Shelter from the Storm (Finley Creek Book 2) Read online

  He shifted a bit in the driver’s seat.

  Beautiful, intelligent, loyal...and apparently as mad as the hatter ever was.

  So why was he having so much trouble keeping his eyes on the road and off of her?

  She finally pulled the earbuds from her ears and sighed, about two a.m. He’d decided it would just work best if they drove straight through the night. He’d expected his companion to fall asleep, but she hadn’t. “Yes, Gabby has to have what else I need. Damn it. I didn’t want to have to show her what I found. It will upset her too much. Gabby gets upset a lot.”

  “And what is it that you found?”

  “You know about the emails Gabby’s been getting, right? I’ve been looking for three years to find some sort of connection between the IP address and the Finley Creek Texas State Police branch. I’ve found nothing, and I haven’t told Gabby. I don’t want her getting scared again. It’s almost like someone knows exactly what I am doing as I’m doing it. Even though I’m not supposed to be working on the Marshall case, and I’ve told no one. Not even my sister, Mel. But I’ve checked every computer I use. Mine, Gabby’s, my personal ones. If they’re using spyware, I can’t find it. And that means they are very, very good.”

  “That confident in your skills?”

  She blinked at him again. Did he have moron written on his forehead, or something? “Well. Yes. I’ve designed some seriously kick-ass software for law enforcement—as has my older sister, Carrie. We know what we are doing. I gave her a cloned hard drive from both mine and Gabby’s laptops. She hasn’t been able to find anything, either. But I know something has to be there. But I can’t find what. Can’t find what.”

  “And that’s why you have that sticker over the webcam?”

  “Yes. And after what Gabby told me happened to your sister...how the killers saw Gabby, too. Well...I’m not stupid. Not stupid at all. I don’t want someone spying on me. But this is Gabby’s laptop. Benny has mine today; he’s upgrading it. I borrowed Gabby’s. We built them together. Together.”

  Chance looked away from her for a moment. His sister Sara had been killed while on a live webcam feed to her best friend, Gabby, ten years ago. Gabby had hit record as she’d called 911. But it had been too late for Chance’s family.

  All he had left was his brother Elliot.

  “You’ve been friends for a while?”

  “Four years. We met once or twice with Sara when we were kids. At your mom’s house. But Mel was more Sara’s and Slade’s friend than I was. I was too young. But Gabby and Sara...They were older than me.”

  “Yes.” Gabby had been his sister’s constant companion from about the age of ten or eleven, he thought.

  “I’m younger than Gabby. Mel’s older—she and Slade were the same age. Whenever we’d visit your house, I’d stay in the kitchen with your mom while they played. Mel and Sara and Slade. They’d play with Jilly and Sydney. My other sisters.”

  “But not you?”

  “Too loud for me.” She said it so matter-of-factly. “I’d rather make cookies with your mom. She didn’t talk to me like I was weird. And she wouldn’t let them be loud in her kitchen. She was my friend, too. I loved her, a lot. I still miss her.”

  “Me, too.” There was something in her tone that told him far too many people probably had looked at her differently. “Why weird?”

  “I wasn’t quite as good at communicating back then as I am now. You know that. You used to laugh at me for it. I remember.”

  He winced. He couldn’t remember it but he probably had when she’d annoy him too much. Most of the time he’d just tried to stay away from all of the little kids running around his parents’ house. Now he wished he hadn’t. He wished he’d spent as much time with his younger brother and sister as he possibly could have back then.

  It was easy to miss what you’d lost, wasn’t it? Rather than appreciate who you had. Chance had learned that the hard way.

  The last words he’d ever shared with someone in his family had been harsh. An argument with his youngest brother Slade over something so stupid he barely remembered it.

  What he remembered most about that kid was signing the hospital paperwork to cut off life-support and letting Slade die three days after their parents and younger sister.

  “It’s ok. I’ve forgiven you for it. You weren’t the first. Nor the last. I’m weirder than most women. And I know it.”

  She was very direct. No artifice. He had to admit that was a bit of an oddity. “I see.”

  “I don’t think you do. Ever heard of Asperger’s. You know, kind of like autism? Although they are lumping it in with autism now.”

  Who hadn’t? “Yes.”

  “I’m on it, you know. The spectrum. For years I thought I was the only one in the family. The only one. Then two years ago we found my missing sister. I’m not. Carrie’s just like me. Only she has Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified. PDD-NOS. I am high-functioning. So is she. We don’t know who is higher-functioning, though. Probably her. She’s lived on her own before. Before she got married. I haven’t. I’ve always lived with my father. But Carrie was lost for so many years. She didn’t have our family like I did.”

  Chance was having some trouble keeping up. But Asperger’s explained a lot, didn’t it? The slightly repetitive halting speech pattern, the lack of a filter—possibly. He didn’t know much about it, but he remembered a little girl who hadn’t talked so well back then. Who’d twitch and rock when upset. He’d somehow always seemed to upset her back then. Until he just made a point of staying away. “Ok, missing sister? How was she lost?”

  “Carrie was kidnapped by a murderer when she was nine. He took her to Oklahoma and she went into foster care there. Then she ran away when she was fifteen and lived on the streets. I saw her in a computer forensic trade journal and recognized her. I mean...she looks like me and everything. So I did some digging—” Which Chance took to mean hacking. “In her files. She’s a year and a half older than Mel.”

  “I’m sorry for what your family went through.” He’d never heard anything about Beck having a missing child out there. Had his father and mother known?

  “We didn’t know about Carrie. I mean, my dad and mom did. They did. But not the rest of us. But we’ve found her now. We saved her life when that murderer tried to kill her again a few years ago. We got there just in time to help save her and some other people. She jumped off a roof and landed at Mel’s feet. I was down on the street, by all the sirens. Jarrod made me stay down there with the Missouri police. I could just see the fire. It was terrifying. My dad was up there, too. He almost got shot. Now she’s married with a baby. My niece Madeline.”

  “I’m glad it worked out for you.” Family sagas and drama just pissed him off. He wanted no part of them. Not that he resented people who had those kinds of connections—but he didn’t want to hear about them. To be reminded… “So what did you find on that laptop?”

  “Oh. I have to show you mine first, huh?”

  He wished the interior light was on, that he could see her face. Did she realize what kind of sexual innuendo she kept using? Chance knew himself as exactly what he was—he was a damned caveman at times. Especially when it came to females and sex. She’d gotten him thinking of one thing with her I-show-you mine earlier.

  Damn it. This woman—she still grated on his nerves but in an entirely different way than she had as a child. Did she realize that?

  Somehow he doubted she did.

  A keeper. The girl-woman needed a keeper.

  He would not be lusting after Kevin Beck’s innocent little daughter.

  “Do you realize how that sounds?” He pulled the car to a stop at the intersection. He hadn’t taken the direct route. He’d chosen to go due west from St. Louis and take the highway that went south into Finley Creek. There were faster ways, but they were the obvious. Chance never took the direct route—it was safer to go an alternative than what people would have expected. He knew that. But they also neede
d to stop.

  They needed food and a break. A restroom. Caffeine. Then they’d keep going.

  She turned toward him, just as headlights flooded her window. Headlights that weren’t stopping. “What—”

  Chance grabbed for her, knowing as he did that it wouldn’t matter in the least.

  He was too damned late to get her out of the way.

  Something crashed into the passenger side.

  Into Brynna.

  Her scream was a sound he would never forget.

  CHAPTER TWO.

  * * *

  BRYNNA fought the hard hands that dragged her from the broken window. She knew they weren’t there to help her or Chance. “Let me go! Chance! Help!”

  Brynna screamed as loud as she could.

  But she knew the truth—it was the middle of the night in a small town that probably had less than eight hundred people total. And most of those were probably sound asleep. She’d be lucky if a coyote heard her cries out here.

  “Do you have her?” One of the men asked.

  “I got her. What about her computer? There will be one. Or more.”

  Her laptop had been on her lap. Her tablet and phone were both in the bag at her feet.

  What about Chance?

  Was he dead? Why wasn’t he trying to help her?

  Brynna kicked at the man holding her. She couldn’t see him; it was too rainy, not even the moon illuminated the road.

  Where was Chance? Was he dead? Where was he?

  She fought panic. Mel said not to panic when something bad happened. Her sister said that was how people made mistakes and got themselves killed. She would not panic.

  “Let me go.”

  “Shut it, little bitch,” the one holding her said. His hands tightened.

  “Don’t kill me.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  The other man stepped closer. He was tall. Just as tall as her brother-in-law Sebastian. Sebastian was well over six-feet, like six-four or six-five. But this guy seemed old. Older, at least, like her father. The one holding her was shorter, chunkier, and his hands were way too tight.

  “She’s just a girl,” the tall one said. “Young. How old are you now, Brynna?”

  “Twenty-four. Almost twenty-five.”

  “Yes, that’s about right. You’re just a baby. I don’t know what he was thinking. She’s got nothing to do with any of this. Never should have been brought into this.”

  Brynna was the worst at interpreting peoples’ tones and she knew it. But she thought she heard actual disgust. Why?

  “Where’s your laptop, little one?” the tall one asked.

  “In...in the car.”

  “Keep her here. I’ll get it, and check on Marshall. Don’t hurt her. ”

  “Put a bullet in him. That will end part of our problem,” the one holding her said. He tightened his arms around her, right under her bra. Brynna fought to breathe, and blood was dripping into her right eye. She thought her head had slammed into the window before the window had shattered. Before they had knocked the glass in with something.

  They’d been after her, definitely. Hadn’t they?

  Because of what she’d found on her laptop?

  “And bring every damned law enforcement agency down on our heads? We’re not in Texas, after all. He does not have any TSP on his payroll in Oklahoma, you idiot. An interstate crime will bring too much attention.”

  The one holding her snorted. “But it would end that problem, at least. He’s worse than his old man. Both sons are. Kill them and be done with it. Like we should have ten years ago. Then we’ll have a bit of fun with Red here.”

  “Do not mention ten years ago to me. You know better.”

  Old man? Chance.

  They were talking about Chance’s father, weren’t they?

  About killing Chance to end the problem. Brynna tried not to hyperventilate. Ten years. The killers. Sara’s killers. And they had her.

  What was she supposed to do now?

  She’d never felt more alone in her entire life.

  CHAPTER THREE.

  * * *

  CHANCE woke just as they were pulling the girl from the car. It took him a moment to remember what had happened. To remember the blinding headlights and the sound of a large vehicle accelerating. Straight toward them. Toward Brynna.

  He heard Brynna screaming, yelling his name.

  The terror he heard was something else he would never forget.

  He grabbed for the gun he always wore. It was gone, and he didn’t have time to search for it. He’d just have to improvise. He slipped from the driver’s side quietly.

  In the dark, with his black clothing and his dark hair, they’d have one hell of a time seeing him.

  He didn’t know who, he didn’t know how many, and he barely knew where—but he was going to use every advantage he had.

  They were not going to hurt that girl any more than they already had.

  His parents had loved that girl; he owed it to them to keep her safe.

  No matter what he had to do, he was keeping her safe until he could return her to her father where she belonged.

  He cataloged his impressions of the area right before the crash had happened. Small town, one all-night gas station—he could barely make out the chain’s sign in the distance. No houses that he could remember passing. Remote, wooded.

  Isolated.

  They’d followed them, hadn’t they?

  How else would they have known Chance was turning off in this particular spit in the road?

  * * *

  THEY were moving quickly, weren’t they? Chance thought about jumping the tall one when he returned to the rental SUV. But he didn’t. Not until he found Brynna.

  Chance skulked through the rough grass on the embankment.

  She called out again, frightened and frantic. And then she cried out from pain.

  He hurried toward the sound of her cries—and toward the sound of an idling engine.

  Not the truck that had hit them, then. They had another vehicle waiting. Why? And why had they pulled Brynna from the SUV instead of him? A kidnapping attempt, then.

  Had she been the target?

  It made sense.

  No one should have been able to find him. He had always made a point of keeping any connections to his whereabouts extremely tenuous. He rarely ever told Elliot where he was, and for good reason.

  Some of the things he’d done over the last ten years were more than just dangerous. They were deadly.

  But a young computer tech? She wouldn’t have even thought of half the precautions he used just walking to the bakery two blocks from his apartment.

  If someone wanted her, they would have found a way to get her.

  And they had. It was just his shitty luck that he’d been there with her when it happened.

  Maybe it was their shitty luck. He wasn’t letting them get away with that girl.

  If they got her to that waiting vehicle, Chance wouldn’t have a snowball in hell’s odds, and he knew it.

  He had to get to her.

  Keep crying out, baby; I’m coming for you.

  CHAPTER FOUR.

  * * *

  BRYNNA knew her tears were ticking off the guy holding her but she couldn’t stop them. She’d never been so scared in her life—except when her mother had died, and when her sister Mel had been shot. She didn’t know what to do.

  “Shut up.”

  “I can’t.” And she wouldn’t. Why would she make it easy for them to abduct her or kill her? Shouldn’t she fight like crazy? Wasn’t that what Mel would do?

  Carrie certainly had. Her eldest sister had jumped off of a multi-story building to escape a kidnapper and murderer.

  But this guy was so much bigger than Brynna was. Stronger.

  She sniffed.

  So she’d have to be smarter, that was all. How was she supposed to bring a man so much bigger than her down?

  A man.

  Of course. Her father had been ve
ry specific when he’d first taught her and her sisters about men and some of the things they’d try to do. And how to defend themselves.

  Aim true, and aim hard.

  And when they least expected it. How could she make him think she was a big wimp? “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You can take my laptop and I’ll not stop you. I promise. Just don’t hurt me. Don’t cut me. Please. Just take it and go.”

  He snorted, and ran the pocketknife over her left breast. “Real fighter, aren’t you?”

  Brynna shook her head. “No, no, no. I don’t fight. My sisters do. I just want to go home. Go home to my dad.”

  His grip tightened and he pulled her off her feet. “So what will you give me if I promise to let you go?”

  His hand dropped to her backside and he squeezed suggestively.

  Terror immediately threatened to erase her plan from her head. She recoiled.

  No. She wouldn’t give him sex. She wouldn’t.

  But she could play along for a moment, couldn’t she? “I d-don’t know what you mean...”

  “Sure you do. You’re a beautiful girl, a very beautiful girl. I’m sure you’ve done it before.”

  She shook her head. “Not that. I...” She’d never traded sex for anything in her life.

  He softened around her, turned more suggestive than threatening. “Oh, you are going to be a lot of fun...let me get rid of my partner and you and I will get to know each other. And then you can go right on home to your family in the morning.”

  She’d vomit first. But Brynna nodded. She needed him off guard. “O-ok.”

  He shifted his weight, and faced her more fully. His hand on her neck pulled away. He tangled his fingers in her hair.

  Her assailant shifted again, widening the distance between his legs just enough.

  Brynna rammed her knee into his groin as hard as she could and screamed.

  And then he was there. A dark shadow, cursing and angry. And tangling with the monster who had held her. “Run, Brynna, run! Don’t stop. Go!”