“I need a car!” Cody yelled before kicking the four slashed tires of the Hummer in turn. “A bike! Hell, a skateboard!”
“Calm down,” Chandler warned, holding up the keys to his SUV. “I’m parked on the other side of the Inn.”
As he ran through the snow, Cody called Seth and gave a description of the van. With Chandler at the wheel once they reached the car, he was able to call his office to start a full-scale search.
“There’s an extra coat in the back.”
Cody blinked at his brother as if he’d spoken in fluent Farsi. “What?”
“A coat,” Chandler prodded. “It’s like ten degrees.”
Cody hadn’t felt the cold. He only felt fear.
WILLY SERVED his purpose and was dropped from the moving van as soon as he’d bound J.J. with rope and given over her gun to Martin.
Martin proceeded to drive another few miles, then pulled off the highway and parked the van in the center of a massive junkyard. “Sorry about this, Barnes.” He shoved J.J. off the seat onto the floorboard, then got out and slammed the door.
This was definitely not good. She lay on her side, already feeling the cold starting to affect her, listening as a car engine started. The sound faded, telling her that Martin had abandoned her.
But that didn’t make any sense. “Why leave me here?” she wondered aloud. “Why let Willy go? Why no Visnopovs?”
Focus, Barnes. Step one was definitely to hoist herself off the floor. She got a brush burn on her chin from using it to leverage herself by digging it into the upholstery. It took some doing, but she finally managed to wiggle back up onto the seat.
Looking out the front window, she realized that the white van would be hard—if not impossible—to spot from the air. Piles of junk metal, tattered remnants of furniture, and wrecked and twisted cars probably reached two stories high. And they were blanketed with snow, which meant she’d be little more than a dot of white in a sea of white. And she didn’t dare risk stumbling out into the snow with her hands tied. Too cold. And cold killed just as effectively as an angry Visnopov.
“The Lord helps those who help themselves,” she muttered as she began to kick the plastic console separating the two front seats. On the third kick, the plastic splintered. On the fifth kick, a piece suitable to use as a blade splintered off, flying past her.
J.J. wiggled around, feeling along the crevice between the bench seat and the sliding door. Something sharp pricked her finger. Feeling the outline, she realized it was one of those pointy things used to sink nails.
“An awl,” she announced, as if it were a Jeopardy! question instead of a momentary way to keep her mind from thinking about her dilemma.
The awl was great if she needed to stab something, but that wasn’t the task at hand. She tucked it into the back pocket of her jeans, and kept feeling around the tight crack between the seat and the door. After a few more seconds, she found the makeshift blade. The good news was, all the activity made her perspire. The bad news was, the sun was starting to set. She knew that when the sun dropped, so did the temperature. Quickly.
She set to work sawing through the nylon rope binding her hands. Her steady progress had a calming effect, until she heard the snow crunching under the weight of an approaching car.
The car stopped behind the van. She heard one door open, then a second. Damn. At least two. She worked faster at cutting the ropes, as she heard footfalls crunch through the frozen top layer of snow. In the rearview mirror, she monitored their approach. Two men. Dark overcoats. Fully automatic weapons. Double damn.
“NOTHING SO FAR.” Seth’s voice crackled over Chandler’s speaker phone. Cody cursed and smashed the roll of papers that Chandler had given him against the dashboard. The reverse directory pages provided by Stephenson didn’t seem so important anymore.
“I’ve got choppers up now,” Seth said. “Don’t worry, Cody, we’ll find her.”
Alive?
“He couldn’t have gotten far,” Chandler reasoned just before slamming on the brakes.
Bracing himself as the car fishtailed, Cody spied the form in the center of the road and felt his stomach clench.
“Stop the car. Stop the car!” Before his brother brought the vehicle to a full stop he jumped from the car and ran back, gun trained on the still form.
“Get up.”
The only response was a groan.
Cody nudged Willy with his foot. “Get up now.”
The young man rolled over. His clothing was shredded, revealing a pretty bad case of road burn on one whole side of his body. He shivered and winced, but managed to open one eye.
“I need a doctor,” he croaked.
“Tell me where she is or you’ll need a mortician.”
“Cody?” Chandler made his name sound like a caution. “He’s hurt.”
“He’s gonna be hurt a lot worse if he doesn’t tell me where she is.”
“Don’t…know,” he grunted.
Cody pressed the toe of his boot against the guy’s ribs and applied just a bit of pressure.
“Ow! Okay! Okay!”
“Ease off, Cody,” Chandler warned, this time more forcefully.
“Yeah, ease off, Cody,” the injured guy repeated, his voice stronger now.
“Wrong thing to say,” Chandler said pleasantly before giving the guy a swift kick to the stomach.
The guy let out a girlish squeal of pain, then said, “She gave me a hundred bucks to drive the van to the Inn and do whatever the other guy told me to do.”
“Names, Willy. I need names,” Cody insisted as the rhythmic chop of helicopter blades cut through the evening air. “Now.”
“I don’t know!” Willy insisted. “The lady that came to the shop seemed…confused.”
“Confused?”
“Yep. She had an earpiece in her ear. You know, the kind that connects to a phone? I could hear the guy on the other end. It was either a really bad connection or he had an accent.”
“Russian?” Cody’s throat clogged with anxiety.
“Maybe. Thick sounding. Not anything I’ve heard around here.”
“Tell me exactly what she wanted you to do.” Cody knelt to hear the guy over the noise from the hovering chopper.
“It wasn’t her. It was him, I think. She seemed really nervous and kept turning back to look around the parking lot.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Short brown hair, brown eyes. One arm in a sling.”
Lara. Dammit! He’d let her walk out the door. Cody lifted the guy by what was left of his shirt collar. “Tell me everything. Every detail.”
“She said he needed a van. Then I hear the Russian guy yelling through the earpiece and she corrects herself. Says it has to be a white van.” Willy paused to hold his rib cage and cough. “That’s when I noticed the guy in the gray van pull up. It made the lady very nervous. Especially when he didn’t get out of the van. Just parked at the end of the lot. I figured the Russian guy who was calling the shots was probably in the van and I’m wondering to myself, ‘why doesn’t he just come in and do the deal?’ but he doesn’t. He just corrected the lady a few times.”
“Like how?”
“Well, the color thing. That was one. Where I was supposed to park at the Inn. She said in the front at first, then I hear him ranting and she changes it to the service road. That was two. She said I should ‘put’ the tall blonde in the van, then changed it to ‘shove.’” Willy’s scraped and bloody forehead wrinkled. “Oh, yeah, and she covered the mouthpiece when she told me what to say if I got asked questions before we got the woman in the van.”
“What?”
“She lowered her voice and told me to make sure I told you it was a woman who hired me. Then she signed the rental agreement and told me to leave right away.”
“Where’s the van now?”
“I swear I don’t know!” Willy cried, then stiffened as if expecting to be hit.
His fear wasn’t completely without merit. The only thing that stopped Cody from pounding the little twerp was time. He wouldn’t waste the time. He had to find J.J. before…no! Don’t even think it. “Where’s the rental agreement now?” Cody demanded.
“The original is at the shop. I stuck her copy in the glove compartment of the van.”
He turned, but his brother was already dialing. “Get someone to Hank’s Truck Rental,” Chandler yelled, one finger stuck in his ear as he listened. “Okay, I’ll tell him.”
He saw Chandler blanch. “What?” Cody asked, his body rigid as dread leeched into every cell.
“They found a body.”
“Whose?”
“Steven…Stevens…”
“Stephenson?” Cody asked.
Chandler nodded.
“He is—was—J.J.’s shadow. Where’s the body?”
“About three miles from the truck rental place. What do you want to do?”
Cody didn’t hesitate. “Find J.J.”
Chandler’s phone rang and he handed it to Cody. Seth was on the other end. “I’ve got a guy at the rental place. You should get up here now.”
“I know about Stephenson.”
“Forget that,” Seth insisted. “I’ll meet you there in ten minutes.”
They were, Cody decided, ten of the longest minutes of his life. It was dark and well below zero by the time Chandler pulled into the group of cars converged on the small combination convenience store, service station, car wash and truck rental establishment.
He found Seth inside, giving instructions to the deputy guarding the elderly couple, seated and handcuffed.
“Willy’s grandparents, who own the rental place,” Seth explained. “They claim they don’t know a thing about the kidnapping. Claim Willy wouldn’t do anything like that. And all his juvenile arrests were mistakes. Oh—” Seth’s expression conveyed marginally controlled anger “—they won’t let us see the rental records without a warrant.”
Cody didn’t have the time or the inclination to deal gently with loving grandparents in denial. Making his way over to them, he simply told them that Willy had been dumped on the highway by one of the kidnappers and was injured.
“How badly?” the grandmother asked.
Cody flipped out his badge. “I’m a U.S. marshal, ma’am. The witness I was protecting was kidnapped and is about to be murdered.”
“Willy wouldn’t kill anyone.”
“Shut up, Trudy. We won’t say nothing until we get a lawyer.”
Cody wanted to punch the guy in his protruding beer belly. “Fine. We wait for an attorney. My witness is killed. The actual killers get away. Willy takes the fall alone.”
His method worked. Trudy wasn’t as stupid as her husband. She quickly directed them to a key in her purse that opened the drawer beneath the cash register.
Finding the rental agreement was easy. Recognizing Lara’s handwriting was sad but expected. “So why did she fill this out under her own name?” he asked. “Real name. Real address. Real driver’s license number and—”
Cody reread the driver’s license number.
“Nine digits?” Seth asked, peering over Cody’s shoulder. “What state has a nine-digit license number?”
“Three-zero-five.” Cody read the first numbers aloud, allowing a flicker of hope to seep into his thoughts. “It’s a phone number.”
Cody grabbed the ancient, black plastic rotary phone off the counter and impatiently dialed the number. A woman answered on the first ring. “Who is this?”
“Carol Selznick.”
“Lara’s mother? Sister? What?”
“Are you Cody Landry?” she asked, surprising him.
“Yes.”
“Lara said if you called, I was supposed to tell you the truth.” There was a slight pause, then she said, “I’m her wife.”
It took Cody a second to wrap his brain around that one. CLS. Carol and Lara Selznick. Not “Cabin at Lucky Seven” as he and J.J. had guessed.
“Okay. But that doesn’t—”
“Is Lara all right?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted truthfully. “We’ve got a bit of a situation here, Miss…Mrs…. Carol.”
“I figured as much.” There was anxiety and fear in the woman’s soft voice. “You are looking for her, aren’t you?”
“What did Lara want you to tell me?” Cody asked.
“Someone was blackmailing her.”
“I assumed as much, so that’s not overly helpful, Carol.”
He heard choked sobs on the other end. “It wasn’t money,” Carol continued, whimpering occasionally. “He made her do things. Things she knew were wrong, but she didn’t want to risk my being outed. I’m a teacher, Deputy Landry. In a very conservative private school here in Miami. I’m being considered for tenure and someday, I’d like to be headmistress. If anyone finds out, I’ll lose my job. I’m good at it and I—”
“Carol!” he cut in, “was there anything else?”
“Yes. Two things. First, she told me that after this week, Martin and his wife can have a baby.”
Cody finally had a inkling of why Martin was involved.
“Lara told me a few months back that Martin’s wife needed some sort of special procedure to be able to get pregnant. It’s so specialized, their insurance won’t cover it.” Carol continued between sniffles, “Um, second, and I’m quoting, ‘the job is junk.’”
“Excuse me?”
“The job is junk. I know. Weird, because she never says ‘junk’ and she never complains about the job. But the guy blackmailing her—maybe Martin, I don’t know—had tapes of some earlier phone conversations. I figured this was some kind of code she was using when she called today that you’d understand and whoever was tapping our phone wouldn’t. Does it help? Will it help you find Lara?”
“I hope so,” Cody muttered, his mind running possibilities as he placed the receiver on the cradle. Looking to Chandler and Seth, he asked, “Junk. Mean anything to you?”
“There’s a junkyard on Highway 3 west of town.”
“How far from the Inn?”
“We passed it on our way here,” Seth said. “Three, maybe three and a half miles. Why?”
“I remember the place. I think that’s where J.J. might be.”
“I’ll get the choppers up,” Seth said, grabbing the microphone on his shoulder and barking a quick succession of orders.
“I’ll drive,” Cody announced, snatching the keys from Chandler. “You stay here. You’re getting married tomorrow and I—”
“Will be there. Don’t be stupid and sentimental, Cody. I’m coming, so get a move on.” Chandler dialed his cell phone as they ran to the car.
Cody listened as his brother called for reinforcements. Between Seth’s helicopters and deputies and every available Landry brother, they should be able to find J.J.
He only prayed it would be in time.
ONLY A FEW HOURS had passed but J.J. had about another quarter inch of rope to cut through when the door to the van opened. She didn’t recognize the men, but she knew them all the same. It was the hats. The Visnopovs loved ushankas. The large fur hats with the long ear flaps were perfect for the harsh Russian climate. And a pretty good idea in Montana, too. She was too scared to be cold.
“Hi, fellas,” she greeted, scooting back so that as a last resort, she could at least kick one of them before they shot her. She kept cutting at her bonds, hoping to buy time. “Can I interest you in some scrap metal?”
“Funny girl, this one,” the taller of the men said. He smiled, revealing two gaps where teeth should have been.
The smaller one answered in Russian. Doing the translation in her head, she realized it wasn’t an answer. Short Russian wanted to know if he needed to lay a tarp in the trunk of the car, or if they just planned on leaving her in the van after they were finished.
Tall Russian said she’d be left with the other one. What other one?
Didn’t matter. Her hands were free and timing was crucial. J.J. grasped the awl, took a deep breath and let adrenaline take over.
In one action, she kicked Tall Russian in the chin, then leaned forward and stabbed Short Russian in the neck with the awl. Utilizing the momentum of her attack, she pushed through them as their automatic weapons spit wildly into the air.
J.J. bolted around a pile of scrap. She heard cursing, screaming and then the pings of bullets ricocheting off the metal all around her. She crouched down, feeling her way under a rusted car.
There was just enough room for her to half crawl, half crouch beneath a tower of trashed cars and other debris in a seemingly endless tunnel of twisted metal and car carcasses. As she crawled deeper, she felt the jagged edges of something scrape her thigh. Her sweater bunched up, putting her flesh in direct contact with the rough, frozen ground. Bone-deep cold and pain made her shudder. J.J. grit her teeth and forged on. She didn’t have her gun, but she picked up a two-by-four piece of metal to use as a crude weapon.
The debris surrounding her got more and more dense, making the makeshift burrow more and more difficult to navigate. But she didn’t dare stop moving. She could hear the Russians as they searched for her. Heart pounding, she shifted sideways to squeeze between two rusted truckbeds.
A flash of movement on the other side of the scrap metal made her stop on a dime and hold her breath. One of the Russians was close enough to touch. He stopped, just feet away, his back to her, and looked around. If he turned his head two more inches to the left, they’d be eye to eye.
Then she heard the hum of helicopter blades. Bright, white shafts of light illuminated in the snow and metal.
Rat-tat-tat. Ping-ping-ping. Russians versus helicopter sharpshooter.
She covered her head with her arms as snow and rust rained down on her. As soon as there was a break, she pushed forward.
Emerging cautiously, she kept her back to a sheet of corrugated metal and let her gaze move slowly from left to right. No signs of either man. She pushed away the foot or so of snow blocking her exit, then pulled herself free of the tunnel. She was about to stand when she felt a hand close around her ankle.
He yanked hard. Hard enough that her only choices were to fall to the ground or have her shin snapped like a twig. She must have let out a yelp, something. Because she suddenly heard Cody’s voice echoing around her.
She kicked at the death grip around her ankle, half-expecting the Russian to shoot her at any second. Twisting, bucking, trying anything to keep her attacker off balance, J.J. screamed for Cody as she rolled onto her back and looked at the shadowy figure holding her.
The Russian was grunting and cursing, but nothing seemed to lessen his grasp.
Cody skidded around the corner. “J.J.!” he called, slipping as he lost traction in his rush to cover the ten yards or so to where she lay prone in the snow.
“Gun!” she called back.
The beam from the helicopter that had been following him, spotted J.J., allowing him to see that someone had her ankle in one hand. Through the tangled web of metal, he saw the outline of a semiautomatic snaking through in order for her captor to get off a clean shot. At that range, there was no way she’d survive it.
“J.J.!” he yelled, getting her attention for the split second it took to toss her his gun.
It took five rounds before the fingers clutching her ankle released.
She was breathing so heavily that she almost couldn’t speak when Cody fell to her side and gathered her against him. Closing her eyes briefly, she nuzzled close to him, drinking in the comfort of his smell and relishing the safety of being in his arms.
Then she heard it. A brief creaking sound above them. Reacting to the sight of the Short Russian, his face and neck drenched with his own blood, poised and ready to fire from his high perch, she shoved Cody out of the way and took aim.
The snow exploded around them as bullets slammed into the ground. It was quick. Then it was over. She had only one thought. Cody!
He lay on his back, eyes closed, lips tight, cheeks hollow. Scrambling to her knees, J.J. began frantically checking him for wounds. She couldn’t find any.
“Talk to me,” she pleaded, practically shaking him. “Cody, where does it hurt?”
One eye struggled to open as he pointed to his chest. “Here.”
Oh, Lord. He could barely talk. She ripped off the top two buttons of his coat, searching with hands and eyes for blood, a bullet hole, an entry point, but still couldn’t find the wound.
“I’m going to have to roll you over.” She started to slip her hands beneath him when she saw the flicker of a smile at the edge of his lips. “You’re faking?” she accused.
“No, my chest does hurt. You knocked the wind out of me when you flipped me.”
“Baby.”
“And—” he paused to brush her lips with a kiss “—it hurts because you won’t admit that you love me.”
She thought about it. Really, really thought about it. Nope. Not yet. “Grow from the pain,” she told him, kissing him quickly when she heard the thunder of people running in their direction.
She frowned. “Did you call in the National Guard or something?”
He pointed toward the approaching group. “I don’t need the Guard. I have Landrys.”
“How nice for you.”
His expression stilled. “I have them, but I want you. I love you, J.J.”
She pressed her lips to his forehead and said, “I know.”