The knock on the back door startled Stella so badly that she jumped and dropped her phone onto the floor. She reached down and grabbed it before she rose from the sofa and headed to the back. She peered through the peephole and saw Chuck.
She hurriedly unlocked and opened the door for him with a smile. “That took longer than I thought it would.”
“Lots of loose ends to tie up,” he said as he walked past her.
Something about his words made her frown. Softly, she closed the door. “That sounds ominous.”
“Let’s get moving.”
She didn’t like that he kept his back to her. Stella said his name and waited for him to face her before saying, “Tell me what you’re hiding.”
“We’ve found ourselves in a mess. A mess, I might add, that I warned you would eventually come.” He shrugged. “But you ignored me. However, I fixed everything.”
“You’ve never disobeyed me before,” she said, crossing her arms.
He gave her a hard look. “We’ve never been so close to being caught before.”
“As I told you, they don’t have evidence, or they would’ve come for me.”
Chuck moved closer to her until they stood less than six inches apart. “You might be careless with your life, but I’m not. Nor am I careless with yours. If you go down, we all do. I’m not going to let that happen. Besides, you wouldn’t last a day in jail.”
“I’m stronger than you think.”
“Not when it comes to prison. No one is prepared for that. Especially not someone like you,” he said with a sneer. “Let’s get moving. You’re going to need to change out of those heels into something more … practical.”
“Practical? What’s that supposed to mean?”
Chuck looked her up and down. “I’d also suggest jeans. Do you have a raincoat?”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
He moved past her to glance out the window. “We’ve got a few hours of daylight left, and we’re going to need every one of them to get through the woods to the car I have waiting for us.”
“What?” she asked, shocked.
He pointed out the window. “Have you noticed there’s an unmarked car down the road, watching the house?”
“Yes.”
“And you thought we’d just drive past them, no problem?” Chuck asked, bewildered.
Stella shrugged. “They haven’t arrested me.”
“Why don’t you try to drive past them and see what happens? I’ll wait here.”
She glanced out the window. “Fine. You win. I need to get my luggage out of my car.”
“I’ll get it,” he said and walked away. Seconds later, he returned to place her suitcase in the bedroom.
Stella shut the door behind him and changed. She removed her dress pants and designer blouse and put on jeans and a sweater. The most manageable shoes she had were a pair of booties, but they were better than any of her heels.
When she emerged from the room, Chuck held out a coat for her. “You’re going to need this.”
No sooner had she put on the raincoat than he grabbed her arm and led her to the door.
“My purse,” she said and tried to turn back.
He kept her moving. “I’ve got your wallet and phone. Everything else can be replaced. We don’t have time, Stella. We need to move.”
She followed him out. It wasn’t long before her suede booties were soaked, and her feet were like ice, but she didn’t say a word. At least the hood of the coat kept most of the rain from her face.
“Run,” Chuck ordered and took off.
She struggled to keep up with him. Finally, he paused long enough to grab her hand and pull her after him.
Cooper was going to lose his mind. He banged on the warehouse walls, hoping someone, anyone, would hear him and come investigate. He pounded for so long that his hand was bloody and bruised, and his voice was hoarse.
Time dragged on slowly. His wound made him weak, and his body demanded that he rest. But he couldn’t. He needed to get free and find Marlee and see about Jace. Sitting there doing nothing was the worst kind of torture.
He looked at the wires again. He couldn’t see the bomb itself, only the trigger, so he couldn’t defuse it. Not that he had anything to cut the wires with anyway. He was utterly helpless, with no way to contact his friends and ask for help.
This was exactly what the man had wanted.
Cooper frowned. If the guy just wanted him out of the way, then why put explosives on the door? That could only mean that, somehow, his friends would be alerted to where he was and would come for him.
If he wasn’t able to warn them, then they’d all be killed.
Jace stared at the plan Cash had put together. It was a smart one with them using the same grid they had when Danny was taken. The problem was that they wouldn’t have the sheriff’s department or the police to help them.
“This is going to take days,” Caleb said.
Brice crossed his arms over his chest. “Time we don’t have.”
“If we could narrow down the search area, that would help,” Cash said. “As it is, no one knows where Cooper is.”
Clayton shook his head. “It isn’t your fault, Cash. We asked, hoping you could come up with a miracle.”
“Where is the last place any of us would look for Cooper?” Jace asked.
They turned to him with various looks of confusion.
Brice shrugged. “Here on the ranch.”
“Hell, everywhere,” Caleb answered.
Clayton made a sound in the back of his throat. “Danny was taken to another county that we never thought to look in.”
“Because he was sheriff,” Cash replied. He turned his head to Jace. “How long after you were attacked did Marlee leave?”
Clayton threw up his hands. “I don’t know how long she was gone. She kept walking out of the room. I assumed she was waiting for Cooper and Jace to return.”
“She probably got the call from the guy then,” Caleb said.
Cash nodded. “That’s my guess. He could’ve still had Cooper with him. Let’s put ourselves in his shoes. That entire ring of criminals has been in the area for a while.”
“Yeah,” Brice grumbled.
Jace grinned. “Which means he knows the area. I see where you’re going with this.”
“He would make the most of his time,” Clayton continued.
Caleb nodded, a look of excitement crossing his face. “Which means he wouldn’t have wasted a lot of time driving Cooper somewhere else.”
“He’s close, then,” Brice replied.
Jace wracked his brain, trying to think about what was near the motel. Then he realized what it was. “Downtown. Cooper is downtown.”
“The abandoned warehouses,” Clayton replied. “It’s a great hiding place.”
As they turned to go, Cash said, “Wait.”
His tone halted them in their tracks.
Jace looked at him. “What?”
“What about Stella?”
They looked at each other, none of them wanting to speak. Finally, Clayton said, “Danny and Ryan won’t let her out of their sight. Let’s get Cooper.”
The sound of car doors jerked Cooper awake. He peeled his eyes open, feeling worse than he had all day. Lack of food, continual blood loss, and the stress of the situation were taking a toll on his body.
He tried to call out, but his throat was sore from earlier, so his words came out as a croak. Someone was near. If he wanted out, he needed to let them know where he was. Cooper slowly got to his feet. He tried to beat on the wall again, but his hand just couldn’t take it. Instead, he used his foot to beat out Morse code for SOS.
“Cooper?”
His name came from a distance, but he heard it. “I’m here!”
He grabbed his throat as pain ripped through him. If only he’d saved his voice. He kicked quicker, hoping that alerted them.
“Cooper?”
That was Caleb. Cooper smiled and kicked rapidly until he heard them approaching the back door.
“Cooper?”
He stilled at the sound of Jace’s voice.
“It’s me,” Jace said, a smile in his voice. “We’ll get you out in just a sec.”
Cooper tried to talk again but gave up and just started banging on the wall.
“Okay, okay!” Brice shouted. “We get it. We need to look.”
It wasn’t long before Cooper heard someone curse. He frowned because that sounded suspiciously like Cash.
“Hey, Cooper,” Cash said. “We see the bomb. Thanks for the heads-up. Are there other doors?”
“Yes,” Cooper said, pressing his face to the door and hoping his voice reached them.
Clayton said, “Stay here, Cooper. We’re going to check the other entrances.”
The seconds before his friends returned seemed like years. Jace said, “One door is bricked over. The other has too much debris in front of it for us to get to you. We have no choice but to defuse this bomb if we’re going to get you out.”
“Marlee?” he asked, wondering why he didn’t hear her voice.
Brice answered. “We’ll fill you in on everything once you’re free.”
Cooper knew what that meant. Marlee wasn’t with them.
“Stand back from the door!” Cash shouted.
Cooper pressed himself against the same wall as the door but scooted down a ways. The entire time they worked, Cooper kept thinking about Marlee and all the different ways she could be hurt. The not knowing was the worst. Was she hurt? Or worse, dead?
Suddenly, the door opened, and his friends poured in. Cooper was soon surrounded. He looked at Jace and saw his pale face and the remnants of blood on him.
“He’s got a hard head. Like we’ve always known,” Caleb said.
Clayton urged them out. “We can do this in the truck. I’ll call Karl and Marina to the ranch so they can patch you up.”
“Tell me about Marlee,” Cooper demanded, “or I’m not going anywhere.”