Forever Entangled (18 page)

Her mind went elsewhere, and she didn’t hear the glass breaking or the sound of another car racing toward them. She was just thankful for the beating to have stopped as she was picked up like a wet ragdoll and tossed in the trunk.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ryan had sped across town, knowing something was wrong, but what he saw when he turned into the employee lot would haunt him forever. Sienna was lying in a heap on the ground as a man kicked her over and over. Anger, fear, panic, and revenge coursed through him as he floored his SUV. Hooch growled from the back seat, and Ryan saw the glass door to the lobby shatter at the same time the man picked Sienna up and dumped her into the trunk.

The car took off and Ryan sped after them. “I’m coming, sweetheart. Hold on,” he murmured and closed the distance between them.

The two cars raced down the row of parked vehicles as lightning struck around them and the earth shook with thunder. Nothing would stop him from getting to her, as they raced around the stadium. He shot around a corner and before he could react, a second car T-boned him. His door crumpled, airbags deployed, and his breath was stolen as the impact sent them skidding into the truck loading dock at the back of the stadium.

Hooch howled in pain, and Ryan fumbled for the gun at his waist. The side curtain airbag prevented him from seeing what the other car was doing, but he heard its doors open and the men yelling to each other as they approached the car. Ryan closed his eyes and rested his head against the front airbag as he put his finger on the trigger of the gun resting in his lap.

“Grab him. Boss will be happy to get them both. Then we’ll only have one more loose end to tie up. That one will be simple.”

It took the men a minute to pry open Ryan’s door and rip down the side curtain airbag. With a lethal calm, Ryan shot the first man to reach for him and had his gun pointed at the head of the second man before the poor bastard even knew what had happened.

“Where did they take Sienna?” Ryan asked the surprised man. It didn’t last long as the man reached for his weapon and Ryan shot him in the knee, causing him to drop the gun. The man screamed in pain as a minivan screeched to a halt behind the fallen guy.

Ryan cursed under his breath when Zack and Janice jumped out. With them here he couldn’t question the man the way he wanted to. Civilians were too squeamish.

“Did you find her?” Janice yelled through the rain.

Ryan just shook his head and slowly approached the man lying on the ground. He pressed the gun to the man’s head, and he saw Zack and Janice freeze in their steps.

“Where did they take her?”

The man just grinned back at Ryan and the temptation to pull the trigger was so great he didn’t care that there would be witnesses to him murdering this man.

Janice stepped forward and placed a hand on Ryan as if sensing his urge for revenge.

Zack surprised him by standing over the man and putting a very large foot on the injured knee and pressing down slowly. The man’s screams of pain turned Janice’s dark skin pale, but she didn’t stop Zack.

“He may want to put a bullet in your head, but I want to know what you did with Doc.” Zack pressed his foot into the man’s knee and ground it against the pavement. The man’s screech was so high Hooch howled in return. “I squat over 600 pounds, just imagine what I can do to your knee.”

“Go to hell,” the man grunted as rain mixed with sweat and ran off his face.

“After you,” Ryan held the gun up and shot the man’s other knee. He had to give Zack credit; the big man didn’t even blink.

Hooch gingerly jumped from the SUV. His tail was at a weird angle and the dog was obviously in pain from it. He needed to get him to the vet’s office, and he needed to take this man away before Detective Braxton showed up. Hooch leaned against Ryan’s leg and growled at the man on the ground.

Headlights appeared and Ryan held his ground. He didn’t know if the car speeding toward them was help or another shooter. The SUV slowed, and Ryan aimed his gun at the driver. Lights from security vehicles flashed in the distance. The police wouldn’t be far behind. The door opened, and Trey Everett jumped out into the rain.

“What’s happened? The front door to the parking lot is smashed in and security is running all over the place.”

“They have Sienna, and this is the only guy left alive to tell us where she is,” Ryan shouted.

Trey looked at Zack with his foot on the man’s knee, and Janice standing with a hand on an injured Hooch. “What do you need me to do?”

“Can you take this man and Hooch to the vet clinic? Don’t tell a soul, though. I’ll be there to question him as soon as I wrap things up with the locals.” Ryan bent down and checked the man for weapons and took his phone. Ryan cursed when it was password-protected and slid it into his pocket as he watched the flashing lights growing closer and closer.

“Zack, help me get him in the back of the car,” Trey ordered.

Zack and Trey lifted the man up and dropped him in the back before Zack climbed in after him. Janice opened the door and tried to help Hooch up, but the dog refused to budge.

“I’ll have to take him when I get done here,” Ryan shouted. Before the other cars got close, Trey was flying out of the parking lot.

Janice grabbed his arm as they waited. “You’ll find her, won’t you?”

“Yes. Nothing will stop me.”

The security cars were the first to stop. Detective Braxton was only minutes behind. Janice kept her hand on Ryan's arm the entire time as security looked lost and then relieved when the police took over.

“What the hell happened here?” Detective Braxton hollered through the rain and climbed out of her car.

“They took Sienna. I gave chase and was hit by a second car.” Ryan pointed to the second car and the dead guy lying on the ground next to a gun.

“Where’s Dr. Ashton now?”

“I don’t know,” Ryan bit out. “The faster you clear me from the scene, the faster I can find her.”

She shook her damp hair and glared at him. “It doesn’t work like that, Parker. We don’t even know if she was taken or if she went willingly with them.”

Ryan felt Janice grow stiff next to him before she erupted forward with a finger wagging in Braxton’s face. “How dare you? I saw the whole thing. They beat her. They
beat
her and tossed her body in a trunk and you’re here holding up the one person who can save her.”

“Are you the one who broke the window?”

Janice paused. “You bet your scrawny ass I am.”

Ryan would have smiled under any other circumstances. Instead, he held out his gun and Braxton took it. “Here. You can match my gun to the deceased. I have another. Excuse me.”

Ryan had only made it one step before Braxton was on him. “We’ll find her, Parker. You’re too involved.”

“Detective, you’re smart, and you’ll go far in your career, but you need to get over this preconceived idea that Sienna is involved. This is now a kidnapping and a federal matter. You no longer have a say in the investigation. I’ll take it from here.”

Her hand shot out and grabbed his arm. “No, you misunderstood me. I know Sienna isn’t involved now. I was wrong, and I could have had people on her if it weren’t for me. But I also know how hard it is to solve a case you’re too close to. Let me help. I’ll assist you, follow your orders, and everything.”

Ryan took a deep breath and then gave a nod. “Fine. Let’s go up front and see if they dropped anything. Janice, you can walk us through it.”

Ryan, Janice, and Hooch climbed into Janice’s minivan with Braxton following. They headed for the front of the stadium. Players were standing behind yellow tape and Ryan caught sight of Sienna’s father looking on restlessly.

“Ryan!” Will shouted. “Where’s Sienna?”

Ryan tried to quiet him down, but several of the players had heard and the word was quickly spreading. Ryan felt as if his feet were made of lead. Having to walk over to Sienna’s father and tell him that they had his daughter was the hardest thing he’d ever do.

“They took her,” Ryan said quietly, but it wasn’t quiet enough.

“They have Doc!” one of the players shouted and then the whole group surged past the police barricade and surrounded him.

“What you are going to do about it?” Will asked him with worry etched across his face.

“I’m going to find her. Now, if everyone can move back, I need to search this area.” Ryan raised his voice and several members grumpily moved back, but Will just fisted Ryan’s shirt in his hand.

He yanked Ryan to him and stared at him. “If anything happens to her . . .”

Ryan nodded. “I understand. Please, just let me find her.”

Will released his shirt and ushered the players back. They huddled quietly as they watched Braxton and Ryan work. Janice explained what she saw and Ryan combed the ground looking for clues.

Hooch sat next to him, and Ryan was on hands and knees looking under Seth’s car. Hooch lowered his nose to the ground and sniffed. He let out a pitiful whine. He missed his owner. So did Ryan. He found parts of Sienna’s fingernails broken on the pavement and almost cried as he put them in evidence bags.

Hooch’s nose shot up in the air as he dragged in a deep breath. He howled violently and then growled so deeply that Ryan felt it vibrating the earth. He noticed Braxton stop working and looked at Hooch before the dog stood and raced toward the crowd of spectators.

The players were used to Hooch and leaned down to hug him, but Hooch just bowled them over. He wove his way between legs, around people clustered, and to the back of the crowd. Ryan watched as he froze in place. His crooked, broken tail quivered as he pointed at the man hiding in the last row.

The crowd parted as Ryan made his way to Hooch’s hostage. Ryan stopped in front of Seth and in a flash was dragging him toward his bright yellow car. Police officers stopped processing the evidence at the sight of Ryan dragging a man with a dog hot on his heels, huge fangs bared for all to see.

“Parker, I got this,” Braxton said quietly, stepping up. The team closed in around them, leaving nowhere for Seth to go.

Ryan tossed him to the ground and stepped back. He leaned against Seth’s hood and tried to clear the red from his vision. This prick knew something, and he would enjoy torturing him to get it out of him. But even he knew he needed to take a second to compose himself or he’d be in jail for murder.

Detective Braxton cocked her head and watched quietly as Seth scrambled to his feet.

“What is this about?” Seth demanded, brushing off his slacks.

“It’s about your involvement with Sienna Ashton’s kidnapping.”

Ryan watched him closely. When he saw Seth’s eyes look everywhere but at Detective Braxton, he knew Seth was involved. Before he could pummel him, Hooch growled and Seth backed up into a wall of players. They shoved him forward, and he clambered toward Ryan as if he would protect Seth from Hooch. Ryan almost smiled at the thought, but then Hooch charged, and Seth wrenched open the car door and leaped inside. The door slammed and Hooch slid to a stop on the wet ground, his big head stopping just an inch from the driver’s side door.

Ryan’s eyes narrowed at the dent in Seth’s door and then at Hooch’s head. “Son of a bitch,” Ryan roared before yanking open the door and dragging a stuttering Seth out. “You were the one who broke into Sienna’s house. You’re the one who gave her information to those men. You better start talking.” Ryan accentuated every word with a shake of Seth’s body.

“You have no proof,” Seth managed to get out before being slammed against his own car.

“No proof? You idiot! The dog left an imprint of his freaking head in your car door!” Ryan shouted as the crowd closed in tightly around them.

“They’ll kill me,” Seth said quietly.

Ryan’s sneer turned Seth white. “You don’t need to worry about them. I’ll kill you right now, witnesses be damned.”

Braxton didn’t interrupt him this time. Instead she let out a loud whistle. “Okay, men. Let’s go to Dr. Ashton’s office to look for evidence.” The police quickly filed inside, leaving only the players outside.

“Go,” Ryan quietly ordered.

“We got this,” a player who towered over Ryan said as he pulled Ryan off Seth.

“Doc helped me with my commitment fears,” the giant said.

“And Doc helped me with my fear of being hit after I broke my leg,” another giant said as the offensive and defensive lines stepped forward.

“And Doc took my call at two in the morning when I had a panic attack about the playoffs.”

“We owe her.”

“She’s part of our team.”

“And she’s my daughter,” Will said, pushing through the group of men with murder in their eyes. Seth’s knees buckled, and he fell to the wet pavement.

Ryan squatted down in front of him. “I’ll give you three seconds to start talking, or I leave you to them. One.”

One of the players cracked his knuckles.

“Two.”

One of the players cracked his massive neck.

“Okay!” Seth shouted as Ryan went to stand up. “I need witness protection. Then I’ll tell you everything.”

*     *     *

Sienna passed out. The beating, the car ride—it was all a blur. She vaguely remembered the trunk opening and being tossed over a man’s shoulder before things went black with pain. It hurt so badly to breathe. Ribs were broken, an eye was swollen closed, and every organ inside her body throbbed. Ryan. He would come for her. It was only that hope that willed her to go on as her face was slapped and a horrible smell shot her eyes open.