Chapter 15 #2
She fumbled with the keys, and after locating the right one, shoved it across the desk.
Archer clamped the key in his fist and ran for room twelve. When he burst in, he saw empty space. Lamp on. Blankets rumpled as if she’d been sitting on the bed.
Her phone was there.
He stared at it for a brutal heartbeat before snatching it up. “She doesn’t have it on her,” he grated out.
“Fuck! No way to track her.”
Archer turned so fast the room blurred. “Call Cannon.”
O already had his phone in hand.
Archer was out the door and hitting the parking lot at a dead run before the call ever connected. O blasted out right behind him. The snow had picked up, slashing sideways beneath the parking lights and already erasing every tire track in the lot.
Archer dropped into a crouch near the edge of the plowed lane, scanning tire impressions while O called the team.
He tapped into the calm buried under layers of rage and terror in his mind and forced himself to think.
He sorted through the overlapping mess of tires from motel guests and delivery trucks, tourists and snowmobiles.
“There.” O pointed at one.
Archer stared at the narrower set of tracks peeling away from the main parking lot and running up the low rise leading away from the motel, along with about ten other sled tracks.
His eyes blurred on the trail as fresh emotion hit.
Jolie was out there, terrified, maybe hurt, while he just stood here.
He threw his head back and let out a howl of pain, the sound like a wounded animal.
O’s arm came around him, holding him. “Easy.”
He did something he’d never done before—he drew strength from his brother-in-arms.
He collected himself, jaw set, staring at the tracks until headlights panned over them.
Cannon’s lead vehicle came in hot with Rome and Townie in a second towing a trailer with sleds behind, and a third vehicle bringing up the rear with the rest of the team, loaded for weather and armed for trouble.
Cannon took one look at Archer’s face and looked at O. “Report.”
“Fresh crossover tracks out the side lot, mixed with snowmobile traffic once they hit the old service road.”
Rome was already kneeling in the snow, gloved hand tracing the tread pattern while the wind whipped.
He pushed to his feet. “They cut northeast.”
Townie swung toward the field, the snow driving at his face and nearly snatching every word he said. “The logging road goes to a dead end. There’s only one standing structure in the direction of these tracks.”
Archer met his gaze.
“Old miner’s cabin.”
The snow fell in bigger, heavier flakes, as if whoever had kidnapped Jolie commanded the weather to provide him cover.
“This keeps up another thirty minutes and we’ll lose the tracks,” he ground out.
“We move now.” No one argued with Cannon’s order.
* * * * *
Jolie woke and burst into tears before she even knew where she was.
Her sobs came first, hard and ugly, tearing out of her chest as her body fought against the bonds holding her in place.
Her wrists burned. Her shoulders screamed. Her mouth tasted sour from fear and drugs. When her eyes finally focused, she saw rough wooden walls and a weak light coming from somewhere in the corner. Her ankles were tied to the legs of a chair.
“Stop.” The male voice snapped across her senses.
She jerked her head, and her neck wrenched painfully, telling her that her head had hung at an awkward angle for too long.
Blinking through tears, she scanned past a black woodstove to a figure. A man.
He stood a few feet away in shadows, but she felt his cold stare cutting through her like a frigid wind. His order came with an edge of irritation.
She sucked in a wet, shaky breath and glared at him. “What, is there no crying in kidnapping?”
He stepped into the ring of light enough for her to see a man built to be forgotten—average height, average build, thinning brown hair, features so plain her eyes slid off them.
But she saw his jaw flex at her sassy response. Good. Let him hate her backtalk. It was the only weapon she had left, and she’d spent her entire adult life slinging food to grouchy customers.
He kept staring at her until dread trickled through her chest. He’d already held her at gunpoint, drugged her and kidnapped her. What else was he capable of?
She took a second to rethink her approach. Trading verbal shots might not be the best way to handle her captor.
So she used the only weapon she had left—her vulnerability.
Since she was already desperate, slapping on a pleading expression didn’t take any effort at all.
Her stomach cramped, and she seized on that. “I’m hungry.” She let her voice wobble. “Is there any food?” She threw a look at the wall by the woodstove where a lone cupboard hung, paint chipped and peeling.
“No.” One word. Flat and final.
So that didn’t work.
Her mind raced, flinging itself through every corner of her memory. Why would someone want to kidnap her? What had she done before a few weeks ago that could possibly matter?
She was nobody. A restaurant manager and a big sister from Chicago. She didn’t even have any pets or hobbies. She didn’t put herself in the public eye in any way. She didn’t even have an angry ex, she was so unremarkable.
She thought of the tower. Maybe this man thought she’d seen something she wasn’t supposed to see up there. A murder or illegal activity that made him want to silence her.
The man only watched her, giving her the impression he wanted something.
Her stomach bottomed out with icy dread at what that could be.
But if this was about rape, she wouldn’t be upright in a chair. She’d be tied to a bed or on the floor.
Or dead already.
The only conclusion she came to was her kidnapper liked watching her fear…
Or he needed information from her.
“I’m really hungry,” she tried again.
He pushed out a hard breath and then walked over to the cupboard and opened the door to reveal a shelf stacked with supplies. He picked up a can and set it on the woodstove.
A second later he abandoned that idea and grabbed a granola bar instead.
He approached her and held it up.
“I need my hands. Untie me. Please?”
He ripped it open and held it toward her mouth.
Jolie forced herself to part her lips and accept a bite of the bar when everything in her wanted to recoil at the thought of this bastard feeding her, but she had to waste time to stay alive and make every second count until she was saved.
Soon Archer would call and check on her. When she didn’t answer, he’d know something was wrong and find a way to rescue her, she was sure of it.
As he leaned in, his sleeve rode up.
A burn scar marked the inside of his wrist.
Her gaze caught on it. The scar wasn’t clean or left by a surgeon’s blade. It had a shiny, uneven look that came from brushing skin against hot metal.
Like a pizza oven.
He noticed her staring and snapped, “What?”
Her pulse kicked. “Your scar.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“That looks like a scar from a pizza oven. Was it a Blodgett conveyor oven? I think ours is a 1048. That’s what we have at the restaurant where I work, and none of us walk away without battle scars.”
Sweat glistened along his hairline even though the cabin was cold away from the stove.
She was getting to him.
“The belt on the conveyor would jam or someone would reach in too fast, and the metal touched your skin before you knew it. It happened all the time. You’d be rushing, trying to get orders out and then—” She nodded toward his wrist. “That.”
“At Antonio’s Ristorante.”
Her stomach pitched. Oh god. He knew her. Knew where she worked.
She wasn’t just some random woman he picked up. He’d hunted her down.
But why?
She wet her lips twice before she could force out the words, “You saw me there?”
“With your friend.”
Even though bile pushed up her throat, she arranged her features into a frown. “Friend? You must mean one of the other waitresses.”
He didn’t say more, just glared at her and stopped pretending he cared if she ate the granola bar or not.
“There are so many workers who come and go. There’s no loyalty in the restaurant industry,” she probed.
“You were training a new girl.”
“I’ve trained a lot of new people,” she said as evenly as she could.
“Stina Velez.”
Her blood ran cold.
Stina.
Not Stina.
Her coworker had been so nervous those first few weeks.
Her smiles were always nervous and she tried too hard.
She even had a habit of watching the front windows to see when a new customer approached the door.
But she and Jolie had become fast friends, bonding over slinging pizza and beer and plates of spaghetti and meatballs.
This man must be after Stina.
Or both of them.
“I’ve been tracking you,” he said in a rough tone. “You should’ve stayed in Chicago instead of taking your little adventures.”
The words made her skin crawl. He knew too much about her for this not to be personal.
He knew she’d left Chicago and knew where to find her. He’d tracked her down to a motel mere hours after Archer had walked away.
Her heart raced so hard that pain surged to her fingertips, reminding her she needed to keep him talking.
“Let me tell you, I couldn’t wait to have an adventure after I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without little fingers under the door or a toy car zinging past my feet.”
His brows snapped together.
“Siblings.” She gave a shrug, awkward with her hands tied behind her back.
“You ever try to pee while someone is crying outside the door because their sock feels wrong? Or because a plastic dinosaur got trapped under the couch? Adventure starts sounding amazing.”
“I should have gagged you.”
She gave him a look even as her heart battered her ribs. “Rookie move. First kidnapping?”
His expression darkened.
“Mine too!”
For one beat, silence stretched between them. Then he said, “You’ve been rescued before, though.”
Every last ounce of warmth drained from her body. She forced a confused smile onto her face. “Oh yeah. A nice ranger rescued me when I got lost hiking.”
His eyes sharpened. “Do rangers use hoods?”
She was wrong—there was enough warmth left in her veins for her to miss it when her blood ran cold all over again.
She made herself blink. “Who said anything about a hood?”
“You did. When I stuck you with the syringe.”
The memory came back in a sick flash—the vehicle, the needle and her own drugged sarcasm. She’d said she liked the hood better.
“Oh.” She let embarrassment color her voice and prayed it sounded real. “I meant I’d prefer a hood to getting stuck with a needle. I clearly watch too many cop shows.”
He stared at her, unconvinced but no longer certain either.
He looked more frustrated, and she could see the temper working in red streaks up his throat. His breathing had changed and sweat dampened the neckline of his black shirt.
Whatever he wanted from her—thought he’d learn—he wasn’t getting it fast enough, and her mouth kept knocking him off-balance.
She could work with that because frustrated men made sloppy choices.
When he shoved the granola bar at her mouth again, Jolie took another bite, barely tasting the sweetness while her mind homed in on one goal.
Keep him talking.
Keep him irritated.
For now, frustrating him was the best chance she had at staying alive.