Live By The Team (Team Fear Book 1) (28 page)

She nodded. “How will I know my son is safe?”

Ryder promised to text when he had her son. He added her number to his contacts and headed out. He climbed into the truck, and the calmness that should have been panic set his nerves on edge. This time, he let the anger loose. Somebody was fucking dying today. “There was a man in there. Personal banker in the fucking cubicle that you missed.” He tightened his fists, wanting to let loose, but if he took his anger out on Rose, they wouldn’t be at top form when they needed it most. “The limp dick took Lauren and the redhead’s son.”

“
Who?” Rose started the engine and headed into traffic.

“
Some asshole named Earl.” Ryder directed Rose towards the constantly moving blip on his phone.

“
You tagged her?”

“
Her phone.” Ryder watched the blip, willing her to be safe. “Months ago. It’s how I tracked her to the meth house.”

“
There will be hell to pay when she finds out.”

“
She’ll understand.”

Rose snorted. “I barely know her and I know better. You’re delusional if you think she’ll blindly go along with you tagging her.”

“
As long as she’s still alive.” Ryder watched the locator like a heart monitor. It was the one thing tethering him to Lauren. They drove for long minutes in silence, with only the occasional direction interrupting the blasted country music. Ryder reached up and flipped off the radio. It might be Rose’s truck, but he wasn’t listening to another minute of music that was feeding his anger. “The redhead just found out about the misdirected deposits.”

“
Which is probably why she was at lunch with Smythe. Trying to put the moves on her the way he had his other victims.”

“
Only she got away, so they kidnapped her kid.”

“
Shit, Ryder, this isn’t exactly our area of expertise.”

“
Today it is. We still can’t involve the police for the same reason. I told the woman I’d get her kid in exchange for keeping my name out of it.”

“
Anyone else you want to save, Superman? It’s just you and me and we don’t have a clue what we’re walking into.”

“
You got a better plan? Because I’d be damn happy to hear someone else’s great plan to get my fucking wife back from these fuckers before they fucking hurt her.”

Rose drove in silence for several miles. At a stoplight, he turned to Ryder. “Why don’t we get Craft on this? He can pull Earl’s financials and all the evidence he has about the housing scam. He can forward it to bank, so they start working the banking side of the investigation. That frees Craft—”

“
To follow the lawyer. When he realizes his castle is crumbling, he’ll bail. Most of the money is probably overseas right now. Good bet the legal eagle will have an egress plan. I hate for Craft to work alone at the ranch. Someone already knows about the place. Easy way to get killed. Ryder shot off a text. “I’m looking to see how far Fowler is from joining the party.” Ryder flipped over to the tracking app and noticed the trend in direction. “He’s taking her to our townhouse.”

“
Did you say they were setting up another lab situation?”

“
Which means a couple guards, maybe more after what we did at the last place.” Ryder’s mind whirled with contingency plans.

“
And more innocents.”

“
I don’t consider the lab pogues to be innocents.”

“
No, but there’s the redhead’s kid at minimum, and kids are unpredictable.”

“
But we know the layout. The downstairs is all open space, so no walling off a room like they did at the last place. We’ll be able to see everything.”

“
They’ll see us coming.”

“
But we’re better than they are. Meaner. Stronger.”

“
Angrier,” Rose finished.

Ryder nodded and did what he’d fought since the day they’d heard about Kandahar. Ryder let the beast loose; let the rage flood his veins and feed his energy. He didn’t need fear or adrenaline. He’d kill every last man, woman, or child who had a hand in taking Lauren from his side. No one would survive.

CHAPTER TWENTY

The boy pounded his head back against the wall, wailing in anger or frustration. He hadn’t said a word since Earl had tossed her into the little guestroom she had used as an office. The boy looked to be upper elementary aged. He had long skinny legs, dark curly hair that was currently fingered into a frenzy, like he’d been electrocuted with everything standing on end.

Earl opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Get him to shut his mouth or I’ll kill him.” He glanced at Lauren. “Your choice. You can keep him alive until the boss gets here, but there are too many people around for that kind of racket.”

“
Not as nice here as the last digs, huh? Too many nosy neighbors.”

“
Yes, that fucker next door keeps knocking on the door like the welcome wagon.”

Callahan had been a decent neighbor, checking on her when Ryder left, because he thought Ry was on deployment. Yeah, he’d probably wondered what had happened to them. She’d packed up her stuff and moved out without warning anyone, and now she could really use a nosy neighbor. Unfortunately, the soldier didn’t get back from post until six o’clock on most days, and Lauren had a feeling she didn’t have that long. Earl had taken her phone so she couldn’t text Ryder. She had to find a way out of the house on her own before
the boss
showed.

The boy smacked his head against the wall, leaving a dent in the drywall.

“
Five minutes,” Earl warned before slamming the door closed and locking it. They’d switched the knob so they could lock it from the outside. Psychos.

Lauren crawled across the carpet. The room was empty, but there were still divots in the carpet where her desk had stood. The levered bi-fold doors to the closet were closed and dark plastic covered the window. As soon as she shut the boy up, she’d take that down. The dim overhead light didn’t do much to dispel the fear that she’d never leave this room. Never feel the sun on her face.

“
Hey.” She tapped the boy’s leg. “What’s your name?”

The racket he was pounding into the wall stopped for two beats and he opened his eyes. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers.” He resumed the pounding, but kept his eyes open this time.

“
I’m not a stranger.” She was as strange as they came. She probably looked like a complete whack-job to the kid, but she needed him to calm down, because she couldn’t let Earl kill the boy. “I know your mom.”

Again, the steady beat of his head against the wall paused. “How?”

“
We met at the bank where she works. I’m a customer, but, uh, she told me about you. She’s worried about you.”

He glanced up, not quite looking her in the eye. “If you know her, what’s her name?”

“
Miranda. And my name is Lauren. What’s yours?”

He tapped his head back as he rocked against the wall, but softer this time. “Caleb. Do you really know my mom?”

“
Yes. And she’s really worried.”

Caleb swallowed. “I’m hungry.”

“
They haven’t fed you?” The shake of his head hit a trigger to her anger. Anger was probably good. “How about we try to get out and get some lunch?”

“
They won’t let us out.”

Now that the boy was quiet, Lauren turned to the window. She yanked the black plastic off. The sun felt like heaven as it streamed through. She tossed the plastic to the floor.

“
They come in if you yell,” he said, as if anticipating her moves. “And they hit. They need consequences if they hit.”

“
Definitely.” Ryder could rain some serious consequences on Earl and team, but first she had to find a way to get a message to him. Or to get out. She opened the window and pushed the screen out. She looked down at her small yard, fenced off from a row of six similar yards. No one was outside this time of day. Most of her neighbors were working couples.

A dog was in the third postage stamp yard. The HOA forbid dogs, but apparently the owner didn’t care. The dog was quiet, so she’d never heard him. He was just curled into a ball on the four-foot patch of dirt that was supposed to be a flower garden. Lauren looked the other way, but even the yards in the adjacent row of townhouses were empty.

“
It’s ten feet from window sill to window sill.” Caleb’s voice had a strange emotionless quality. “It’s six feet from the ground to the first window sill for a total of sixteen feet from the second story window to the ground.”

Lauren turned. He hadn’t moved from his spot, but he was no longer rocking. “How do you know that?”

“
Firemen have to estimate target height and they use ten feet from window sill to window sill. I did a report in school.”

“
You’re really smart, Caleb.”

“
I can’t climb sixteen feet. Not even with a rope.”

“
Me either.” If they were held in the master bedroom, there was a deck, so maybe—a big maybe—she could dangle off the edge to get safely to the ground, but not a straight sixteen feet. “Do you know how many people are in the house?”

He shook his head no. “If we were on the third floor it would be twenty-six feet, and if we were on the fourth floor it would be thirty-six feet.”

“
Thanks, Caleb. You did that really well.” Lauren stared back out the window. The kid wouldn’t be much help getting out. Like her, he didn’t have any experience with kidnapping. Lauren frowned. Actually, she did have experience as a kidnap victim, but Ryder had been there. This time, he wasn’t even on her trail. She had to find her own way out. “Your mom was right. You’re super smart.”

“
I can do all my times tables faster than anyone at school. I’m really fast.”

“
Great.” If they could build a ladder out of times tables, they’d be in business. Lauren leaned her head against the window frame. Tears and fear threatened to shut her down. She didn’t want to be responsible for getting out, but adding in the pressure of trying to get the kid out weighed her down. He was so young and she was so— Lauren refused to cave to negativity. She was alive, she wasn’t tied up, and she was familiar with the house. She crossed the room to the closet. Maybe there was something there they could use to climb down or get a message to someone. The door resisted as if blocked by something inside. Her heart sped up. Maybe there was something inside after all. She yanked the knob and stumbled back when it finally gave.

“
Smythe.” She gagged the name. On the beige carpet on the floor of her closet was Smythe. Bound and gagged. Wrapped in clear plastic, as dead as her dreams of the perfect house. Lauren dropped to her knees. She couldn’t stop breakfast from lurching out. She threw up less than a foot from Smythe’s plastic-wrapped body. His open eyes witnessed the whole thing. When she was finished, she pushed the door closed.

“
Is that man going to help us?” Caleb asked.

“
No. He’s...uh...not a good climber either.”

Lauren crab-walked across the room. She needed air. She set her head out the window and sucked in the oxygen. If they put her in with Smythe’s body, they didn’t plan for her to live long. As she peered out, she saw a man pacing in a nearby patch of grass in his tiny yard, talking on a phone. “Hey.” She tried to mock-whisper down, but the man kept pacing, obviously not hearing her. She was afraid to raise her voice or Earl would return, and now that she’d seen Smythe’s body, she was an even greater liability.

She looked around for something to throw at the pacing man. She didn’t have anything in her pockets, Earl had made sure of it. That left Smythe, and no way would she open the plastic and dig through a dead man’s pockets. She glanced at Caleb. He was pulling a string at the bottom of his shirt. “Caleb, do you have anything in your pockets?”

“
I had five dollars and fifty-seven cents in my wallet, but that man took it. There should be consequences for stealing.”

“
Oh, sweetheart, I know just the man to deliver those consequences.” She hoped she wasn’t lying. No doubt Ryder would seek retribution, but would he make it before they killed her and Caleb? “You’ve been here longer than me. Did you find anything we can use to get someone’s attention, like a rock or something?”

Caleb stood, his lean limbs awkward, bending and unbending like rusty hinges. “We could make a paper airplane out of the plastic. Or a flag.”

Lauren’s heart jumped at the suggestion. “Really good idea, Caleb.” She grabbed the plastic in both hands and strode purposefully to the window. The makeshift flag unfurled out the window, snapping in the wind like a kite. The pacing man didn’t so much as look their way. Using both arms, she yanked the flag inward causing a loud smack as it struck the siding, but the man just put a hand over one ear while pressing the Bluetooth deeper on the other side.