Fiance by Friday (39 page)

He made a call to the major’s secretary and ended up talking to an answering machine. He left an urgent message, with shameless name-dropping littering the recording. Not that it mattered. Blake would call out the queen and the president if it would do him any good in locating his sister and Neil.

Minutes ticked by as impatience crawled up Blake’s spine. Carter was due to call anytime, hopefully to tell him that Max arranged his audience with the major.

When the phone rang, he didn’t bother to look at who the call was from before answering it.

“Carter?”

“Blake?”

Not Carter. “Neil?” His arms prickled and his mind went numb. “Neil?”

“Listen, Blake. I don’t have much time.”

“Where are you? Where’s Gwen?”

Neil didn’t answer his question. “I need you to write this down. Are you listening?”

The intensity of Neil’s voice was unlike anything Blake could remember hearing in the past. “I’m listening.”

“I need you to call a Major Blayney at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs. Keep him on the phone.”

“Neil?”

“I need him distracted…you getting this?” Neil was rushed, not listening.

“I’m three miles off base, Neil.”

“You’re what?”

“Off base. Carter located your last commanding officer. He won’t take my call. I came here looking for you.”

Neil sighed. “Write down this number.” Neil rambled off nine digits. “His personal number. Call him. Keep him on the phone. I don’t care what you do…keep him on the phone.”

Blake’s stomach turned on itself. “Where’s Gwen?”

Neil hesitated. “Call him.”

Blake’s body grew cold.

Charles paced the floor above her head, his footsteps heavy and fast at times, slower at others. So slow in fact that she wondered if someone else was in the house. When the phone rang, she heard only one voice upstairs and it wasn’t someone new.

Gwen leaned against the wall of the basement surrounded by Annie’s art and the Blayney household Christmas lights.

She had no idea of the time, or what was happening above. To aid in her discomfort Charles cut the basement lights. He would have plunged her into darkness if not for the lights she’d managed to plug in herself. The laugh, as they say, was on him. Even the occasional squeak of a house mouse didn’t do much other than comfort her. She was alive, alert.

Surely Neil would realize something wasn’t right eventually. Behind her back, she twisted the beautiful ring he’d placed on her finger. The way he’d opened his soul to her was fresh in her memory. He had to be alive.

He had to be.

She banished the thought of anything bad befalling him and waited for Charles to make his next move.

The hours waned on, forcing her eyelids to close for short periods of time. Equal parts of her wanted something to happen, and for nothing to occur. The longer she sat in the basement the bigger the chance of something awful happening to Neil.

And that threat was a larger psychological torture than being locked in a basement with a madman as her jailer.

Her eyes were closed when she heard a lock click at the top of the stairs. The lights above her head blinked on, making her wince away from the sudden glow.

“What the?” Charles flew down the stairs faster than she could reach for the gun hidden on her leg. She managed to scramble to her feet, her eyes wide as he made a quick assessment of her basement decorations.

“What have you done?”

“Maaa miii elfff aa hoom,” she attempted to say under the gag in her mouth.

Charles was on her in seconds, the back of his hand slammed against her face and knocked her to the floor. Pain awakened her brain.

Charles stood over her, ran a hand calmly down his neck, stretching it. The only evidence of his anger of a moment ago was in the way he flared his nose as he drew in a breath.

He lifted her from the floor with one hand, and slammed her against the wall.

Stars flew in her head.

“Enjoy yourself?”

Gwen attempted to move her head away from his stare. He didn’t allow it. She gave in and stared him down. Every ounce of hatred filled her gaze. She’d spit at him if she could find an ounce of moisture in her mouth.

He grasped her chin in his fingers and squeezed. “Your brother came.”

Her heart kicked in her chest.

“What does he know?”

She mumbled behind the gag. Charles placed a finger between the material and her cheek and forced it from her lips.

“What?”

The ability to move her jaw together felt like heaven, regardless of the fact that the devil held her against the wall. Her dry tongue touched the roof of her mouth as she attempted to find moisture.

“What does he know?”

“I don’t know.”

He slapped her again. Moisture in her mouth came by way of a split lip.

Tears sprang to her eyes with the pain, but she refused to let them fall.

“What does he know?”

“I haven’t spoken with him.”

Charles moved closer. She wasn’t sure but she thought she smelled tobacco on his breath. “He knows you’re here.”

What could she say…she had no idea how Blake had found her. “Where is he?”

Charles let his hand slip to her throat, reminding her how easily he could snap it if he chose.

“On his way here.”

Hope sprang in her chest.

“You make one noise, one squeak down here and I’ll kill him. You got that?”

She nodded. He’d be so close. Maybe he’d sense something?

“One noise.”

Charles wrapped her mouth again, taking less care in securing the rag. He shoved her to the floor and left the room.

He left the lights on.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Neil knew his way around base better than any marine there. As day turned to night, traversing known passages into the base became easier. Not much had changed since he was a kid there with his father. Teenagers always wanted to know a way off base. Who knew he’d be sneaking back in so many years later.

One singular thought kept his feet moving.

Gwen.

Getting to her, keeping her safe. The sick thought that maybe something had already happened tried to inch into his brain, but he refused to hear it.

She’s fine, he told himself.

Perfectly fine.

It took twenty minutes to cross the base and meet the bottom of the hill where Blayney’s house perched. He paused for a moment and looked up at the dark windows.

Was he even there? Was Gwen?

Neil banked on the chance that without word from Mickey, Chuck would think the worst of his grunt. Logic told Neil that Chuck would use Gwen as a hostage at that point. Unless he gave up.

Neil had yet to meet a marine who gave up.

Chuck wouldn’t be the first.

A light flickered inside the house, evidence that someone was inside.

Neil circled around the back, hopped the fence, and ducked under the dark kitchen window. He took a small mirror from his field jacket and angled it on the floor to see inside the house from the back door.

The kitchen was empty. A light from the hall was on.

Neil held his breath and waited for the phone to ring. He told Blake to give him forty minutes to get into position. He had five minutes to wait.

Five minutes of absolute terror that he was waiting five minutes too long to help his wife.

The image of Chuck harming her made his fist clutch and his back teeth grind together. Sitting immobile for five lousy minutes left him shaking. When the phone finally rang, Neil nearly missed the sound.

The second ring grabbed his attention and sprang him into action.

The back lock to the sliding glass door was easily breached. The major wasn’t hypervigilant about his safety.

Stupid man.

Neil eased the door open enough to hear the one-sided conversation.

“Mr. Harrison? Yes…I was told you were here.” Chuck’s voice was on edge. Something Neil recognized but Blake wouldn’t. Neil closed the back door quietly behind him and locked it. He ducked behind the island before he made it to the back hall.

“No,” Neil heard Chuck say.

Neil moved up the stairs every time Chuck spoke.

“How did you get my number?”

Neil hesitated.

“Oh, I see. Yes…they were here.”

Neil moved up the stairs and to the room he and Gwen shared. Inside the room was dark. A part of him expected to see her there.

She wasn’t.

He moved quietly about the space, looking for evidence that she had been there.

Nothing…the room was bare of anything personal.

Gwen was gone.

The house had gone quiet. He didn’t hear the major…didn’t hear any other person in the home. Neil tiptoed from the guest room and glanced into the master bedroom. It too was dark. From what Neil could tell Ruth was gone, too.

Downstairs a door shut, and then quiet resumed. Neil lent his ear to the hall desperate to hear anything.

A loud thump brought him to a stand and soon after he heard a door slam.

Halfway down the stairs, he heard Chuck’s voice. “Yes. I’m expecting a guest.”

Neil waited, dropped down three more stairs. “Mr. Harrison. Right. In twenty minutes. No. He won’t be here long.”

Neil froze. Blake was on his way?

Neil retreated down the back stairwell to regroup. Blake needed to stay away. The last thing Neil needed was a civilian fucking things up. Not when Neil had no idea where Gwen was.

Neil removed his M9 and positioned it in front of his chest before he inched his way into the room with Chuck.

Chuck stood in front of his desk in his office. A cigarette smoked in a nearby ashtray. Neil didn’t remember the major smoking before.

Could this man…the one who’d been there early in his military career, be responsible for so much pain? For Mickey’s death? For Billy’s?

With his back to him, Chuck stared out the window. “You going to use that weapon, soldier?”

Neil kept his gun steady. His jaw stiffened, his mind remembered better times.

He shook his head.

“Where’s Gwen?”

Chuck picked up his cigarette, sucked it down, blew it through his teeth. “Not sure why I quit. There’s nothing quite like balancing life and death through such a simple device.” He stared at the tip of his cigarette and sucked in another lungful of nicotine.

Neil’s trigger twitched. “Where is she?”

Chuck glanced to the floor over his shoulder. “Drop the gun, Mac.”

“Where’s my wife?”

Chuck laughed. The sound grated on Neil’s raw nerves.

The major turned, removed the cigarette from his lips, and blew the smoke over his head as if he had nothing to care for in the world.

It pissed Neil off.

“Where is she?”

“Drop the weapon.”

Neil glared. “Why should I?’

“You want to see her again? Drop the gun.” The arrogant bastard sucked on his cigarette again. He knew damn well Neil wouldn’t squeeze the trigger without knowing where Gwen was. His enemy knew his weakness and was using it against him.

Neil purposely took two strides closer before uncocking his weapon and tossing it to the floor well out of Chuck’s reach.

Chuck witnessed the weapon skitter across the floor with a smile.

“And the others?”

Neil swallowed. No use pretending not to know what the man in front of him taught him. Neil lifted his right leg, removed the smaller revolver, and tossed it to the floor.

Chuck witnessed the disarming as if bored. He made a small rolling motion with his fingers and Neil removed a third gun from the small of his back. Other than his cell phone and a knife, he didn’t have anything left.

Major Blayney moved slowly to his desk.

Neil was too far away to rush the man, so he waited until his next move.

From behind the major’s back the man produced a service weapon.

No surprise.

Instinctively, Neil moved to the side.
No need to give the man a broad target.

“Step back, Mac.”

Two steps later Neil held his ground. “Where is she?”

Chuck’s eyes lingered beyond Neil for a moment, in the direction of the kitchen.

He waved his gun. “In the back.”