Love Inspired Suspense July 2015 #2 (43 page)

Not that she could entirely fault him now that she knew he was worried about protecting Sarah.

“Do you want me to go grab a laptop and see if we can download those pictures right away?” Ricky asked. “I'm sure I have a spare one at my folks' house.”

“Yes! Absolutely.” She sat up straight. That was perfect. “The diner's closed already and Daniel didn't seem that keen on that clown motel. But maybe he can suggest somewhere else he'd be willing to drop me off that we could meet up. Or we could meet back in Toronto really early tomorrow morning.” It's not as if there could be a huge amount of difference between handing the pictures off to police at eleven-thirty at night or nine in the morning. She doubted cops would be working through the night on Brian's murder.

The phone's call waiting beeped. “I've got a call on the other line. It's probably the police. Go to your folks' house, and once I figure out where and when to meet up, I'll call you back.”

“Sounds good. I just hope the storm holds off.”

The phone beeped again. “I'm sure it'll be fine. Talk soon.” She hung up and accepted the incoming call. “Hello?”

Breathing on the other line. Heavy. Slow.

“Hello? Anyone there?”

“Hey there, sunshine.” The voice was male, raspy and deep. “Just want you to know that I know where you are and you're not going to get away from me so easily. I'm going to come hunt you down. And then I'm going to kill you.”

SIX

O
livia slammed down the phone. Her whole body shook as though someone had just poured freezing water down her back.

It was him.

It was the voice of the man who'd pressed a gun to her face, tied her hands behind her back and threatened to toss her into his trunk.

Somehow he'd found her.

She leaped to her feet and pushed open the study door. Then she paused. Daniel and Sarah were arguing in the kitchen. Loudly. She forced a deep breath into her lungs and let it out slowly.

It didn't make sense. The call had come in on Daniel's home phone. How had the kidnapper known how to reach her?

The phone rang again. The loud noise reverberated off the walls around her.

Come on, Olivia. You're not Chloe's tagalong little sister anymore. You're a reporter. You're a strong, confident woman. If the man on the other end tries to intimidate you, just grab a pen and write down everything you can hear. Everything he says. Every bit of background noise...

The phone rang again. She snatched it up firmly. “Hello.”

“Hello?” The voice was male. But also youthful, eager and earnest by the sound of it. “My name is Constable Henry. I'm with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Is this by any chance Olivia Brant?”

Oh. A cop. “Yes. Hi, I'm Olivia.”

“Nice to meet you, Ms. Brant.” Sounded as if the Mountie was smiling. “I'm sorry to hear of the difficulties you've experienced in the past couple of days and I want to assure you we're doing everything we can to see that those responsible are brought to justice. Now, would you have time to help me out by answering a few questions?”

She grabbed a small notepad and pen off the desk. “Absolutely. Just give me your phone number and I'll call you back.”

Never could be too careful.

“Oh, no problem.” He gave her his badge number, too. She wrote it down, hung up and called the number he'd provided. It rang through to a RCMP call taker who put her back through to Henry. Looked as if the cop was legit. Not that she figured anyone would fake being that chipper. Judging by the background noise, Constable Henry was on his cell phone.

“Okay, let's do this.”

He started by taking her through the attempted kidnapping outside the diner, helping her remember every detail about the man who'd tried to take her by gunpoint. She told him about the terrifying phone call she'd just answered as well, and everything she knew about the so-called Faceless Crew. To his credit, he managed not to sound skeptical. Then he started asking her detailed questions about the day Brian died.

It was only then that she felt the hairs of suspicion rise on the back of her neck. The RCMP was Canada's
national
police force. A federal police officer had called her back, on a Friday night, to take her statement on an attempted kidnapping, barely half an hour after her initial 9-1-1 call. Just how often did that happen? She forced a professional smile into her voice. “Excuse me if this is an odd question, but why is the RCMP investigating this?”

“No problem.” Henry's voice was so cheerful she couldn't help but imagine him wearing a bright red uniform. He probably even had freckles. “I'm part of an investigation that's looking into Mr. Leslie's murder and things surrounding it.”

Which was the opposite of an answer. “So are you taking my statement about the kidnapping because I was a witness to Brian's murder, then? Does the fact the feds are investigating both his murder and my attempted kidnapping have anything to do with why the case against him was dropped? Tax evasion is a federal crime.”

“I'm sorry, but I'm not at liberty to divulge information in an active investigation. I'm sure you understand.”

“Absolutely.” She did. But that didn't mean she wasn't still a reporter. “Can you at least tell me if you'd even heard of the Faceless Crew before I mentioned it? Or if you think this crime could be connected to any other car bombs or fires they've taken credit for?”

“I'm afraid I really can't say.” The smile hadn't left his voice for a moment.

Again, fair enough. He was a cop after all, and she had no reason not to trust him. But it definitely felt as though something else was going on.

“It's getting pretty late,” she said, “and I'm still hoping to return to Toronto tonight or at least find a good hotel. Would it be okay if we continued this at the newspaper offices on Monday? I'd really love to have my editor, Vince, sit in on this. I'm sure he'd be fascinated by it all.”

Fascinated
was one word for it. Vince had a healthy respect for cops as much as a marine biologist had a healthy respect for sharks. He admired them and could swim alongside them quite comfortably. But he was always quick to notice when the current shifted.

Headlights flashed through the window above her. There was the sound of tires on gravel and the hard but indistinct thumping of heavy music.

“Sure, sure,” Henry said. “Thank you so much for your time, Ms. Brant. We'll be in touch soon.”

A second set of lights brushed the window. She stood up and looked out. A cavalcade of vehicles and camper trailers were pulling into the driveway.

“Have a good night, Ms. Brant.”

“You, too.”

Constable Henry had already ended the call. A blare of horns filled the air. She stuffed the pen and pad of paper into her pocket and started down the planks toward the front porch.

* * *

Daniel flung the kitchen door open and ran outside. There had to be at least six vehicles now trying to find somewhere to park, including two motor homes and three trucks dragging camper trailers. Former members of Leslie Construction crews spilled out onto his lawn. Some carried coolers. Others had chairs. What was happening? He spun back toward the house. Sarah was standing in the doorway. “Tell me you didn't invite the crew up here for a party?”

Sarah craned her neck to look past him. “Are you kidding? They still hate me, remember?”

Some of them probably did, and not without reason. She was inheriting the company that had owed them a lot of money, and had wrecked some of their lives. He wouldn't be surprised if some of them had shown up here in an attempt to put pressure on her to make things right. Just how long were they planning on camping out? Until they were paid? Or until the police showed up and dragged them off?

He pointed Sarah toward the kitchen. “Go back inside and don't come out. Be prepared to call 9-1-1 if you have to. But I'm really hoping it won't come to that.”

While he didn't want an attempted siege on his lawn, he wanted a bloody brawl even less. They'd be waiting forty minutes for the cops to show up, maybe even longer. That was plenty of time for things to get a whole lot worse. These people had driven a long way to get here. Knowing the cops had been called would only ratchet up the tension. For now, he was still hoping it would be possible to de-escalate things.

“Seriously? You want me to hide in the house?” Sarah practically shrieked.

Why must she fight him on everything? He turned back to the unexpected guests. Looked as if some of them were setting up to party through the night. Didn't look as if any of them had come specifically looking for a fight. “Yes. Head to my office, ask Olivia to stay with you and be prepared to call the police. Hopefully this is all just one big misunderstanding.”

A massive one—considering how hard he'd worked for the past few years to protect Sarah from the Leslie crew's wild parties. Still, most of these guys were actually pretty decent. Even if two of them were now dragging a beer keg onto his lawn.

Lord, whatever's going on here, help me calm things down and not make things worse. Help me handle it the way You'd want me to
.

“Hey! Where do you want the fireworks?” There were two young men at Daniel's shoulder—Connor and Jeremy. In their early twenties, they were either brothers or best friends—Daniel wasn't sure—and played in a local baseball league.

Daniel ran his hand over the back of his neck. “I'm sorry, I don't know what you guys have been told or by who, but there's no party here. I'm actually going to need to ask everyone to leave.”

“Oh. Wow. Sorry, man.” Jeremy frowned. “We brought tents. Heard it was going to go all night and figured we'd want to sleep off the booze somewhere dry before trying to drive back. Should've known Kendra got the weekend mixed up when the weather report said it was gonna rain.”

“Kendra?” If Daniel remembered correctly, Kendra was the petite, pixie-haired nineteen-year-old Brian had hired as an intern shortly before he died. Definitely the type to get a bunch of hot-blooded young men driving out to the country for a night of hard partying and drinking.

As someone who loved the country, the fact that so many city dwellers only saw it as a place to drive to so they could party and “get wasted” on the weekend never ceased to drive him nuts.

Connor nodded. “Yeah. She texted. Said she'd heard there was something big going down for Brian. Sorry if we got our wires crossed.”

Oh, there was something going down, all right. But it was probably a whole lot bigger than a teenage intern inviting people to an overnight drinking party.

“No worries,” Daniel said. “But if you can pass the word along to the other guys, I'd appreciate it. There's a campsite and motel by the highway. I'm sure they'd be happy for you to party there.”

“No problem.” Connor nodded again.

Thank You, God
.
But something told him not everyone would be that easy to get rid of.

The music was still pounding and the heavy beat seemed to reverberate inside his head. As soon as he figured out which car it was coming from, he was switching it off. He strode down his crowded driveway, through the line of vehicles, nodding at everyone he recognized and politely asking them to leave. He'd start with them first and then move on to the ones who would really cause him trouble. Thankfully a couple of the trucks were already making their way off the property, even though it had taken cutting over his lawn to get around the vehicles parked behind them.

The music seemed to be coming from a small motor home covered in bumper stickers. Someone had set up huge speakers in the open doorway, with their cord running all the way to the cab radio. Daniel reached around the speakers and unplugged them.

“Get off my camper and tell me what you've done with my niece!” Rita Ryan was suddenly so up in his face that her work boots might as well have been planted on Daniel's toes.

Sarah's so-called auntie Rita wasn't actually a relation. The spiky-haired woman was Mona's drinking and drugs buddy since the old days, and the friend that his ex-wife had moved in with when she'd left him. While Daniel knew Mona was to blame for her own bad choices, it didn't help that Rita had been there, egging her along, every drunken step of the way.

He took a step back and crossed his arms. “Rita, you know you're not welcome here. Please leave. Don't make this any harder on Sarah than it already is.”

“You don't get a say in what Sarah needs!” Rita's laugh was so harsh and angry that it sounded halfway between a yelp and a snarl. She jabbed a finger in his face. “You're not Sarah's real family. You're nothing but some piece of stupid that Mona hooked up with and used to help her raise her baby for a while. Sarah's good-for-nothing uncle just died. She's about to inherit way more money than a kid like her can handle. She needs her auntie Rita.”

Daniel felt his teeth set on edge. There was a growl growing in the back of his throat. Sarah needed Rita's help how, exactly? To help spend her money? To help her run the company? To help get her hooked on drink and drugs?

“Someone like you is the last thing she needs.” He glanced back to the house, hoping Sarah had listened for once and stayed inside. The kitchen door was closed. But the front door was wide-open. A handful of people were crowded on his sagging porch. The crowd shifted just enough for him to see what they were crowding around.

Olivia was standing right in the middle of them, somehow managing to look even tinier than usual compared to the mass of muscle and bulk surrounding her.

“Olivia!” he called out. “Get back in the house and find Sarah!”

But she didn't give any sign she'd heard him. He started across the lawn. Forget Rita. He had to get Olivia back inside the house. Not that he expected any of the men would lay a violent hand on her, but this wasn't her fight, and if Olivia got hurt he'd never forgive himself.

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder. Daniel turned back and came face-to-face with Rita's on-again, off-again boyfriend. A longtime member of Leslie's construction crew, Reginald Hawkins—better known as Hawk—was a big, bald man with arms full of badly drawn tattoos, including a giant bird of prey on his neck. Not to mention a rap sheet full of both assault and drug charges.

While Hawk wasn't the kind of man who'd go to the trouble of planning a tailgate party as an excuse to get his crew up here, he was definitely the type to grab any chance to get his own point across.

Hawk shoved his way into Daniel's chest. “Maybe Rita's not the only one who wants to see Sarah. Maybe some of us wanna see her, too. Maybe me and some of the guys here, want to congratulate the baby princess on inheritin' a company, and make sure she knows we're ready to get back to work.” Hawk chuckled menacingly. A few of the larger louts behind him chuckled, too.

Okay, Lord, something tells me I'm really going to need Your help finding a way out of this.

He glanced back toward the porch, but couldn't see Olivia anymore.

“Yes, Sarah and I both know Brian died owing all of you a lot of money, and I promise you I'll do everything in my power to make sure you're paid back. But you're going to have to be patient. Things are going to be tied up legally for a while. We're going to need a lawyer to sit down and help us sort out who's owed what—”