Lennox (25 page)

“The kind I’ll have to claim later. My life’s too
messed up to take care of a girl like you just now. But when I can
stand on my own two feet . . .”

A tear runs down my face, jolting me out of the memory. Lennox. Oh,
god, Lennox. I want him to be able to stand on his own two feet. No
more secret deals with the Cartwrights, no more debts to the
McManuses . . .

I have to find a way out of this—for both of us. Get him out of
the McManuses’ clutches. And get myself out, too.

I glance toward the camera. Rory or one of his henchmen could be
watching me right now. I know he’s not doing this alone—he
stayed in the back of an unmarked van with me, a gun trained on me,
while someone else drove us to this place. Took a long and circuitous
route to get there, too. If he’s watching right now, then he’ll
come in right away to stop me. But if he isn’t . . .

I jerk my arms backward, trying to twist my wrists enough that I can
slip them through the duct-tape cuffs. If I make a big enough
production out of it, it’ll lure Rory back here if he’s
watching me. But if he isn’t watching me, then maybe, just
maybe, I have a shot at getting free.

The duct tape digs into my arms, stinging as portions of it rip off,
taking what feels like a layer of skin and arm hair with it. Almost,
almost . . . As soon as my left arm is free, then I
can reach far enough to rip the camera cord out of the wall. Break
Rory’s visibility. Then maybe, if I have enough time, I can
peel back the insulation from the camera’s electrical
cord . . . Use the pool of runoff water against
Rory . . .

Rrrrrrrip.
The duct tape is starting to fray. I bend over and
chew at the exposed edges. Almost. There—

The door swings open.

My stomach sinks through the floor. If he wasn’t going to hurt
me before, he’s surely going to now. I glance up to find Rory
watching me with two of his goons standing behind him, an amused
smirk on his face.

“Very cute. I’m almost too curious to see just what the
hell you thought that was going to accomplish,” he says. “But
I’m afraid your time is up.”

The goons move forward and plant their hands on my shoulders. Rory
pulls a switchblade from his pocket and springs the blade with an
eerie
schick
. He pauses and admires the blade for a moment,
letting its sharp edge glint in the overhead lights.

He steps toward me. Places one hand on my arm. I cringe, but again,
there’s nowhere I can go, and nothing I can do. Then he slices
open the duct tape around my wrists, then kneels toward my ankles to
do the same.

“Let’s move.”

Lennox

Drazic, Cyrus, and I scatter across the ridge overlooking the old
Goldwater mining camp. The site’s been abandoned for decades
now, and the rusted chain link fence is riddled with holes and bent
wiring; the concrete and cinder block structures sag with the weight
of countless mountain winds beating them down. At one end, the steel
pillars of the miners’ elevator pierce the night sky, barely
visible against the sea of stars, while at the other stands a cluster
of low dormitories and office buildings and warehouses. It looks like
the kind of place you’d go to dump a body or ten, and I have no
doubts the McManuses have used it for just that.

We kept our headlights off for our approach and parked downwind of
the entrance, behind this low butte. A few stubborn trees form woods
around the encampment, and Jagger’s lurking through the trees
right now, scouting the backside for signs of life. We’ve found
one van and three cars parked along the perimeter, shielded from view
by abandoned storage crates, two of them with their engines still
warm. So someone’s around here. But the question is where.

Every crack and snap of cooling rock and distant animals sets my
teeth on edge. With Rory McManus, I don’t know if I’ll
ever feel like the predator. He’s the kind of guy who treats
everyone like prey.

I can’t live my life always looking over my shoulder, wondering
when he’ll turn up again. One way or another, this needs to end
tonight.

“They’ve got the buildings sealed up tight,” Jagger
whispers on the comms. “I’m not seeing any light sources
anywhere. Maybe if Drazic had sprung for the fancy heat-sensing
goggles like I told him to . . .”

“We do
not
need heat-sensing goggles to do our usual
work,” Drazic chides. “Keep looking.”

“Shit!” Jagger hisses.

I glance at Cyrus. He raises his goggles and tries to spot Jagger’s
position. “Jags? What’s going on?”

“Sorry. Just noticed a camera over the rear door of the dorms.
Not pointed at me, though I’m gonna stay low to be safe.”
His breath crackles across the airwaves. “I bet that’s
where they went. She’s in that low building on the northeast
corner, I guarantee it.”

An old forgotten thrill courses through me. My limbs are itching for
action. I’d missed this more than I realized, working with the
old crew. My old family. All the crazy, desperate,
never-should-have-worked-in-a-million-years jobs we’ve pulled
together. And we always got away, in the end.

True, they weren’t strictly legal, but the stakes were never as
high as they are now. I try to imagine Elena’s face as it was
this morning, pressed against my chest, her eyelashes fluttering
against my bare skin. Not the Elena I saw in the video, tear-stained
and vulnerable. I don’t care how dangerous or how desperate
this plan is. I have to get Elena free.

The burner phone buzzes in my back pocket.

Cyrus and Drazic look toward me as I fish it out, cupping my hand
over the screen to block the light in case someone inside is looking
our way. It’s a text message from Rory.

Time’s up.

“I think they’re going to move her,” I whisper into
the earpiece.

“Got it, man. Heading back to the vehicles.”

“Quietly,” Drazic says, “quietly. We have to give
them a decent lead.”

“Wait up,” Jagger says over the comms. “I’ve
got movement. Door just opened on the dormitory.”

“How many?” Drazic asks.

There’s a moment of silence as Cyrus squints through the
binoculars. I freeze, hand still on the door handle of the car.
Waiting for confirmation that Elena’s with them.
Come on,
Jagger. Tell me we’re in the right spot.

“There’s two goons, I forget their names . . .
we’ve seen them at the circuit races before. They’re
carrying someone—oh, god.”

“What?” I hiss into the comms. “What is it?”

“Y-yeah.” Jagger hesitates; a few swears slip under his
breath. “They’ve got Elena with them. Black bag over her
head, and her hands and legs are bound, but it’s gotta be her.
I’d know those tits—”

“Jagger,” Drazic warns.

Jagger clears his throat. “I’d know that stubborn look
anywhere.”

All the blood drains from my head. I suck down a deep breath. “Okay.
We can do this. It’s better if we’re moving, right?”
I say. “I can take Rory on the road any day.”

“Elena’s safety is our top priority,” Drazic says.
“Don’t get too ballsy out there.”

“I won’t,” I assure him, as he and I climb into the
Camaro. But we both know it’s a lie. I’m going to do
whatever it takes to get Elena back. Even if it means getting hurt
myself.

Cyrus and Jagger load into the Mitsubishi while Drazic and I wait in
the Camaro. We want to keep our distance, and let them get a head
start. Not tip off that we’re following them. Then, once we’re
up the pass, we have a better chance—when there’s nowhere
for them to escape. I know all this, logically, but the wait feels
interminable as the two Datsuns and the van rev their engines and
wind their way out of the Goldwater mines. I’m about to crawl
out of my skin.

“All right,” Drazic says over the comms, at long last.
“Let’s go.”

“There’s a secondary trail Jagger and I can take to the
top of the trail,” Cyrus says over the comms. “Something
we use hauling scrap sometimes, depending on which truck we’re
taking. We can probably cut them off with it if we hurry.”

“Good call,” Drazic says. “Go up ahead and cut off
passage, then we can box them in from behind.”

Jagger and Cyrus slide onto the side passageway in a spray of gravel
and disappear amongst the twisting quartz rock faces. We’re
headed up, meandering back and forth, amongst the jagged stone and
scrubby wind-whipped trees, looming so dark in the night. No
headlights on. Just the faint kiss of starlight outlining the road.

An eerie feeling is building in my chest, the same one I felt the
night Troy died. At least, in retrospect I remember having that
feeling—like something momentous was about to happen, something
I could never recover from. It’s probably just wishful
thinking, that I had known what was coming down the pike. I
definitely feel it now, though, that heaviness in the air that warns
me of what’s just around the bend.

Drazic pats my knee after he upshifts the Camaro for a steep climb.
“It’ll be all right,” he tells me. “We’ll
get her back.”

I grip the edge of the seat and don’t respond.

“We’re at the top,” Jagger announces, over our
earpieces. “Angling to block the passageway. I can just barely
see the glow of their headlights in the distance.”

“Hang tight. Not sure how they’re going to respond to
you,” Drazic says.

“Yes, sir. Keeping the engine ready,” Jagger replies. “We
can pursue if needed.”

Drazic keeps us moving forward. Around the bend, I catch a flash of
red brake lights from the Datsuns and van. If we can block their
retreat . . .

“Here they come,” Cyrus says. “Oh shit—they’re
gunning it now—”

A screech of metal floods the earpieces. Drazic and I both cringe and
he hits the brakes. “What’s going on?” Drazic
shouts. “Are you hurt?”

But the scene at the peak of the pass, as Drazic and I approach, is
one of chaos. Tires are squealing, Jagger and Cyrus are shouting, and
sparks fly into the air.

“Dammit!” Jagger cries.

“They plowed into us,” Cyrus explains. “The van
slipped past us after one of the Datsuns shoved us out of the way.
Second Datsun is reversing and heading back down toward you.”

“Can you drive still?” I ask.

“Trying,” Jagger replies. “The low nose of his car
is aiming to wedge up under us but I think I can shake it off.”

“Lennox. We’ve got inbound,” Drazic says.

The Datsun is headed straight for us, twisting its way back down the
path. “Don’t. Don’t play chicken with them,”
I beg Drazic. “Not without knowing where Elena is.”

“Relax. I got this. Everyone flinches against me.”

But he isn’t reassuring. He revs the engine and starts climbing
up the hill. The RPM needle spikes high into the red even as he
upshifts us. Drazic isn’t going to back down. But he doesn’t
know Rory McManus—not like I do. Rory doesn’t believe
there’s such a thing as taking it too far.

Drazic’s knuckles blanch white against the steering wheel,
accented by the glow of the instrument panel. “Drazic . . .”
I say.

The glow of Rory’s headlights fills the Camaro.

“Shit.” Drazic jerks us to the right, toward the rough
cliff faces. Stone scrapes against his driver’s side door. The
brakes screech us to a stop as Drazic yanks up on the emergency, and
the back side of the Camaro fishtails around in a wide arc along the
road.

But my attention is locked onto the Datsun as it zips past us. That’s
Rory in the driver’s seat, his cold gray eyes practically
glowing with glee. He’s loving this.

And the dark form beside him, bag still over her head, is Elena.

“She’s there! She’s in the passenger’s seat.”
I crank down the window to the Camaro without thinking. “Elena!
Elena, over here!”

“What the hell are you doing?” Drazic cries, as he
finishes flipping us around and starts surging downhill after Rory.

“Please. You should know by now how Elena works.” I grin.
“I’m bringing out the fight in her.”

Elena

Lennox. That’s Lennox’s voice! All I can hear is the
muffled rumble of other vehicles around us underneath this hood, but
my heart soars knowing Lennox is in one of them. Rory must be
devoting all his attention to the road and trying to stay ahead of
Lennox. Would he notice if I were to lean over and . . .

My fingers pad along the shift stick’s casing. There have to be
some screws around here somewhere, holding the stick in place. If
Rory can’t upshift or downshift, he’ll have little chance
of shaking Lennox. There. My fingers land on the edge of a screw. I
start working the screw loose, straining to listen for any indication
Rory’s noticed what I’m doing.

But then the screw pops free and I wrench the stick shift out of
place.

Lennox

Rory twists back and forth along the pass, heading toward the bottom.
Something’s off about his pacing, like he’s having
trouble shifting gears. Is he going to head back toward Ridgecrest?
The old mines? I’m not sure we can catch him on the open
highway back toward town, the straight shot through the desert. We
were able to stop Paolo and Neshaun there, but Rory’s much
slicker with a set of wheels than both of them combined.

“Edge up on him. Try to get beside him. Force him onto the
bypass that Jagger and Cyrus took,” I tell Drazic.

Then I hoist myself up and out of the open window.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Drazic screeches. “Get
back in the fucking car!”

“I’m getting Elena back,” I shout back to him. “Cy.
Jagger. Block the exit from the bypass at the top, if you can.”

“Doing our best,” Jagger replies over the comms.

The wind whips through my hair as I crouch over the roof of the
Camaro and hang on for dear life. I’m gripping the window frame
of Drazic’s door with my left hand and of my door with the
right. All I have to do is get Elena out of Rory’s car. Nothing
else matters.