Mitch heard voices. The men were coming. He silently cursed for not thinking to bring his shotgun. He’d kept all of his weapons locked up since the babies had arrived for safety’s sake.
“Hey, Ron,” one of the men said. “They have to be here somewhere. We’re not leaving without her.”
“The spotter’s sure it was them?” Ron responded.
“Bet his mother’s life on it,” the other creep said.
“Baxter’s none too thrilled she’s gotten away this long,” Ron said.
Spotter? Rental vans and trucks. A picture was emerging that caused Mitch to grind his back teeth in anger. Those elements added up to human traffickers. Hatch, New Mexico, being situated near the Mexican border, was the perfect gateway.
Based on the picture Kimberly portrayed of her foster father, he didn’t seem the type to be involved in a human-trafficking ring—a ring that could be paying the local sheriff’s deputy to look the other way. Pinning their crime on an innocent woman could provide cover. Tonto might’ve provided transportation, and that’s where Randy Bristol came in. Maybe the kid came asking for a favor, pretended to be in trouble. Then again maybe he’d gotten in over his head and Bristol was trying to dig him out.
Mitch would share his suspicions with Zach as soon as he and Kimberly were in the clear.
A truck door opened and closed. Then another. They were checking the trucks first.
“Climb over here on my side,” Mitch instructed. He had to get her out of there. Hell, get them both out of there. This was a no-win situation. He searched around for a spare key.
It was wishful thinking and a waste of time.
Mitch risked a glance at the side-view mirror.
The man on his side had a pistol, so he assumed the other one did, too. The half dozen trucks in between wouldn’t take long for the creeps to clear. They moved quickly, methodically checking the cab of each truck.
Mitch cranked the window down, thankful these older models didn’t have automatic buttons, which would require starting the engine and, therefore, a key.
“They want me. Let them take me,” Kimberly said, hoisting up her phone. “I can put on GPS and you can regroup and find me before anything happens. You said yourself that they aren’t trying to kill me. It’ll give you time.”
“Not a chance. We have another option,” he said.
“Mitch. Listen to reason. They don’t need you, which means they’ll shoot to kill,” she continued.
She made a good point.
But there was no way Mitch would willingly allow her to give herself up to save him.
He couldn’t let the men get any closer.
There had to be a better plan.
“Promise me that you’ll try to get away,” he said.
She didn’t respond.
“Kimberly. Promise me.”
Another beat of silence passed before she finally said, “I promise.”
“Good. I’ll create a diversion and I need you to run like hell around the side of the warehouse.” He fished keys from his pocket and handed them to her. “If you make it to the truck before me, don’t wait.”
“Mitch—”
“There’s no time to argue. I’ll be fine. They want you and there’s no reason to kill me,” he said but he knew they’d take the shot in a heartbeat. He hoped they were bad shots. Either way he had every intention of making it home to his children. “If we get separated, get out of here and make contact as soon as you’re clear.”
“I will if you will,” she committed.
“Deal.” Now all he had to do was get them both out of there alive.
“What’s the plan?” She popped her head up and checked her side. “My guy’s getting close. He’s two trucks back.”
“No matter what I say in the next thirty seconds, stay right here and keep your head down.” Mitch opened the door and hopped out before she could put up an argument. He slammed the door shut behind him, glanced at his guy and then darted toward the warehouse.
“Run, Kimberly. Get out of there. They found us. Go,” he shouted as he ran. He darted around the side of the building, praying she’d stay put.
The crack of a bullet split the air.
His heart thudded.
He paused long enough to listen for footsteps. Heard them. The clomp-clomp of two sets of boots meant both men were on his tail.
He checked the window for an alarm system. Found one. The blinking light near the office door was a welcome relief.
He picked up a rock and slammed it against the glass of the door. The small pane shattered, bringing an ear-piercing alarm to life.
Soon police would descend on the cluster of warehouses. They’d anticipate a threat.
Mitch listened for the footsteps but couldn’t pick up the sound over the shrieking alarm. The men should’ve rounded the corner by now.
Which meant they’d most likely doubled back to Kimberly.
He muttered a curse as he turned back and pushed his legs as fast as they could go. As he rounded the corner, he slammed into an object full force.
After he was knocked off his feet, he immediately popped back up.
He leaned against the building to regain his balance as blood dripped down his face. His brain scrambled for a split second but he forced clarity.
Diving into the knees of his attacker, he knocked the guy off balance. The guy had a runner’s build. The Runner proved his strength with a jab to Mitch’s gut, followed by a knee to his groin.
Mitch had control of the guy’s gun hand. Being shot at point-blank range wasn’t in the plan today.
The Runner bucked, knocking Mitch off balance. The next thing Mitch knew he was facedown, eating gravel. The move knocked the gun loose. It scraped against concrete as it spun out of reach.
Mitch tried to twist around but was blocked. This guy was using Mitch’s considerable size against him, beating him to the punch.
That was about to change.
Mitch spun one way and then shifted to the opposite direction. He slammed his fist into the Runner’s jaw as he tumbled sideways.
The move gained Mitch enough of an advantage to climb on top of his opponent. Police sirens—a welcome relief—sounded.
He scanned the parking lot for Kimberly. The distraction gave the Runner an opportunity to land a punch hard enough to snap Mitch’s head back. He spit blood as he tightened his thighs to a viselike grip and pinned the Runner’s right arm underneath Mitch’s left knee.
Tires squealed to a stop on the cruiser. The driver’s door flew open and the business end of a gun was pointed at Mitch.
“Get your hands up,” the officer shouted in the authoritative voice he’d heard Zach use with suspects.
Mitch threw his hands in the air and shouted, “There’s a weapon ten feet from us on the ground. This man tried to shoot me and I defended myself.”
The Runner struggled.
“I want both of your hands in the air. Now!”
As soon as Mitch lightened his grip, the Runner made a move.
“He’s not going to cooperate and I’m not dying out here. Tell me what you want me to do,” Mitch ground out as he pinned the Runner down again.
Another cruiser blasted in beside the first.
“Freeze.” The cop moved closer, weapon leading the way.
“I can’t. Not until this guy stops fighting,” Mitch countered. “My name is Mitch Kent. My cousin is the sheriff of Broward County.”
That seemed to satisfy the officer as he moved toward the weapon on the ground. He kicked it out of the way.
The second officer, gun aimed directly at the Runner now, came up alongside Mitch. He holstered his weapon and palmed zip cuffs.
Mitch got a good angle with his thighs on the Runner and then held his hands up. “This man shot at me and my wife. She’s in a truck, waiting for me. There’s another man.”
When he put two and two together his heart fisted.
The second guy was nowhere to be seen.
That meant one thing.
He had Kimberly.
MITCH WAS AT the sheriff’s office when he really wanted to be out searching for Kimberly. The truck had been empty, just as he’d feared. It had been half an hour since the parking-lot incident, and the Runner wasn’t talking.
The only shred of hope he could hold on to was the knowledge that Baxter had wanted her alive.
Another fifteen minutes and the plane carrying Zach would land at the private airstrip ten minutes away from Sheriff Anderson’s office.
Every minute lost while sitting in an office, doing nothing, was excruciating.
To be fair, the sheriff had every available man hunting for Kimberly.
The Runner had been identified as Ron Sawyer. He had a well-known association with Paul Baxter. Baxter ran one the larger human-trafficking rings in the southwest. There was an obvious connection to Randy Bristol’s van-and-truck-rental business but like Kimberly had pointed out, her father’s industry was heavily regulated. Even so, a man who’d give his shirt off his back would find a way to help someone in need—and that person in need was Tonto.
Mitch’s cell buzzed in his pocket. He prayed that it would be Kimberly, letting him know that she was safe somewhere. It was unrealistic. The truck was still in the parking lot when he and the deputies had checked.
Zach’s name popped up on the screen.
“Hello,” Mitch answered.
“I have news.” That Zach didn’t prep him one way or the other sat heavily on Mitch’s chest.
“Go ahead.” He paced.
“The name Kimberly supplied came back with a hit. Tonto, otherwise known as Kenny Tonornato by his given name, is dead.”
“How’d it happen?”
“He was tossed out of the back of a vehicle on a road leading to the Mescalero Reservation, which is not a far drive from Hatch,” Zach informed him. “His wrists and ankles were bound...” Zach hesitated. The news was about to get worse. “There was a bullet wound in between his eyes. He was shot at point-blank range with a 9 millimeter.”
Mitch muttered a string of curse words.
“He was a good kid who’d had it rough. Neighbors of the family reported that he was trying to work odd jobs in order to raise enough money to bring his grandmother across the border. She needed medical help. His mother was worrying herself sick.” Zach paused.
“The pieces aren’t hard to put together from there. He was getting desperate to help his mother, so he went to the person who could get the job done and bring his grandmother to the States,” Mitch said. “Baxter.”
“Only, that kind of help comes at a price. He tells the kid to get a truck,” Zach continued.
“And the only person he knows with one big enough is Randy Bristol,” Mitch said. “Who also has a heart to match.”
“Which explains why a decent man would willingly lend out a truck to a known criminal,” Zach stated. “Because he thought he was lending it to Tonto. When he put two and two together he thought he could find a way out, thus the warnings to Kimberly.”
Kimberly needed to know that the man she knew and loved as her father wasn’t a criminal. Mitch wasn’t sure why that was so important to him but it was.
“I thought you should know what we found,” Zach said.
“Thank you doesn’t begin to cover my gratitude,” Mitch stated.
“It’s what family does for each other. You’d do the same if the shoe was on the other foot.” Zach was dead on. “Speaking of which, those bogus charges against you and Isaac have been dropped.”
“As they should have been.” Mitch was never more grateful for family than he was right now. Between his brothers, sister and cousins there was always someone who had his back. He returned the favor, too. There was a sense of belonging in that.
What did Kimberly have?
There had been two people she trusted before the age of eighteen. Both were gone. One was murdered.
She’d held steadfastly to her belief in her foster father’s innocence no matter how much evidence mounted against him.
If Randy Bristol was guilty it was because of his kind heart. She’d said herself that he’d give the shirt off his back to someone in need. Tonto was a young kid, barely of age, who needed a helping hand. A man like Bristol wouldn’t have let him down—that was the kind of man Mitch hoped he was. He could see himself tripping over the same wire. There must have been some paper trail in the rental agreements that could lead authorities to Baxter.
He sure as hell had no intention of disappointing Kimberly.
Mitch glanced at the clock.
An hour had passed since he’d last seen her, with no word on her whereabouts.