Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
A foghorn blared through the kitchen, driving Ward to his feet. He was moving before he saw that his phone flared with angry red warning.
“What the hell is that?” Brick said through the earpiece.
“Truck. Now!” Ward shouted back.
He pounded down the hallway, wrenched open the front door, and hit the driveway at a run.
Brick stormed in from the side of the lawn where he’d been hiding in the bushes, waiting for the asshole who never came. For a large man, he moved surprisingly fast. They fell into lock step halfway down the driveway. “What happened?”
“Della hit the panic button.” He was in his truck with the engine started before he forced himself to slow down and look at the alert’s map.
She’d triggered the alert just south of the bridge.
His gut clenched. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Spencer — Tracker’s activated. Annie’s cell signal is offline. Checking Diggs.
Ward put the truck in gear.
“Where we headed?” Brick asked.
“The bridge.” Ward tossed his phone to Brick. “Watch for texts.”
His phone dinged as he pulled onto the street.
“Uh, some guy named Spencer says Diggs’s phone is online, but not moving, and nobody is picking up. Della’s tracker remains in proximity to Diggs. What’s that mean?”
Ward took the next corner a little too fast. “Not sure yet.” Then he pushed it through the next light, which was well past yellow.
“Hey, try to get us there in one piece,” Brick said. “You’re no good to her dead, yeah?”
He didn’t ease off. He couldn’t. Seconds counted. Milliseconds.
The phone dinged.
“Oh…ah, hell.” Brick glanced at Ward.
“What?”
Two more lights and he’d be on Bridge Road.
“Diggs’s phone just went offline,” Brick said. His voice was too calm. Like he was talking someone off a ledge.
His throat tightened. “They go off the bridge?”
“I’ll ask,” Brick said as he tapped out the question.
Ward forced himself to focus on the road and not the memory of his mother’s car as it tipped over the railing. Traffic was heavy heading into downtown for the last day of the festival. Lucky for them, he was heading out of town, not into it.
It felt like a lifetime before Brick finally responded. “He says no. Last ping from the necklace indicates they are, or were, well past the river.”
Relief let him breathe again. The car wasn’t floating upside down in the water. It was something.
“South of the bridge…that puts them out of town,” Brick said. "Nothing out there but fallow farmland and ditches. Maybe they just got a flat tire or something.”
“She wouldn’t set off the alert for a flat tire.” His mind raced with possible scenarios, none of them good. “Annie’s a skilled driver, and she was on high alert. If her phone’s offline… Were they hit?”
“He doesn’t know. He says, quote, ‘Car isn’t equipped with impact alert features.’ But, um…” Ward glanced at Brick. “The necklace is on the move. Heading southeast, going about sixty miles per hour.”
The steering wheel creaked under Ward’s grip. “He took her.”
“You don’t know that, man,” Brick said. “Maybe they had a flat tire or broke down and someone gave them a ride, uh, away from town?”
Ward hit the steering wheel. “Dammit.”
He punched the gas, racing around an old farm truck to make it through the yellow light at the next intersection. One more turn. “Tell Spencer to stay on her signal.”
“He says you’re one mile from Annie’s last ping,” Brick announced. “Eight miles from the necklace, but it’s moving faster than you. It just hit the thruway, heading north. He can tell all that? Where is he, in a helicopter or something?”
“He’s in a van. He was set up at our fallback in Wilkes-Barre. Tell him to get his ass on the road if he hasn’t already.” Ward turned onto Bridge Road and gunned it. He spared a glance for the spot burned in his memory as they flew over the bridge. No gaps in the rails. No skid marks.
The relief that skittered through his chest fizzled as he caught sight of the wrecked SUV. It had flipped onto the other side of the river and now rested upside down against a tree like a dead bug.
He swore, ripped apart by the need to both chase after Della and check on his team.
He couldn’t be in two places at once.
“Is that gas on the road?” Brick gripped the dash with one hand and the phone with the other.
Ward slammed on the brakes, coming to a skidding stop just short of the wreck.
It wasn’t much, but there was a puddle of something that could be gas. He could see a shattered phone a few feet away from the back passenger door, which swung lazily open on one hinge.
Diggs hung upside down, suspended by his seat belt. His hands fumbled, feeble and shaky, with the belt buckle.
He couldn’t see Annie.
For a long second, his need to get to Della raged.
One thing at a time, son. One thing at a time. What ’ s right in front of you? What comes first?
It was his mother’s voice. Calm, with a hint of laughter. He’d had a game, a final to study for, and a date all on the same day.
“Spencer says he’s headed this way,” Brick said as he opened the door.
“Get Diggs out of there and away from the car in case there’s a fire.” Ward pointed at the man as he and Brick got out of the truck. “I’ll get Annie."
“On it!” Brick called out as he rushed to the back of the upside-down SUV.
Ward raced to the driver’s side. The door was crunched and mangled near the hood as if it had been hit by something much bigger and harder than a tree. Airbags hung limp from the side and the front, like popped balloons.
All of the damage appeared concentrated. Like they’d been T-boned, but toward the front edge of the car, instead of the center where it would have caused more damage.
If someone had deliberately aimed at the front edge of the car to stop them or run them off the road, Annie would have tried to angle away to reduce the impact.
It was bad luck that the side of the road here sloped just enough to flip the vehicle.
Or the stalker had picked this particular place on purpose.
It was perfect, from a strategic point of view, if someone wanted to cause a non-deadly crash.
He glanced at the back seat on the way to the driver’s side door, but he knew what he’d see.
Nothing.
Della was gone. Not dead.
He had to believe that. He had to know it. She was not dead. He could save her. He would save her.
He focused on Annie. She lay half under the steering wheel and deflated air bag, half draped across the center console as if she’d been trying to exit out the other side of the car and ran out of steam.
He yanked on the door, but it was mangled and bent and didn’t budge. The glass had cracked and bowed inward, but hadn’t broken. He turned to go around to the passenger side and caught sight of Brick jogging back toward him.
He’d left Diggs leaning up against a tree a few feet away from Ward’s truck.
Ward pulled open the passenger door. “Diggs?”
“Your man looks like he got hit by the entire offensive line, but I think he’ll be okay. He just got his bell rung. Fire department’s on the way, but it’ll be slow. Festival traffic.”
“Good.” Ward leaned in and touched Annie gently on the arm. “Annie.”
She blinked up at him. “Took you…long enough.”
Her voice was weak. She had a bruise blossoming across her forehead, angry red marks on her neck, and blood dripping from her nose.
“You look like hell.”
“Oh good. Matches…how I feel. He got her. I’m…sorry.” She tried to shift, then winced.
“Hey, stay put.” He put a hand on her shoulder to keep her still. “Help’s on the way.”
She cleared her throat. “Bastard hit us…with a stunner.”
Ward brushed her hair off her face. “You get a good look at him?”
“Yeah.” She licked her lips. “It’s Hume. Stunt guy. Not trying to hide. Arrogant. Driving…big Ford truck. With a…grill guard. Dark blue. Plate…F4S…something. All I saw.”
“That’s great work, Annie.” He tapped it all out into a quick message to Spencer.
“Ward,” Diggs said from behind him.
Ward turned to see the man leaning against the lopsided bumper. “He drugged her.”
Brick held an arm out to Diggs like he was afraid the man would fall over. “Take it easy, man. You probably got a concussion.”
“Head’s okay. Was the Taser. Damn. Hurts.” Diggs grimaced. “Don’t think Della was injured, but…he carried her. She was out.”
Sirens flared in the distance. Ward glared at the bridge. If he stayed, he’d be stuck here answering questions for hours.
“Go…,” Annie urged. “Wasting…time.”
He let out a frustrated growl. “Brick? Stay with them? Make sure they get seen too?”
“You sure you don’t want back up, man?” Brick asked with a frown.
Ward started toward the truck. “I’ve got backup. Spencer’s mobile.”
The sirens grew louder.
“He isn’t here. He’s on the road. You need a wingman,” Brick said.
“No. I don’t.” He shook his head. “Not this time.”
“I know that look, man. I seen it before. It ain’t a good look.”
“You can’t go with me.”
Brick had that stubborn look on his face that used to scare the opposing team. “You can’t stop me. You never could in practice.”
“Yes, I can.” Ward grabbed his friend’s arm to get him to stop. “This isn’t a game, Brick. You aren’t trained or licensed. I am. If you go with me, you’ll split my focus and I can’t afford that. I need you here. I need to know someone’s looking out for my team.”
His head was already compromised. He refused to put his friend’s life in jeopardy too. He refused to have to choose between Brick and Della.
Brick glanced down at Ward’s holster. “You telling me your head is totally clear on this?”
“Crystal.” Ward started walking again. “My only priority is keeping Della safe. I’ll do whatever it takes to make that happen. Whatever it takes . Get me? That’s my job. That’s what I get paid to do.”
Brick kept pace with him. “Yeah. Seems to me it stopped being just a job about a month ago.”
Ward got in and slammed the door. He met Brick’s gaze. “You’re right. But it doesn’t change anything.”
Brick nodded and blew out a breath. “Do what you gotta do, man. I’ll run interference with the cops.”
Ward put the truck in gear. “Follow Annie’s lead. She’s good at spin.”
“I hope that ain’t all she’s good at,” Brick said.
Ward hit the gas. He was over the hill and around the next bend before the flashing lights of emergency rescue reached the bridge.
He’d lost a lot of time. The asshole was already on the highway before Ward had even made it to the busted-up SUV. The last he’d seen on the tracking app, Della’s necklace was headed east on the 202.
If he stayed on that road, it would take them straight into Morristown. Ward doubted that was their final destination.
Where were they going? New York City? New Jersey?
He picked up the phone and glanced at it with one eye on the road, one hand on the wheel.
No dots.
"What the hell?”
He took the next curve too fast. Sunlight glinted off metal in the middle of the road a split second before he heard the pop, pop, pop, pop! of blown tires.