Kept (23 page)

Derek shook his head to clear it as his brain spun. Blaylock had something to do with Oscar Van Weldt’s death. That had to be it. Alyssa being drugged and de facto kidnapped by Blaylock right after she’d gone to meet her anonymous caller couldn’t be a coincidence.

Everything he’d read about the Van Weldt family described Blaylock’s close personal relationship with the family, particularly Oscar. He’d been the son Oscar had never had, his right-hand man. Oscar hired Blaylock straight out of law school, made his career.

Had the man paid him back by having him killed?

Derek wondered what Blaylock had done that was so bad he was willing to kill Oscar Van Weldt to cover it up.

Maybe Alyssa and her mysterious caller had the key. But at the moment he didn’t really give a shit about Richard and his secrets. All he knew was Richard had hurt Alyssa, was probably going to kill her, and for that he’d have his balls in a blender. But only after Derek got her home safe.

“Tell me where they took her,” Derek said, closing in on Andy.

“I told you I don’t know,” she said, taking several hasty steps back until her hips hit the arm of the sofa. She went tumbling over and landed in a tangle of arms and legs.

“Think,” he said through clenched teeth. “Anything you can think of, any comment, no matter how innocuous.”

He braced himself over her, so close he caught the stink
of her sweat, could see the pulse fluttering frantically in her neck. “Tell me everything you can remember.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her fists to her temples. Derek swore softly. He was going to find Blaylock and beat the truth out of him.

“The Tahoe house,” Andy said suddenly. “Before they left, Richard called someone and asked them if everything was ready at the Tahoe house.”

The back of his neck tingled, and he knew he’d hit pay dirt. “Where is it?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know exactly. I’ve never been there.”

“I’ll find it.” He flipped open his cell phone and dialed Ethan’s number. As he waited for the call to connect, he turned back to Andy. “I suggest you get out of town and don’t look back.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. “Do you think Richard will hurt me?”

“I don’t know. But if I ever catch you within one hundred feet of Alyssa, I will.”

A
LYSSA WAS FLOATING.
I am a leaf on the water. A dandelion on the breeze. I am the air, and the air is me.
Wow. This was the best meditation session ever. For the first time she really felt out of her body.

Little by little she became aware of herself. The dryness of her lips. The heaviness of her limbs. The gritty feel of her eyes behind the closed lids. She forced her eyes open, and whatever peace she felt fled as her foggy brain took in her surroundings. Awareness teased her, hanging around edges. She didn’t know where she was, but she remembered it was bad.

She rolled carefully to her side, caught a glimpse of a steel pole. Right. An IV line. The IV some woman came in and pumped drugs into every few hours. The last time she’d come in, Alyssa had tried to speak to her, tried to get her to call someone on her behalf. But the woman had muttered something in French and studiously avoided her gaze.

Now Alyssa forced her brain to focus. No one was going to help her. No one was going to come for her. She needed to find her own way out.

She tried to swing her legs over the side of the bed, but it was as though they were anchored to the bed. She was no longer restrained, but whatever they were giving her made
her limbs so heavy she might as well have been paralyzed. Hot tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes. Why were they doing this to her? What had she ever done to Richard and Louis to bring them to this?

She had a vague memory of someone, something about her father. Right. She knew something about her father, the night he was killed. Or did she? She really didn’t think so. But Richard and Louis must have thought otherwise. She had no idea what she knew, and trying to remember made her brain hurt.

She had to get out of there. But she couldn’t do that if they kept her loaded with enough drugs to subdue a small elephant. She closed her eyes and focused all her energy into moving her right hand. It took an eternity, but finally her palm made it halfway across her rib cage. She rolled to her side to let gravity help her and was able to reach her left wrist.

Even in her blurry state she knew she had to do this carefully. Her clumsy fingers pulled at the tape holding the needle in a vein in her left wrist. She wondered briefly why it wasn’t in her inner arm but brushed the thought aside, needing all her meager brain power if she was going to have a chance at pulling this off. She grasped the needle between fingers that had all the dexterity of two hot dogs and pulled very gently until the needle slipped from her skin.

She very carefully took the tape and placed it back over the needle. Light footsteps sounded outside the door. Alyssa hastily smoothed the tape and tucked her wrist close to her body. She closed her eyes and tried to even out her breathing. She heard the door open, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on the room’s hardwood floor.

The nurse—or whatever she was—adjusted the bag on the IV and straightened out the plastic tubing. Alyssa struggled to keep her breathing steady as she felt liquid drip onto the back of her hand, roll down onto the blanket beneath.
By some miracle, Louis’s lackey didn’t check the needle. Through cracked lids, Alyssa watched her pull a bottle and syringe from her pocket. She filled the syringe with the liquid and pumped it into the IV line.

Another surge of moisture ran down Alyssa’s hand. The trill of a cell phone echoed through the room. The nurse answered, and though Alyssa couldn’t understand, it sounded like she was trying to reassure someone. The universal tone of “yes, yes, everything is fine.”

Alyssa wondered if it was Louis. Panic gripped her stomach at the thought. She wondered how close he was. When he would be back.

She breathed a sigh of relief as the nurse left. But relief quickly turned to frustration when she realized she could still barely move. Whatever they had given her needed more time to wear off before she could move. She’d managed to avoid one dose. It had to be enough to get her back on her feet long enough to make a break for it. With the wetness rapidly spreading on the blanket, her IV slip wouldn’t go unnoticed next time.

If she could only move, she thought she had a decent chance of getting out of there. Though she’d heard a dead bolt slide after the nurse left, no one seemed to be watching her all that closely. Though the passage of time was a little vague, she didn’t think the nurse was coming in more than every few hours or so, and she hadn’t seen or heard anyone else.

Of course, there was always the possibility that Louis was there waiting, ready to pounce at any time.

The thought spurred her into action. Or, at least, attempted action, as she still couldn’t make her legs and arms obey her demands to move. So she craned her head, studying the room, and tried to identify her best options for escape.

There were three windows in the room, none of them
barred. She had no idea what floor she was on. Louis’s face flashed in her brain, and she vividly recalled his bruising grip on her breast, the nauseating slide of his hand up her thigh. As soon as she could move she was getting out of there, even if it meant risking a broken neck.

Derek kept his mouth shut, his gaze focused on the dusty skyline of downtown Reno as Ethan piloted the Cessna through its final descent into the Reno airport. Other than his steady communication with the tower, Ethan remained blessedly silent, as he’d been for the entirety of the forty-five-minute flight over the Sierra.

Once Andy had tipped him off about the Tahoe house, it had been a cakewalk to find the address of the Van Weldt family retreat on the northeast shore of Lake Tahoe. According to the building plans, the lodgelike home rested on three secluded acres behind heavy iron gates. The perfect place to hide away.

Or keep someone hidden.

Ethan taxied the plane to a private hangar while Derek checked his gear. In addition to the equipment he would need to disarm the estate’s alarm system, he had his Sig Sauer .45 with two extra clips and a Taser capable of delivering a million volts fully charged and ready to go.

If the shit really hit, Derek would rely on the Sig, but he and Ethan had agreed they should do what they could to keep the body count low.

Ethan gave the plane a quick once-over and told the ground crew to turn it around as quickly as possible. “I’m not sure when we’ll be back, but we need to be clear to go as soon as we get here.”

Derek watched as Ethan checked the clip in his Beretta and slipped it into the shoulder holster he wore under his fleece jacket.

“You know where we’re going, right?” Ethan asked as they climbed into the unremarkable sedan that awaited them at the hangar.

“Yep.” Derek started the car and focused on following the highway as it changed from straightaway to curvy mountain road. Images kept trying to force their way into his head. He had no idea what he would find. Would she be hurt?

Dead?

The very real possibility had been dogging him, twisting his guts in knots since he’d left her place. She could be dead, and he would bear no small blame. Because he hadn’t believed her. He’d made his judgment, delivered his verdict. She was a needy, emotional mess, a woman he needed to avoid at all cost no matter how much something in him demanded he grab hold of her and never let go.

Christ. She could be dead already, and one of her last memories of him would be of him summoning every shred of meanness in him to push her away, all because he was too much of a goddamned coward to deal with how she made him feel.

“It’s going to be fine,” Ethan said, his laser-sharp blue eyes mirroring back Derek’s dread. “You’re going to find her, and she’s going to be fine.”

Derek nodded, not believing it for a second. He knew what Ethan was really saying, even if he didn’t say it out loud. Derek had to believe Alyssa was fine if he wanted to stay sane, to keep his cool. He did what he always did before a mission. Took all that fear, all that anxiety, all the emotion that held no use for him, and shoved it out of his mind, out of his body. Boxed it up and buried it so deep even he didn’t know where to find it.

After the longest thirty-minute drive Derek could ever remember, the heavy iron gates of the Van Weldt estate came into view. Gates shut tight—autumn leaves and pine needles littering the driveway—the place looked deserted. Not sur
prising, because from what he’d found out, the family used the place only from December to September. After that it was cleaned up and locked up tight for the fall.

A fact Blaylock had obviously counted on. He couldn’t risk any surprise visitors popping in and finding Alyssa held captive.

Or dead.

Derek shoved the thought aside as he parked the car several hundred yards from the estate. He and Ethan set out at a swift clip. Late autumn air bit through his lungs, and the scent of pine rose as needles crunched underfoot. It was late afternoon, the brilliant blue mountain sky darkening as the temperature dropped.

Derek pulled a pair of binoculars out of his bag and scanned the front entrance. Two men stood out front, one next to the front door, one closer to the gate but still far enough back to be invisible from the road. He recognized the telltale bulge of shoulder holsters under both men’s jackets.

Skirting the main gate, Derek and Ethan bushwhacked their way to the lake. The mansion held prime position on a small private beach. Only one man stood guard out there, a stocky guy of medium height; his gaze was hidden by aviator frames as he stared out at the lake and paced back and forth.

Careful not to pop so much as a pine needle under his foot, Derek made his way through the brush until he came to the edge where brush met sand. He waited for the guard to amble his way back to his position. When he came into reach, Derek reached out and snagged him one-handed. He pressed the Taser to the guy’s neck and covered the guy’s mouth to muffle his startled grunt. The guy seized as electricity coursed through his body. His eyes rolled back, and he slid to the ground, down for the count. They quickly bound and gagged him and dragged his still-twitching form into the bushes.

Derek had studied the floor plan on the plane and decided their best way in was through the mudroom off the kitchen. He quickly disarmed the alarm system, and the dead bolt slid free. They crept inside, keeping eyes peeled for any sign of Alyssa.

Or anyone else, for that matter. The interior of the house was silent, the only dim light from the fading sun outside.

The place seemed deserted.

Dread clenched at his gut as they moved silently through the empty kitchen, through a formal dining room, great room, and to the main entryway. Still nothing. No lights, no sound to indicate anyone was in the massive log home.

Then he heard it. Ethan’s head snapped up, indicating he had, too. The low murmur of voices. A laugh track from a TV. It was coming from a hallway off the main entryway, the one that led to a separate wing. They inched down the hall, and the laugh track grew louder.

They followed the narrow staircase at the end of the hall and paused before passing the open doorway on the right. The TV was in there, blaring some lame sitcom. Over the noise, he heard a feminine giggle and a woman’s scolding voice. A man laughed and murmured his reply.

In French.

Abbassi.
A red haze filled Derek’s vision, and he moved toward the door.

A strong hand wrapped around his forearm, and he met Ethan’s warning stare.

Derek drew his gun slowly and held it up in front of him. But when he snuck a glance around the doorjamb, it wasn’t Abbassi he saw, but a shorter, slighter guy with slicked-back blond hair. He sat on a love seat next to a woman, murmuring to her as he traced his fingers along her dark cheek and slid his hand along her slim thigh. The woman didn’t seem to mind, laughing and playfully slapping at his hands while making no attempt to get away from him.

Derek would have left them to their flirting if two things hadn’t tipped him off. One was the nurse’s scrubs the woman wore.

The second was the Glock 9mm lying forgotten on the coffee table in front of the couple.

Derek pounced on the gun like a mountain lion, scooping it up before either had time to move. The man sprang to his feet, only to sit back heavily when faced with the barrel of his own gun.

“Where is she?”

The man sneered and spat and said something in French.

Derek smashed the butt of the gun against his temple. The woman shrieked as he slumped, unconscious. The scream died in her throat as Derek pressed the barrel of the gun against her forehead. “Alyssa. Where is she?”

The woman threw up her hands and babbled The only word he could make out was
Abbassi.

“Abbassi put you up to this?” he said as he motioned her up from the couch toward the door.

“Oui, Abbassi. Louis Abbassi.” And she was rambling again, no doubt explaining how she was just an innocent bystander and had no guilt whatsoever. As she talked, her hand inched toward the walkie talkie clipped to her waistband. Like a striking snake, Derek snatched it off and tossed it to Ethan.

Derek cocked his gun. “Alyssa. Where is she?”

The woman spared a worried glance for her companion, who lay limp, a trickle of blood tracing down his cheek as Ethan secured his hands and feet with plastic flexicuffs.

Derek lifted the barrel to the center of the woman’s forehead. “Where. Is. She?” She damn well understood the intent if not the words because she frantically gestured to the door and took a cautious step.

“Show me,” Derek said. Ethan left the bound thug unconscious on the sofa and flanked the woman’s right. She
led them down the hallway and stopped in front of a door. Though the door was old and weathered, a shiny new dead bolt had been recently installed.

When she reached for her pocket, Derek stopped her with a dig of the gun into her ribs. She froze and lifted her hands while Ethan fished out a key ring. The dead bolt slid free with a soft thunk, and Ethan opened the door. Derek trained his Sig on the woman as he stepped inside, while Ethan stood watch outside in case the guards at the front heard the commotion and came in to investigate.