Read Dangerous Attraction: Part Two (Aegis Group) Online

Authors: Sidney Bristol

Tags: #SEAL hero, #broken man, #sex toys, #romantic suspense, #serial killer, #kidnapping, #FBI

Dangerous Attraction: Part Two (Aegis Group) (3 page)

BOOK: Dangerous Attraction: Part Two (Aegis Group)
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“I don’t want Bliss hurt,” Grayson said in a rush, hand up defensively.

“But you aren’t exactly calling in any favors to help her.”

“I...I’m not in good standing with the CIA right now.”

“That’s your problem.”

“I’m not paying you to rescue Bliss. Why do you care?”

Because...the reason was just there, out of view. Bliss was special. She was important.

“Because she’s an innocent in all of this. She wouldn’t have become a target if she hadn’t have been trying to protect Wendy.” Travis set the bottle on the counter and stared at Grayson. “Are you going to let her die, or are you going to do something to help?”

“What do you think I can do?” Grayson spread his hands.

The man might look like a weak patsy, but he was no fool.

“You design buildings. You figure out ways for the American government to hide their spy tech in those buildings. Which means you must know the people at the NSA. The ones who can run facial recognition software on all the security cameras they supposedly aren’t watching.”

Travis pulled out a photograph of Daniel Campbell and pushed it across the marble surface. Grayson frowned at the picture.

“The FBI is on the case. Why can’t they do it?”

“We all know there’s the NSA they tell us about, and then there’s the other one. Ask them, or when Daniel Campbell is done tearing Bliss into bits, he’ll come back for Wendy. A man with a plan this detailed isn’t going to let a loose end go.” His body was cold, numb. He’d never felt this way before. Rescuing people had mattered, but this time, it mattered to him.

Travis pushed off the counter. Time was ticking, and they didn’t have a second to lose.

Daniel stood ankle deep in the fresh powder and inhaled. The weather blowing in would cover his tracks off the main road, and then he could settle in for the winter. By the time spring rolled around, no one would be looking for him. Or the girl.

Speaking of, he needed to check on her. The drugs should wear off before too much longer and he’d need to do something with her. The bench cage was fine for travel, but he didn’t want her underfoot.

He pulled out his keys and examined the compass attached to the ring. With his bearings set, he trudged due west through the trees, counting off his steps. After the first few years, and one close call with the law, Daniel had implemented this back-up plan. A crash spot. The clearing along the hunting path was just big enough to fit his RV, and most importantly, his secret stash.

There.

The A-frame structure was small, not even big enough for a person of any considerable height to stand upright. He pulled the thatch door open. Snow and layers of leaves fell to the ground, but the shelter was otherwise intact. The only things inside were gas cans, and judging by the layer of dirt, they hadn’t been disturbed since his last trek up to check on the site.

He grabbed two cans and made the return trek back to the RV. While he could use the ATV to run out for supplies, the fewer people he saw the better. The gas in the shelter should keep him for two weeks.

A whole winter without the demands of work or society. Months to just be. And experiment. It was enough to make him almost forget the loss of his last wife.

Wendy.

He’d reclaim her someday, but not today.

A metallic clang interrupted his giddy daydreaming.

He frowned and picked up the pace, kicking up snow as he closed in on the Winnebago.

The girl.

She was bound to be a problem. Nothing like her sweet sister.

He tossed the cans down and jerked the door open. The bench top to the cage rattled. Bliss. No, he had to stop thinking of her like that. She was an object. A thing.

His newest test subject had her feet pulled up, as if to kick the lid. No doubt that’s what he’d heard.

Daniel stomped into the RV, leaving clumps of snow on the floor in his wake. It was beyond time to get her settled and out of his way. It would be interesting to see how she survived in this weather, what she could stand.

He unlocked the lid and grabbed a handful of her hair.

“No! No, wait!” She grunted and clutched his wrist as he hauled her to her feet.

The nice thing about being out this far was that there was no one around to hear her scream.

She scratched at his gloves and kicked his ankle, but otherwise she was too weak and clumsy from multiple doses of tranquilizers.

He scooped a length of chain out from under the passenger seat before dragging the female subject outside.

“The air smells fresher here,” he said, pausing for a second to appreciate it.

“Kill me already,” the subject said.

He glanced at her but didn’t respond. Her name was already fading from memory. She was no longer a person, or even a thing with feelings. She was part of his experiment. Part of his great test to figure out just how much a human body could withstand.

Daniel led the subject all the way back to the A-frame and secured his latest pet to the tree and then to the subject by way of a pair of handcuffs. He pointed at the shelter.

“Do your best to not die.”

Yet.

––––––––

3.

“T
ravis, man, you gotta eat something.” Ethan plopped a bag of fast food down on the hotel room desk.

Travis glanced at it.

He’d had burgers with Bliss yesterday. They’d talked about sex and vibrators. He hadn’t cared they were in a crowded, family establishment. One day with her and now it felt as if he were missing a crucial part of himself.

“Not hungry,” he said.

Travis tossed his clothes into his suitcase and carefully gathered his files while his Aegis Group co-workers, Ethan and Mason, ate. They had their own adjoining rooms, but hadn’t let him be since returning to the hotel.

“Where you going?” the kid, Mason, asked. He was the newest Aegis recruit, barely out of the SEALs.

“Don’t know yet.” Travis zipped the duffel bag and pulled his phone out.

“Where do you think he’s gone?” Ethan asked.

“Not sure yet, but he’d have somewhere outside of Vegas to run to if he needed. Some of the bodies they identified were from as far away as Flagstaff, so we know he travels. I just don’t know what the Vegas connection is.”

“What Vegas connection?” Ethan had forgotten his food and now leaned forward.

“The women. Every one of the women he picks are blonde, born and raised in Vegas, and until Wendy, they’d never had a child. We know he impregnated them, kept them alive until they had the kids, and then killed them. From what Bliss saw, we know he kills and keeps the babies. I’m thinking since he dumped the last two before they carried the babies to term, he just wanted to make sure the women could carry a child.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.” Mason’s lips curled, but he didn’t go anywhere.

“Why not set up here? Wait for him to come back, if Vegas is that important to him?” Ethan suggested.

“No.” Travis shook his head. “He’d keep those women for a year or more if they survived childbirth. If he escapes with Bliss, I don’t think we’d find her.”

“Okay,” Ethan brushed crumbs off his jeans and gestured to the files on the bed, “So saying he—”

Travis’ phone lit up, vibrating and ringing on the bed. He snatched it up and jabbed at the screen.

“What did you find out?” Travis asked.

“We got a hit. I’m not supposed to be able to ask for this kind of favor, but someone turned a blind eye.” Grayson’s voice was hushed and strained. Probably trying to keep Wendy fleeced.

Good luck, buddy.

“Where?” Travis didn’t give a fuck who he owed, not when Bliss’ life was in danger.

“Truck stop. I-95 up around Lake Tahoe.”

“That’s not much of a lead. He could be anywhere up there.” Travis grabbed his bags.

Both Ethan and Mason jumped to their feet, rushing into the adjoining room. Their half-eaten burgers and fries remained on the desk.

“I’ll see what else I can find out, but they got the make, model, and license on that motorhome, and the trailer he’s hauling.”

“Wait. Trailer? What kind? How big?”

“I’ll send the picture to you. It’s small. There’s a tarp over it, so I don’t know what is there. What do your fed friends have?”

“Nothing.”

“Damn. Will this be useful to them?”

“Don’t know. I’m not telling them.”

“What?”

“Later, Grayson.”

Travis hung up and paused at his hotel room door, mentally flipping through the scene at Daniel’s house that morning.

The Buick was there, but not the ATV. They’d rightly assumed he used that to get away, now they knew where to. Somewhere out there, he’d stashed an RV and the means to escape detection.

“We’re ready,” Ethan announced. He strode into Travis’ room, bag slung over his shoulder, followed by Mason.

“What are you doing? Go home,” Travis said.

“No way.” Mason shook his head. The kid was stubborn.

“We can stand here and argue about it, or you can accept that we’re going to fucking help you. What’s it going to be?”

Travis ground his teeth together. It was almost Christmas, and they should be with their families. Except Ethan had no one, not anymore. Travis didn’t know Mason well enough, but if the kid was anything like the rest of them, he probably didn’t have someone keeping the light on.

“Fine. We got to book a plane to Tahoe. Tonight.”

Hang in there, baby, we’re coming for you.

Bliss huddled under the old, moth-eaten blankets. She’d unearthed them from the pile of discarded things in the crevices of the shelter Daniel had left her in. The wind had picked up since the sun set, and icy fingers found their way through every crack and joint in the structure.

Her teeth chattered so loud she feared she might not be able to hear anything approaching. Frozen teardrops still clung to her lashes, but she didn’t bother wiping them away. Instead, she gently examined the business end of a stick she’d salvaged. It wasn’t old or rotten. For the last indeterminable span of time she’d worn one end down into something like a spear.

She wasn’t kidding herself. Even with a collection of stones and her spear wouldn’t deter anything set on eating or killing her. All she had to do was hold on. If she could just hold herself together, Travis would save her. She had to believe he was out there under the same night sky looking for her, otherwise, what hope did she have?

Daniel placed the last child in the half-circle. He smiled at the beautiful, shining faces. He was asking a lot of them to be up this early, but it was worth it. They needed to learn what they were. It was time they knew they weren’t just men and women.

They were gods.

And today they would receive a master lesson in where they stood with the rest of humanity.

He held up his finger to his lips, willing the children to be quiet. Of course they were excited, why wouldn’t they be? Most had only seen his wives. Until now, they weren’t old enough to understand what they were.

The little voices hushed.

They knew what would happen next. Last night he’d let them all watch as he studied his test subject in the dark. She’d never noticed the night vision camera bolted to the top of the structure. In his long years, he saw plenty of subjects attempt to thwart their fate, so her efforts were nothing new. Just one more habit to be broken. Until it accepted its fate.

He grabbed the side of the A-frame and pulled.

The structure splintered and cracked apart.

The subject yelped and screamed. The chain clanged as she scrambled to the side, breaking free from the debris.

She never made it to her feet.

Daniel grabbed her hair and
thunked
her head against the tree.

She lost her grip on the makeshift weapon and curled in on herself, huddling in the snow like the animal she was.

He crouched next to her. Unlike this subject, he didn’t need a weapon. He was the weapon. He was the creator of her fate.

“Oh my God.” She gulped and stared at his children.

“Look at me,” he snapped.

Her gaze returned to his face. Her pupils were slightly dilated, her focus off. Probably from the knocks to the head she’d taken yesterday and today. Well, that was her fault.

“Children, look at it.” He reached out and pinched her chin between his fingers, directing her to look up so they could see her throat. “This is what we rule over. We make them listen. We make them what we want them to be. This one will be the mother of our subjects. What?”

Daniel tilted his head to catch the faintest of voices.

“No, she will not give you a brother. She’s not worthy of that.” He spat at her feet and stood. “She’ll give us more subjects. More playthings.”

Travis peered into the darkened ranger station. Just his luck people got Christmas Eve off. Tahoe City was blanketed in new snow, and the police were spread too thin this holiday season to be of much help.

They were on their own.

Snow crunched as Ethan approached, phone in hand and a frown on his face.

“Can’t get anyone on the horn about a chopper,” he said.

“What about a small plane? There’s got to be someone who’d want to earn a buck,” Mason suggested. The kid was showing a surprising amount of ingenuity. Too bad the holidays rendered every solution a moot point.

“Nah.” Ethan shook his head. “They’re all short-staffed and grounded thanks to last night’s ice storm. Maybe we could get someone from the south side of the lake though. Sounds like they just got a dusting of powder.”

“Where are the ATV rentals?” Travis asked.

“I don’t know. Let’s find out.” Mason pulled out his phone.

Damn. Google. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

Travis’ brain was seriously scrambled. He should be focused, but every other second his mind went back to last night when he held Bliss. When she pulled him back to bed instead of kicking him out.

This was all his fault.

“Why ATVs?” Ethan asked.

“Daniel used an ATV to dispose of the bodies in a ravine. It was missing from the property when the cops swarmed the place. Grayson said the RV was pulling a trailer with a tarp on it. I’m guessing that was either supplies or the ATV.”

BOOK: Dangerous Attraction: Part Two (Aegis Group)
9.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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