Chapter Seventeen
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Colt shoved open the door and hit the stairs at a run, boots pounding behind him as Brenna and Harlan kept pace. The morning sun was already scorching the parking lot, but it was the heat in his chest that burned.
Nine hostages.
Nine lives in the hands of someone who knew exactly how to bait them.
They piled into the SUV. Harlan jumped behind the wheel, Colt riding shotgun, Brenna climbing into the back. Doors slammed. Colt jammed his earpiece into place.
“Noah, we’re en route,” he said.
“Copy,” Noah’s voice crackled through the comm. “Second team will be about five minutes out. Don’t wait. Just send us a sitrep when you land.”
Colt was already nodding. “We won’t wait.”
Harlan floored it, gravel spraying behind them as they tore out of the lot and hit the road north.
Colt braced a hand against the dash, eyes fixed ahead, heart hammering harder with every mile. This was a trap. Every instinct screamed it. But they didn’t have the luxury of caution. Not with nine people at risk. Not with Beck, Gary, and Naomi on that list.
He didn’t know the other six. Family members of the original Timberline hostages. Probably good people caught in the crossfire of something none of them had started. But the other three? Beck was one of theirs. And Gary and Naomi…
Colt ground his teeth.
Was one of them a victim or playing the part? Had one of them staged their own kidnapping to throw suspicion? Or were they just more names Wallace had twisted into leverage?
Colt didn’t know. Not yet.
But he was damn sure about one thing.
He wasn’t letting anyone die today.
The SUV ate up the road, tires humming over blacktop. Harlan didn’t speak. None of them did. The air inside felt heavier than it should’ve, like it carried the weight of what waited ahead.
Colt turned in his seat and looked at Brenna.
She met his gaze, steady.
No fear. Not in her eyes. What he saw there was worse. The shadows of Timberline. The echo of the compound. She wasn’t frozen. She wasn’t breaking. She was remembering. Fighting her way through it in real time.
Colt’s throat tightened. He cursed under his breath and turned forward again.
He wished he could shield her from this. From all of it. But they were past the point of shielding anyone. This was their fight, same as it was back then. The enemy just had a new face.
He unlocked his phone and pulled up the photos. Every message the killer had sent them. Every taunt. Every clue.
Nine hostages. Some with their faces covered. Gagged. Some slumped, some upright. He zoomed in on the latest images where Gary, Naomi, and Beck were. The room was windowless. Concrete walls. Industrial lighting. He traced the shadows along the floor, the smear near the drain in the corner.
“Same game,” Brenna said. “Different board.”
Colt glanced at her again and realized she was also looking at the photos. Like him, she was trying to work out the best plan of action. No matter what they did, it’d be dangerous. No way around that, but the idea was to minimize the danger and get out the hostages.
The real hostages anyway.
Since it was possible one of them was the killer.
“I suggest we go in hard since the killer will be expecting us,” Colt said. “Harlan, you circle wide and scan the perimeter. Look for secondary access or trip lines. Brenna and I will take point inside. We clear the hostages, we clear the threat.”
Brenna gave a short nod. “Works for me.”
Harlan didn’t argue. “Copy that.”
Colt tapped the comm in his ear. “Noah, here’s our move. Harlan’s going to sweep the perimeter. Brenna and I go in through the front. We’ll clear the room, then eliminate whatever threat we find.”
“Understood,” Noah replied. “Garrett McCall and Cal Granger will be backup for you and Brenna when they arrive. Weston will cover the perimeter with Harlan. I’ll respond where I’m needed.”
Colt didn’t answer that last part. Noah didn’t need his permission. He didn’t take part in a lot of ops these days, but Colt hadn’t forgotten what he was capable of. None of them had.
“Drone’s up,” Noah added. “You’ll have eyes on Timberline in five.”
Not a lot of time since they were only nine minutes out from Timberline. Still, it would have to do.
Colt looked out the windshield as the first stretch of back road thinned into dirt and scrub. They were getting close.
Too close to back down now.
The SUV jostled over the ruts in the dirt road as they closed in on Timberline. Dust kicked up behind them, the ghost of every bad memory rising with it.
Colt kept his eyes on the screen as the first drone images came through. Grainy at first, then sharpening.
No visible explosives. No tripwires. No motion. Too clean.
“That’s not good,” he muttered.
Brenna leaned forward, her voice low. “He’s not going to leave anything obvious.”
Colt agreed. This guy wanted a show, not a warning.
He zoomed in on the image. A white van parked near the back entrance. No markings. Doors shut. It sat like it had been there a while.
“There,” Colt said, tapping the screen. “That’s how he moved them.”
“Not all nine at once,” Harlan said. “Too risky.”
Colt nodded. “Piecemeal. Probably took him hours. Maybe days.”
Which meant this wasn’t thrown together. It had planning. Patience. The kind of operation you build when you know exactly who you’re targeting.
He stared at the old facility. Timberline looked like it always had—abandoned, weathered, dead quiet. But there was life inside it now. And not the kind anyone wanted.
His grip tightened on the phone.
“ETA?” he asked.
“Two minutes,” Harlan said.
Colt’s pulse ticked louder in his ears the closer they got. The tree line opened up, giving them their first clear view of Timberline. It looked quiet. Still. But nothing about it felt empty.
Noah’s voice broke through the comms. “We’ve IDed the other six hostages. Facial recognition confirms they’re all related to the original Timberline victims. Siblings, cousins. I’ve got full data on each for after we get them out.”
Colt didn’t respond. Just listened.
“Bring them out,” Noah added.
Harlan eased the SUV to a stop at the end of the narrow road. Dust floated past the windshield. No movement ahead. No sound.
Colt unbuckled and opened the door.
It was time.
Colt stepped out into the heat. The sun pressed down like a weight, but it was the silence that landed harder. Too still. Too deliberate.
He scanned the road ahead. Dirt and gravel, chewed up by recent tire tracks. Not just once. Multiple trips. The ground bore the signs of it—deep ruts, churned dust. The killer had been here more than a few times. Set this up piece by piece, just like the hostages.
Brenna came up beside him. Her eyes swept the terrain. No words. Just focus.
Harlan checked his weapon, then scanned the rear. “Movement?”
“None yet,” Colt said.
Noah’s voice crackled in their ears. “Ran the plates on the van. They’re bogus. Nothing in any system. Burner plates. No help there.”
Colt gritted his teeth. Of course they were.
They opened the back of the SUV and grabbed their gear. Vests. Weapons. Comms checked.
Harlan snapped the last strap into place. “Watch your asses.”
He took off to the left, disappearing into the tree line with barely a sound.
Colt turned toward the front entrance. Brenna already moved ahead of him, steps light, body low.
She used the trees for cover, blending into shadow and brush.
He followed, every nerve stretched tight.
The scent of sunbaked dirt filled his lungs.
Timberline loomed ahead, all cracked stone and rusted metal, a graveyard full of ghosts.
And one of them had come back to finish what they’d started.
Colt froze mid-step. His eyes narrowed on the patch of ground just ahead. The dirt looked off. Too loose. Shifted, like it had been dug up and covered again.
Brenna stopped beside him. She saw it too.
Colt crouched, scanned the spot, and caught the faint glint of metal just below the surface.
“IED,” he said quietly. “Partially buried. Looks pressure-triggered.”
They backed off slowly, careful where they stepped. Every inch mattered now.
Through the comm, Harlan’s voice came sharp. “Got an IED on the west side, too. Same setup.”
Colt’s jaw locked. Booby traps. Classic misdirection. Meant to slow them down, maybe herd them where the killer wanted them.
“I’m approaching the rear of the building now,” Harlan added. “The door’s wide open.”
“Be careful,” was all Colt could say because he knew without a doubt that Harlan would be going in. And that someone would no doubt be waiting for him.
The open door wasn’t an invitation. It was the beginning of the trap.
Colt and Brenna kept moving, weaving through the last stretch of trees, steps slow and deliberate. Sweat rolled down Colt’s back, but he didn’t feel the heat. All his focus was on the path ahead.
“Noah,” Brenna whispered, “we’re approaching the front.”
His response came back fast and low. “Garrett and Cal just arrived. They’re coming up behind you.”
Good. But Colt didn’t feel any safer.
They reached the edge of the tree line. No more cover beyond this point. Just open ground and the entrance to Timberline. Half-collapsed steps, rusted-out doors. All of it waiting.
Colt raised his weapon and scanned the roof. Then the trees to the side. Nothing. No gleam of glass, no shadow that didn’t belong.
But that didn’t mean someone wasn’t out there.
He looked at Brenna. She gave a single nod.
They stepped out.
Colt moved with Brenna across the last stretch of ground, eyes sweeping every inch for more IEDs. The dirt near the entrance looked undisturbed, but that didn’t mean it was safe. Nothing about this place was.
The front door loomed ahead. Metal, dented and rusted, but still solid in its frame. A scarred relic from the last time evil lived here.
Colt shifted to the right. Brenna took the left. They moved like they had a hundred times before—silent, in sync.
He reached for the handle, half expecting it to be locked, wired, or both. But the moment he touched it, the thing creaked open. Slow. Loud. The sound scraped against his nerves.
Beyond it, nothing but black.
It hit him hard. The way the dark swallowed everything past the threshold. Like a mouth waiting to close around them.
The cave.
His chest tightened. He pushed it back. This wasn’t then. But it felt too damn close. God, don’t let it be another cave-in.
He looked at Brenna. She met his eyes. No fear. Only focus.
They nodded.
Colt stepped in first, weapon raised.
And then a gunshot shattered the silence.
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