Dangerous Tease (17 page)

“Man, you probably have a concussion. You're going to the hospital.”

Sam shook his head and tried
to clear the fog clouding his mind. “They've got her.”

“Who?”

“Some Vegas loan shark and his muscle took Josie and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop them.” He dropped his hand to his side and tried to ignore the taste of vomit in his mouth.

Hank gave him the once over. “Looks like you sure as hell tried.”

“Fat lot of good it did. Look, we don't have time to waste. We have to find her.”

“Okay, start from the beginning and don't leave anything out.”

By the time Sam had filled in all the blank spaces, he'd nearly paced a groove into the tile floor. “They took Josie and disappeared. They're either on their way to Vegas or using Josie to find Rebecca's Bounty.”

“I've already called the airport. Deputies are all over the highways. If they're out there, we'll find them.”

In his gut,
Sam knew exactly where they'd taken Josie. “What if they're on McPherson's Bluff?”

“In this weather?” Hank glanced at the snowflakes dancing outside the bay window. “This is supposed to be just the beginning. If they're on the bluff, they'll be heading in soon. You stay here and I'll go take a look.”

That was not going to happen. “I can't stay here. Josie's out there, Hank. What would you do
if it was Beth?”

Hank's jaw tightened and a vein bulged in his temple. Only a few months ago, he and Beth had nearly been killed when they’d ended up in the middle of a deranged woman's revenge plot. The doctors declared he'd forever walk with a limp after taking a bullet in the knee to save Beth.

“You have two minutes to get some clothes on. I'll meet you at my cruiser.”

T
he darkness of the car trunk threatened to eat Josie up—or was that the anxiety talking?

“Get ahold of yourself, Winarsky. You're in a world of shit, yes, but that doesn't mean you don't have options.”

Boxes and trash poked her on all sides. Something lay jammed underneath her rib cage. The trunk was a pit, there had to be a weapon in here somewhere. If she could just get
her fingers wrapped around a tire iron or socket wrench, she wouldn't feel so helpless. Hopeless.

Josie pushed her legs out and arched her back. There wasn't enough room in the small, dark compartment to move more than an inch or two, but she managed to sweep her left hand across the floor, searching for anything she could use as a weapon. When Snips popped the lid, he'd be in for one hell of
a surprise.

A square of plastic glowed above her. Outlined on it was the image of an open trunk.

An emergency release.

Escape!

Josie grabbed the corner, ready to yank, when the car veered off the smooth road and onto one so bumpy it bounced her off the floor and she banged her head on the trunk lid.

The car slowed.

Her blood pressure went up.

Frantic, she abandoned the escape release
for the floor. Her fingers curled around something long and heavy with a cylindrical head. Socket wrench.

She clenched her jaw and began psyching herself up for Snips to open the trunk.

Another rut in the road sent the car jumping up again, but it kept bounding along. Figuring it was now or never, Josie yanked on the glowing square.

The trunk lid flew open.

Dawn's pink glow filled the sky,
illuminating the empty countryside.

Sucking in a deep breath, Josie raised her arms to cover her head and rolled out of the trunk. All the air in her lungs vacated as soon as she landed with a thump on the dirt road.

The car kept moving.

She scrambled up, ignoring the blinding pain in her side, and stumbled to a copse of trees by an abandoned farmhouse. Rocks bit into her knees as she rested
her forehead against scratchy bark, gulping in air and wondering how much time she had until Snips figured out she'd escaped.

Minutes. If she was lucky.

Her gaze followed her footprints between the road and her hiding spot. A dead giveaway. Careful as she could, she tiptoed in her tracks back to the road. The crusty top layer of snow stuck to her clammy palms when she tried to brush away evidence
of her location. But the formerly powder snow had hardened during the cold night, making the top layer as brittle as the crust on a crème brûlée.

She searched the area but everywhere she looked, the light gleamed off the icy covering. Despite the cold, a bead of sweat rolled down the back of her neck.

That's when she saw it. Under the trees, the snow had piled up into a small mound, no doubt
pushed by the winds that never ceased to blow.

Josie negotiated her way back to the trees as quickly as she could while not making any new footprints, gathered an armful of snow and scurried back to the road. She packed the fresh snow into the indentations left by her boots, smoothing it as best she could, and working her way backwards until the evergreens blocked her from the road.

Her breath
hovered in the air as she panted. She rubbed away the goose bumps that had grown into goose mountains on her arms and tried to formulate a plan.

At the rumble of a car's engine, her first instinct was to spring from her hiding spot and wave down the motorist. She caught herself just in time. Peeking through the branches, she watched a sedan with Nevada plates crawl down the dirt road.

Blood
roared in her ears and she double-checked the job she'd done with the snow. Dread squeezed her throat closed. Quarter-sized drops of red spotted the path between where she'd landed in the road and the tree line. She wiped her hand across her lower back where the trunk had snagged her skin and stared down at red-tipped fingers. The cold and her own panic had blunted the pain, but hadn't stopped the
bleeding.

The black vehicle continued forward. Too late. Nothing she could do but cross her fingers and hope.

Josie squeezed her legs close to her chest, wrapping her arms around her shins.

The engine's purr was practically next to her now.

She clenched her eyes shut and buried her face between her knees.

“Josie girl, we're going to find you.” The wind carried Snips’ taunting call across
the frozen fields and giant snowflakes fell from the sky.

Every nerve in her body screamed at her to push away from the tree's rough bark and run. To sprint to safety.

But there was no haven out here, only flat, snowy land until McPherson's Bluff rose straight and tall from the plains half a mile away—or the decrepit farmhouse ten yards ahead.

Muscles tensed, she waited. Trapped.

Just when
she thought she couldn't take it anymore, the motor of Snips’ car faded away.

Too freaked out to be relieved, she forced herself to count to one hundred to make sure they'd gone before hurrying to the farmhouse to assess her options in a more protected area.

Someone had nailed two-by-fours across the windows and doorway. She yanked at the boards covering the door until one finally gave way,
providing just enough room for her to crawl through. Dirt and trash covered the floor. Twigs and bits of debris formed what looked like a nest inside the hearth. She scanned the room for occupants. The last thing she needed was a rabid animal thinking she'd invaded its turf. Finding nothing, Josie sank to the floor, wanting nothing more in the world than to fall apart.

She ground her teeth together,
determined to stave off anxious tears. Fuck this. If there was any time to reach down deep and proudly wear her pair of brass balls, this was it. She inhaled a deep breath of frigid air and let it out in a huff.

Better. She could do this.

Sam clicked his seat belt and clutched Josie's new, Nebraska-winter-worthy coat in his lap. No doubt
she'd be freezing once they found her.

The snowfall had gained intensity in the ten minutes he and Hank had been on the road. Wind pushed against the cruiser and swirled the quarter-inch of snow covering the asphalt. McPherson's Bluff towered over the prairie, an optical illusion making is seem just around the bend when in reality it was a good fifteen miles away.

“So Chris tells me Josie
is a waitress in Vegas.”

“Yes. She's a painter too.”

“Any good?”

Guilt sucker-punched him in the kidneys. “I don't know, I haven't seen any of her paintings.” He'd spent so much time questioning her motives or trying to get into her pants, he hadn't bothered to find out more about the one thing that really mattered to her.

You're a real asshole, Layton
.

“So should we try the east or west
entrance to the bluff?”

“Neither, we have to start at the beginning. They took both maps. I marked the regional map with the possible beginnings. They have to know the starting point is either Rebecca's first homestead or the McNerny boarding house.”

Hank gave him a hearty dose of side eye. “Dial that back, professor, and talk to me like I don't live this crap every day.”

“Sorry. Snips is after
Rebecca's Bounty. That's why my office was trashed this week. He told Josie that if she finds the treasure for him, he'll forget he wants to turn her brother over to some mob boss.”

Hank's mouth gaped open, but he kept his eyes on the ever-worsening road. When he didn't say anything, Sam shrugged and continued.

“Josie was given Rebecca's diary. Inside the back cover was a map to the treasure.
The key to finding it is knowing the correct place to start, homestead or boarding house.”

“So which is it?” Hank rolled to a stop at a T in the road.

Go left to the west side of the bluff and Rebecca's first homestead. Go right to the east side of the bluff and the McNerny boarding house. He had a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right, if he was correct about Snips’ determination to get the
treasure. With Josie's life on the line, he had to be.

“Turn left.” The sky had turned white and visibility had gone from so-so to downright concerning. They were the only vehicle on the two-lane highway. “Thanks for doing this, Hank.”

“Better than just taking off, which you would have done about ten minutes after I'd left you alone.”

“True.”

“At least this way if we get stranded in the middle
of a snowstorm, Mom won't kill me for letting you go off on your own.”

“You'd think we were still kids the way she mother-bears us.”

“Yeah, I think we're forever twelve to her.”

Sam couldn't help but wince at the mention of being twelve, especially with McPherson's Bluff taking up a big portion of the real estate in front of the windshield.

Ever observant, Hank didn't miss a thing. “Shit,
Sam. I'm sorry.”

“I think it's time we moved beyond that—way past time when I need to do that.”

He rubbed the fleece lining of Josie's electric-blue coat between his thumb and finger. They'd find her and then he'd find the words to tell her everything. He couldn't promise forever, but he sure could do a damn sight better about the here and the now.

Despite the weather conditions, Hank made
good time, turning onto Rural Route Fourteen without having to sacrifice much in terms of speed for the dirt road. The cruiser's shocks absorbed most of the beating from the rough surface. Three miles in and they were almost to the trees Rebecca had used as a windbreak for her new home.

There wasn't much left of Rebecca's original homestead, but five years ago the Dry Creek Historical Society
had started to build a replica of the one-room farmhouse. They'd gotten about halfway through the building process when funds ran out, the economy tanked and donations dried up. The abandoned building stood alone just off the road.

He searched the road ahead for tire tracks, but the fresh layer of snow, now at least a half-inch thick, covered any sign of previous traffic.

“Pull over by the trees.”

Hank put the car in park. “Okay, we treat this as a possible crime scene. You stay behind me and if I tell you to get back to the car, you get the fuck back. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

The frigid air slapped Sam in the face as soon as he climbed out of the cruiser, chapping his cheeks. Josie would be freezing out here in just jeans and a T-shirt. He could still feel the soft cotton under his fingers.
Had that only been a few hours ago? God, it seemed like forever.

He fell in line behind Hank, who crept toward the white clapboard house with his gun drawn.

Wind whipped across the open field, blowing flakes and making the house seem more like a mirage than a reality.

Adrenaline-spiked blood pumped at hyper-speed through Sam’s system and despite the cold, the small of his back grew damp with
sweat.