Chapter 12
Aiden turned in a circle. Even though the fire was out, heat still radiated off the building. Where was Dez? He’d left her right out front and she’d gone to look for Louise, but he hadn’t spotted them.
Hank strode by and Aiden caught his arm. “Have you seen Desiree or Louise? I can’t find either of them.”
Hank drew his eyebrows together. “No, last I saw Desiree was with you. Louise was around before you showed up, but I haven’t seen her for a while.” His eyes widened. “You don’t think they would have gone inside for something, do you?”
Aiden shook his head. “No, Desiree wouldn’t do that.”
The older man nodded but flagged down a firefighter. “Hey, Jimmy. Can you check and make sure no one went inside?”
Jimmy gave him a salute and entered through the open metal frame of the front door.
Anxiety pitched in Aiden’s gut. Something wasn’t right.
He’d told her to find a place to stay for the night, but she wouldn’t have left without telling him where she was going.
He dug his phone from his pocket and tapped her icon then made his way toward where he’d parked.
Maybe she was waiting in the car. Yeah, that was possible.
He pressed his phone to his ear. After four rings her voicemail kicked in. He cursed and hung up. Clenching his hand around his device, he broke into a jog. Sweat collected at his brow.
Dozens of people lingered around the store and even more on the street. She couldn’t have been snatched that easily. Not without someone spotting something. He reached the car and his heart sank.
Empty.
Cupping his hands over his mouth, he raced back toward the crowd. “Desiree!” he bellowed.
A few people turned his way. He stopped a couple watching the scene. “Have you seen Desiree? The owner of the shop? She was just here.”
The man shook his head but the woman frowned. “I think I saw her walk that way,” she said, pointing toward the direction he’d come from.
“Was she alone?”
“Yes. But she was speaking to someone on the phone.”
Maybe McKenna or Josie had picked her up and she’d forgotten to call. He brought his screen to life and found Jaxon’s number.
“Deputy Thorne!” A frantic female voice made him snap his head up.
Louise ran down the street, arms flailing in front of her. She pushed through the crowd, and he marched toward her. He returned his phone to his pocket.
Her lined cheeks puffed in and out as if she’d been running. A red tint coated her skin, and her hair was fluffed around her shoulders. “Louise, what’s wrong?”
“It’s Desiree. She—she took her. In my car.” Tears rolled out of the corners of Louise’s eyes to run down her cheeks.
Terror gripped his insides and his body temperature plummeted. He caught the woman’s shoulders and squeezed. “I’m going to find her, but I need your help. What kind of car do you drive?”
“A 2002 blue Toyota Camry,” she said, her voice shaking.
He gazed at the crowd, looking for Hank. He’d need as many cops out looking for the vehicle as possible. “Who was driving? Male? Female?”
“Female. Oh gosh, I don’t want to guess, but I recognized the woman’s voice and I saw her hair peeking out from her ski mask.”
Ski mask? Holy shit. Knots the size of boulders formed in his gut, and he fought to keep his patience in check. Losing it now would only make Louise clam up and slow down the process. He had to keep his shit together.
Spotting Hank, he gestured him over.
“Who do you suspect it was? Even if you’re wrong it gives us a starting point.” He fought to sound reassuring, but his tone likely held more than a note of impatience.
Hank joined them, his face sweaty and a grumpy expression creasing his cheeks. “What’s going on?”
“Desiree was kidnapped.” He gave Louise’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Tell him.”
“I was outside watching the commotion and someone pressed a gun to my side and hustled me down the street. She put me into my car and made me call Desiree—”
“She?” Hank asked, whipping out a pen and a notepad.
“Yes. Desiree came to the window and she made her get in the back and . . . and then she drove away. She stopped on Bighorn Street and told me to get out.”
“Who was it, Louise?” Aiden pressed. He needed a goddamn name. Now.
“I think it was Meredith Wilkes. Sure looked like her hair and sounded like her. She was just in the store yesterday.”
Aiden dropped his hands from Louise. “I’ll be damned.” He cleared his throat, the building panic in his chest spreading like wildfire. If Louise was right and Meredith had Dez, this whole thing might not have anything to do with Dez and everything to do with him. “What direction did they go?”
She pointed a shaky hand toward Bighorn Street.
He turned to Hank. “Put out an alert for Louise’s vehicle.” He rattled off the make and model and Louise gave her plate number. Hank nodded his agreement and spoke into the radio at his shoulder.
“I’m going after them,” Aiden called. He pulled his phone from his pocket and ran for his vehicle, yanking his keys out on the way.
Meredith.
Damn, why hadn’t she even crossed his mind? She’d moved in next door to him a month ago, but she’d barely struck up a conversation. Their interactions were mostly hellos in passing.
Had she moved there to be closer to him?
She could have known that he’d brought Dez home Saturday night . . . could’ve even been listening or, fuck, watching, while he made love to Dez. The attacks had started Sunday night.
Holy fucking shit.
Meredith was jealous he was seeing Dez and she could very well hurt her.
He jerked open his door and hit Wes’s icon.
There were too many places around Whistlemore to throw someone off a cliff or dump a body.
Meredith had likely gone to the woods, and Wes was the best person to consult regarding the area.
The line rang over the speaker as Aiden pulled away from the curb.
“Man, it’s the middle of the night,” Wes whined groggily.
“Dez is missing. Meredith took her and I need your help.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” A cough followed, then a groan. “You’re going to have to go over that again more slowly.”
Aiden made an impatient sound and gave Wes a rundown on the details of the night. “I need you to think where someone would take a person if they wanted to . . . get rid of them.”
“Well, Jesus,” Wes ground out. “There’s like a million fucking hectares of wilderness, but okay. Let me think.”
Silence ticked by.
“Didn’t you take Meredith on a picnic date? You asked me for a spot, but I can’t remember.”
Aiden snapped his fingers, the memory rushing back. “Willow Lake. It’s about twenty minutes deep into the woods, up Pioneer Road.”
A flashback of him sitting next to Willow Lake, surrounded by wilderness and Meredith, blinked through his mind. He’d kissed her there, and then they’d gone to his house and had sex. He couldn’t say they’d hit it off, and he hadn’t called her after that.
“What can I do to help?” Wes asked, eagerness pushing the fatigue from his voice. A metal belt buckle clanked in the background. He was already getting dressed.
It wasn’t a stretch that she’d try to hurt Desiree at the spot he’d taken her for their date. But he couldn’t leave any stone unturned. “Can you stop by my place? Check my house and search around hers—don’t break in unless you see Dez and she needs help.”
“Yeah, right. I’m not bound to the same laws you are, so if I have an inkling to search her place you can bet I will.”
Appreciation spread through him. He wouldn’t let Wes get in trouble, but damn he had good friends.
“I’ll call Jaxon and Quin too,” Wes continued. “When I’m done at your place, we’ll come help you search.”
“Thanks, man.” Aiden clicked off. He steered the car onto Pioneer Road, and the trees darkened the night even more.
Hold on, baby. I’m coming.
* * *
The car whizzed around the bends in the road, going much too fast for the curves. Dez crunched herself closer to the car door. She needed to get out of the vehicle. Wherever Meredith was taking her, things wouldn’t end well unless she got a leg up.
Right now, Meredith had the weapon. Straightening her spine a few inches, Dez searched the front passenger seat. Her phone sat on the well-loved material. By now, Aiden must have realized she was missing.
He’d pull out all the stops. “You know the police will find you, right? Louise isn’t stupid. I’m sure she has something that will identify you.”
Meredith’s profile turned hard. “By ‘police’ you mean Aiden, right? The guy you took from me.”
Dez reared back her head. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t play dumb. Aiden needed time to process things between us. But he brought you home from the bar Saturday night when he should have been with me.”
“H-How do you know about that?”
“Because I live next door, dummy. I’m on the other side of his duplex.”
Questions spun in Dez’s mind, churning with the unrest in her gut. “You’re telling me he cheated on you with me when you live right next door? That doesn’t even make any sense.”
Meredith whipped the car around another bend. Dez’s shoulder slammed into the door, jolting her.
“Months ago, he and I hit it off on a date. We made love. He’s crazy about me.
Crazy. I see it in his eyes every time I run into him.
But I’m a patient woman. I gave him his space so he could come to terms with his feelings, but instead, you got in his head and in his bed and screwed everything up, you whore! ”
Indignation burned Dez’s skin. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. Did he tell you he cared about you? Did he ask you to wait while he ‘came to terms with his feelings’?”
Meredith steered the car onto a short gravel road then halted the vehicle. She snapped off her seatbelt, and the metal piece connected with her window with a resounding clank.
“If you weren’t in the way he would have.”
Ice frosted Dez’s veins.
“You put a spell on him. I saw all the evil things in your store. That’s why I burned it down—it’s an abomination.”
Anger melted away the icy fear gripping her.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.
You’re afraid of something you don’t understand.
What I believe in is love. Unconditional love for every being on this planet.
I believe in intention, putting your heart and soul into the goodness of the world knowing it will have a ripple effect.
I don’t know anyone who can—or would—tamper with the free will of another individual.
” She wet her lips, needing to convince this woman that she hadn’t swayed Aiden.
“Every one of us has free will,” she continued. “Aiden made a choice. You’re making a choice now. Ask yourself this, Meredith—are you acting out of love? Are you creating a world that you want to live in by harming me to get back at Aiden?”
A chilly look overtook Meredith’s expression, turning her blue eyes to glaciers. “I have no love for someone like you.” She flicked a disgusted look down Dez’s body and back up. “You’ll never get between Aiden and me again.”
Meredith lifted the gun. “Now get out of the car.”
Dez gasped. She stared at the barrel of the gun. If she ran now, she’d get shot. If she didn’t, she’d get shot anyway. Summoning all her energy, Dez held up one hand, nodded, and reached for the door handle.
Slowly, as if she were complying, she eased open the door and stepped outside. The cool night air touched her skin and the moonlight lit the gravel around her, turning the stones into glittering rocks. She scanned the ground. A trail jutted off from the road.
The car door opened and Meredith climbed out. Angst pressed against Dez’s temples.
Now, now, now!
She turned and ran for the trail.
“Hey!” Skittering footsteps reached her ears.
Dez didn’t slow. She ran into the cover of the trees. Warning bells screeched in her ears as Meredith screamed after her. Terror squeezed her windpipe, keeping her scream lodged at the back of her throat.
Crack!
The gun fired. A bullet ripped through the bark of the tree near Dez’s side. She didn’t stop. Darting away from the path, she barreled into the woods. Branches slapped against her cheeks and arms as she dove deeper into the brush. More shots were fired.
She had to find cover. Fast.