Chapter Twenty-One
Liam was pissed. At everyone.
He was angry at Cooper Han because the boy had waited so long to tell anyone about the code.
It was only when someone he loved was threatened that he even dared come out to say a word.
Though, Liam knew it counted that the teen had tried to correct his hesitance and had done so in the face of potential danger.
So he couldn’t hold on to that anger too long.
Which worked out, because next he became angry at Price.
Once he had finished his conversation with Cooper, he had noticed his calls weren’t coming through or going out.
That happened occasionally near the hospital and across a few other spots in town.
Panic had risen through him in an instant, then anger came in swiftly on its heels once he finally spoke with Price, who explained what was going on with Blake.
Mr. Grant had changed his appointment time with Blake, and she had simply gone along with the flow.
Solo.
So then the anger at Price for letting her go had gone and attached to the stubborn woman who hadn’t waited for him.
She hadn’t even called him, only left a text saying where she was going. Nothing else.
At that point Liam had already been in the truck and heading over to the steel mill as fast as the wind.
Then he had gotten a call from Theo.
Normally, he would have sent the call to voicemail if he thought he was heading into danger and needed to focus, but the timing of the call was too coincidental.
Liam had answered on the second ring.
He didn’t have time to say hello. Theo was rattling off information fast.
“Sheriff Bennet is at the steel mill talking to Elijah Grant, Mr. Grant’s son, in his office. I think she was supposed to meet Mr. Grant instead, but something changed. Then she told me to call my dad and let him know that I had walked her in. Which I think she meant to call you and tell you.”
Liam’s anger had switched one more time.
Right onto Elijah Grant. The same man Cooper had just said had installed the code that everyone kept dying for.
“Find a way to let her know that Elijah is dangerous and then you both get out of there,” Liam said, not bothering with the backstory. “I’m a minute or so away from the mill.”
Bless him, Theo didn’t ask any questions. He said okay and then started moving fast on his side of the phone.
All at once, that noise stopped.
His whisper was the loudest Liam had ever heard.
“The man who you said attacked y’all at the Bennet house but got away. Was he tall and bald?”
Adrenaline skyrocketed from the tips of Liam’s toes all the way up to the ends of his hair.
“Yes.”
“Then I think he’s walking down the hallway and—and he has a gun!” The sound on Theo’s end of the call wasn’t still after that. He was all out yelling. “Second floor to the right. End of the hallway and—”
A loud clatter vibrated through the phone and across the silence of the cab of the truck. Liam looked at his phone to see the call was still going. He heard what sounded like running in the background.
Theo had dropped his phone.
Liam cussed and pressed the gas pedal to the floorboard.
The call ended right after that.
Liam cussed again.
He called back, but no one answered. By the time he made it to the parking lot and was out of his truck and running, he had already called in every able-bodied person from the McCoy County Sheriff’s Department.
But he wasn’t about to wait around for them.
Liam checked his gun as he ran through the parking lot and burst through the lobby doors of the main office. He took the stairs two at a time and put all of his attention on the hallway that led to the offices at the right end.
A cell phone was discarded on the tile halfway between him and the open door at the end of the hallway.
It was Theo’s.
Liam stepped over it and kept his gun aimed straight ahead and ready.
Yet no one appeared.
Liam swung into the office and found it empty. He would have backtracked had he not noticed the windows.
One was broken. The other was opened wide.
Surely no one had gone out them...
He hurried to check. His stomach lurched at what he saw outside.
The metal overhang from the first story stretched across the full width of the building. It wasn’t until midway across that the slope led to a flat roof that was connected to a storage building. There the roof was flat and easier to manage.
There he could just make out four figures, all moving fast.
Even at the distance, Liam could see Blake clearly.
AS MUCH AS she didn’t want to admit it, Blake was at a serious disadvantage.
Their rooftop escape might have worked had Elijah’s helper not broken into the office the second that she had been able to disarm Elijah. Instead, the best she and Theo could do in the moment was flee through the window that had been shot out by accident.
She had let the boy lead the way, and again had the bald man not been right on their heels, they might have been able to scramble down the side of the current building they were on and make a run for it.
Instead, they had been cornered on a rooftop with two men both holding guns.
Blake extended her arms out as wide as she could and put herself firmly in front of Theo.
She was out of breath but managed to keep her voice steady.
“He doesn’t know anything. Let him go and we can talk.”
Elijah, who seemed to be struggling the most, laughed through his spurts of trying to regain his breath.
“You’re—you’re in no position to—to negotiate,” he said. “We—we will talk though.”
He lowered his gun after looking at the bald man at his side. The fourth man from the ambush at her home. He was unmoving as he kept his gun aimed at her.
“Tell me where—where it is,” Elijah said, holding his side until breathing seemed to come easier. “Tell me where the flash drive is.”
Blake shook her head.
“I do that and we’re dead,” she said. “Let him go, though, and I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
It was a bluff.
But it didn’t matter. She knew neither man was going to let Theo or her go.
Now the best she could do was stall for time and hope that the boy had gotten her hint to call Liam.
If he had, then Blake didn’t doubt for a second that the sheriff wasn’t on his way to save them.
Elijah laughed, very much a man with no intention of letting them live.
“Do you know, the last person who tried to negotiate with me found herself at the bottom of a dried-up creek. I suggest what you focus on now is how easy to make this next part for the both of you. Because, believe me, I can make you suffer if I need to.”
Blake narrowed her gaze.
“So you really did kill Missy Clearwater,” she said.
The man rolled his eyes. It was an unbecoming sight.
“All I did was hit her a little. It’s not my fault she took a tumble right after that.
If she had simply listened to me and handed over that damned little flash drive, we would have been fine.
But, no. All you women like playing hero.
I think it’s only poetic that you’ll be the one to end the cycle, considering it was your sister who started it. ”
Blake lowered her arms. Theo was right at her back.
“Beth’s car accident wasn’t an accident,” she stated.
“Beth’s car accident wasn’t an accident,” Elijah confirmed. He snorted. “Though it was her fault, not ours. My friend here just wanted to talk about her findings. It isn’t his fault that she got scared and started driving like a lunatic.”
Blake’s hands fisted.
If she hadn’t been trying to shield the teen behind her, she would have lunged at the man. Instead, she tried to get answers.
“Which means that she did find something she wasn’t supposed to.”
Elijah was back to smug.
“Do you know how many safety inspectors we’ve had come out to the mill over the years? Do you know how many have turned a blind eye or taken money to overlook an infraction? But no. Not Beth Bennet. She was a woman who wanted to stick her nose where she shouldn’t.”
He laughed.
He actually laughed.
“Who knew that she was so fast? Squirreling away the one thing that could mess up everything?”
“Her laptop.”
Elijah nodded.
“Since we couldn’t find it anywhere after so many months, though, we thought that was that.
” He breathed out his annoyance. “Then Missy Clearwater, the beloved daughter of my father’s best friend, used her name to start asking questions.
Who did she even think she was? Acting like she had been the one hurt when it was just that good-for-nothing friend of hers Hector?
” He shook his head. “Then suddenly she had the code and then, then, she had the audacity to try to bring my father into this whole thing? Trying to mess up my inheritance? I don’t think so. ”
Elijah blew out another short huff of air.
“She should have known better. After the way this town treated her when her father decided to shut down their business? Can you imagine the flak I would have caught had they found out I was the one trying to burn this place down for a payout?”
Blake’s mouth opened on its own accord.
Elijah saw the shock and seemed to revel in it.
“And there it is,” he said, the smile from earlier returning.
“You can’t fake that kind of surprise, Eric.
Did you know that?” He patted the bald man’s shoulder.
His smugness was returning as well. He looked to Blake again.
“I don’t think Miss Bennet here knows as much as she’s pretending to.
Let’s see. Miss Bennet, can you tell me what exactly the code is for?
Or did you come here for a fishing expedition only? ”
Blake hated that she didn’t have a good answer.
She also hated that the feeling of dread in her had tripled.
Elijah had found out that she was more expendable than he had originally thought. Which meant they didn’t have long.
Blake wished she could hear sirens in the distance.
She wished she had her gun.
She wished she hadn’t come to the mill by herself.
She wished she had waited for Liam.
She wished that she could turn back time to them all sitting at the dinner table, Clem on his lap, Bruce in her arms, and Lola fussing over the food between them.
She wished she could hug the kids again. Kiss Liam. Laugh with Lola.
She wished she could tell her dad she was sorry that life for them had gotten so offtrack.
She wished she could hear her sister tell her to make sure she ate something yummy.
Instead, she was about to become another tragedy and trauma in Seven Roads history.
Or so she thought.
Movement caught the corner of Blake’s eye just as it alerted the man with the gun trained on her, Eric. He whirled around and shot without waiting.
Blake didn’t waste that time worrying about his target. She closed the distance between her and Elijah before he could lift his gun. Pain exploded along her fist as it connected with his jaw.
Another shot went off, then another, on the roof behind them.
Elijah’s gun hadn’t gone off yet, but it also hadn’t fallen.
Blake struggled against him, throwing hits and kicks as hard as she could.
The man knew how to play dirty though. He slammed his head into Blake’s so hard that all she could do was try not to pass out as she fell backward against the ground. Theo was already there, trying to pull her away.
He yelled something, but despite everything, Blake was getting tunnel vision.
That vision had Elijah at its center. He had his gun coming up to aim at her.
With everything she had left in her, Blake willed karma to see him pay for all the bad he had done.
A split second later, another boom sounded.
Elijah crumpled to the ground.
As darkness took her, Blake could only think of one word.
Good.