Forever Driven: Forever Bluegrass #4 (20 page)

M
att ran
his hand over his face as he stared at the giant color-coded wall. Nothing. He’d been at this for over twenty-four hours and nothing. He was running on coffee and adrenaline. Both were beginning to wear off. If he looked half as bad as Nabi, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to make the drive up to Frankfort.

“I don’t get it,” Nabi muttered as he looked at the wall covered with all the facts, details, and documents of the congressmen and women who were voting in favor of the highway. “There’s no connection besides campaign contributions to Luttrell and Hager. Nothing sticks out at all.”

“Maybe if we find out more about Luttrell and Hager, we’ll find a third person who could be the liaison between them and congress?” Matt suggested as his fingers flew through his notebook to where he had information on the two men. “Rumor on the Hill is Luttrell and Hager were best friends growing up, and Luttrell got the bank to give Hager his first loan.”

“Okay.” Nabi nodded as Matt could see his mind starting to process all the possible outcomes. “That should be easy enough to track. Give me a minute.”

Matt stared over the list of names and all of their occupations. There were a couple of bankers on there. In fact, Matt shoved the papers around and pulled out the research on Marge Stanley. “Marge’s husband owns a bank. Do you think that’s our connection?”

Nabi’s fingers flew over the keyboard as document after document flashed across the two large television screens hanging on the wall. “They grew up in Lumpur,” Nabi said suddenly as he pulled up a yearbook for Lumpur Elementary School. There were pictures of LeeRoy Hager and Harvey Luttrell as twelve-year-olds smiling back at them.

Matt stood up and looked closely at the yearbook pages as Nabi continued to work. “Damn,” Nabi cursed, “the bank owner isn’t a congressman. It is someone named Jonathan Painter.”

“Find out more about him. How many loans did he approve? What’s his relationship with these men now? Has he made any political donations?” Matt asked as he stepped around the computer desk and walked right up to the fifty-inch screen with the yearbook of the sixth-grade class on it. There, at the bottom, was a candid photograph of Luttrell and Hager with their arm around a third person. A third person he recognized.

“I found it!” Matt yelled at the same time Nabi did. Matt looked at the other screen and cursed. It wasn’t just a coincidence. He should have known all along someone else was manipulating things on the Hill.

Matt leaped over the table and yanked his phone from the table, calling Riley as he ran for his car. Two headlights came into view right as her voicemail picked up. Thank goodness, she had arrived.

Matt didn’t even let the car come to a stop before he pulled open the door. “Riley,” he started to say, but it wasn’t Riley. It was only Veronica smiling back at him.

“Sorry to take so long. I got the perfect suit for you to take to Riley to wear tomorrow,” Veronica said as she got out of her car and shoved the suit at him.

“Where’s Riley?”

“She’s at her office waiting for one of you all to come stay with her. She said she wasn’t coming home tonight. Is everything all right?” Veronica asked worriedly.

“Is she alone?”

“No. She’s with Aniyah. And DeAndre was just running an errand and was coming back to stay with them. What is it?”

“I know who’s behind it.”

“Matt!” Nabi called out as he ran down the steps with a duffle bag. “Take these with you.”

“Thank you.” Matt grabbed the bag and leapt into his truck. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was too late. “Hold on, sweetheart,” he whispered to himself as he tore out of Desert Farm.

R
iley slowly became
conscious of a second sound in the office. Aniyah was still snoring so loudly a painting had fallen off the wall, but it was a soft clicking sound that had awoken her. Someone was typing. Riley blinked her eyes and looked toward her desk.

“Ah, you’re awake. I swear, I don’t know how you can sleep with that racket going on out there.”

Riley felt her brow crease in confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“I had something I had to type up real quick. I need to talk to you anyway so I thought I would do it here.”

Riley sat up when she saw the latex gloves on the typist’s hands. She gasped as realization hit her. “It’s you.”

The cold smile confirmed it. The dark eyes glanced next to Riley, and it was then Riley realized there was someone else in the room with them. She went to scream but six million volts of electricity shot through her as the man pressed the stun gun to her neck.

M
att slid
to a stop at the annex door closest to Riley’s office. He saw another car behind him in the distance and hoped it was Jacob Tandy. He’d asked his friend to increase his patrol of the Capitol that week. Grabbing the goodie bag Nabi gave him, Matt ran from the truck, leaving the door open and the engine on.

Matt used the key DeAndre had given him to get in through the door and paused. He couldn’t rush head first into danger. He needed to creep up behind it so he could slit its throat. Matt opened the bag and pulled out a Glock. Treading quietly up the stairs, he made it to Riley’s floor. The nightlights cast a soft glow down the hall of offices. A rumbling sound echoed softly as Matt raised his gun and walked on silent footfalls down the hall.

The noise was coming from Riley’s office. The closer he got, the louder it was. Matt reached down with his left hand while keeping his gun trained on the door. The door was locked. He swallowed as he calmed himself and slowly slid the key into the lock. The rumbling noise stopped, and he froze. It sounded mechanical as it chugged back to life. Matt turned the key and felt the lock tumble. Slowly, he turned the knob and silently opened the door to the office.

The overhead lights were off and a single lamp from Aniyah’s desk illuminated the office. Riley’s office door was closed, but the noise was coming from the couch. Matt held tight to his gun as he worked his way into the room. He stopped when he looked down at Aniyah, lying on the couch. Her hair was sticking straight up and her mouth was wide open as she shook the room with every breath she took.

Matt knelt down as he kept his gun trained on Riley’s door. He reached out and gently shook Aniyah’s shoulder. “Wake up, Aniyah,” he whispered. Nothing. Maybe they’d drugged her. Matt knew she was alive so he decided to leave her. He headed for the connecting door and paused to listen behind it. When he didn’t hear any strange noises, he slowly turned the knob. The lights were off except for the glowing computer screen. Matt cleared the room. Nothing. No Riley. Matt paused at the couch and looked down. The pillow was indented and Riley’s grandmother’s blanket was on the floor.

Matt was about to turn when he heard Aniyah’s snores pause again. He slipped against the wall and listened. Her snores started up again, but he had heard it anyway. The sound of the door opening. Matt tuned out the snores and closed his eyes. He heard the scuff of a shoe on the carpet. The sound of a gun being cocked and Matt made his move.

Matt ran straight at him. He slammed into the back of the man standing over Aniyah with his gun leveled at her head. Both of their guns dropped, one hitting Aniyah on the head the other falling to the floor.

“What the . . . Lord help me!” Aniyah grabbed the gun and blindly fired off a shot that whizzed by Matt’s head and lodged in the floor inches away. He would have cursed, but he was too busy grappling with the man on the ground and praying he wouldn’t be shot.

“Where’s Riley?” Matt asked the man as he managed to get a hit in before they both leaped up.

“She’s in her office,” Aniyah told him. “You want me to shoot him? I can do better now that I’m aiming.”

“She’s not in her office. They took her,” the man responded.

Aniyah leapt from the couch and ran into the office, not bothering to give Matt the gun. Matt and his adversary circled each other. “Whose man are you?”

“Whoever pays me,” he responded.

He was about six feet and looked as if he spent more time in the gym than any sane person should. When Aniyah let out a shriek, he made his move. Matt saw him coming and lashed out with a kick to the knee. The man went down. Matt spun around him so he could slide his forearm against the man’s neck, pinning the man’s back to his own chest. Matt pulled tighter, and the man gasped for air.

“Riley’s killed herself!” Aniyah cried as she rushed from the office with Riley’s laptop in her hands.

Matt froze and the man tried to reach for the gun on the floor but Matt dragged him away as he choked the man. “Where did they take her? How many people are there?”

“But it says . . .” Aniyah stopped talking as Matt shook his head and squeezed the man’s throat as the man scratched frantically at Matt’s arm.

“Read it,” Matt said, his voice tight with fear and anger.

“I’ve let my family, friends, and town down. I was never meant to be a politician, and find I can no longer tell right from wrong. I can’t live with myself and the pressure to do what is right. I took bribes to fight the highway and then I . . . I can’t even say what I did to such a lovely person as Aniyah whose only crime was discovering mine. I can’t embarrass my friends and family with a trial. I feel there are no more options except for me to take my life so we can all move forward. I love you all. I’m so sorry. Riley Davies.” Aniyah wiped a tear and couldn’t look at Matt.

Matt felt his heart slam into his chest. There’s no way Riley committed suicide. “No,” Matt said so forcefully Aniyah jumped. “They’re behind this. They’re going to kill her if they haven’t already. They sent this man to clean up the loose ends, didn’t they?”

The man grunted and Aniyah looked questioningly at them. Matt narrowed his eyes at the gun in her hand. “The gun, look at the grip. Now!” Matt ordered.

Aniyah set down the laptop and turned the gun over in her hand. “RMD.”

“It’s Riley’s gun from home—a home that blew up. How did you get this gun?” Matt demanded as he saw the pieces clicking together for Aniyah, and suddenly the gun was aimed right at him.

“You! What did you do with my friend?” Aniyah yelled. Matt jumped back as Aniyah fired. The bullet ripped into the man’s shoulder, and he cried out.

“Not again, motherfu—” the man groaned through clenched teeth.

Matt shoved the man to the ground and ripped the sleeve from his shirt. Right next to the bleeding bullet wound courtesy of Aniyah was a freshly stitched graze. Matt pulled back his fist and slammed it into the man’s injured shoulder. “You’re the one who blew up her house. Where is she?” Matt screamed over the man’s wails.

The door to the office was kicked in suddenly, “Freeze!” DeAndre shouted. Matt looked up as DeAndre took in Matt’s bloodied knuckles, the man shot on the floor, and Aniyah holding a gun. “What the hell? Can someone fill me in?” DeAndre asked while turning his gun to the man on the floor.

“He blew up Riley’s house, and they have her now. They left a phony suicide note, and this man was coming to clean up all the loose ends. Those loose ends include almost shooting your girlfriend.”

“You were going to kill my baby?” DeAndre asked menacingly as he pressed the gun barrel to the man’s head.

Matt nodded silently to DeAndre as Matt dug his thumb into the man’s shoulder wound. “You want the pain to stop? You tell us where Riley is.”

The man screamed as Matt dug in. Sweat covered the man’s face as his body shook in pain. “Lord forgive me,” Aniyah said as she crossed herself one second before slowly pressing the heel of her stiletto into the man’s crotch. The man’s screams went up five octaves. “You tell me where my friend is or you’ll spend your time in jail as a eunuch.”

Matt sat back and stared along with DeAndre as Aniyah pressed a little more and the man hit Mariah Carey-level notes. He looked frantically to DeAndre and Matt. Matt just shrugged. “I’m not going to stop her. The only way this stops is if you start talking.”

“Fine!”

Aniyah froze and DeAndre put the gun back against the man’s head.

“Where is she?” Matt asked.

“The House chambers.”

Matt slammed his fist into the man’s chin. His eyes rolled back into his head and Matt ran for the bag of goodies he’d left in the office. He grabbed two guns and a knife from the bag. As he shoved the weapons in his waistband, he called over his shoulder for DeAndre to call Tandy, along with an ambulance, and to keep the man in custody.

“I’ll come with you!” DeAndre called out. “You need backup.”

Matt shook his head. “I need you to keep this man secure. Trust me, he’s going to try to get away.”

Matt took off running for the tunnels beneath the annex and the Capitol. The dark tunnels lined with small square tiles on the walls and cafeteria type flooring seemed to stretch on for miles. “Hang on, Riley, I’m coming.”

R
iley felt
as if she were in college all over again during that one horrible night. Her mind was hazy. It was hard to think of one thing long enough to make a complete thought. Her muscles were tired, too. She felt someone carrying her, and she forced herself to open an eye. She had to show herself this wasn’t that night so long ago. She wasn’t in that car about to be attacked. She was alive. It seemed like a colossal effort, but she finally managed to crack one eye open. She took in the carpet that reminded her of something and a shoe that reminded her of something else.

“Set her down here.”

That voice. Then like a flood it all came back to her. The people in her office. The stun gun to the neck. She was going to be killed. Riley kept her eyes closed and let her body stay dead weight. The man who was carrying her set her down roughly in a chair. She was at her desk in the House chambers.

She listened carefully as she flexed her toes in her shoes. She had feeling back in her feet and her legs, thankfully. She couldn’t risk testing her hands, but they were no longer tingling. There were two of them. One she knew was the brains and the other the brawn. She had to go after the brawn first. If she could take him down she might have a chance to live.

Matt’s face flashed before her, and she knew she would never go down without a fight. And boy, did they pick the wrong woman to start a fight with. Riley let the man push her back against the chair and then she slid to the side as if she couldn’t support herself. It was hard not to tense as she hit the floor, but instead she managed to free her legs from under the desk.

“Just like her to be difficult. Do you have the gun?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Get her back up in the seat and then we’ll put it in her hand and let her shoot herself in the head. With a little help, of course.”

Riley swallowed back bile as she felt the man lean over to pick her up. Riley waited until the shadow behind her eyelids darkened and then slammed her head forward with all the strength she had.

Her head cracked into the man’s nose. Riley felt the warm blood cover her face as she landed punch after punch to his stomach. There was screaming, and Riley wasn’t sure if it was the man, the other person, or herself.

The man howled in pain and lashed out at her. His hand connected with her cheek and pain exploded as her face throbbed but it didn’t stop her. All the lessons her father had taught her and all the hours sparring with Annie and Bridget came roaring back to her as muscle memory kicked in.

Riley pulled her hand back and arched her fist into the side of the man’s neck. He froze in place and blinked as oxygen was temporarily cut off from one side of his brain. She only had seconds, but it was enough to get out from under him. Her effort was halted when a hand fisted itself in her hair and pulled. Riley clamped her hands on top of the hand and let herself be dragged away from the man.

“I didn’t take you as someone to hire out your dirty work.”

“You don’t get to where I am by getting your hands dirty.”

“That would ruin your manicure, wouldn’t it, Angela?”

Her mentor smiled. “I see I’ve taught you well. Too bad it was for naught.”

Riley kept her eye on the man with blood dripping over his lips and off his chin. He wasn’t happy. Angela stopped pulling on her hair, and Riley made sure her feet were under her.

“Why would you do this?” Riley asked as the man stalked toward her.

“Why else? Money, power, and just to be a good friend.”

“Friend?” Riley asked as the man stopped in front of her and smiled a bloody smile at her.

“Oh, you didn’t know? I guess I forgot to mention I grew up with Harvey Luttrell and LeeRoy Hager. We’ve been best friends ever since. It was my husband’s bank that gave LeeRoy the business loan for his road construction company, a company my husband happens to own a share in.”

“So your husband is the one getting rich. Hope he doesn’t leave you,” Riley grunted as Angela pulled on her hair again. Riley felt some of the hair tearing away from her scalp and winced.

“You don’t have to worry about me. I know why they want the highway through Keeneston. And when it happens, I’ll become a very rich woman in my own right. When you’re a real estate investor, it pays to know when there’s going to be a good deal on land. See, when that highway comes through, that land is going to lose a lot of value. Harvey is going to come in and have the government go ahead and take all that beautiful, expensive land around his new headquarters through eminent domain so Luttrell Food Industries can build a new corporate headquarters. He’ll say he needs housing, shopping, and so on for his headquarters and buy up almost all of that open land just waiting for someone with my vision to take it. We’ll develop an adequate headquarters, and then he’ll sell all the unused land to my company at a fraction of its value. I’ll be turning it into strip malls, condos, and over-priced neighborhoods. I’ll make a fortune,” Angela said gleefully. “Now, enough talking. We have a suicide to commit.”

Angela let go of Riley’s hair and shoved her backward onto the floor. Riley landed on her back, and when the man came near enough, she kicked her foot up and connected with his balls. The man bent at the waist, cupping his damaged testicles as Riley arched her lower back using momentum to kick both legs up so only her shoulders still touched the ground. She wrapped her legs around the man’s throat, dragging him back down to the floor with her. His face rested in her crotch as she hooked her left foot behind her right knee and squeezed him into a triangle hold.

Angela shrieked as Riley’s assassin gasped for air. Riley didn’t say anything. She just hung on. She had to wait for him to pass out before reaching for the gun.

“You’re ruining everything!” Angela screamed as she kicked Riley in the side. Riley took the hit and breathed out the pain as Angela kicked again and again.

Riley knew the moment Angela remembered the gun. She halted mid-kick and stared at the man’s waistline. Angela lunged and Riley twisted. She squeezed her legs so tightly she felt the man fall limp against her. Riley tried to reach for his gun, but Angela was already there, pulling the gun from his waist.

“That’s my gun!” Riley looked in amazement at one of the two handguns from her mirrored set. They were made to fit her and monogrammed with her initials. Her father had given those to her for graduation.

“That’s right. And your other gun is being used to kill that loud-mouthed secretary, that nosy guard, and that hot reporter. And this one is going to be used to kill yourself after your breakdown. I’ll have to go back and work up a better suicide note to account for the others, but that will be a pleasure. A murder-suicide always plays well in the news.”

Riley stared up as Angela held the barrel of her gun to her forehead. She was out of options. No matter how fast Riley was, she wasn’t faster than a bullet at close range.

“I’m so going to enjoy your funeral,” Angela smiled as she moved her finger onto the trigger.

Riley closed her eyes as all the what-might-have-beens ran through her head: marriage to Matt, holding their children, seeing her parents again, laughing with her sister, teasing her brothers . . . A tear ran down her cheek. “I love you, Matt,” Riley whispered as the sound of gunfire exploded through the chambers.

M
att raced
down the underground hallway as if the hounds of hell were after him. Instead he realized he was racing straight toward them—straight toward the woman who wanted to use the latest Supreme Court ruling that allowed corporations to be given land taken for the “betterment” of the town’s economy. She would kill Riley over her highway vote, because without the highway, the land would never be considered blighted or devalued enough for her to push the state to take it by eminent domain. And without that highway, whatever development she planned wouldn’t have a main road to it. Angela, LeeRoy, and Harvey had found a way to have the state pay for their real estate scheme.

They had tried to kill Riley twice before and they weren’t going to fail a third time. They were already sending out a cleaner. Too bad for them, Matt was better at his job than the man they had sent. Not to mention Aniyah’s love for very pointy stilettos.

Matt burst out of the tunnel and heard the sounds of sirens in the distance but didn’t have time to wait for backup. He just prayed he wasn’t too late. He sprinted up the gray marble stairs and ran past the decorative balusters lining the length of the building toward the doors to the House of Representatives.

He heard voices and slowed his approached. The doors had frosted glass in them, and he didn’t want to be seen. Matt pressed himself to the clay-colored wall and slid toward the doors.

“I’m so going to enjoy your funeral,” Matt heard in a voice that had to be Angela’s.

Matt’s gun was already in his hand as he kicked open the door.

Angela stood over Riley with a gun pointed at her head. The sound of a gun firing echoed through the chamber.