I stopped by to see if everything was all right,” he explained quickly.

It had probably been the sheriff speeding away in the truck. I lowered my gun. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

The moment I said that, someone stepped out from the hall that led to the offices behind the front desk.

My heart stopped beating. My lungs stopped working. Time even seemed to pause as my eyes drifted to the left and met coal depths that had haunted my nightmares and reality for years. He was wearing a black Desert Stone hoodie with the hood over his head. The corner of his pale mouth lifted in a terrifying smirk as he pulled a chef’s knife—the same knife he had killed my family with—from the pouch pocket of the hoodie.

“No!” I screamed at the same time Colt yelled, “Derek! Watch out!”

Derek turned and ducked just as Mr. X slashed his knife at him. Mr. X went to strike Derek again, knife raised in the air. I aimed my gun for his chest and this time I didn’t hesitate to pull the trigger.

The gun clicked, but didn’t fire.

“Shit!” It had malfunctioned.

Derek caught Mr. X’s forearm before he could bring the knife down on him. Colt stepped toward them with the intention to help Derek.

I grabbed his arm, yanking him back. His hands were cuffed, and he would only get himself killed.

Tap. Rack. Bang. Logan’s voice filled my head, reminding me how to try to fix my gun. Quickly, I used my palm to tap the bottom on the magazine. Then I pulled the slide back and tilted the gun to the side. The live round that had refused to fire fell out along with a little bit of water. I made sure I pulled the slide as far back as it would go so it properly sprang a new round into place before releasing it. Praying to any deity who would listen that I’d fixed the issue, I aimed again at Mr. X.

Derek had a good amount of muscle on him, but he was struggling against Mr. X. With how close they were and how badly I was shaking, I wasn’t confident in my shot. Mr. X’s other hand came up and he tried to punch Derek. His many years of self-defense training seemed to kick in then and Derek blocked. He adjusted his stance to give himself better purchase. Moving swiftly, Derek twisted his body to the side and Mr. X fell forward. Derek released Mr. X’s arm and punched him in the cheek. Mr. X stumbled a few feet, refusing to let himself fall to the floor.

“Derek, move!” I shouted. Mr. X’s back was to me, but if I shot and he happened to move, I could hit Derek.

Derek glanced at me and saw I had my gun aimed. Mr. X turned as Derek leaped behind the front desk. I pulled the trigger just as Mr. X faced me. My gun fired and Mr. X’s body jerked inward as the bullet hit his chest.

Pulling that trigger and seeing it hit him unlocked something in me. My rage surged to the surface. My rage for what he had taken from me, what he had done to me, and the threat he posed to those around me. I shot him again and again, stepping closer and closer with each bullet that left my gun.

Mr. X’s shoulders jerked and his feet stumbled backward each time a bullet hit his chest. I just kept shooting and shooting. I didn’t stop until he finally fell to the floor.

I stood there, frozen as I stared at Mr. X’s unmoving body. Fear and disbelief wouldn’t let me look away.

Was it over?

Was I free?

“Shiloh,” Colt said tentatively before placing one of his cuffed hands over my good arm.

I lowered my gun and made myself look away to face Colt. As soon as our eyes met, my shoulders sagged. He lifted his arms and put them around my shoulders. I wrapped my arms tightly around his middle and buried my face in his chest.

“Are you guys all right?” Derek asked and I could hear him moving closer to us.

I didn’t think I was, but I was alive, and Colt was alive. That was all I could ask for.

“We need to call the police,” Colt said, avoiding answering. He lifted his arms off my shoulders and stared down at where I was hurt on my arm. “We need to do something about this. It won’t stop bleeding.”

“I don’t have any cell service for some reason,” Derek said.

I turned to see Derek heading back behind the front desk toward the landline. As he went to reach for it, a rumbling, deep, and horrifying chuckle made us all freeze.

I spun toward Mr. X in time to see him sit up slowly. His eyes were locked solely on me as he got to his feet.

How?

As if reading my mind, Mr. X lifted his Desert Stone hoodie, revealing a black bulletproof vest beneath. His eyes glinted with delight as I backed away, running into Colt. Mr. X tsked as he wagged his finger at me. “You’ve been a very, very bad girl, Shiloh.”

His voice sent a shiver through me. I did my best to ignore it as I brought my gun up, aiming for his head this time. All he did was stand there, eyes bright, with a crazed grin. I pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t fire. The trigger had locked back. I was out of bullets.

I let out a curse. “Run,” I said, grabbing Colt’s arm and bolting for the door.

Derek quite literally climbed and leapt over the front desk. He was right behind us as we barreled our way out and into the parking lot.

As we ran to Keelan’s Jeep and Derek to his own car, I pulled out Keelan’s keys from my pocket. I pressed the unlock button on the key fob and of course, it didn’t work. Diving into the pool to save Colt with the keys in my pocket had broken it. I’d have to unlock the car with the regular key.

I had the key ready in my hand as I approached the driver’s door. I jammed it into the keyhole and unlocked the car as fast as I could. As soon as I was inside, I unlocked Colt’s door and tossed my gun in the cup holder in the center console. I made the mistake of looking toward the gym. Walking briskly, Mr. X was heading straight for us.

“Start the car!” Colt yelled.

Shaking uncontrollably, I fumbled to get the key into the ignition, but as soon as I slid the key home, I started the Jeep. Mr. X was at my door when I shifted into reverse. Using the butt of his knife, he shattered my window. I slammed on the gas as shards of glass rained over me, cutting across my cheek, neck, arm, and thigh. The Jeep zoomed backward through the parking lot and when there was a good distance between us and Mr. X, I turned the wheel, whipping the front of the Jeep to the right. Facing the main road, I hit the brake, shifted into drive, and sped out of there.

I only glanced back for a second to make sure Derek had made it out. His car wasn’t in the lot, but Mr. X stood in the center of it, eyes tracking us as we drove away.

For a while as I headed toward the interstate, all that could be heard was our heavy breathing until Colt reached for my hand closest to him, which was currently white-knuckling the steering wheel. It almost hurt to unlock my tight grip and give him my hand. Trembling profusely, I laced my fingers with his to help me stop.

Feeling it, he squeezed my hand tightly. “What’s the plan?”

“Before I explain, can you get the burner phone from my purse?” I asked him as I nodded toward the backseat.

Colt twisted in his seat to reach back to grab it. He searched inside until he found the basic phone.

“Can you call your brothers on each of their phones? If they don’t answer, then we’ll know they listened to me and they’re headed where we’re headed.”

Colt dialed a number and brought the phone up to his ear. It wasn’t long before he hung up. “Creed’s phone went straight to voicemail.”

I nodded and waited silently as he called Knox and then Keelan next. Both of their phones were turned off as well.

I let out a heavy, relief-filled sigh and relaxed against the headrest. “They’re headed to my safe house in Colorado. I have a property in the mountains there.”

“The other one is in Alaska, right?”

“Yeah,” I said and began telling him how the night had unfolded, starting with Creed and I discovering all of my underwear at my house missing. When I got to the part where we’d found Isabelle, my voice broke. Colt grabbed my hand again and held it tightly. As I focused on the road, I blinked a bunch of times to try and stop the burning in my eyes. I held my composure as I continued, finishing with finding him and the sheriff at Desert Stone Fitness.

“I didn’t feel my phone vibrating in my pocket when Creed and Knox called,” Colt explained. “And when I finally did and saw I had a bunch of missed calls from them, I had a feeling something was wrong. That’s why I went outside where it was quiet. So I could hear. When I was far enough away from the music playing at the party, Creed was calling me again and before I could answer…” He let go of my hand to touch the back of his head. He winced a little and brought his hand out in front of him. The tips of his fingers had blood on them.

I reached behind his head. “Let me see.”

He turned a little in his seat to show me. A small spot of blond hair was red. Gently, I moved his hair out of the way so I could see how badly he was hurt. He had an inch-long cut on his scalp, near the bottom of his skull.

“I don’t think you’ll need stitches,” I said as I stared back at the road.

“You do.” He gestured to my arm where I had been shot. “Is it still bleeding?”

I didn’t bother glancing at it. I could feel the blood dripping off me and to the floor between the driver’s seat and the door.

I caught Colt looking me over and staring down at my lap. He said, “You’re covered in glass. You should find somewhere to pull over.”

“I’m too scared to pull over right now,” I said honestly.

He nodded.

I got us on the interstate, heading north. We were both quiet and lost in our thoughts for at least an hour, until I needed to shift in my seat to be more comfortable. The glass shards in my lap spilled between my thighs. I read over the signs on the side of the road, looking for the nearest gas station.

As I took the next exit, I was reminded of something vital. “Shit!”

Startled by my outburst, Colt’s head whipped to face me. “What?”

“Can you check to see if I have cash in my wallet, please?”

Colt took my wallet from my purse and looked through it. He pulled out two twenties.

It took a tremendous amount of restraint to calmly pull into the gas station and park in the farthest, darkest corner of the lot. Turning off the Jeep, I climbed out. Glass fell off of me and onto the ground.

We wouldn’t make it to the safe house with forty dollars. It was too long of a drive. We’d run out of gas before then. I let a little bit of rage out by slamming the Jeep’s door. With my hands on my hips, I moved toward the back of the car and tried to think.

I heard Colt climb out. “Hey,” he said softly as he rounded the car. “Talk to me.”

When he was close enough, I leaned my forehead against his chest. “We have to drive nearly eight hundred miles. We don’t have enough money to make it there and we can’t risk using a credit card or pulling more money from an ATM. There are cameras around everywhere. If we’re traced somewhere pulling out cash…” I let out a sigh. “We can’t do anything that would show what direction we are headed in. Especially now that Mr. X is working with the sheriff.”

Colt started patting his pockets and reached into his front left. “He didn’t take my wallet,” he said as he pulled it from his pocket. “Let me see if I have cash.” He opened his leather bifold and found a thin stack of ones and fives. He counted it and sighed. “I have eighteen dollars.”

I stepped away from him and raked my fingers through my still-damp, tangled hair to rub my scalp. I had prepared for every scenario but this. Logan has prepared me for everything but this. “I have money in my go bag. I have money stashed under the backseat of my car. I even have a gun with an extra magazine stashed in my car. But none of that matters because I sent all of it with your brothers. I don’t regret it. They needed to leave, and I needed to get you, but I have fucked us. Not only do we not have enough money to make it to the safe house, my only gun is no better than a paperweight because it’s out of bullets. And if we don’t make it to Colorado, your brothers will worry and will no doubt try to find us, or worse, come back here. And since I told them to leave their phones behind because they could be traced, we have no way of contacting them.”

“What if you called Logan or Ian?” he asked.

“Logan is exactly who I would call in this situation, but he hasn’t returned my calls. Which means he’s probably dead. But I can’t afford to think about that because I’ll fall apart and we can’t afford for me to fall apart,” I said, my voice turning into a growl. “I don’t have Ian’s number on me. There’s another burner phone in my go bag with two numbers on it. One of the numbers belongs to Ian. I think the other belongs to one of Logan’s ex-Navy SEAL buddies. Logan said I’m not allowed to call those numbers unless he’s dead and I have no other choice.” I let out a humorless laugh and stared up at the night sky. I needed to calm down. Getting upset right now would only make this situation worse. With a heavy sigh, I looked back at Colt. “Logan has always been my go-between with Ian. He thought it was safer that way. Ian’s only ever called me once in the past, to tell me about one of the girls Mr. X had murdered. Logan was tied up with something else at the time and they didn’t want me to be blindsided if I happened to see it on the news.”

Colt was quiet as he stared at me. By the pensive look he wore, I knew he was thinking. “My cousin, Micah, lives a little over an hour from here. We’d have to go out of the way, but he’ll help us.”

I remembered Micah. I had met him at Keelan’s birthday party. “Do you really want to drag him into this?”

His eyes locked with mine and I could see that he didn’t. “What choice do we have?”