Another shot from behind her. Her right front tire blew out.
She screamed as she lost control of the car. The engine revved as she hit the accelerator instead of the brake.
The car bucked off the dirt road. Metal crunched as the car slammed into a tree. There was no airbag in the old car to protect her and her head hit the steering wheel.
The world spun and then everything went black.
John drove like the devil was chasing him. His truck ate up the distance toward Groom Creek. It wasn’t too far out of town, but it could be too late for Hollie if he didn’t get there fast enough.
No. He refused to think that way. She was alive, damn it. He’d know if she wasn’t. Wouldn’t he?
As he drove, his phone rang and he saw that it was Reese. He answered it. “What do you have?”
“One of the neighbors saw a vehicle that he’d never seen in the neighborhood,” Reese said. “The old guy said he thought it was a yellow 1970 Plymouth Duster. He was a mechanic for forty-five years before he retired and he owned one of those cars himself. He only saw the car.”
“Mr. Rasmussen.” John gripped the steering wheel. “He knows his vehicles. Anything else?”
“Nope,” Reese said. “We’re headed in your direction now.”
The truck didn’t move fast enough to suit John. He finally reached the Groom Creek area and he slowed. His gut twisted as he looked to either side of him. In the dark it was impossible to tell what road Freddy’s camper might be on. They’d have to split up and check all of them.
John raised his cell phone to communicate with Garrett who drove directly behind him. John hit the speed dial number for his stepbrother.
Something to the side of the highway caught John’s attention when it glinted in his headlights. He lowered the phone without responding to Garrett’s voice as he answered the call.
John slammed on the brakes and came to a hard stop. He frowned and narrowed his gaze. His high beams had caught a glimpse of a car that had crashed into a tree. The hood was crumpled and the tree the car had hit was gouged and leaning as if it might fall to the forest floor.
That had to be the car that the neighbor said had been parked in front of John’s house. He guided his truck to the side of the road. He’d barely parked when he grabbed a flashlight, jumped out of the truck, and jogged toward the car. The three police cars and Garrett’s vehicle that had been following behind John’s truck came to a stop.
Garrett was out of his vehicle almost as fast as John left his truck. John held his flashlight high in one fist, shining the light down on a faded yellow Plymouth car.
John’s gut tightened as he hurried to the driver’s side door that hung wide open. He shined the flashlight into the front seat. In the glow, John saw blood on the steering wheel. The keys were still in the ignition. He shined the light in the back seat and leaned over to check the floorboards in the back, too.
Garrett put his hand on the hood and met John’s gaze. “Still warm.”
John gave him a grim look. One of the officers handed John a pair of latex gloves and he pulled them on before taking the keys out of the ignition. He searched the key ring as he walked to the back of the car. Before he attempted to open the trunk, he noticed that one of the taillights was missing.
Heart pounding, John tried three keys and on the third try he popped open the trunk. He raised the lid and shined the light inside. His gaze took in the contents—a dirty old blanket and a flat spare tire along with garbage.
He looked at the missing taillight and frowned. It was smashed from the inside, as if someone had tried to kick it out.
Hollie.
He looked at the blanket again and in the glow of his flashlight he saw a long strand of hair that looked blonde or light brown. His stomach tightened. He raised the hair and dropped it into an evidence bag that an officer held out for him. He slid the keys into another evidence bag.
John aimed his light at the ground as he followed the trail that looked like heel marks in the soft soil. “Someone was dragged from the car.” He followed the trail that ended a few feet away where a fresh set of tire tracks were. “And that someone was hauled into another vehicle. Looks like a truck with tires that have little tread left to them.”
He followed the tire tracks and his heart sank when he saw that they ended at the highway. His gut told him that Hollie was in that truck.
Jaw set, he turned to face the officer who’d given him the gloves. “Head up the road and see what you can find.”
John turned to stare at the dark highway as he took off the gloves with a snap and stuffed them in his jacket pocket.
“I’m coming for you, Hollie,” he said beneath his breath. “I’m coming for you.”
Hollie moaned as she stirred. Pain split her head and her whole body hurt. She ached and every jolt sent shards of agony through her. Her thoughts were thick and heavy as she tried to think. Where was she? What had happened?
A chill rolled over her as the vehicle rattled along, and she blinked her eyes open. It was almost too dark to see but she realized that she was on the floorboard in the back of a club cab truck. She looked up and saw the gun rack above her with Dickey’s rifles and shotgun.
She was still in Freddy’s jacket and for the first time she noticed it reeked with the odors of chewing tobacco and sweat, but it kept her warm. The heater had to be on too, because her nose, fingers, and toes weren’t numb from cold.
In the front seat she heard Freddy and Dickey bickering.
“Should’ve killed the bitch already,” Dickey said.
“I want to make her suffer.” Freddy’s voice was dark and filled with malice. “I want to watch the light go out of her eyes.”
She shuddered and started to gather Freddy’s jacket more tightly around her but she couldn’t. Her wrists were bound in front of her with duct tape, and her ankles were bound, too. When she shifted she felt the weight of Freddy’s gun in the pocket.
Her thoughts were coming more clearly now despite the ache in her head. She could tear the duct tape with her teeth. They hadn’t put tape over her mouth this time.
No one ever said that Freddy and Dickey were sharpest knives in the drawer.
She brought her wrists to her mouth and started working on the duct tape with her teeth. The tape had only been wound around her wrists a couple of times but she still struggled to tear it a fraction at a time.
“Fuck.” Freddy’s voice caused Hollie to go still as the engine sputtered and the truck slowed. “We’re out of gas.”
“I’ve got five gallons in a can in the truck bed,” Dickey said. “Pull over and I’ll put it in the tank.”
“You do that,” Freddy said in a slow drawl that made a shiver travel up Hollie’s spine.
The engine sputtered a few more times as the truck jolted off of the highway, rolled to a stop, and died. The passenger door opened letting in cold air and then the door slammed shut. She heard banging around in the bed of the truck and the clunk of metal against metal.
“That motherfucker is going to pay.” Freddy turned in his seat and she saw him start to lean over the back of it.
She closed her eyes tightly and let the jacket fall over her wrists and the partially torn duct tape.
“Sugar, when you wake up you’re going to wish you were dead. You can bet I’ll take care of you,” Freddy said.
She tried to keep her breathing slow and remained completely still. She heard a rattle above her and realized Freddy was taking one of the guns off of the gun rack. Goose bumps broke out on her skin and she was glad for the jacket covering her arms.
“But first I’m gonna take care of a problem, just like I did with Carl,” Freddy said.
She bit the inside of her cheek as chills rolled through her. Freddy was going to shoot Dickey. Would he take her out now and shoot her too?
The driver’s side door opened, letting more cold air in, and the truck groaned from the shift in weight. The door slammed shut.
Praying that Freddy wouldn’t look in the back, she brought her wrists to her mouth again and worked even harder at the tape.
She heard the two men speaking but she couldn’t tell what they were saying. She thought she heard Dickey begging Freddy for his life and then a loud crack sent more chills up her spine.
A moment later the driver’s side door started to open and she hurried to lower her wrists beneath the jacket. Freddy whistled a tune as he shut the door and started the truck. The truck began to move again and bounced as he drove the truck from the side of the road and back onto the highway. She bit back a cry from the pain.
Freddy continued to whistle as she worked to tear through the tape with her teeth. He stopped whistling. “That sonofabitch, Jesus Perez, is gonna wish he was dead when I get through with him, too.” Freddy’s voice had gone hard, vicious. “After I fuck you and get rid of your ass, I’m gonna find that smug sonofabitch and blow off his face. I might’ve lost the fucking war but I’m not finished yet.”
The duct tape finally gave way and Hollie let her breath out in a rush. She reached for her ankles, the tape easier to tear with her hands, and soon she was free.
The truck began to slow. She wrapped her hand around the cool grip of the pistol in the pocket of the jacket she was wearing. She drew it out, flicked off the safety, and raised it to point at the back of Freddy’s head.
She pressed the barrel to Freddy’s skull. “Pull over.” Her voice was as ice-cold as the night.
Freddy stilled but then laughed, throwing her off guard. “You’re not going to shoot me. You didn’t when you had the chance in the camper. Besides, sugar, if you shoot me this truck’s gonna end up in a ditch and it’s all over.”
“Try me.” She cocked the gun, the click of metal loud in the truck cab. Her voice was cold, lacking emotion. “Ending up in a ditch and getting killed is better than getting raped and murdered by you.”
Freddy laughed again as he looked at her in the rearview mirror and her eyes met his. “You ain’t got the balls.”
“No, I don’t have balls,” she said. “But I’m pissed off and that’s good enough.”
The truck suddenly swerved hard to the right. Hollie cried out as she lost her balance and fell sideways. Pain exploded in her chest as she hit the floorboard hard. The gun flew out of her grip and landed a good three feet away from her. The truck bounced and jolted, throwing her around.
The truck came to a hard stop nose downward. Her thoughts spun but she realized that Freddy had run them into a ditch after all. In the next moment he was leaning over the front seat. He yanked her by her hair as she scrambled for the gun.
“You’ve been fucking things up long enough.” He jerked her backward, wrapped one hand around her throat, and put the barrel of a pistol to her head.
She screamed.
John dragged his hand down his face as he drove. What if Freddy had taken Hollie down any one of the roads into the forest?
He slammed his palm on the steering wheel as he drove down the dark highway. What the hell was he supposed to do? How was he going to find her?
“Give me a sign.” John had never been religious but he found himself praying. “Tell me where to find her. Please, God, let her be all right.”
His phone rang. He pulled it out of its holster and he glanced at the screen. Garrett. John glanced into his rearview mirror and saw that Garrett was no longer following him.
John frowned and answered the phone. “What’s going on?”
“Spotted something on the side of the road and pulled over. It’s Dickey Whitfield and he’s dead. Shotgun to the chest. Body’s still warm—he hasn’t been dead long.”
“Shit.” John didn’t stop driving. “If the body’s still warm, Freddy’s got to be just ahead.”
“Yep,” Garrett said. “Letting the boys and girls in blue take care of Dickey. I’m back on your tail.”
“Got it.” Prickles ran along John’s forearms as he disconnected the call and stuffed the phone back in its holster on his belt.
Had that been the sign from God that he’d prayed for?
John pressed down on the accelerator, his speed climbing to seventy. It was a winding mountain road and his speed wasn’t safe. He couldn’t get himself to slow down.
If Freddy was still on the highway, John had to have a good chance of catching up with the bastard. John had a lead on Garrett, and as fast as John was driving, Garrett had yet to catch up with him.
Not more than fifteen minutes along, John saw a truck off the side of the road, nose in a ditch, headlights glowing eerily against dirt, rock, and dead grass. As John brought his truck to a hard stop, his truck fishtailed from a patch of ice on the road, but he corrected and pulled over just ahead of the old truck.
As he jumped out of his own truck, he recognized the vehicle as Dickey Whitfield’s. Through the windows he saw two shadows and it looked like they were struggling.
John ran for the other vehicle as he pulled his Glock out of its holster. Holding the weapon in one hand, he started to yank the driver’s side door open with his other.
The loud retort of a gun came from the truck cab as a bullet shattered the rear passenger’s window and blood splattered the glass.
Terror for Hollie ripped through John as he held his gun in his hand as he yanked open the rear passenger door.
Hollie tumbled out.
John grabbed her body before she hit the ground. At the same time he caught her with one arm, he aimed his gun at Freddy who was slumped halfway over the driver’s seat. Blood poured down the side of the man’s neck.
“I shot him.” Hollie’s voice tore John’s attention from the unconscious Freddy Victors to Hollie as he carried her one-armed out of harm’s way. She sounded stunned as she said again, “I shot him.”
“Are you okay, honey?” John’s throat was thick with emotion as he continued to hold his gun on Freddy. “Did he shoot you?”
“I’m all right.” She looked like she was in shock. “No, he didn’t shoot me.”
“Thank God.” John held her gaze. “I love you, Hollie. I love you so damned much.”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. Before she could respond, a car pulled up behind the truck, came to a hard stop, and then parked. Garrett jumped out of the vehicle and ran toward John and Hollie.