AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Nodding, Jenna headed for the Beast. Heartache dragged at her, but as the engine roared into life, she could almost feel Kane surrounding her. He was alive, she could feel him inside her heart, but where the heck was he?
Once Jenna arrived at the office, she called Rio and Rowley upstairs. “Rio, I want you to run a background check on the latest victim. We believe her name is Jennifer Kriss. Do the usual checks and see if she has any next of kin. Problem boyfriends, estranged family members, you know the deal. Who would do this to her? Rowley, you keep on checking out the first victim, Dakota Slade, and see if you can find anything at all that might link these victims.” She sucked in a deep breath. “If we can’t find Carter, I’ll call in a local FBI agent by the name of Dax Styles to assist me with finding Dave. His partner is in cybercrime and will be working from their office if we need her. For now I’ll be scanning the case files to hunt down anyone who might have had a reason to kidnap Dave.” She looked from one to the other. “It might be payback and he could be in danger, but we have nothing else to go on. There was nothing on scene to indicate another vehicle was involved but we found a wire cable tied across the road. Wolfe has it and will check it for any evidence. From what we can estimate, the cable knocked him from his Harley at chest height. The force would have thrown him backward. At some time he was injured, as we found a drop of blood on the blacktop.”
“I’ve seen someone hit a tree branch and come off a motorcycle. They are thrown back and tumble before sliding to a stop. If he was knocked unconscious, he could have been abducted without a fight. There’s no way Kane would go easy and he’s never unarmed, is he?” Rio raised both eyebrows. “It would be an easy way to incapacitate him. The worst-case scenario would be he landed on his head and broke his neck.” He held up a hand. “That’s not what happened, Jenna. Kidnapping a corpse would be worthless. So he must be alive.”
Nausea gripped Jenna and she stood to grab a bottle of water from the refrigerator. She leaned against the counter and took long deep breaths. “Thanks for the visual. No, he wouldn’t go easy. He can handle six guys and more likely he’d shoot them. Incapacitate them, not kill them, to find out what the heck they wanted.” She swallowed hard. “We haven’t got Kalo to help out with the searches, so we do the grunt work until Styles arrives.” She looked from one to the other. “There must be someone who joins the two murders. I want the names and whereabouts of anyone you figure is suspicious.” Running a hand down her face, she looked at them. “We’ll run both cases at the same time.”
“Why Agent Styles and not Carter? He must be around town somewhere.” Rio frowned. “We know nothing about this other guy.”
“Carter told me his phone would be switched off for the entire week.” Rowley met her gaze. “I figure the only chance of finding him is to go to his cabin. If he’s not around, we’ll leave a note on the door. He and Kane are close. He’ll want to be out hunting him down.”
Jenna reached for her phone. “Good idea. I’ll call Blackhawk. He goes close by Carter’s cabin on his way home and he was out at the ranch assisting me when this happened.” She made the call. When she disconnected, she looked from one to the other. “Get to work. We need to find this killer before he strikes again.”
“We’ll find him, Jenna.” Rowley touched his hat and headed for the door.
Jenna stared after them and then dropped into her chair. Who had a grudge against Kane? So many cases over the years it could be any one of them. Fighting back tears, she pressed her face in her hands. She needed to be strong and trust in her team. Lifting her head, she turned to her computer and accessed the files. A mental list formed in her mind. Recently released, due for parole, and a list of relatives of anyone they’d killed in the line of duty. Sometimes people waited a long time, planned and schemed to get revenge. Kane’s abduction had been well planned and whoever had taken him wasn’t alone. Just lifting him unconscious would be difficult for two men. She ran the cases through her mind, trying to recall the trials and who was there to support the defendant. Without any other choice, she’d start there and, taking out a pen and notebook, made a list of names.
FOURTEEN
The last thing Kane remembered was flying through the air and hitting the road—hard. He’d fought to remain conscious and recalled voices and running footfalls. Confused by the memory, he didn’t move a muscle. No vehicles were on the blacktop or parked alongside the ranch’s private road. Instinct called on his years of training to assess his situation before opening his eyes. He inhaled with caution, smelling damp. A solid wall pressed against his back and cold seeped through his jeans, so not a hospital bed. Pain niggled at his shoulders because his arms were extended but not hanging in midair. A band of discomfort encircled his head. The image of a tree coming straight for him made sense now. The collision had knocked him out cold even wearing a helmet. He hadn’t been sedated. He had none of the usual hangover from a hit of drugs strong enough to render him unconscious. Someone had abducted him for whatever reason. Making them believe he hadn’t regained consciousness would give him time to assess his situation. He checked his body, tightening muscles and assessing the damage. No broken bones, that pain he knew only too well. Bruising, well that happened after being propelled from a Harley going eighty miles per hour. He’d call himself lucky to survive but he hadn’t hit anything… unless someone had rigged up a trap.
Kane opened one eye and peered from under his lashes. He’d been chained to a wall using metal manacles, but the bolts had been hammered into the old red bricks. No telltale ring of mortar circled the chain. Green moss covered parts of the wall, so maybe the room wasn’t underground. He listened intently, hearing nothing. Was anyone in the room with him or did they rely on a CCTV camera? People breathed, moved around, scratched themselves, and there was always some noise or sense of them being there, and he didn’t feel anyone in the room with him.
Why had they taken him? Convinced this wasn’t an old enemy, because he’d been captured and interrogated more than once during his missions. It had started from the second they’d caught him and had been relentless with endless days of torture, no sleep or food. They’d been good but careless, and only he remained to tell the tale of what had happened the day he escaped. These people, whoever they were, had missed a crucial advantage. Attacking when a person was vulnerable and weak was usual practice and they’d left him to recover. He was wearing his leather jacket and gloves, but the weight of his M18 pistol was missing from his shoulder holster. The thought of him being used as a bargaining chip seemed ludicrous—so why? He ran cases through his mind and came up empty. Most if not all the killers they’d convicted were locked away for life or had died.
He rolled his head to the other side, slowly scanning the small room. Old boards covered a window and on a chair against the wall sat a lamp. No cameras. Needing to assess his physical condition, he pushed himself up into a standing position. He flexed his arms and bent his legs. Bloody knees poked through the rips in his jeans, along with a long scrape and black bruising down his right hip. His leather jacket was damaged but had protected him well. His neck was a little sore, so he’d hit the tree head-on. It made sense. He could remember everything, which was a positive. The metal plate in his head hadn’t been damaged and the headache was slowly dissipating. The hard smack in the chest had thrown him from the seat but he’d seen nothing and had made a point of removing any low branches from that road to prevent any accidents.
Escaping his priority, he pulled at the chains. They allowed some movement, but punching would be a problem. Wrapping one of the chains around his hand, he tugged and small fragments of brick spilled from around the attachment to the wall. It might take time, but he’d be able to loosen the bolt. A long chain would make a lethal weapon. Jenna’s concerned face brushed his mind and he pushed all thoughts of her away. His duty was to get back to her and not worry about her or Tauri. She would be safe and they’d discussed plans to put into action if anything like this happened. Jenna understood she must secure herself and Tauri. By now she’d have contacted Wolfe. She’d place herself in the company of Rio and Rowley and hopefully Carter. She knew the drill. He tugged again at the chain and then spun it around, the motion loosening the bolt. Footsteps sounded outside. They came from a distance, more than one man wearing boots that clattered on a hard floor. Kane dropped into the zone. He had endured torture by experts and survived. Whatever these clowns wanted, he doubted they were military trained. They’d already made mistakes and likely didn’t know the true identity of the man behind the deputy badge. He spread the dust from beneath the loosened bolt with the toe of his boot—his steel-capped boots he always wore when riding his Harley—and smiled to himself. They might have taken away his weapon and his arms, but he could sure do a ton of damage with his legs.
FIFTEEN
The phone buzzing startled Jenna out of her thoughts and she grabbed it up and stared at the caller ID. “Shane, do you have anything for me?”
“First up, I’ve scanned all the usual channels to see if there’s any scuttlebutt about organizations acting in Montana or anywhere else. It’s something I do routinely, so it won’t cause any problems. I found nothing that could possibly involve Dave. From what I know, and this is positive, the mission we completed was attributed to the Secret Service, which is just about as anonymous as you can get, so no foul there.” Wolfe cleared his throat. “That’s a positive because if anyone else took him, likely he’d be out of the country by now and up for sale to the highest bidder. I’m not sugarcoating the seriousness of this, Jenna. I’ll keep my channels open as inconspicuously as possible because by now POTUS would know and he’d contact me. Have you discovered anyone locally who might have a reason to abduct him? Honestly, I was hoping he’d show by now.”
Relieved but on edge, Jenna pushed a hand through her hair and stared at her computer screen. “I’ve hunted down anyone and everyone who is in jail and recently released on parole and you know as well as I do the dangerous ones are either dead or in maximum security. I’ve tried to scan their immediate families for any chance of a vendetta toward him. This is slow going but calling the prisons and asking about visitors and calls was my only option. Only a very few have anyone visiting them at all. The warden was a font of information. Most are women who believe a serial killer would make a good boyfriend. Most of the family members have never visited them and have changed their names to avoid any connection. I can’t see why any of these would take Dave.”
“What about the biker gang he messed up? The ones that took you at the Triple Z Roadhouse? It’s been a time but they’d be out by now. They didn’t do hard time as far as I’m aware.” Wolfe’s office chair creaked as he rolled it across the tile. “Maybe look into them.”
Finding a trace of a biker gang would be difficult but it was a lead she couldn’t ignore. “Okay. Have you found anything on our two homicide victims?”
“I’ve uploaded everything onto the server, but as I concluded on my initial examination, the cause of death was an electric shock from an upgraded or modified stun gun. The current, in fact, destroyed the brain stem in each victim and caused major damage to organs as it passed through the body and grounded out through the soles of their slippers. I’ve detailed everything in my report.” Wolfe tapped away on his computer. “Nothing of interest so far on the swabs we took from all over the house. No other fingerprints or so much as an indication that the homes were wiped clean. If I’d discovered a stun gun at the scene, I’d have considered the victims had killed themselves. I’m sorry, Jenna. I can’t find a thing to point to anyone. Someone is murdering women, but whoever is doing this is on the next level of evil expertise. I can only imagine that this person has technical knowledge to be able to modify the amperage on the stun gun. The problem is so many ways to do things are available on the internet and more so on the dark web, it makes it difficult to track them down by profession.”
Mind reeling at hitting another brick wall, Jenna leaned back in her chair and stared at the clock. It was almost five and she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and likely neither had her deputies. “I’ll see if I can track down anything on the web. If not, we might be looking at someone who can access the dark web. That takes a special skill, doesn’t it? Although criminals seem to gain access with ease, I’ve never been able to master it.”
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Jenna. It’s a skill. For some, like writing code, it just slips into place like reading, but for others it’s a mystery. It’s not a place you really need to explore. There are things there that will live with you forever.” Wolfe sucked in a breath. “I gather y’all are chasing down anyone who came in contact with the victims?”
Jenna stood and walked over to pour a cup of coffee from the machine. “Yeah, Rio and Rowley have been working all day. I hope they have a list by now, I haven’t seen them since we arrived.” She added the fixings and stirred. “I’ll call Nanny Raya and tell her I’ll be late. She is watching Tauri like a hawk, so he’ll be safe.”
“Maybe you should stay over with her tonight?”
Shaking her head, Jenna walked back to her desk. “No. I’m armed and driving the Beast. I won’t take any risks. I’ll use Nanny Raya’s garage to move Tauri as usual and once inside the truck, no one can harm us. The ranch is secure. We’ll be fine. I’d rather be at home, where I have a panic room.”
“Okay, check out those bikers and call me if you need me.” Wolfe blew out a long breath. “I’ve sat waiting while Kane was captured. I can’t say where or when or how many times, but it was a long time. He was alone, stripped naked, and subjected to mental and physical torture beyond belief, but he survived. If this is a biker gang, they don’t stand a chance, but if we don’t hear from him by morning, someone else has him. Expect a ransom or deal. If nothing happens and Carter is still missing, you’ll need to contact Dax Styles. I know you don’t want this but it’s essential to get specialized assistance.”
Jenna stared into space. “Okay, if we don’t hear anything by the end of day, I’ll call him.” She sipped her coffee. “Thanks for all the info. I appreciate you.”
“Stay strong, Jenna.” Wolfe disconnected.
