Backcountry Escape (Badlands Cops Book 3) Read online

  “I don’t have time for you to berate me. She needed to do this,” Cecilia snapped. “Alone. And she knew I was the only one who wouldn’t—”

  “Keep her safe?” Gage replied.

  There was an intake of breath and the call ended. Gage swore, but he didn’t stop moving. They still had a good quarter of a mile before they got to Brady’s truck.

  “Well, I heard all that,” Brady said grimly, following after Gage. “Felicity’s probably back at her cabin. Upset. Visits with Ace are upsetting. She forgot to check in. Took a shower, maybe.”

  Gage kept walking at the breakneck pace he’d set for himself. “She wouldn’t. She just wouldn’t.” If she told someone, she’d be sure to say she was all right.

  Why did she tell Cecilia?

  “We should check,” Brady insisted.

  He had no patience for his brother’s calm reason. “No time.”

  “Don’t you think we should be sure before we go anywhere with guns blazing?”

  Gage wanted to whirl on his brother and pound some sense into him, but there was no time. Instead, he broke into a jog, no matter how it made his head ache or his stomach roil. “What happened to Nina and Cody after their visit to Ace? They about got themselves killed, but they had each other. She’s alone. And she put a bullet in Ace, which means he won’t rest...”

  Gage swore again. He hadn’t fully grasped how much of a target Felicity had made of herself.

  All because of him.

  He reached the truck and held out his hands for the keys.

  Brady had jogged after him, but he stopped resolutely out of reach. “I think I should drive.”

  “Don’t fight me on this.”

  Brady hesitated, then handed him the keys. “Where are we going?”

  “The jail.”

  Brady winced. “I was afraid of that.” But he got in the truck and didn’t lodge one complaint when Gage drove like a bat out of hell. Luckily, they’d already been out in Pennington County rather than back at the ranch, where it would take way longer to get to the jail.

  Gage parked haphazardly, taking up two spots. He saw Brady eyeing the bad parking job. Gage tossed him the keys. “Here. Fix it. I want to do this alone.”

  “What exactly?”

  “I’ll kill him this time. No qualm.”

  Brady put his hand on Gage’s shoulder. “In the jail? Gage. Take a minute. You have to think before you act. Going in there with murder on the brain is a recipe for a whole new disaster we most certainly don’t have time for.”

  Gage shrugged off Brady’s hand. “I’ll think once we know where she is.”

  “We know she isn’t here.”

  But Ace had to know where she was. What had happened. Why the hell had she thought to do this on her own? Why had Cecilia let her?

  She should have told him, and he couldn’t deal with the hurt of that when she was God knew where. Gage strode forward, about to wrench open the front door of the jail entrance, badge at the ready, but Tucker stepped out of the door first.

  He came up short, looked from Gage to Brady. “Well. You got here fast.”

  Gage only growled.

  Tucker held up his hands. “Listen, we’ve got a few leads. Her car is still in the lot, so wherever she went, it was with someone else.”

  “How is Ace doing this?” Brady asked, too much bafflement and not enough fury.

  Gage wanted to whirl on him, rage at someone, but it was only the impotent terror building inside of him. He couldn’t let it win because it was clouding all rational thought.

  “He’s not,” Tucker said grimly. “At least, it seems really unlikely. The security footage seems to point to a van. No windows. No plates. We’ve got an APB out.”

  “And that’s not Ace because?”

  “Because...” Tucker sighed. “We went over the past few days of security footage, and that van was here every day for the past four, only during visiting hours. No one ever got out. The only time the van moved before the end of visiting hours was today. It moves after Felicity enters the jail. We caught a quick glimpse of the driver. It’s not... It’s not a clear shot, and there’s room for interpretation, but I’m about sixty percent sure the driver is Michael Harrison.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Felicity had spent the first ten minutes trapped in the back of a van berating herself for her stupidity. She’d been so shaken when she’d walked out of the jail that she’d turned to the sound of her name rather than run from it.

  She’d been pushed into the back of the vehicle before she’d had a chance to get her footing. Before she’d had a chance to fight or run or scream—the doors had closed on her.

  She was an utterly worthless fool.

  The back of the van was completely black. She’d spent most of the drive feeling around, trying to find a handle or some way to get the door open. She could tell the car was going fast because every time it turned she’d tumble around like loose change.

  If she could find a door, and open it, she would jump out regardless. Even if he were driving 100 miles per hour. Anything was better than being at her father’s mercy.

  He was alive. Alive and well from the looks of it. He certainly hadn’t been trapped or lost in the Badlands for the past few days.

  The van came to an abrupt stop and she pitched forward, painfully banging her elbow and hip against who knew what.

  She didn’t let the jarring pain stop her from hurrying back to her feet, crouched and ready. He’d have to open the doors, and he hadn’t tied her up or hurt her. Maybe he’d taken her somewhere terrible. Maybe he had a gun.

  But she wouldn’t go down like she had in that parking lot. Stupid and off guard. No. Absolutely not.

  She didn’t let herself think about how he’d survived or why he’d come for her. It didn’t matter.

  She’d fight him no matter what.

  He’d taken her purse, and that stung, because she’d been dumb enough to put Cody’s little button in there. When Cody had given it to her, he’d told her to wear it on her person. She had, every day, but she hadn’t wanted questions about it when she’d been searched at the jail, so she’d put it in her purse before heading inside.

  Everything that was happening was because of stupid choices she’d made out of arrogance or ignorance or something. Desperation? Why couldn’t she have left it all alone? For her own stupid, pointless conscience.

  That line of thought did nothing to help her. She wouldn’t let it be the end of her life. She had to be smart. She had to fight her way out of this.

  Beating herself up could—and would—come later.

  The van was still stopped, so she remained crouched in a fighting position. But when the doors opened, the light was blinding and she winced away from it out of instinct.

  Nothing happened as she adjusted to the light. She clenched her fists and blinked as her father came into focus.

  He stood outside the van looking grim. “Never could leave well enough alone. You should have let it go, Felicity. Gone back to your life. But you just had to keep poking.”

  She stayed back in the van, fists clenched as she got used to the light pouring in. “You’re the one who dragged me into this. You killed her, and you had me framed.”

  He sighed. “Ace going to blame it all on me? Typical. But he’s in jail and I’m not.”

  “You killed her,” Felicity repeated. She would get his confirmation—if she had been stupid enough to be caught here, she would get his confirmation.

  “Yeah, I did. But she had it coming. Did you believe me, Felicity? I ain’t killed no one. Oh, I’m so hurt. Don’t leave me here to die.” He scoffed, not even pleased with himself. Just disgusted. “I’ll give you credit for leaving me there to die, but you should have finished off the job if you really wanted me dead.”

  It dawned on her how much
he’d fooled her. Not just about the murder, but about everything. “You weren’t hurt.”

  “Man, you’re dumb. Come on out now.” He gestured her forward.

  The fact he expected her to listen to his directive made it seem like he, in fact, was the dumb one. She wasn’t about to scuttle out there to die just because he told her to.

  She stayed where she was, crouched and ready.

  “Going to make this harder on yourself.” He groaned like an inconvenienced teenager. “Fine. But I warn you, I like a struggle. You won’t.”

  “You’ll have to drag me out of here, kicking and screaming,” she replied, ready to do whatever it took. He would physically overpower her, no doubt, but she wouldn’t make it easy.

  He shrugged. “No problem there.” He leaned forward, his big body and long arms giving him the reach he needed. She kicked, scratched and bit, but it was no use. He got ahold of her arm and dragged her out. If she landed any blows, he didn’t so much as grunt. He jerked her arm so hard and violently she wasn’t altogether sure her arm was still in the socket.

  Pain radiated through her and for a moment she was too bowled over by it to fight. He dropped her onto the ground, a patch of gravel in front of a run-down trailer.

  She tried to breathe through the pain, tried to stand. She managed to get to her knees. He stood over her and reached a hand back, as if he expected her to cower and take the blow.

  No. She wasn’t a little girl anymore.

  She used everything she had to push forward and crash into his knees. Apparently, it was enough of a surprise to knock him backward, and he tripped over the edge of the gravel, sprawling onto his back with a grunt.

  She stumbled on top of him. He immediately fought her off, trying to pin her to the ground. He was bigger, but she was faster. She was slithering away when he caught her by the ankle and dragged her back across the hard, painful gravel.

  She kicked out, tried to shake off his grasp. He kept pulling her toward the trailer and she knew she couldn’t wind up inside. She watched his legs move, timed them and then managed to kick her heel out to strike his ankle. He tripped and lost his grip on her.

  She jumped up, knowing she could outrun him. She had to. But before she’d made it three strides, he grabbed her by the shirt.

  She’d never grappled with anyone before, let alone someone nearly twice her size, but she didn’t let that stop her. She knew the important thing was getting in as many blows as possible. So she punched and kicked and kneed, while his breath wheezed out.

  She gave him a nasty blow to the nose, which had blood spurting out. Triumph whirred through her, but it was only a second before his meaty fist connected with the side of her face, sending her sprawling.

  Her vision blurred, and her mind seemed to echo in on itself.

  Get to your feet. Get to your feet. She could feel her mind telling her to do it, but her limbs took forever to cooperate.

  She struggled to her feet again—and she would keep doing so. No matter how many times he knocked her down or got in her way—she would fight.

  Fight!

  Dizzy and bleeding, pain radiating through her, she stood there ready to fight him off again. There was nowhere to run behind her. It was all rock wall and trailer. But there had to be a way to get past him.

  Except Michael didn’t come after her again. He leaned into the passenger side of the van and came back out with a gun.

  “See, if you didn’t fight me, Felicity, you would have avoided this. I didn’t want to kill you. Well, not with a gun. It’s hard enough getting away with one murder—two would be pushing it.” He laughed a little. “But now you’re hurt. And you’ve got my DNA on you, so no wandering in the Badlands till you die for you.”

  She was woozy and out of it, but she knew one thing for sure. “I’d never have died in the Badlands.”

  “I’d have made sure of it,” he replied, turning the gun on her.

  He’d shoot her. No matter what. She could run, but there was nowhere to go that a bullet wouldn’t find her. So she wouldn’t run. At least not away.

  Instead, she ran toward him. If he killed her, at least she’d gone down fighting for her life. At least she’d tried.

  She rammed into him just as the shot went off. She didn’t feel the piercing pain of a bullet, but the blast of sound next to her ear made it feel as though her head had exploded. She pressed her hands to her ears, trying to somehow ease the horrible sound and pressure.

  It was a heck of a lot better than being shot, but the pain was still a shock to her system. Such a shock she couldn’t think past the fact she couldn’t seem to hear. Everything was a buzz. She looked around, trying to understand...

  Fear gripped her, and in that fear, he won.

  He wrenched her arms behind her back. She could feel him tying something around her wrists. The blow must have knocked out more than just her hearing, because it didn’t occur to her to fight him off.

  She knelt there in the gravel, rocks digging into her knees, hands being tied behind her back and just...prayed.

  * * *

  GAGE TAMPED DOWN the panic. He’d had a lifetime of doing that. Danger had been the story of his first eleven years, and if he was able to survive that, to survive that cave with Ace, he could do it.

  His profession had given him the skills to disassociate. To focus on one step at a time to get someone to safety.

  He could find Felicity. He would.

  He had to.

  There had been different sightings of the van, giving different possible directions. Tuck had asked a few deputies to go check Michael’s last known place of residence, though no one expected him to be there.

  And he wasn’t.

  Gage had wanted to go, but he knew himself well enough to know his temper wasn’t suited for searching. Not for clues. He wanted to be searching for her. But he needed a lead, a damn plan.

  “We could head back to the Badlands, where she left him,” Gage offered to Brady as they drove down a highway someone had claimed to have seen the van driving on. “It’s what Ace would do.”

  “He isn’t Ace,” Brady replied. “Did you look at his record?”

  Gage shook his head. He hadn’t given a thought to Michael Harrison other than finding his body so Felicity could rest easily. Quite frankly, when he hadn’t been searching for Michael, he’d been headfirst lost in Felicity and what having a normal life with a woman he loved felt like.

  “Threats. Assault. Battery. Over and over again. Dude can’t control his temper, and thanks to lawyers and judges, never stays behind bars for very long. Which I know isn’t exactly a comfort, but I don’t think he’s enacting the kind of poetic justice Ace is always after. This is just vengeance.”

  “Why? Felicity didn’t do anything to him,” Gage returned resolutely. Because if it was just vengeance, she might already be gone. At least with Ace you always knew you had a chance to save someone while he showboated his anointed routine.

  “Felicity left him to die and, from what Cecilia said, confronted Ace about his role in that woman’s murder.” Brady’s calm faltered. “He did it. I think Michael killed that poor girl. Not Ace.”

  “And Ace is innocent?” Gage asked incredulously.

  “No. But I think Ace got involved for different reasons, and I think once we’ve got Felicity back, you’ll be able to think the same thing.”

  “Getting Felicity back is all I care about.” Who cared about the reasons. Who cared about anything except her safety.

  He looked out at the highway, analyzing every rare vehicle that passed him by. This was going to drive him slowly insane. Not that he could stand anything that wasn’t finding her. If this was all he could do... Well, maybe it’d help him come up with something else.

  “You sure you want me to ride shotgun on this?” Brady asked, squinting out the passenger seat window
.

  Gage blinked at his brother—his twin. “Why wouldn’t it be you?”

  Brady shrugged. “Because you’re mad at me for being calm.”

  “Any of you would be calm,” Gage returned, and though disgust laced his tone, he was glad someone could be. Without Brady and Tucker’s calm, he would have already done a hundred stupid things.

  “Dev wouldn’t be calm,” Brady offered.

  “I don’t need Dev making my worst impulses even worse,” Gage muttered, frustrated with the conversation. “I need you, Brady. Ticked off at your calm or not, I need it.”

  “You got it.”

  Gage blew out a breath. It didn’t ease his fear, but it calmed some of the ragged edges. They were the Wyatt twins. They had a whole army of Wyatts looking for her.

  They’d find her. Who knew. Maybe she’d already saved herself. She could face down Ace, surely she could take down Michael.

  Gage’s phone rang and he answered it tersely.

  “Don’t get too excited just yet,” Cody’s voice said without preamble. “But I think I’ve got a track on her.” Gage hadn’t heard from Cody this whole time. Gage had figured it was because he was all the way in Bonesteel and not law enforcement in any licensed capacity.

  But Cody knew tech and computers.

  “Explain,” Gage snapped.

  “I didn’t want to say anything until I was sure it would work. But the button I gave her... Even though she didn’t hit it, I’m tracking her. At least the button. If it’s on her, I can tell you where she is.”

  “Then do it.” He tossed the phone at Brady, then followed Brady’s instructions as to where to drive.

  It was a good twenty miles from the jail. Gage didn’t let his stomach curdle at the thought of how long she’d been gone, and how little of it would have been in transport.

  He focused on action, on reining in his temper. Felicity was in danger. True, mortal danger. He couldn’t let his temper be the thing that killed her. “We can’t go in guns blazing.”

  He felt Brady’s surprise more than saw it.