Safe from Harm (24 page)

“All clear, but I'd go out the back,” he said. “News cameras are out front. Monroe's giving them quite the statement.”

“I'll bet.” Gabe jerked open the door and stormed down the hall toward the back entrance.

“Oh, hey, Gabe!” Joe called after him.

Gabe halted. “Yeah?”

“Abby said to tell you she tried calling Elle a couple of times to let her know Monroe was leaving, but Elle didn't answer. Went straight to voice mail. You might want to try giving her a call yourself.”

That prickling sensation beneath Gabe's skin came rushing back with a vengeance. “Why the hell is Elle wanting to know when Monroe leaves?”

Joe frowned. “Got me.
You
don't know anything about it?”

Gabe shook his head. “No.”

He turned back to the door, his pace increasing with each step—as was his concern for Elle and what she might be getting herself into growing. He shoved open the door and dialed Elle's number as he jogged to his Tahoe, wincing a little from his still-healing leg, grateful he was parked off to the side and didn't have to deal with all the damned news vultures.

When Elle's voice mail picked up again, he barked a quick message for her to call him as soon as she could, then tossed the phone into the seat beside him with a curse. He threw the Tahoe into reverse and peeled out, racing in the direction of Elle's house, his heart hammering.

“Jesus, Elle,” he murmured. “What the hell are you doing, honey?”

Elle swallowed hard as the cabbie drove up the long drive that led to the Monroe home. The house was the standard two-story farmhouse that had been so common in the area when the Monroe family moved there several generations ago. The paint on the wood siding was peeling and the porch was leaning a little to the left, but the grounds were impeccably tended, the flower beds beautiful. The fields that stretched out for numerous acres around and behind the house were thriving.

In addition to the farmhouse, there were two enormous outbuildings—one looked like some kind of storage facility for farm equipment; the other might've been a barn for livestock at some point, but now was little more than a glorified garage. Several cars in various states of disrepair and two ATVs were parked in front of the structure.

Elle had to give Jeb Monroe credit. For all his despicable traits, he took a great deal of pride in his land. She could hardly blame him for being so upset when a large portion of the family farm had been seized by the government. If she'd had to give up her family's legacy due to circumstances beyond her control, she would've been furious and heartbroken as well. But that didn't excuse Monroe's efforts to incite his own children to murder or his own brutality against his family.

The cab came to a halt in front of the porch and Elle took a deep breath. “Could you please wait here? I'll be right back.”

“Sure thing, lady,” the cabbie said with a shrug. “Meter's running.”

She gave him a grateful smile then got out of the cab, taking a quick look around before starting toward the house. She glanced down at her phone.
Dead. Shit.
It had taken her a good thirty minutes to get out to the farm. She had time. But not much.

The front steps creaked ominously as she made her way up to the porch, but she suppressed the shiver that snaked up her spine and knocked on the door. Seconds later, the door opened a crack and a woman with graying blond hair peered at her through the opening.

“Mrs. Monroe,” Elle said, offering her a tentative smile. “I have a cab waiting. Do you have your things together?”

Janice Monroe opened the door a little wider. “I can't leave here without my children.”

Elle fidgeted, ready to be gone. “Mrs. Monroe, Sandra is with your husband. We can't wait for her to return. But we can take the others. Where are they?”

The woman's chin trembled. “Gone. Except for my youngest. He took Jeremy as well.”

Elle gave her a wary look. “Mrs. Monroe, Jeb can't find me here. You know that. If you and your youngest child come with me, I promise, we'll talk to the police and do what we can to keep the others safe.”

She shook her head slowly, tears spilling onto her cheeks. “He'll kill them. He told me so. He told me if I betrayed him again, he'd kill my sweet babies. I've lost enough. I won't lose any more.”

Elle sent another anxious glance over her shoulder, toward the road. “Mrs. Monroe, do you still want my help? If not, I'll leave. But I'd really like you to come with me—for your own safety.”

The woman's face twisted in anguish. “I'm so sorry. God forgive me.”

The porch steps suddenly creaked behind Elle, bringing goose bumps to her flesh. She spun around on a gasp, her heart leaping into her throat when she saw the barrel of a shotgun leveled at her chest.

“Now, don't you do anything stupid,” the man holding it drawled. Some flicker of recognition passed through Elle's mind. She knew him. Had seen him somewhere before. But she couldn't quite place him. “I'm not supposed to kill you before Jeb gets back.”

“I'm so sorry!” Janice Monroe sobbed behind her. “He made me call you. I'm so sorry!”

A commotion over the man's shoulder brought Elle's eyes up in time to see another man dragging the cabbie out of his car and shoving him to the ground. Too late she realized what was happening. Her eyes went wide and a scream tore from her throat just as the man fired a bullet into the cabbie.

“Get rid of the body,” the man with the gun on her called over his shoulder. “And the car. Don't want anyone finding that here.” He glanced at Mrs. Monroe. “Take her phone, Janice.” He then motioned with the barrel of the gun for Elle to go inside.

Shaking, she sent one last glance toward the car where her purse sat on the floorboards of the backseat. As soon as someone realized she was missing—

Her heart sank as she backed slowly through the front door, keeping her eyes on the gun still aimed at her chest. Gabe would probably just think she was avoiding him. Her aunt would probably think she was patching things up with Gabe. Hell, it might be that evening when she didn't show up at Kyle and Abby's before anyone even realized she was missing. Based on what the man with the gun had said, she might not have that long…

“Back there,” the man prompted, motioning toward a hallway off of the living room.

“People know where I am,” she lied, turning to walk down the hall. Abby knew Elle was keeping tabs on Monroe, but she hadn't told her why. “They're going to come looking for me.”

“That's the plan,” the man said with a little laugh. “Kill two birds with one stone.”

Elle's breath caught in her lungs.
Gabe.
They were planning to use her to get to him. “You bastards,” she hissed. “Killing one cop isn't enough for you?”

The man nudged her in the back with the gun, forcing her to stumble into what looked like a little girl's bedroom. When she turned to glare at him in outrage, he just grinned. “Every revolution has casualties. This is just the beginning.”

“Do you seriously think you're going to start a revolution?” she spat. “Jeb Monroe is insane! He's just a man with a chip on his shoulder, not the brilliant leader you seem to think he is.”

The man shook his head. “Don't underestimate my brother. You think this is just some whim? We've been planning for this for years. The Dawsons aren't the only ones got family connections. Our cousin in the courthouse has been getting us whatever we need.”

Elle's stomach twisted into knots. “You're Dave Monroe,” she deduced. “I remember you now from the courtroom. You were there during Derrick's trial. And the other man outside—he's also your brother…” She grasped for a name, trying to identify with the man, keep him talking in the hopes he'd reveal something she could use to possibly save her life and Gabe's.

“James,” he barked. “James Monroe. You oughta remember his name—you're the same whore who talked his wife into leaving him after he smacked her around a bit.”

Elle's breath left her on a gasp. Dear God—that was one of her first counseling cases at the foundation. The woman had been horribly brutalized. “Smacked around” was an understatement. She'd had to have her jaw wired shut. But she'd been too afraid to press charges. That time. Elle had been glad to hear when the woman had at last left him and moved on—hopefully to a better situation.

“And the cleaning lady in your office?” he sneered. “That's my wife. I'll bet you never even knew my Terri's last name. But she certainly knew everything about you. You really shouldn't leave so many personal notes to yourself lying around on top of your desk. We could tell you when you last saw your gynecologist, what you ate for lunch, how your boyfriend screwed you in your office just last night…”

Elle felt her knees grow weak and had to force herself to remain standing. There was no way in hell she was going to let this asshole know he was getting to her, that the knowledge of having her most intimate secrets known to these bastards made her want to hurl in revulsion.

She settled for glaring at him, her lips pressed together in angry silence.

He chuckled and backed out of the room. “You think on that,” he told her. “And then when Jeb gets home, you tell him he's not the brilliant leader we think he is.”

The man closed the door behind him and Elle heard him put a key in the door to lock it. As if that wasn't enough, it sounded like there was also some kind of latch sliding into place. The second his footsteps receded, she pivoted and went to the bedroom window, but the heavy, double-paned window was nailed shut. She looked around for something to use to smash it, but her eyes went wide as she realized she was standing in a debris field.

Clothes were strewn all over the floor, torn to shreds. Shards of glass and ceramic littered the floor, as if everything of value in the room had been smashed in a fit of rage. But most disturbing was the blood on the frilly, pink bedspread, the splatters upon the wall. And bloody smears were on the door along with deep grooves, as if someone had been trying desperately to claw her way out.

“Sweet Jesus,” Elle breathed, her hand going to her mouth to keep the bile down.

This had to be Sandra's room. This must've been where she'd been beaten by her father. And that was just the treatment they knew about. God knows what else she'd been put through. Elle tried not to imagine what other unspeakable horrors she'd endured.

Her determination to escape taking on an even greater urgency, she searched frantically for something big enough to break the window. She finally found what looked like a thick, wooden curtain rod, but was now broken in half, splintered and jagged at one end. The undamaged end had a knob that might be just the thing she needed.

She grabbed a scrap of blanket, wrapped it around the sharp end, and peered through the window, checking to see if anyone was outside. A large maple tree partially obscured her view, but also helped partially hide the window from anyone looking at the house. Seeing no one outside and praying the sound of the glass breaking wouldn't be heard too easily in the rest of the house, she drove the rod against the window. But it didn't even crack.

She cursed roundly and tried again with the same result.

“Shit!” Elle rubbed her palms against her thighs, wiping the nervous perspiration from them, and reassessed the window. Maybe the bottom pane was the wrong way to go. She might be able to get more leverage and power if she went for the upper pane. Readjusting her grip on the curtain rod, she lifted it over her head and drove it toward the window. This time it cracked in just a tiny starburst only about the size of an eraser head.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me!” she hissed. “What the hell kind of glass is this?”

She took a closer look at the window, studying it for a moment. It didn't appear to be ballistic glass—although she wouldn't have put it past Monroe to have installed that in his house in case of an attack. But it definitely wasn't just ordinary, run-of-the-mill glass. It was more the thickness of a car windshield. She realized she was going about breaking it all wrong.

She shook out her hands and turned the rod around to use the jagged end instead when she heard a vehicle approaching and craned to see who it was. She recognized the truck immediately as the one Jeremy Monroe had been driving when she'd seen him following her.

“Damn it.” She renewed her assault on the window, her shoulder muscles screaming as she drove the rod against the glass again. The little starburst began to grow larger as the cracks spread. Then with a savage cry, she drove it against the window once more and the glass finally shattered.

Elle's breath shot out of her in a relieved burst. Then she used the curtain rod to knock out the jagged shards of glass that remained so she could safely climb out. The sound of a truck door slamming reached her ears. She quickly unwound the material from the curtain rod, draped it over the bottom of the pane to protect herself from any remaining glass, and put her foot up on the sill, pulling herself up and through the window as she heard voices inside the house.

“Shit, shit, shit,” she muttered, throwing the jagged curtain rod onto the ground and grabbing one of the tree branches, pulling herself all the way out of the window. The minute she kicked free, she dropped to the ground and snatched up the curtain rod. Frantically searching for the best escape route, she immediately rejected running toward the road. That would be the first place they looked.

Then her gaze lighted on the cornfield, the corn at its full height. She bolted toward it, her arms and legs pumping.

* * *

Gabe pounded on Elle's front door, then paused to listen for any movement inside. Nothing. He walked the perimeter of the house, looking for any signs that she might be inside, but decided she wasn't home.

He got back behind the wheel of his Tahoe and ran though his contacts until he found the number he sought.

“Mulaney's.”

“Charlotte?” he said, his voice coming out in a rough bark. “Is Elle there?”

“No, sweetie, she left some time ago,” she said. “She'd had a little to drink so she was taking a cab home.”

“I'm there now,” Gabe said, peeling out of the driveway, not entirely sure where he was heading next but not able to just sit and wait. “She's not home. You sure she was heading here?”

Now it was Charlotte's turn to sound concerned. “That's what she said. Gabe? What's going on?”

Gabe turned out of Elle's neighborhood and onto the main road before he answered, “I guess you know what's going on with Monroe?”

“Yes. Elle told me. I picked her up from her office earlier today and brought her to Mulaney's with me.”

“Well, Elle called Abby and asked her to let Elle know when Jeb left the department, saying she wanted to keep tabs on his movements, whatever the hell that means. What's she up to, Charlotte? You need to tell me if you know anything.”

“If I knew more than that, I'd tell you,” Charlotte assured him. “She's my world, Gabe.”

Gabe gripped the phone so hard his hand began to ache. “Mine too.”

He disconnected the call and immediately dialed Abby's number at the department. “It's Gabe,” he said when she picked up. “How long would it take you to get me the GPS coordinates on Elle's phone?”