The closer they got to the turnoff, the more Raine began to think she’d made a terrible mistake. Not in getting him to meet with her. She needed to show him the evidence she had, tell him her hopes for freeing Joey. But even though how she was carrying out this plan had made sense on paper, the reality felt entirely different.
For one thing, Callum was much more intimidating up close than she’d expected. He made her nervous. Not just because he was so much taller than her, and so obviously stronger. The real problem was that she liked him. He’d made her angry when he’d refused to meet with her. But aside from that, he’d been polite, even kind. He wasn’t trying to scare her. And aside from initially pretending he didn’t have a gun—which was understandable—he hadn’t pulled any tricks even though she knew she would have in his situation.
If she hadn’t known he’d been involved in sending her brother to death row, she’d have thought he was a decent guy. Heck, she’d have been all over him. He was the epitome of tall, dark and handsome. Exactly her type.
That was a problem.
She needed to focus. But seeing him as a man, and as a surprisingly decent person, was making it difficult to continue to treat him so deplorably. Her actions seemed...evil, even though her goal—saving a life—was anything but evil. Still, she’d gone too far down this path to stop now. Being awful to Callum was something she’d have to learn to forgive herself for, eventually. But if Joey died, and she hadn’t done everything she could to prevent his death, she’d never forgive herself for that.
A flash of color through the windshield had her shaking herself from her thoughts. “See that yellow sign up there? The one with the squiggles on it?”
He smiled in the rearview mirror. “The one warning that the road ahead has lots of tight curves?”
Her face heated. “The turn is just before it, on the left. It’s a private driveway. The brush is overgrown, which makes it hard to find. You’ll have to slow down.”
“I see it.”
He turned into the narrow dirt-and-gravel driveway. Raine winced as the tree branches on either side made sickening metallic scraping sounds whenever they came into contact with the sides of his vehicle. Regardless of today’s outcome, she owed him a paint job.
About fifty yards later the driveway ended in front of a small, one-story clapboard house. The flaking yellowed paint had probably been white at one time. Gingerbread millwork beneath the sagging porch roof proclaimed that someone had loved this home once, long before it had been abandoned and left to rot.
“Cut the engine,” she told him.
“We’re actually going inside that thing?”
“It’s not as bad as you think. I cleaned out the animal droppings and squirrel nests. At least I think they were squirrels.”
“Wonderful.”
She hopped out and yanked open his door just in time to see him grabbing his cell phone.
“Toss the phone on the floorboard,” she ordered, quickly backing out of his reach.
He sighed and pitched it beside his discarded pistol. “You know, it’s really not necessary to keep pointing your gun at me.”
“I wish I could believe that.” She moved farther away, both hands on the pistol grip. “Into the house, please.”
He stepped down from the SUV. “I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. Put the gun down first.”
“Inside. Then we’ll talk.”
She needed him in the house to give her an advantage. Out here, the trees offered too many hiding places if he made a run for it. Inside the dilapidated structure she had better control over what happened. She just needed to keep her pistol pointed at him and stay out of his reach. He looked like he wanted to pounce on her. Not in a good way.
He paused at the bottom of the steps, testing one with his foot as if worried that it might not support his weight.
“It’s safe,” she assured him. “I checked the beams underneath. The boards are weathered but solid.”
He nodded his thanks and headed up the stairs. She winced as he pushed the front door open and it creaked like something in an old horror movie. Behind him, she set her backpack on the wooden floor and closed the door. He stopped halfway into the room and looked around.
There wasn’t much to see.
It was small and nearly empty. The grimy windows had no coverings, so the sunlight filtering through the trees overhead illuminated the place well enough. If he’d smelled it before she’d cleaned it, he’d have fallen over. She was pretty sure feral cats had taken up residence. Even now, essence of wild animals was still detectable. But it was bearable.
The kitchen, with its sagging cabinets and lack of appliances, was visible through a doorway on the left. There were two small bedrooms down the middle hallway, not that he would know that since the doors were closed. What mattered was what was sitting in the middle of the main room—a wooden chair she’d dragged in from the back porch. A pair of handcuffs dangled from each of the arms.
“Take a seat,” she said behind him, careful to keep her distance.
He slowly walked to the chair. But when he reached it, he turned to face her. “You’re not handcuffing me.”
“You’re right. I’m not. You are.” She raised the pistol, proud of herself for not shaking this time. And she kept her finger on the frame as he’d cautioned earlier, to make him less worried. “I don’t want to hurt you. I truly don’t. But I won’t mourn your loss if you force me to shoot. After all, if it wasn’t for you and Farley, my brother wouldn’t be on death row.”
He stared at her a long moment as if weighing her resolve. Then he sat.
She let out a relieved breath. Almost there. “Left-or right-handed?” she asked.
“Left.”
Figuring he was lying, she said, “Fasten the cuff on your right wrist.”
He chuckled. “Don’t believe me, huh?”
“Nope.”
He pulled the cuff that was open and dangling from the chair arm and fastened it on his wrist.
She slowly moved forward, the pistol never wavering. But instead of getting in front of him, she moved behind him and peered over his right shoulder. He raised his arm and shook the chain, proving it was fastened securely.
“Pull the other one up and work your left wrist inside the cuff.”
“Kind of hard to do with only one free hand.”
“Put the cuff on your thigh for leverage. The chain’s long enough. Once it’s around your wrist, press against your thigh to ratchet it.”
He tried to look at her over his shoulder but she’d stepped back again. “You put a lot of thought into this.”
“I always do when something’s important.” She’d actually cuffed herself to the chair, only one arm at a time, of course, trying it out. She’d been able to do it and had no doubt he could too.
He sighed and did as she asked.
Again, she leaned slightly over his shoulder to make sure he’d truly fastened the cuff. When she saw that he had, the tension in her shoulders eased. Now she was safe and she had a captive audience—literally. He had no choice but to listen to her.
“Now we can talk. I’ll grab my folder.”
She shoved her pistol in the waistband of her jeans, then retrieved a two-inch-thick folder from her backpack. It was the only one she’d brought with her on this little escapade. Just enough information to whet his appetite. If he agreed to her terms, she’d give him four more folders thicker than this one, with a lot more detail.
As she hurried toward him, she couldn’t help smiling. For the first time in a long time, she had hope for the future. For Joey’s future.
“I’ve been working on this for over a year,” she said. “Nights, weekends, vacations. Even hired a few private investigators for some of it.” She grimaced. “Can’t say I’d recommend them. They’d fail miserably at your company. Not at all the caliber that UB hires, from what I’ve heard.” She pulled out one of the summary sheets. “Regardless of how you feel about my brother, I guarantee you’ll want to see this.” She set it on his lap.
He suddenly grabbed the arms of the chair and swept out his right leg. She squeaked in surprise as his foot hooked behind her knees, dumping her backward onto the hard wood floor. Her head made a sickening crack and everything went blurry. She winced at the awful, throbbing pain in her skull and desperately tried to focus. When she did, Callum was standing a few feet away holding the chair up in the air.
She screamed and covered her head, certain her life was about to end with a brutally violent blow. Instead, the chair crashed against the floor a few feet away in an explosion of sound. Pieces of wood pinged off the walls and floor. Sawdust and papers rained down like dirty snowflakes.
She was alive. He hadn’t hurt her, even though her throbbing head disagreed. Just as it occurred to her to reach for her gun, he was on top of her, pinning her wrists above her head. She stared up at him, her muddled mind still struggling to understand what had happened.
“Next time you abduct someone,” he told her, his tone matter-of-fact as if he wasn’t practically crushing her, “secure their legs too.”
The door flew open and slammed against the wall. Raine jerked against him, her body trembling as half a dozen people ran inside. As one, they surrounded the two of them and aimed their pistols at her head.
Callum grinned at the man standing to his right. “Took you long enough.”
“Yeah, well. Your directions were lousy.”
Callum laughed as he looked down again. “Raine Quintero, meet Thomas. Except his real name is Asher Whitfield. All of these men and women are investigators at Unfinished Business. We have each other’s backs. Always. Consider yourself under citizen’s arrest until we get the cops here.”
To her horror, tears started coursing down her cheeks. She drew a shaky breath and tried to reason with him. “Please, Callum. If you send me to jail, you might as well execute my brother yourself.”
His smile faded and he stood, pulling her to standing. She winced and grabbed her head. It felt as if someone was hammering it from inside her skull. There was a tug at her waistband and she realized that he’d taken her pistol. He handed it to one of his teammates.
“Handcuff key.” He held out his hand toward her, the remaining pieces of a chair arm dangling from the chain around his wrist.
Trying desperately to ignore the crushing pain in her head, she pulled the key out of her front jeans pocket and gave it to him. As he stepped back to unlock the cuffs, two of his teammates grabbed her arms. Not that it mattered. She could barely stand, let alone run away. The room kept tilting at crazy angles. No doubt she had a concussion, maybe worse. If she threw up, she hoped she was fortunate enough to do it on Callum’s shoes.
“This isn’t even loaded.” The teammate who’d taken her gun from Callum held up the magazine. “Empty. And there’s nothing in the chamber.”
Callum stared at her incredulously. “You abducted me with an unloaded gun? What were you thinking? I could have killed you.”
“It was my choice to risk my own life. But it wouldn’t have been right to risk anyone else’s.”
“You bluffed. Knowing I likely had a loaded gun.” He couldn’t seem to get past that fact.
She nodded, then winced at the pounding in her head.
He swore.
“Hey, Callum.” Asher stood with some of her papers that he’d scooped off the floor. “These aren’t documents about her brother that I heard you mention on the phone.” His expression mirrored his surprise. “They’re about the serial killer you and I have been investigating for the past few months. And this...” He held up one of the pages. “This is about a murder we’ve never even connected to the others, one that she attributes to the same killer. It says she’s figured out a viable suspect for the murders. His name’s right here. Except that it’s written in some kind of code.”
The room fell silent and everyone stared at her.
Callum’s expression was a mixture of shock and admiration. “Is that true? You know the killer’s identity? The one who’s murdered five people in east Tennessee over the past decade?”
“Eight. Not five.” In spite of the sickening way the room kept pitching back and forth, she forced her chin up a notch. “That was my bargaining chip. I was going to share my research with you to try to make a deal so you’d help me save my brother. But it’s too late now. The cops are on their way.”
He stared at her a long moment, then glanced questioningly at a young blonde woman. “Faith?”
“I called 911 as soon as we had the room secured.” She chuckled. “Or, rather, as soon as you had it secured. You didn’t end up needing the cavalry after all.”
He smiled, but his smile faded when he looked down at Raine again. Instead, his brow furrowed with worry. “Faith. Call an ambulance. She doesn’t look so good.”
He motioned to the people holding her arms and they slowly lowered her to sit on the floor. The room wasn’t spinning quite as badly now. She aimed a look of gratitude at him, not willing to risk something as painful as nodding. “I don’t suppose you could have Faith cancel the police request when she asks for that ambulance.”
He crouched and reached for her. She ducked to avoid his hand, sucking in a sharp breath when it made her head throb anew.
Swearing, he said, “Be still. I’m not going to hurt you.”
She froze and allowed him to feel along the back of her head. His touch was incredibly careful, gentle. But the moment his fingers brushed where she’d cracked her skull against the floor, pain lanced through her. She winced and ducked away.
“I’m sorry, Raine. I didn’t mean to cause you more pain.”
His contrite tone and the concerned look on his face told her he genuinely meant what he’d said. Which made her even more confused. She’d been awful to him. And here he was concerned about her. That guilt that she’d thought she’d locked away was roaring back now, making her face heat with embarrassment. “I know. Thanks. I’m okay.”
“You’re definitely not okay. You’ve got quite a lump there. Probably a concussion. No blood though. Your scalp isn’t lacerated. No need for stitches.”
“Thank God for small favors I suppose.”
He glanced at the blonde woman again, Faith. She gave him a small nod, as if to assure him the ambulance was on the way.
Just when Raine thought maybe he was rethinking the whole cop thing and having her arrested, his gaze met hers again. The look of concern had been replaced with one of determination.
“You wanted to meet with me,” he said. “Here’s your chance. The only reason I’m giving it to you is because your gun wasn’t loaded. Start talking.”
She bristled at his command. “I don’t see the point in pleading my case. The police are going to throw me in jail when they get here.”
“Not if I don’t press charges.”
She hesitated. Was this a trick? “Why would you change your mind now?”
The man named Asher nodded in agreement. “Good question. She abducted you, Callum. Held you at gunpoint and handcuffed you to a chair. Whether the gun was loaded or not is irrelevant.”
“What she did was reprehensible,” Callum agreed. “But I wasn’t hurt. And we both have something each other needs. I want the name of that killer. She wants my help to save her brother. Faith, how long before the police arrive?”
“I’d guess ten minutes, give or take.”
“The clock’s ticking, Raine. I need a name and enough background to convince me your information is legit. If I believe you, I’ll make all of this go away and I’ll help with your brother’s case.”
Asher stared at him as if he’d lost his mind. “You can’t promise to save her brother. No one can.”
“I’m not saying that I can keep him from being executed. What I’m committing to is doing everything I can to dig into his case and, if I believe he could possibly be innocent as she claims, I’ll try to prevent his execution.”
“That’s a lot of ifs,” she grumbled.
“I’m not done yet. Everything I just said, I’ll only do it if you can convince me that you’re not playing some kind of twisted game, that your information is worth the paper it’s printed on, before the police get here.”
She looked around, panic making her heart pound faster, her head throb even worse. “I’ve been researching those murders for a long time. I can’t possibly explain enough in ten minutes to—”
“Convince me, or go to jail.”