DARE: A Bad Boy Romance (26 page)

She recognized the two men Dare had thrashed outside the courthouse. One was wearing a neck brace. He pointed at her, then lightly punched his own palm, as if to say,
I’m going to enjoy taking you apart.
The other man’s black eye and busted lip hadn’t fully healed. He just glared at her, which was equally threatening in its own way.

Whatever they had in store for her, she prayed it would be over quick.

Those two, plus the man who’d found her back at the crash site, ushered Holly inside a large, white Mediterranean-style residential building with a red-tiled roof. They took her downstairs. She imagined a dungeon awaiting her, but instead found an enormous, lively rec room. A pool table, video arcade games, pinball machines, a hot tub in the corner, gym equipment, and one of those virtual reality full-body rigs she’d seen demoed at a charity science expo one time. It was the ultimate man cave.

Yes, Barrett Silva had done very well for himself. Getting fighters hooked on performance-enhancing drugs and then taking bribes to fudge the medical test results, he’d made a small fortune. Corruption was a lucrative racket.

“How many lives have you wrecked to pay for all this?” she called, as he approached from the far end of the room, unlacing his kickboxing gloves. He was sweaty after an intensive workout. Good thing the air conditioning was working.

“If you’re talking about Trey,” he replied, “I never made him do anything he didn’t insist on doing himself. Is it my fault he overdid it?”

“Sure, he never did anything halfway. But then, that’s how you operate, isn’t it, Barrett? You, and sleaze balls like you? You make out you’re helping fighters achieve their dreams when all you’re really doing is turning them into ticking time bombs. Trey was always obsessed with winning; he’d have done anything to keep fighting and keep winning. And he might have self-destructed on his own. I don’t know. We’ll
never
know. But one thing I know for certain is that you helped it happen.
You,
his doctor, his best friend—
you
helped to destroy him!”

He was silent while he wiped his face, neck, and underarms with a towel, and Holly thought that maybe she’d struck a chord in him, maybe got him to see himself in a new light. At the very least, he had to be suffering a pang or two of regret, knowing his best friend had killed himself like that, and that he was in some way responsible.

“Trey and I were under no illusions about the parts we played,” he said rather cryptically. “To be honest, you were the only one who didn’t get it, Holly. And you still don’t. Trey always liked that about you, how naïve you were. He said you were like an antidote to all the cruel shit out there.”

Through Holly’s hardest defenses, a shot to her heart. Proof that Trey had loved her, just as she’d always known. Which made the whole thing all the more tragic. It also made Barrett Silva’s betrayal all the more contemptible. Her heart would always be wounded, but thanks to Dare, and Jessica, and Deedee and Tegan, she’d learned that it could heal over that wound, and that after healing, her heart was even stronger because she knew she was loved. She’d forgiven herself for Trey. And right now she was in love with a man who was strong in all the ways Trey had been weak.
That
was why she could harden herself to Silva and his threats, because Dare was with her. Inside her. That would be her best defense in this, her fight to stay alive.

To stay alive long enough for him to come rescue her.

“Me? I never did see the virtue in being naïve,” Silva went on. “Children are naïve, but they have no choice. They don’t know how the world works. But when a grown man or woman is naïve, it tells me they’ve been too afraid to take the world on. They’re spineless. And when a man like Trey says he prefers a naïve woman as a partner…that tells me he’s weak. He was a helluva fighter in the ring, but he was weak outside it. He let the world get the upper hand, and in the end he couldn’t take it. He let it beat him. Why do you think he tried to kill you, Holly?” The guy was so full of himself, he even paused for emphasis before answering his own rhetorical question. “I’ll tell you why: it was because you represented everything that was weak about him. He hated himself, so he hated you, too, in the end.
You
were the destructive force in his life because you encouraged him to be spineless.”

Yep, if the Devil had taken a stab at rationalizing Trey’s suicide, he’d have probably spouted the exact same bullshit. It steeled Holly. She might be naïve about a lot of things, but she knew self-deluded crap when she heard it. This bozo was full of it.

“Are you going to talk all day, Barrett? My hourly rate might have to go up if I have to listen to any more of that horseshit.”

He twitched a smile, then nodded to his goons. They grabbed hold of her so that she could barely move. “Bring her,” he said. “But not too rough. Not yet. Something tells me she’ll break sooner than she thinks.”

Yeah, we’ll see about that, asshat.

They took her over to the gym area, where several punching bags of various types and sizes lay on the laminate wood floor. Attached to the ceiling were four strong-looking metal brackets, onto which the bags ought to be hung. Instead, Silva had attached ropes to two of them.

“Strip her,” he told his men.

One of them, the man with the neck brace, grinned as he took hold of her hips. “All the way?” he asked Silva.

“What are you, an animal?”

The man shrugged.

“Same as last time,” Silva told him. “And no more. She’ll break without that.”

Holly tried her best to hold a stoic poise and expression while they undressed her, but her heart was thumping. She mashed her lips together. Her near-panic breaths rushed loudly in and out through her nostrils. All the while Silva looked on, holding the ends of the towel draped around his neck.

They stripped her to her underwear. Then they tied the ropes around her wrists, tightened them until they bit, and hoisted her onto her tiptoes.

“No, I’m certain. There were two men and a black Mazda sedan,” Jessica’s neighbor, an elderly woman named June Lynch, insisted for the third time. Her husband, Hank, had a differing opinion. Their bickering was wasting time, but Dare had no choice but to let them hammer out the truth between them. This was the only lead he had on Holly’s abduction, so it had to be reliable.

“Listen. I was closer than you,” Hank told his wife. “I was clipping the hedge out front, and I’m telling you it was a limo. And there were three men.”

“Hooey! How could
you
see from there, with all those parked cars blocking your view? I was at the front bedroom window. I saw the whole thing—well, not the
whole
thing—there were a couple of trees in the way—but I had a pretty good view.” She took Dare by the hand. “If you want my advice, sunshine, try the Doyles and the Chartoffs. They’re both on the other side of the street. Big on Neighborhood Watch, that kind of thing. The definitely have CCTV, but I don’t know if it’s on during the day.” She pointed out the exact houses, then roved her bony finger across the row of properties up the street. “Let me see. Who else might have…?”

“Ben and Carla had it installed a-ways back,” Hank added, looking up the street. “They’re, let me see, four-five-
six
houses up on our side. There might be others as well, but those are the ones we know about. They had a big meeting last year about security, right after those three burglaries on the same night. It panicked some folks, so they went and bought those fancy little cameras you can monitor online or some damn thing.”

“I know what you mean,” Dare said. “There’s an app you can use on your Smartphone. It streams the live video feed, so you can keep an eye on your property even when you’re not there.”

“Yeah. I have no idea what you just said,” Hank admitted, “but you get the picture.”

“So to speak,” his wife added.

“Me and June don’t go for that techno stuff. Hackers can always find ways round it. Nothing like a good old shotgun to make a burglar fill his pants, I reckon. There’s no way round that, is there.” It wasn’t a question.

“I guess not,” said Dare. He waved to Jessica while she ran across the street. “Okay, I’ve gotta go,” he told the old couple. “Thanks for your help.”

“No worries, sonny,” replied Hank. “Good luck. Go find that limo.”

“Sedan!”

Leaving the bickering behind, Dare rushed out to meet Jessica, who was waving a small piece of paper at him.

“We’ve got a California license plate number!” she said breathlessly. “6UBY706. The police can find her with that, right?”

“Wow, good
work.
How did you—?”

“The Chartoffs. They have state of the art security. Always a camera watching their driveway and the street outside. Linus rewound the footage to the time Holly was taken. It only took a minute. It showed the car slowing just before my house.”

“A black Mazda sedan, right?”

“Yeah. A Mazda 6. Dark gray though. How did you know that?”

“The Lynches. Remind me to move into this neighborhood if I make it through this.”

Jessica stared at him. “You’re not going to the police, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Not if I can find her on my own.”

“Why not?”

He ushered her over to his Jeep. “Because they have to follow rules. I don’t.”

“You think you can…find her on your own, I mean?”

“More or less.”

“One of your Marine buddies?”

Dare smiled at her, then kissed her on the forehead. “Holly’s lucky to have you.”

“Right back at you. You be careful, okay, tough guy? Bring her back safe.”

“Scout’s honor.” He climbed into his car, lowered the window when she held up the scrap of paper with the license plate number on it.

“Something tells me you were never a Boy Scout,” she said.

“No. They usually don’t give out badges for what I do.”

“Call me if you need anything.”

“Will do. If you don’t hear from me by this time tomorrow, go to the cops.”

“Copy that,” she said, then walked back to her house.

Dare checked the GPS alert app on his Smartphone for the umpteenth time. Still no signal. Holly had not activated her panic button. He wouldn’t be able to track her using his phone anyway, even if she did activate it—he’d need a laptop to access the secure program—but it would tell him when the signal went live.

He drove straight to his weekend house in the Hollywood hills. His weapons were locked in a safe there. On the way, he rang Finn, who, as an engineer and a communications officer in the Corps, knew his way around tracking software and internet search engines much better than Dare did.

Luckily, he picked up.

“Hey bud. Listen, I’ve got an emergency here. No, no, it’s not me who’s in trouble. It’s Holly. She’s been taken. Yeah, less than an hour ago. Eyewitnesses, but they weren’t close enough to ID the kidnappers. We do have a make and number on the car though. Yeah, it’s a black two-thousand-thirteen Mazda 6 sedan, California plate license number Sixer-Uniform-Bravo-Yankee-Seven-Zero-Sixer. You want to read it back? Yep, you got it. Think you can find out whom it belongs to? That’s great. Give me a call when you’ve got something. Oh, and one more thing. I need you to keep a lookout for Holly’s GPS distress signal. Yeah, I fitted it to one of those bracelets, you know, like that informant we worked with in Basra. No, she hasn’t activated it yet. But in case she does, I’ll need someone to catch the signal on a live mapper as soon as it appears. Okay. Yeah, that’s what I thought. I’ll email you the URL and the password. Sure. Let me know as soon as you’ve got something. Cheers, bud. I owe you one.”

After tearing up the miles to his timeshare home in the Hollywood hills, Dare changed into a pair of cargo pants and a gray lightweight thermal Henley shirt, a comfortable, practical ensemble, cool enough for driving around in, warm enough for night-time temperatures. He wouldn’t be coming back until he found Holly, no matter how long it took.

Next, he packed his gym bag full of weapons and ammo: three side arms, an assault rifle, assorted knives, a couple of stun grenades, and his trusty shotgun. Also a pair of night-vision goggles that he referred to as his NVGs. He stuffed a first aid kit in as well, just in case. Then he grabbed his laptop, a few bottles of water from the fridge, a couple of snacks, and put them all in his Jeep.

Logic told him the best thing he could do now was wait for Finn to contact him, but his adrenaline was pumping like mad. No way could he stay in one spot. If he did he’d probably wind up punching the fucking walls. Better to keep moving, keep driving, just throw himself into the hunt.

But where to start? Her cell phone was switched off, more than likely smashed, so he couldn’t run a trace on that. He had absolutely no idea where Barrett Silva was staying in L.A., presuming he was behind this. Who else might have that information? He wrung his brain to figure out an angle he could use, but drew a blank. The prick lived over on the East Coast. Dare didn’t know anyone out there who could help him with this.

He jumped behind the wheel and took off, hoping an idea would come to him if he kept moving, like a hunter using his instincts to find prey.

***

Finn called while Dare was waiting at a red light. He picked up immediately and ignored the horn-honkers behind him when the light turned green. This conversation needed his undivided attention.

“Find anything?”

“I think so. The car is registered to a Marvin Delgado, fifty-seven years old. Get this: he has four separate residences listed, all in California, two in Santa Barbara, one in the Mojave Desert, and one in L.A. I’m texting you the L.A. address now, but I did a quick check and I doubt the kidnappers would take her there.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It’s a penthouse apartment. No private access. They’d have to be pretty stupid to take her up five floors.”

“True. I’m gonna try it anyway. Best to eliminate it than keep guessing.”

“Agreed.”

“Meantime, see what you can find out about the other addresses.”

“Will do. Purely in terms of distance, Santa Barbara is lot closer than the Mojave address, actually about half the distance. But it’s also a lot busier, not as remote. Abductions usually require a remote location. I wouldn’t like to bet either way.”

“Me either. Let’s pray it’s the penthouse.”

“Roger that.”

“Anything from Holly’s GPS?”

“Nothing yet. I’ll keep an eye out though.”

“Thanks, Cork. Send me any new info you get.”

“Will do, brother. Watch your back.”

***

It took Dare a little over twenty minutes to reach the penthouse and discover that Finn was right. Nobody was home. And the apartment building was part of a plush, tropical-themed resort. Too public. Too exposed. No kidnapper in his or her right mind would bring anyone here.

He now had two options. Santa Barbara or the Mojave.

This was the crunch decision, he knew. If Holly was still alive—and he had to believe she was, no matter what happened—then time was the critical factor now. The longer they had her, the more damage they could inflict. And after everything she’d been through with Trey Oregon, this new ordeal might be too much for her. Even if she survived, she might never recover.

Don’t even think it. Focus on solving the problem. The rest will take care of itself.

So, the desert or the coast?

He snatched up a rock and hurled it at the nearest wall in frustration. Without more intel, he was just guessing. Picking the wrong one would cost him several hours—hours she didn’t have! Santa Barbara was closer, just under a two-hour drive by the book—make that an hour if he floored it all the way. If he went there first, he’d at least be eliminating two more addresses. That would leave the Mojave property.

Shit, there was no guarantee this Delgado guy even
was
the kidnapper. Maybe he’d just supplied the car. Maybe the real kidnappers were right here in L.A., tracking Dare’s every move, laughing their asses off at him chasing his tail like this.

Some protector he’d turned out to be. Christ, he’d never felt so freaking useless in his life!

He checked his phone for messages. Nothing.

Fuck it. I need to make a decision, even if it’s a wrong one.

He plucked a quarter out of his pocket.
Heads, the coast; tails, the desert
. He tossed it.

Heads.

After taking a huge swig of cool water, he set off for Santa Barbara at top speed.

***

He was almost there when his phone rang. The salty sea air and the wind rushing in through the open windows had lulled him into a grim, almost Zen-like autopilot. He almost didn’t hear the ring tone. It was the phone’s vibration that alerted him, and as soon as he saw Finn’s name in the center of the display, he snapped into real-time focus. Closed the windows so he could hear properly.

“Hey. Anything new?”

“Where are you right now?” There was a sharpness in Finn’s voice Dare hadn’t heard since the Middle East.

“About ten minutes outside Santa Barbara. Why?”

“Okay, turn your ass around
right this second
and head out to the Mojave.”