Chapter 14
Beau fought dizziness for half the drive to Austin. Adrenaline ran out long before he hit Buda, a small town twenty minutes from Austin, give or take. He was at a disadvantage, being twenty minutes behind Chloe and Ivy. A helluva lot could happen in that timeframe.
They would have arrived in Austin roughly ten minutes ago.
Thankfully, Ivy had input her address into his phone’s map system, or finding her would be like throwing a dart at the wall.
He could hope that he hit the right address, but that would be wishful thinking.
He’d stopped wishing and believing in magical endings the first time his mom had come home depressed after disappearing for a whole weekend.
He couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old.
The neighbor lady who used to watch him after school had worn a path in her carpet while waiting for his mother to arrive.
He couldn’t remember her name, only that she’d been retired and had lost her husband.
The memory was odd because Beau distinctly remembered wondering how she could have “lost” a grown man.
He’d taken the comment literally instead of the way she’d intended.
Usually, a memory like that one brought a smile to his lips. Not the part about his missing mother returning too broken to fix, but the losing a grown man bit. It was good to have a sense of humor when you had a childhood like his. He clung to anything remotely funny and milked it.
In this case, he recognized it as his brain's way of trying to distract him from his worst fears. Ivy wasn’t picking up her phone. She hadn’t answered his texts, either. Same thing for Chloe. Did they realize how much more that made everyone panic?
Signs for Buda came and went as he floored the gas pedal even harder. He could only hope there were no cops around with radar guns as he sped toward downtown Austin and Ivy’s condo.
Rather than squealing tires when arriving at Ivy’s condo like a wild banshee, he decided to take a calmer approach.
Parking in the neighborhood across 12th Street seemed like the best play.
She lived on the second floor, so he needed to be careful poking around.
He didn’t need anyone calling the law on him.
Getting hauled away wouldn’t do Ivy or Chloe any good.
It wasn’t like he could tell a cop there was possible danger.
Travis had set the stage for the law to swing by and check on her condo, so he needed to be careful.
He slowly exhaled the breath he’d been holding as he parked the truck and then cut the lights off.
Some called him old-fashioned, but he immediately disabled automatic features on every vehicle he drove.
Fortunately for him, his siblings felt the same way.
Maybe they had more in common than any of them realized.
Shared DNA had to account for something, right?
Beau struggled against the acid churning in his stomach. The bile rising in the back of his throat wasn’t helping.
He gave himself a mental headshake and refocused. This pain was nothing compared to the kind that would accompany losing Ivy or Chloe, or both. Nope. Couldn’t go there. He was most likely overreacting. His stress levels had shot through the roof the minute he’d gotten the text from his mother.
Hold on a sec. It dawned on him the message might not have come from her.
Couldn’t someone have hacked into her phone and sent the message from a remote computer?
It was possible she was out there somewhere, hiding, instead of being held captive.
Luring him to the campsite might have been a means to draw her out, as well.
He mulled over the thought as he crossed 12th and entered her neighborhood.
Should he just walk up to her door and knock?
Listen? Ring a doorbell? Hell, he didn’t know what he was about to encounter.
The only thing that mattered was getting eyes on Ivy and Chloe and seeing for himself that they were fine.
Then, he would text Travis, who was just as worried as Beau, so he could spread the word to the others.
Everyone would be on pins and needles until Beau gave the word that everything was okay.
He walked up and down the street, passing her building several times to ensure no one was hiding behind a wall, shrub, or tree trunk. When he was certain no one was there who shouldn’t be, he moved behind the wall next to the parking garage.
On the street, he noticed Chloe’s car was nowhere to be found. Did that mean she’d already headed back to the ranch? If so, wouldn’t she have contacted Travis by now? He, in turn, would’ve let the group know she was fine.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as a cat crawled out from behind the wheel of a vehicle. It was dark, but the parking garage was lit enough for him to see the walking path clearly. He moved around to the front of the building.
It was long past midnight. This day had gone on for what felt like forever.
His stomach growled. The power bar he’d eaten on the way here wasn’t enough to keep his stomach from making noise—noise he couldn’t afford to make at the wrong moment.
Food was the last thing on his mind right now.
If his stomach would stop reminding him that he’d skipped supper, that would be great.
After circling the building, he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Thankfully, Austin was a twenty-four-seven type of town, so no one would suspect him walking around at night unless condo management had security cameras.
He’d walked as nonchalantly as possible given the amount of pain he was in.
He took a deep breath and headed toward her building.
The external staircase made it easy to get to the second floor, or would have if his body wasn’t currently broken.
The effort it took to climb the stairs reminded him how few reserves he had left.
He probably should have brought some kind of weapon with him.
Though in his condition, that could end up getting him into more trouble. Without more adrenaline, he wouldn’t have much fight in him. Desire didn’t always equal results. His stamina was shot to hell.
Beau stopped in front of 2B and listened. As far as he could tell, there were no external security cameras. They could probably be the size of the head of a pin, but larger cameras would be more of a deterrent, in his opinion.
No sounds were coming from 2B. He hadn’t seen Chloe’s sedan parked on the street like he assumed he would. Would she park in a visitor spot in the garage? Were there visitor spots in the garage? He should have checked.
He pulled out his cell and sent a text that he’d arrived.
Then, he lightly knocked on the door.
No response.
Beau bit back a string of curses. There was no way he’d beat them to the condo. He hadn’t seen Chloe’s sedan parked on the street. Did that mean they’d never made it? Maybe they’d stopped off for food. Was that wishful thinking?
His gut said something was wrong.
By now, wouldn’t they have reached out to say they were okay? If not Ivy, then Chloe?
His phone buzzed, indicating a text message.
He fished it out of his pocket and immediately checked the screen, hoping, no, praying the text was from one of them.
Ivy’s name popped up.
He read the message: going to Austin. brB
Hold on a sec. He double-checked the screen, then realized she had an iPhone, and his was a Google device despite both being from the ranch. Messages were notoriously lost or slow when texting between platforms. Shit.
Ivy had tried to let him know their plans all along. She’d undoubtedly sent the text after they were clear of Saddle Junction.
Did that mean they’d already gone back?
Chloe could haul-ass when she wanted to. Had she driven faster than he to the condo, spent fifteen or twenty minutes here, then headed back to the ranch?
It was possible.
He moved away from the door and, with great pain, made it down the flight of stairs. This could explain why Chloe’s vehicle was nowhere to be found.
Was it too easy an explanation?
It also occurred to him that the messages he’d sent might not have made it to Ivy.
Nor any notifications of the phone calls.
He’d had a girlfriend who’d freaked out and called his mother trying to track him down once because he hadn’t returned any of her calls.
The different platforms were the cause. She’d decided he was cheating and broke off their relationship.
Occam’s Razor came to mind; the easy answer usually was the right one, which wasn’t absolute. It was just the best starting point.
Were there other messages out there in cyberspace? Urgent ones?
Another buzz. He looked down at the screen in his hands.
The message read: Made it
Another followed: C you soon
And then nothing.
He walked down the sidewalk in the opposite direction from where he’d come. He could cut around the block and wait in case any other messages finally came through. He didn’t want to get back on the highway before he knew where Ivy and Chloe were.
After turning the corner, he walked halfway down the next block while he waited for the airwaves to connect phones or however the hell that worked.
Frustration nipped at him.
And then he saw it.
Chloe’s car was parked. The lights were off. No one appeared to be inside.
Beau’s stress levels skyrocketed.
Another buzz. Another message: They’re here
Ivy turned and ran on Chloe’s cue, expecting a shot to be fired. Relief washed over her when it didn’t happen. She’d been so certain that she’d clenched her back teeth so hard her molars could’ve cracked.
There was a problem. She’d been separated from Chloe and had no idea where she could be.
Clay and Royce were around here somewhere.
The kid who’d let her escape once hadn’t come this time.
Had they fired him from the crew? Punished him?
Or worse? The fact that he’d let her escape led her to believe he was a good kid.
It was a shame that he’d been forced to join a crew where he didn’t belong.
He was young, too. He had his whole life ahead of him.
Getting caught at his age could mean spending the rest of his life behind bars.
The thought of being locked in a cell for years upon years made her claustrophobic. Ivy shifted her thoughts back to her current reality.
Chloe, where are you?
They hadn’t thought to exchange numbers, or she could’ve fired off a text. Speaking of which, why hadn’t she heard from Beau?
Should she circle back to her condo or go back to Chloe’s car and wait? Should she hide in the nearby bushes or behind a half-wall?
Or would Clay and his crony be there? Waiting? Would he shoot this time?
It dawned on her that she could request a police escort back to the car, if it was still there.
Would the police come? Or would she be told to go inside and lock her doors?
In a busy city like Austin, was it realistic to think she could call in a request that might be considered a non-emergency in a town of Austin’s size?
Then again, she’d been ambushed by Clay and Royce. Should she report them?
To what end?
On balance, she decided to go back to Chloe’s sedan and see if she’d returned before calling in the law.
There were no guarantees an officer would show up, and Clay might be long gone by now.
Royce and Clay could have retreated somewhere nearby where they were biding their time for the next strike.
Icy fingers gripped her spine at the realization they wouldn’t give up.
The ranch had been a safe haven. She needed to get back there as soon as humanly possible. There, she could regroup without the threat of one of them jumping from behind a tree.
Breathe.
Ivy climbed out of the landscaping where she’d been hiding and started slowly navigating her way back to the condo. She could only hope Chloe was doing the same thing. More than half an hour had passed since the ambush. Was it safe?
Maybe not. But what were her other options? Sleep outside in someone’s shrubbery? Not that she could slow her mind down enough to sleep anyway. Not while Chloe was out here somewhere, searching for Ivy if she got away.
Oh no.
It dawned on Ivy that Chloe might have been captured. In which case, Clay and Royce would use her as bait to draw Ivy out.
An ambulance streaked by as Ivy neared her block.
Chloe? No. Couldn’t be. If Ivy was the reason Chloe was hurt, she would never forgive herself.
In the car on the way to the condo, Chloe had hinted at being pregnant.
It was obvious to Ivy that Chloe was since she’d kept touching her stomach.
The action was most definitely a subconscious move.
Panic welled in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She picked up the pace as she glanced around. She kept her gaze shifting from side to side, sweeping the area for any signs of movement as she moved quickly.
The ambulance didn’t stop on her street, but it was too early to sigh relief or to claim victory.
She had to get to Chloe’s vehicle. For all Ivy knew, Chloe was already on her way back to Saddle Junction and the ranch.
The move would draw attention away from Ivy.
From what she knew about Chloe so far, the woman wouldn’t hesitate to do something like that.
Something that would put her in more danger and save someone else.
Chloe was strong and fierce, attributes that Ivy appreciated in others, which were incredibly hard to find.
The ranch was special. The people at the ranch were even more special. Beau was special even though he didn’t seem to realize or acknowledge it.
What wasn’t so special was the wall that had come up between them.
She’d had no choice but to erect an ice barrier around her heart, no matter how much she wished she didn’t need to.
One way or another, this ordeal would soon end, and she’d leave Saddle Junction.
She needed to keep the thought close to her chest or risk it being shattered.
A male figure stepped into view from the parking lot where Chloe’s sedan was still parked.
“Ivy.”