Charming Texas Cowboy, page 20
For a few minutes, Tanner spoke softly but firmly to the horse, hoping he sounded more confident to Bullet than he did to himself. He once again lifted his foot and this time got it in the stirrup and began to pull himself up before Bullet snorted and bucked, tossing Tanner onto the hard ground.
“You okay, man?” Rico called. “You sure this is a good idea?”
Tanner shook his head. “I thought he was ready, but I guess we’d better wait and try again another day.” Another day like the fifth of Octember.
“Tanner! Oh my God, Tanner!” He turned to see Lizzie running across the yard, a limp and bloody Trixie in her arms.
Chapter 27
“Brock, this isn’t the way to impress my mom,” Jen said, trying to keep the pleading note from her voice, also trying not to think about the fact that she was in a car with a psychopath—sociopath—whatever, badguyopath. And every true-crime story she’d ever read or listened to said you should never get in the car with a kidnapper. But here she was. Hands cuffed and feet tied, buckled into the passenger seat of the green Prius.
“When did you get this car?” she asked. “It’s an interesting choice.”
“Maybe it’s best if you shut up now,” Brock said in a pleasant tone Jen had never heard, which was extra creepy. He went on, all singsongy, “I put up with you because your mother loves you, and I was glad to see you go because then your mother loved me, but she seems to think she needs a break because she says I drove you away, so I’m bringing your stupid ass back so she can see I’m on her side.”
Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad if she just sucked it up and rode to Austin with him, got to her mom, and then called the police, but Brock reeked of whiskey, and he had a bottle under the front seat that he’d opened and swigged from before starting the car.
She had to find a way to either convince him to stop or…something. Dying in a head-on collision with a semitractor trailer wasn’t on her agenda for the day.
He started to turn left out of her lane instead of right, and she said, “Go the other way. You need to go right.”
“How do I know you’re telling me to go the right direction?” he asked. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because if I can’t get you to let me go, I want to make sure we get to Austin.” Or at least somewhere closer to Big Chance. Where there would be people who might be able to help her. But this might also be putting her mom in danger. He had a gun and was off his rocker, and she didn’t want to take him straight into the city where there were so many other people who could get hurt. She was so confused. She wasn’t one of those people who got all laser focused and strong when their adrenaline surged. She was more the huddle-in-place-and-pray type.
If only there were some way to signal for help.
Her phone rang. Well, that would sure be a way. But the gun in Brock’s hand suggested otherwise. “You answer that and you’re dead,” he told her. She didn’t really think he’d kill her—showing up on her mom’s doorstep with a dead Jen hopefully wasn’t part of his plan—but she also didn’t want to tempt him to take out her knees or anything theatrical and terrible. She sat still and felt the vibration of potential help calling—even if it was a telemarketer—and listened to the ringtone until it stopped. But then it started again.
“Damn it, can you turn that thing off?” he asked.
“I–I think so,” Jen said, squirming to reach into her pocket with her bound hands. The call went to voicemail—the caller hadn’t been an auto-warranty specialist—and she unlocked the phone, turned down the volume, and hit Redial—
“Now give it to me,” Brock said, snatching the phone from her and tossing it onto the dashboard without looking at the display.
“Turn left right up here,” she directed, although if she was really going to send him through Big Chance, she’d have kept them going straight. This was Forest Hill River Road, which ran parallel to Wild Wager Road and led to some sparsely wooded rises that were part of the Chance River watershed. Not a location with a lot of people who might come to Jen’s rescue, but also not many people who could get hurt if he got crazy and started swerving or shooting.
And just maybe, if she could get away, she might be able to make it to the ranch for help. Of course, Brock would follow her, and then she’d be dragging a lunatic with a gun into the middle of a bunch of people and dogs.
Her best hope right now was to sit tight and hope Tanner picked up the call she’d just placed and listened.
“Don’t you think this is a pretty road? It’s Forest Hill River Road. Pretty fitting, don’t you think?” Jen asked as loudly as she could without being too obvious that she was projecting to the phone on the dashboard.
“Wha?” Brock jerked the wheel. He was definitely drunk. Great.
“We’re on Forest Hill River Road,” she said, holding on to the Oh Jesus bar with both hands (since they were cuffed together—otherwise she’d have braced one on the dash) as they rounded a curve going way too fast. The hills seemed higher now that she was going up and down them. Right here, one side of the road went uphill, the other side went down, and Jen was on the downhill side.
“If you say so.”
An armadillo chose that moment to waddle into their path. Jen gasped as Brock slammed on the brakes and whipped the steering wheel around, sending the car careening over the side of the road and down the hill.
The sound of the little car crashing through bushes and grass was drowned out by Brock’s cursing—until they slid off the edge of an embankment. It seemed like hours as the car bounced, tilted, and landed upright, wedged into a crevasse of boulders and brush and God only knew what else.
For the longest moment, there was only the sound of breathing and the tink-tink of the engine cooling. But then the tink-tink was joined by a drip-drip. And a smell.
“Brock, we’re leaking gas,” she said. “We need to move away from this car.”
“Don’t you move,” he ordered, still holding onto the gun.
“Okay. But do you smell the gas?”
“Shut up. Let me think.”
Jen politely didn’t snort in derision. Instead, she carefully slid her tied feet along the foot well, locating her phone which had bounced off the dashboard.
“Don’t move,” Brock told Jen again, then got out of the car to assess the damage.
While he had his back turned, she managed to reach the phone on the floor, but she barely had time to tuck it under the edge of her shirt before he turned back to her.
“One of the fucking wheels came off. We have to walk out of here. Get out of the car.”
“You have to untie me,” Jen said. “I can’t get out. Hurry, before we blow up!” She didn’t know if that was true—she thought she’d read an article about how cars rarely blow up after crashing—but she didn’t want to take any chances. Besides, if Brock was in a hurry, he might make a mistake.
“Flip your legs up here,” he ordered, holding the gun on her while he reached below the seat to retrieve his nearly full bottle of bourbon, then into the back seat for a backpack.
She squirmed, fighting gravity and the tiny interior to get her feet over the center console and into the driver’s seat.
And then Brock had a dilemma. He had to put the gun down to untie her feet. Or…
“We’re going to uncuff you long enough to get your feet free. When you’re out of the car, the cuffs go back on.”
Well, that wasn’t going to help much, but at least it gave her a chance to put her phone in a pocket while she squirmed out of the car. She glanced about frantically for a way to escape, but his bullet would make it faster than her feet could take her anywhere. They stumbled a few steps away before he stopped to make her put the cuffs back on, and a few feet farther before he used the ropes that had tied her feet to fashion a harness with the knot on her back. He wrapped the other end around his wrist, so she was bound to him by a leash. As long as he held the other end, there was no way she could get loose.
He took a long slug of whiskey, slid the bottle into his pack, and looked around. Back the way they’d come, toward the road, would involve scaling a ridge covered with sticker bushes and boulders. “We need to find a car. If we go back up to the road, we could pretend you’re hurt and when someone stops, hijack them.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Jen said, the idea of involving innocent people in this crazy escapade making her stomach churn. Some poor rancher just driving along the road, stopping to help someone and getting his truck stolen—or worse, his life? Not happening. “What if we head that way, toward the east—” She pointed the other direction, through the woods, which she was pretty sure would eventually bring them closer to town. “There are farms and ranches that way. There should be cars.”
The Big Chance Dog Rescue was that way, too, and while the thought of taking this unhinged creep anywhere near the dogs and people she’d come to care about made her ill, she also knew that if anyone was going to be able to help her, it would be Tanner and his friends. And there was the slightest chance he was listening to her on the open cell-phone line in her pocket.
***
“Okay. She’s got him moving east into the woods off of Forest Hill River Road,” Tanner said, pointing to the map Lizzie had pulled up on her phone. “Headed this way.”
Everyone looked toward the vast expanse of wooded land that bordered the ranch. Some of that was part of the VanHook Historical and Recreation Park, but most of it was several square miles of private land used for hunting. Fortunately, nothing was in season at the moment, and it was the middle of the day, so they weren’t likely to be mistaken for big game.
But they had other problems.
“Depending on where they went off the road, it’s about two and a half, three miles as the crow flies,” Lizzie said.
“It’s not a straight shot, though. It’s hilly, and there’s a lot of dense brush in there,” added Adam. “Lots of places to get lost.”
“And snakes.” That was Jake.
“It’s hot as hell out there,” Marcus said. “I wonder if they have water.”
“I always carry water when I go kidnapping,” Rico said, then, “Sorry, shit. I’m sorry,” when everyone turned to stare at him.
Adam’s phone rang.
Tanner’s brain raced. It would likely be an hour, maybe two before Brock and Jen got through the woods, and anything could happen between now and then. How many lifetimes ago had they found poor Trixie? Then the phone calls to Jen that had gone to voicemail until she’d called him back. He’d answered her call, then realized she was in trouble—terrible trouble that he could have prevented. That interminable minute between screeching tires and silence, and her voice again. Alive. She was okay.
At least for the moment.
The blood on Trixie’s fur was from a small cut on her head which wasn’t deep or long, so they’d cleaned her up and gotten her a long drink of water. She seemed back to normal except that she hadn’t strayed more than a couple of feet from Tanner since she’d come back. Emma had checked her out and said she seemed fine, just exhausted from her long trip in the heat of the day.
Adam put his phone away. “The sheriff’s dealing with a domestic incident that turned into a murder-suicide on the other side of the county. He’s calling in a SWAT team from the next county, but it’s going to take them a while to get here.”
“They could be here by then,” Lizzie said.
“And we’ll be ready.” Adam gave Tanner a reassuring nod.
Tanner tried not to panic. This was worse than any mission he’d been on while deployed. He had training for that. He knew how to shut off his own reactions, channel the adrenaline into step-by-step actions and just do the job. This, though… What were you supposed to do when the woman you loved had been taken hostage? He couldn’t detach from Jen and the fear he heard in her voice, the terror he felt at the thought she might get killed. And then to think that he was pacing around here chewing his damned fingernails while she suffered… That wasn’t going to happen. He had to get in there and find her.
The phone he had glued to his ear came to life again.
“Shhh!” Tanner hit the speaker button and everyone gathered around to listen.
Jen said, “It sure is hot out here.”
There was a muffled response.
“I don’t suppose you have anything to drink besides whiskey in that pack, do you?”
The unintelligible response was short and sharp.
“Okay, but I really could use a drink. Do you think that’s a creek up ahead, between those two tall rocks? I wonder if it will be safe to drink.”
“She’s telling us where she is!” Emma whispered. “Good girl, Jen!”
A few seconds later, Jen said, “Be careful!”
This was followed by a lot of yelling and confusion—pained cries from Brock and a protesting “Hey! Ow, crap!” from Jen.
Tanner’s blood pressure rose a hundred points. Not being able to see what was happening made all of this so much worse because his imagination was painting a terrible picture.
He wanted to yell into the phone, to ask what was going on, but a moment later Jen told him.
“Oh my God, Brock, are you okay? Your ankle… Is it broken?”
Brock must have been much closer to Jen now than he’d been while they were walking because his response was loud and clear. “It’s just sprained. I’ll be okay in a minute.”
Jen said, “Okay, but it’s really swelling up fast. If you give me the handcuff key, I can make a splint—”
“You’re not touching me. Shut up and let me think.”
There was the sound of glass clinking, presumably the liquor bottle hitting the ground.
“What time is it?” Brock asked. “I dropped my phone over there. Get it for me. And don’t think you’re going to get away with anything. I’ve still got this gun.”
“And you still have me tied up.”
“You can reach it,” he said.
There was some shuffling and Jen said, “Here.”
“I can’t see it. The sun’s too bright. Damned trees everywhere but right here. What time is it?”
“Four o’clock. Why?”
“Because Joanie’s show is going to be on in an hour. And if I can’t be there to show her how much I love her, we’re going to call her instead.”
There was a beat of silence, then Jen said, “I really think we should get help for that ankle. Can’t you call her from the emergency room?”
“I think you can shut. The fuck. Up. And sit. The fuck. Down.”
There was a cry then, Jen’s voice crying in pain.
Tanner couldn’t take it anymore. “That’s it. I’m going in.”
“I understand your feelings,” Marcus said, holding up a hand when Tanner would have pushed past him toward the barn. “But we can’t just go running in there with guns blazing.”
“We aren’t. I am.” Tanner had been unsure about almost everything he’d tried to do his whole life, and he wasn’t sure he could rescue Jen. What he was sure of, however, was that if he didn’t go in there and try, he’d never forgive himself.
“You don’t even know where they are!”
“They’re in a clearing near a creek with a couple of big rocks. They told us that.” Rico held up his phone. “There’s only one spot like that, according to Google Earth.”
“Can you draw me a map while I go saddle Bullet?” Tanner asked.
“Yeah, but you can just take my phone. I know you have to keep your line open to listen to Jen.”
“Thanks. What’s your password, in case your phone goes to sleep?”
“Easy to remember. 80085.”
“That’s…”
“Boobs, right?” Rico grinned. But then he got serious. “You’re going to ride the horse? Is that a good idea? You said you weren’t sure he’s ready,” Rico said.
Tanner shook his head. “I wasn’t ready. I am now.”
Chapter 28
Lying in the dirt—or rather, rocks, weeds, and dirt—Jen took inventory of her body parts. Her right knee was going to have a hell of a bruise, as was her left elbow. These were the parts that had taken the brunt of it when Brock had yanked the rope that tied her to him. She had to give the jerk credit; he’d tied the rope in such a fashion that she couldn’t reach the knot with her cuffed hands. And in spite of his inebriation and the ankle injury, he was still strong enough to both hold that gun on her and pull the rope hard enough to topple her over.
She gingerly pushed herself up and carefully maneuvered into a sitting position.
Brock watched her from the corner of his eye while he took a long pull on his liquor bottle and tried to shift to a more comfortable position.
Jen didn’t think he’d be successful. His normally skinny white calf was swollen above the cuff of his sock and had already turned an angry red. She wasn’t anything close to a doctor, but that much red so soon after an injury had to mean something in that leg was bleeding more than it should.
“Help me take off my shoe,” Brock ordered now.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Brock. If something in there’s broken, your shoe’s probably kind of holding it all together.”
“Well, it fucking hurts, so take it off, okay?”
“Okay, okay.” She scooted down to his foot and carefully untied and loosened the laces.
Brock moved to lift his foot and toe the shoe off with his other foot, but screamed in pain. “It hurts. Oh damn, it really hurts.”
“Brock, we need to get help. Let me call for help.”
“No way. Just let me sit here for a few minutes.”
She wasn’t sure Brock was in danger of dying from a broken leg in the next few minutes, but if he didn’t let her get help, they’d both die of dehydration and heat exhaustion soon enough.
