AllFreeNovel
Share Us
TWENTY-SIX
Chandler watched as Eden took a step down the staircase, only paying half attention to the guy who was still asking him a million questions about directions. For a guy who seemed to be in such a rush, he sure was taking his time on getting out the door.
Which was suspicious.
He narrowed his eyes, all of his concentration focused on Eden and where she might be going. She’d mentioned needing better reception for her call, but from what he could see, she didn’t have her phone to her ear. Or at least it was difficult to tell since a man was standing close behind her, half blocking Chandler’s view.
Chandler focused in on the man whose face was shadowed by a baseball cap pulled low. There was something familiar about him, about his height and build. And then they stepped down the stairs together, out of sight.
His SEAL instincts suddenly went berserk. Something wasn’t right. His need to get a clear visual on Eden and assure himself that she was safe ramped up and overpowered everything else.
“Sorry,” he called to the guy he’d been helping as he turned in the direction Eden had taken. “I need to deal with something. Good luck on your journey.”
The man made a grab for Chandler’s arm to stop him, but Chandler shrugged him off and kept moving.
When he reached the top of stairs, there was no sign of Eden at all. Before running down, he paused and scanned the hallway again, searching for her amongst the crowd of people.
Nothing. No Eden. He flew down the stairs, stopping on the lower level to sweep his surroundings. When he saw the emergency exit door at the end of the hallway click closed, he made a beeline in that direction.
He’d just stepped foot out the door when he spotted a car in the alleyway and a man forcing Eden into the trunk. There was no doubt—the man was Terry Ross. This was his last-ditch attempt to keep Eden from testifying…and it was working. If he managed to get away from the courthouse with her, he’d kill her at the first opportunity. Chandler’s whole body tensed, and he started running, hoping he’d be fast enough to stop the car.
But he wasn’t.
No. This could not be happening. Not now. Not when they were so close to finishing this whole damned thing. Chandler swore under his breath and chased after the car on foot. At the corner, he hailed a cab and said the words he’d never, ever thought he’d say in real life as he pointed to the sedan speeding away ahead of them, “Follow that car!”
He perched on the edge of the seat, staring ahead while his mind raced a mile a minute. Jesus. Eden was locked in that trunk. She must be terrified. Was she injured? If that fucking asshole gave her so much as a bruise, Chandler would kill him.
…If he got to them in time. Up until now, Terry had tried to attack from the shadows. He’d plotted to kill Eden, but he’d been careful to reveal as little of himself as possible, obviously not wanting anything to tie him to the attempted murder. But at this point, the man was out of options and had to be feeling cornered. And cornered people were desperate people.
“Can you go faster?” he asked the driver as he leaned between the front seats. “It’s a matter of life or death.”
The cab driver scoffed as if she’d heard it all before and started to press the brakes as the light in front of them turned yellow, ignoring Chandler protests. Terry Ross, of course, had no qualms about running the light. Chandler watched, defeated, as the sedan disappeared around a curve with Eden trapped inside.
Chandler immediately switched gears in his head. Catching up with the car on his own had just gotten exponentially harder, which meant it was time to call in backup. He got out his phone and pulled up the number he’d programmed in after the fire—the number of the police detective working the case.
“Anderson,” the man answered.
“Detective, this is Chandler Ruthven. I’m calling to let you know that Eden Dawson has been kidnapped from the courthouse where she was scheduled to give her testimony in Jeff Ross’s murder trial in…” he checked his watch, “…twenty minutes. I saw a man force her into the trunk of a sedan parked just outside the building. It looked like a Nissan Skyline, navy blue, license plate number VOR1439, last seen heading east on High Street. I believe the man who kidnapped her is Terry Ross. She wouldn’t have gone with him willingly, so I think it’s very likely he’s armed and dangerous.” Anger and anxiety warred within him, but Chandler forced both emotions down. He needed to focus now. Eden needed him.
From the front seat of the cab, he heard the driver say, “Oh crap, you mean you were serious about it being life or death?” but he ignored her, focusing on what Anderson said as the detective asked him a series of questions about what he had seen. And then he focused in on something else he could hear through the line. Anderson must have been in his car, because Chandler could hear the squawk of a police radio saying…saying there was a report of possible domestic violence, a man dragging a woman by the hair into an abandoned house just a few minutes away.
“Let me know if there are any updates,” Chandler said to Anderson. “Oh, and someone should let the DA know what happened to his witness.” Then he hung up.
After ending the call, he leaned forward to give the cab driver the address he’d heard on the cop’s radio. He needed a plan for what he’d do when they got there, especially since he didn’t have his weapon. It was back in his car since he wasn’t permitted to carry it in the courthouse. He hadn’t thought he’d need it. He’d been wrong.
The taxi driver, a young Middle Eastern woman, looked scared to death, her eyes wide as she held the steering wheel with both hands, knuckles white. “W-was that real, all the stuff you were saying a minute ago? Some woman has been kidnapped? This isn’t some kind of…of prank, or role-playing thing, is it?”
“No, it’s very real,” Chandler said. He felt bad for the woman who seemed totally thrown to find herself in this situation, but it couldn’t be helped. He just had to make sure her fear didn’t push her to change her mind about taking him where he needed to be. Lives depended on him getting there as quickly as possible. To try to ease the tension, he pulled out two hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and held them up. “You get me there in five minutes, both of these are yours, on top of my fare.”
She shot him a look in the rearview mirror and swallowed hard. But then she nodded, swerving into a hard left turn down a side street. Chandler gripped the vinyl seat in the back and formulated his plan. If he were Terry, he’d take Eden somewhere in the house where he had both protection and a good sight line of the entry points. As they neared the house—looking rickety and abandoned on a ragged lot—his gaze immediately went to the second story.
“Stop here, please.” He waited for her to pull to the curb. They were still about a block and a half away and surrounded by houses that would shield them from view. He handed her money and told her to get out of the neighborhood before the cops showed up. “Thank you, and be safe.”
“Same to you, sir—and good luck,” the woman said before speeding off.
Chandler walked a careful perimeter around the abandoned house where Terry Ross was holed up, checking out the place while doing his best not to be seen. All of his SEAL training was coming into play here—strategy, security, weapons training. He didn’t have his gun, but if he was lucky, he wouldn’t need one. If he could use the element of surprise and distraction to his advantage, he could get in and takedown Ross without a shot being fired.
Sirens wailed in the distance as the cops approached, and Chandler seized his opportunity. While Ross was hopefully paying attention to law enforcement’s arrival, he stuck to the neighbor’s fence line until he spotted a set of cellar doors near the back porch and sprinted for them, praying Ross’s attention was trained on the front of the house where it sounded like the cops were pulling up.
