Tangled Lies (28 page)

Chapter 20

Sasha woke to the sound of voices. Daylight filled the barn. She forced herself to stay perfectly still so they would think she was still out cold. Her muscles wanted to clench, but she deliberately relaxed her limbs.

The voices were male, and while she mostly heard nothing but a faint rumble, one word suddenly became clear. Her breath caught. Jesse. They were talking about Jesse.

She strained to hear, trying to quiet the hammering of her heart. When she realized what they were saying, she bit her lip to keep from crying out.

“The explosion took out his truck . . . couldn’t have survived . . . haven’t heard . . . has to be dead.”

The words hit Sasha like hurricane-force winds—relentless, unforgiving, unmistakable.

Jesse was dead?
No, oh please, God, no
.

She forced herself to take slow breaths. She couldn’t draw attention to herself now. What did they mean by an explosion? What happened? Her muscles wanted to shake from the effort of holding herself motionless, but she wouldn’t make a sound. She had to know more.

“. . . still take the sub . . . in case we need it . . . boss doesn’t want any screw-ups . . .”

Silent tears tracked down her cheeks as the truth sank in. Jesse was dead. Gone from her life forever. And she’d never told him how she felt about him, never had the guts to confess she loved him. Always had.

Even with his ridiculous proposal, she’d let fear keep her silent. And for what? Her foolish pride?
Oh, God. Please don’t let this be true.

Maybe she’d misunderstood. Not that unlikely, given her foggy brain. But in her heart, she knew she’d have to face the truth that he was gone. She blocked the pain, mentally packing it in a trunk for later, because she knew if she let her emotions run free right now, they’d swamp her and take her under.

If something horrible really had happened to Jesse—and she’d deal with that later—then she had to race
The Lady
today and show whoever was behind this that they hadn’t won. She’d get there on time and she’d win Jesse that money. Her mind skimmed back to their conversation about Ethan and she suddenly realized what she’d missed until now. Ethan saving Jesse’s life, Ethan’s sick little girl, Jesse talking about repaying a debt. This wasn’t about a fresh start. Jesse had needed that money for Adelaide’s surgery. Well, Sasha would make sure Adelaide’s mom got it. It might very well be the last thing she could ever do for him. She wouldn’t let him down. Not this time.

She tuned in again to what the men were saying, but they’d moved out of earshot. Thankfully they weren’t paying any attention to her. They were focused on something on the other side of the barn. She heard rustling, metal clanking, and then what sounded like a pickup truck’s engine, but she couldn’t be sure.

Within a few minutes they were gone, the barn door closed behind them.

She waited a few more minutes, listening to the silence, to be sure they were really gone.

It was now or never.
Oh, Jesse.

She rolled over until she faced the room and made out several pieces of old farm equipment and square hay bales, piled in towering heaps. One bit of equipment had disc-looking things you pulled behind a tractor. That had to have sharp edges, right? Even if they were rusty.

She rolled over and over, then maneuvered herself around until her bound hands were up against the edges of one of the discs. She pulled the duct tape tight over the edge and sawed her hands back and forth. She was breathing hard by the time the tape started to give. Finally it split, and she fell forward, landing face-first in the dirt. Again.

She lay there a minute to catch her breath, then used her hands to push herself up and pull the blindfold off. She shook out her arms and flexed her hands to get the circulation going again.

She gripped the sides of the machine and pulled herself to a sitting position, then raised her bound feet over the edge of one of the discs and started the process all over again. Her stomach muscles protested the longer she worked. “Should have kept up with the sit-ups,” she panted.

Finally her legs popped free.

She tried to stand and almost fell off her wedge sandals, so she slipped them off and took them with her in case she needed them later. Her legs tingled and wanted to collapse under her, and the room had an annoying tendency to spin, but she figured that was from hunger. First things first.

She walked around the barn, searching for a way out. She tried the big door, but it wouldn’t budge. She peered through a crack and saw the large padlock on the outside.

Frustration swamped her, but she wouldn’t give up. She had to do this for Jesse.

Finally she spotted a small shuttered opening about twelve feet off the ground. Maybe they used to pour corn or something through it. But it looked like the shutter opened from the inside. If she could get up there, she should be able to climb out.

She scanned the pile of hay bales below the window and headed up, her sandals hanging over her left wrist. She’d almost reached the window when her foot slipped, and she almost tumbled to the ground. She hung on, panting, until her heart rate settled enough to keep going.

Hurry, hurry, hurry.

She scrambled the rest of the way to the top and smacked her fist against the shutter clasp until it gave way. She swung it open, and the sunlight almost blinded her. Without giving herself time to think, she tossed her sandals out the window and then wiggled through the opening, head first.

Her hips got stuck. Of course. She wiggled and tugged until she pitched forward through the opening, rolling into a ball just before she landed on the grassy sand below.

Ouch.

She lay there for several minutes until the world stopped spinning. All her moving parts still worked, so she slowly sat up and groaned. Even her hair hurt.

A gash on her leg oozed blood, so she wiped it with a handful of grass and slowly got to her feet.

She looked up at the sky. Based on the position of the sun, it was already nearing nine o’clock. She turned in a slow circle, getting her bearings, then hurried away from the barn and headed west, toward the Gulf and Safe Harbor.

She would win that race for Jesse and Adelaide. No matter what.

The sun was barely above the horizon when Jesse heard a vehicle on the road. He’d headed toward what he thought was a barn hours ago, only to find nothing but dead trees and tricks of his mind when he got there. Frustrated, he’d spent most of the night going in circles, desperate to find her.

He ducked into the thick underbrush beside the road, crouched down, and waited to see if they passed by.

It didn’t take long before an aging pickup came into view, pulling what he thought was a boat behind it under a tarp. But the shape wasn’t right. Was this the minisub Sasha had seen?

He tried to see into the cab of the truck, but whoever was in it—and it looked like there were two people—had dark glasses on and ball caps pulled low over their heads.

The truck looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t remember where he’d seen it before. He could follow them back to town, but he had to make sure Sasha wasn’t being held hostage wherever they’d come from.

In the morning light, he finally saw the building. That had to be it! He ignored his screaming ribs as he ran.
Don’t let me be too late, God, please.

It looked deserted. He walked around, tugged on the padlocked door. “Sasha! Are you in there?” He wasn’t surprised when no one answered. The place had an empty feel to it.

Still, he had to be sure. He kept walking until he found a smaller door, wedged closed. He braced himself, then rammed it with his shoulder. He gasped at the pain, but grinned when it opened just far enough for him to squeeze through.

Once his eyes adjusted, he looked around, then headed toward the far side, where rusted farm equipment leaned against the wall. She’d been held here. He’d bet his life on it. His fury grew as he spotted a dog’s upended water bowl. Something glinted a dull silver. He picked up a jagged piece of duct tape from the floor and noticed another piece stuck to the teeth of the tiller. They’d tied her up, but she’d gotten loose.

Atta girl, Sash
.

He turned and almost tripped over a wooden crate half buried under a pile of hay. He stepped closer and realized it wasn’t hay; it was the straw used in packing crates. Whatever had been shipped in the crate was gone. His heart pounded, and memories of his military days came rushing back. Unless he’d completely lost his mind, weapons were transported in crates like these. He froze when he found a label.

His heart slammed his bruised ribs as he tried to process what he was seeing. There had been two torpedoes in this box. Now it was empty. What would someone do with two torpedoes? In Safe Harbor, of all places? Sasha said she’d seen a minisub, possibly the same vehicle he saw this morning. Were they connected? How?

Both had to do with water. Given the lengths someone had gone to in order to keep him and his boat out of the race, the only thing that made sense was that someone wanted him out of the way today. Sasha, too, if they thought she might race in his place.

Sweet Jesus.
He had to find her, make sure she was safe. Then he had to prevent whatever evil someone had planned for today’s race.

He thought of Adelaide, and his heart clenched. He’d get the money for her surgery another way somehow—even if it meant going to work for his father’s company to get it.

He saw the opening far up on the wall. That had to be how she’d escaped.

He hurried outside, and despite his growing panic, a slow smile spread over his face. Sasha was flat-out amazing. She had jumped out that crazy-high window to the ground. His blood froze when he saw a clump of bloodied grass on the ground. His heart rate slowed to slightly less than full gallop when he found footprints leading away from the barn.

She was heading for the marina.

One hand around his bruised ribs, he raced after her, eyes on her tracks as he went.

Sasha hadn’t gone far before palm fronds sliced her arms and tree roots attacked her toes, but she didn’t stop, didn’t slow down. She could do this, for Jesse.

Suddenly she stopped, listened. She’d heard a car. She veered off in that direction and was rewarded a few minutes later when a single-lane road appeared.

She heard another car behind her and stopped. Hide? Or ask for a ride?

She moved off to the side and huffed out a breath when a police SUV came into view. What if Chief Monroe sat behind the wheel? She decided to take the risk. She was exhausted, physically and mentally. When she stepped out into the road, the driver slowed.

“What are you doing way out here, Sasha?” Nick asked.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Could she trust him?

“I got a call out this way to do a wellness check on old Mrs. Donnelly. Her daughter hadn’t heard from her since yesterday and she was worried.”

She searched his eyes but saw no sign of lying, no nervousness, nothing that made her instincts twitch. She’d trusted him with Tony’s clothes. Why doubt him now?

“Is she OK?”

He grinned. “Oh yeah. Drunk as a skunk and singing at the top of her lungs while swinging in her hammock.”

He looked her over. “You OK? Do you need a ride? What happened to your leg?”

She climbed in the passenger side. “It’s a long story, but the short version is that someone drugged me and stashed me in an old barn back that way.” She hitched a thumb over her shoulder.

His eyes narrowed, and the good old boy instantly morphed into a cop on duty. “Start at the beginning. When did this happen? Did you get a look at who did this? I’ll take you to the hospital, get you checked out. Then we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

Sasha held up a hand. “I’m fine, physically. I don’t need to get checked out. And I’ll do whatever I can to help you figure everything out, but right now, I’m kind of in a hurry. Can you get me to the marina, quick? My family must be worried.” She wanted to tell him she was scrambling to make the race in Clearwater, but she worried that he might try to stop her. For her own safety or some such nonsense. Better to skip that part for now.