Nothing Left to Lose (88 page)

“I’m sorry,
Anna, really I am. But I can’t let you go, he’ll kill me,” he
replied.

I nodded. I
knew he would. Jimmy was always one of the nice ones. Occasionally
he would sneak me food and drink or some painkillers when Carter
would starve or beat me. Carter didn’t know, of course, Jimmy would
have been dead a long time ago for even talking to me.

“It’s okay,
Jimmy.” I wiped my tears on the back of my hand. I wouldn’t cry
anymore, crying was pointless, crying was weakness, and I refused
to be weak. I wrapped my arms around myself and thought of Ashton.
I could see his beautiful green eyes, and how angry his face would
look if he was here right now. I closed my eyes and leant my head
against the wall, praying that somehow I would get out of here
before the inevitable happened. I would actually rather die than go
back to living like a caged animal with Carter again.

Exhaustion
didn’t quite cover what I felt as I sat on the edge of my bed. I’d
just been to work for sixteen hours straight, and my body was
hurting like hell. I flopped onto my back and glanced over at the
clock; it was only eight in the evening. Unable to resist, I picked
up my cell phone and texted Anna, the same as I did every day.

‘
I had a
hard day at work today. I really would love to talk to you. Please
call me. I love you, always x’

I sent it and
closed my eyes, not even bothering to get undressed, and fell to
sleep immediately.

I woke just
after nine in the morning to my cell phone ringing on the bed next
to me. I grabbed it quick and answered it, hoping it was Anna.
“Agent Taylor,” I croaked, my voice thick with sleep.

“Ashton, it’s
Officer Weston.”

I frowned.
“Yes, sir?” I replied, sitting up quickly. He never called me; I
wasn’t assigned to him anymore.

“Ashton, I’ve
just heard something, and I thought you should know,” he sounded
remarkably stressed and I felt my body tense up. “Miss Spencer’s
been taken, her guards are dead. They think it’s Carter
Thomas.”

My tired brain
immediately registered what he’d said. Anna. Anna was in trouble.
“WHAT? WHEN?” I cried, jumping out of the bed, stripping out of my
uniform and grabbing the first clean clothes that I saw, throwing
them on.

“Just a couple
of hours ago. One of the agents managed to call through to the
White House for backup, but by the time they got extra staff there,
everyone was dead and she was gone,” he said sadly.

Anger made my
teeth ache as I clenched my jaw. I was angry at Carter, angry at
myself for not being there, and I was also angry at Anna for
sending me away in the first place. I should have been there, I
could have stopped this. Out of frustration, I kicked my chest of
drawers, taking my anger out on that. When that didn’t help, I
grabbed it and pulled it over, spilling everything over to the
floor, making a loud crash as the mirror broke and my possessions
scattered all over my floor.

“Do they know
where she is?” I asked.

He sighed. “No,
they have no idea. They don’t think she got on a plane, they’ve
been monitoring the airports, but she could be anywhere by now,” he
replied.

My heart was in
my throat, my hands shaking with rage. If he touched one hair on
her beautiful head, I would rip him to pieces! “I need to go, sir,”
I stated, not even waiting for an answer.

I disconnected
the call and dialled Anna’s number. It answered immediately. “Who’s
this?” a man’s voice asked.

I felt the
snarl try to rip itself out of my mouth. “Who the fuck is this and
what are you doing with Anna’s phone?” I growled as I threw a
change of clothes into a bag along with my guns, ammo, knives and
my other tactical gear.

“This is Agent
Richards,” the voice replied hesitantly.

“This is Agent
Taylor. Why do you have Anna’s phone?” I asked, trying to control
my breathing; all I wanted to do was smash everything, and that
wouldn’t help at all.

“Miss Spencer
didn’t take her cell phone; it’s here in the apartment.”

I closed my
eyes and groaned. They couldn’t even track her through her cell
signal. Why hadn’t I ever thought about getting a tracking device
on her body or something? I could have suggested it to her dad, I’m
sure he could have commissioned something small enough to attach to
the back of an earring or necklace.

I ended the
call, pressing the phone to my forehead, thinking. Officer Weston
was right, they could be anywhere by now, with Carter’s money and
contacts they could be on a boat, helicopter or private plane, on
their way to goodness knows where. He even suggested in one of his
letters that they go somewhere else for a fresh start when he got
out of jail. How was I going to find her if I had no idea where to
look?

I groaned and
threw my bag onto the bed angrily. I felt useless; there was
nothing I could do from here on my own. I would just have to fly to
Arizona and wait in her apartment with the other agents; I would
make her dad reinstate me as her guard so I could devote my time to
finding her. I wouldn’t give up, not even if I had to look for a
lifetime.

If only I could
find someone who knew Carter’s whereabouts, or at the very least,
someone who worked for him so that I could force them to tell me
where she was. An idea suddenly hit me, I wasn’t sure if it would
work, but it was sure as hell worth a try. I held my breath as I
dialled the one person who I knew would have a chance at finding
her. He was a lying, cheating scumbag, and I hadn’t seen him for
five years. I’d met him when I was going through a bad stage in my
teens and had fallen in with the wrong crowd. He was a low level
criminal, but he had a lot of contacts. He used to make it his
business to know everything about everyone. I’d looked up to him
for a time when I was a young and impressionable seventeen year
old, until I realised that wasn’t the person that I wanted to be.
That was when I decided to get my life on track and make something
of myself, before it was too late. He was one of the reasons that I
decided to train to be a police officer. If anyone would have an
idea of how to get to Carter Thomas, it would be Julian Simms.

It rang for a
long time. I was just about to give up hope when he answered. “This
had better be fucking important! Do you know what time it is?” he
growled sleepily. Julian didn’t run the same type of schedule that
normal people did; this was probably middle of the night for
him.

“Julian, I’m
sorry to call you so early. It’s Ashton Taylor,” I said, letting it
sink in.

There was
silence on the line, obviously he was trying to place the name; it
had been a long time. “Ashton? Shit, man, I haven’t heard from you
in years! I heard you went over to the dark side,” he joked.

I smiled
weakly. “Sorry, but I haven’t got time for pleasantries. I need you
to do something for me, it’s important. You owe me, remember? Well,
I need to collect the favour,” I said sternly.

He coughed a
barking, hacking cough that was caused by too many cigarettes and
too many drugs. “Yeah, what do you need?” he asked.

I need to
you help me save my girl from a sick son of a bitch.
“I need
you to find someone for me. Or, at the very least, someone who
works for someone,” I answered, trying to keep the desperation out
of my voice.

“Who?”

“Carter
Thomas.”

He gasped. “I
can’t help you, I’m sorry.” His voice was gruff, he actually
sounded a little scared.

“Julian, you
fucking owe me, you know you do! I saved your life. Just get me
anyone, anyone that works for him so I can get the information
myself if you can’t find Thomas,” I growled, the frustration
leaking into my voice now. I grabbed my bag and headed out of my
apartment and downstairs, immediately hailing a cab heading to the
airport.

“You don’t want
to find him, Ashton. Seriously, whatever you want him for, it’s not
important enough to find him for it,” he replied, sounding
terrified.

I snorted at
that comment. “It’s important enough, trust me. Find him and call
me back. I’m serious; I’m calling in my favour.” I hung up and
closed my eyes as the cab sped me to the airport. I called ahead
and booked the first flight they had, but I still had to wait
almost two hours. At least I would be there with the other agents,
so if they got any leads I would be able to go with them, if Julian
came up with nothing.

I couldn’t
settle down. I was pacing back and forth, trying to think of any
other way I could find her before he hurt her. I’d promised her
that he’d never hurt her again – but what if he already had? Had I
already broken my promise to her? The pain of thinking about it was
torture. My whole body was tight with stress. The helpless, useless
feeling was killing me slowly. My Baby Girl was in danger and there
was nothing I could do about it.

Just as I was
about to board my plane, my phone rang. It was Julian. “Tell me
good news, man,” I begged as I answered it.

“Ashton, are
you sure you want to do this?” he checked.

“Just give me
the fucking information, I’m about to board a plane,” I snapped
angrily.

He sighed.
“Okay, well, I couldn’t find out much about his whereabouts, but a
friend of a friend has just been hired by him. He was bragging in a
bar the other day that he’d been hired by Carter Thomas to retrieve
something important. Apparently they’ve been hauled up in Arizona
for the last few weeks, looking for something, but they couldn’t
find it. Apparently they were stationed in some abandoned factory
on Western Ambrose,” he said.

Arizona.
Looking for something. Holy shit, this is it!
Western Ambrose,
I repeated it over and over in my head, committing it to memory.
“Okay, what’s the guy’s name?” I asked curiously. I needed to find
this guy, talk to him, find out anything and see if this ‘thing’
they were looking for was Anna. If it was, then maybe I could find
out where they were planning on taking her. I just prayed that he
would still be at this factory. I just needed to find the guy, get
the information, and then I could pass it on to the relevant
people.

“Justin
Morrison. Asshole apparently, real nasty piece of work. He told the
whole bar about him and Carter Thomas being like best pals
apparently. Maybe you could get Carter’s location from him,” Julian
suggested hesitantly.

“Thanks. I
gotta go get my plane. If I need anything else I’ll call you,
okay,” I muttered, disconnecting the call, not giving him the
chance to say no.

I didn’t call
the White House; they wouldn’t exactly approve of the way I was
going to get Carter Thomas’s whereabouts out of this guy who worked
for him, breach of human rights and all that shit. Once I had more
information, I would call them so we could move on Carter and get
my girl back.

I called my new
captain and told him I wasn’t coming in for the next few days, and
that I had an emergency I needed to get sorted out. As I expected,
he was less than happy about it, but there wasn’t much else I could
do, and I didn’t care anyway. Nothing else was important apart from
Anna.

By the time the
plane landed, I felt sick. It was almost three in the afternoon, so
she’d been missing for hours now. He could have done anything to
her. I got the first cab I could to Western Ambrose and had the
cabbie drive me the length of the street.

“Do you know of
an old abandoned factory along this road?” I asked the driver,
holding him out an extra twenty.

He pocketed it
and smiled gratefully. “Well, there are two; one’s an office
building really, the other one used to be a sewing factory years
ago,” he replied, raising his eyebrows curiously. I made him drive
back down the road and point them out to me before I got out and
headed across the street to get a better vantage point. I needed to
make the sweep as quick as possible.

I quickly
called Julian again. “Hey, man, did you say it was definitely an
abandoned factory and not an abandoned office building?” I asked
curiously. I didn’t want to go into the wrong building and scare
off this Justin Morrison guy. I needed him alive so I could beat
the information out of him as to where Anna might be.

“Yeah, that’s
what my friend said,” he confirmed. “Ashton, do you need some
help?” he asked, sounding like he was hoping I would say no. I
didn’t think he would want to go against Carter Thomas at all, but
I knew he would if I asked him to. A favour was classed as a debt
to people like Julian; he would repay it to the best of his
ability. I’d saved his life once when we were younger; he still
owed me for that.

“Not at the
moment, but thanks. I gotta go.” I disconnected the call and pushed
my cell back into my pocket before checking my ankle holster and
pushing my other gun down the back of my jeans, covering it with my
T-shirt. Next, I slipped my knife into my belt and pushed four
extra clips into my pocket before casually walking over to the
building, pretending to walk past.

I stopped to
tie my shoe outside the door, sitting on the steps and looked
around; no one was there so I slipped in. The fact that the door
was unlocked made my heart leap, I was sure I was in the right
place. This guy Morrison had to be here somewhere, I just prayed he
knew where she was.

As soon as I
was off the street, I pulled my gun from the waistband of my jeans
and slipped an extra clip there instead in case I needed to reload
quickly. I made my way through the building, keeping my back to the
wall, checking each room for signs of him.

Suddenly, I
heard the sound of a walkie-talkie up ahead, so I froze. My eyes
narrowed. Why the hell would someone have a walkie-talkie? Without
hesitation, I slipped round the corner and put my gun to the back
of the guy’s head.