Up in Flames (31 page)

Sophie had mixed feelings about the three boxes of decorative pool tiles she found in her Jeep. They’d been meant for the Reznick project, and Zane had planned to have her haul some of the supplies to the job site in her Jeep. He probably still needed them, and if she didn’t return them he’d have to go through the time and expense of reordering. She wouldn’t do that to his struggling company. That meant she’d have to see him to return them. It wasn’t like she’d been looking for an excuse to see him.

It sounded so logical she almost believed it herself.

She pulled up the long drive at Natural Designs, not aware until she parked that Zane’s truck wasn’t there. She might have left and hoped for an “accidental” meeting with Zane at another time, except she’d already been seen. Manny was on the roof with a stack of shingles, and waved down at her. Nothing looked in need of repair, but Zane probably gave him odd jobs just to keep him around in case work came in.

“Hi,” she called out, swinging out the Jeep’s spare tire and opening the back hatch. “I’m returning some stuff I forgot to drop off earlier. Don’t get down,” she said as he laid a nail gun aside. “I’ll just set them inside the office.”

“It’s not open.” Manny held his hands out in a helpless gesture. “Zane will be back in a half hour. He has the key.”

“Oh.” It was a good excuse to wait around for him. It also looked pathetic and needy.

She looked around. The tiles were too expensive to leave sitting around, but with Manny there she could leave the boxes on the steps. She reached for the first one, then threw a doubtful look at the sky. Summer storms were a regular occurrence in the afternoon, and the dark clouds boiling over Two Bears looked about ready to let go with a big one. The tiles might be fine, but the boxes would be a soggy mess.

“How about if I put these in the back of your van?” she called up to Manny. “You can give them to Zane when he gets back.”

“Yes, okay. Give me a moment and I will get them.” He stood and headed for the ladder at the side of the building.

“No need. I can do it.”

He began to protest, but she ignored him, sliding open the side door on the van. The back was half full already with boxes of tools and scattered work clothes.

Manny stepped onto the ladder. “I’ll do it for you,” he assured her. “Give me one moment.”

His chivalry was working overtime, as usual, but there was no need to interrupt his work. Or to take longer than necessary to get the heck out of there. “It’s no trouble, Manny, I can do it.” She climbed into the van and began sliding boxes around, and tossing overalls and work boots on top of them.

“See? No problem.” She flashed a smile at his distressed look as he appeared at the open side door. The man was almost too chivalrous.

Throwing the last pair of gloves out of the way, she brushed at some bits of dirt and twigs on the carpet. They clung stubbornly. She scratched at one pine twig with no success, then with an exasperated sigh, she pulled it loose from the carpet. She started to toss it through the open door, then realized why it had clung to the carpet. It wasn’t a rough pine twig after all. It had tiny barbs on the side that had caught on the carpet fibers, almost like . . . She examined it more closely.

She was holding the leg of a very large beetle.

A chill washed over her as she moved slowly, picking another twig-like bit from the carpet. Another beetle leg. Goose bumps danced down her arms as she looked at Manny in the open doorway.

His distress had turned to frustration. “It was difficult to get them all. I used the Power Vac at the car wash, but they are so sticky. What can you do?” He shrugged at his bad luck. Or perhaps hers. “I’m very sorry, Sophie,” he said.

His strong, calloused hands reached for her neck.

Zane parked in the lot behind the hardware store and double-checked the list of supplies Manny had requested. The repair project was eating up his available cash, but the place needed to look good if he was going to put it up for sale.

He reached for the used paint roller he’d taken from Manny’s truck as a size comparison, wondering if it could be salvaged. Bits of dirt and twigs were embedded in its fuzzy, tacky surface, which he assumed was why Manny wanted new ones. He picked a couple pieces off and saw the problem. All the crap stuck to the surface crumbled when he pulled at it, but still didn’t come free of the roller, as if it was holding on with tiny hooks.

He couldn’t imagine what kind of shrubs Manny had been hauling in his van that would have twigs like that. He looked closer. They didn’t even look like twigs. They looked like legs. Tiny bits of broken insect legs.

Realization came slowly, working against a sense of disbelief. There had to be another explanation. Not Manny. Hooter or Cory, sure, he’d believe it in a second. But Manny was polite, with a sense of decency that put others to shame. Maybe he was a little disdainful of his coworkers’ lewd jokes and rude behavior, but not to an extreme. At least, Zane didn’t think so.

Actually, he didn’t know for sure. Manny was so quiet, so reserved.

He took another look at the paint roller and tried to think of a reason it would be covered with bits of insect legs. He couldn’t.

Adrenaline finally zapped his muscles into moving. He started the truck and pulled back onto the street, dialing his phone at the same time, listening impatiently through three rings until he heard a click. “Zane?”

“Yeah.” He hadn’t expected to use Cal’s number, and judging by the surprise in his voice, Cal hadn’t, either. “You know those insect parts you had Sophie identify? Were there any prickly little legs that looked almost like twigs from bushes?”

“Almost all of them looked like that.” Caution edged into his voice. “Why?”

“I found some. They’re stuck to paint rollers one of my workers had in his van.”

“Who? Where is he?”

“Manny Rodriguez. He’s working on my office roof right now.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

It was the second time in three days Sophie’d come to in the back of a van with her hands bound.

She coughed, ending in a choking sound when she felt the lingering throb where Manny’s fingers had crushed off her air supply. Automatically, she tried to touch her neck and found her hands bound together at the wrist. Rough sisal rope chafed her skin, preventing even the slightest twist of her hands. Chivalry was dead.

This time she was gagged, too, the cloth pulling painfully at the corners of her mouth and tasting like dust and paint. She rolled her gaze downward. At least her shoes were still on. It was funny what you could learn to be grateful for.

The van rocked over bumps, which she assumed had shaken her to consciousness. She saw trees through the side windows, but before she could wonder where she was, the van stopped and Manny got out. Leaving her? She used her elbows to push herself into a sitting position, then shrank back as the side door slid open.

Manny looked at her sadly. “I’m sorry, Sophie,” he said again. “I didn’t want to do this, but you made me.”

When he tugged her out, she made a muffled noise of protest behind her gag.

“I’m sorry for that, too, but I cannot let you scream. Someone might hear you.”

Manny was possibly the most polite kidnapper in the world, but all things considered, it still didn’t make her like him any more than Emmett.

She looked around, immediately recognizing the small movie studio at the back of Carl Reznick’s property. Manny shoved her toward the side door, and her decision required no thought—if he wanted her inside, she wasn’t going. Whirling around, she kicked at his knee and ran toward the slope that she knew led up to the house.

She got three steps away before he tackled her, falling heavily to the ground with her legs pinned beneath him. He sprang up, jerking her to her feet and clamping a hand to the back of her neck. Fierce pain shot through her, nearly making her collapse again, but his strong hand held her up and urged her forward. He didn’t say a word—no reprimand for trying to escape, and no apology for squeezing her neck as he propelled her toward the door. She tried to twist away from the blinding pain, but that only made it worse, and she was forced to stagger along obediently.

He didn’t release her as he unlocked the door with one hand and shoved her inside. She fell to her knees on a tile floor and tumbled onto her side, unable to catch herself with her bound hands. A string of swear words were garbled by the gag. In vicious frustration, she lifted her bound hands and tore it from her mouth. It felt like an old T-shirt, but she couldn’t tell for sure since it stayed tied around her neck. Coughing and choking, she pushed herself to her feet. Manny’s hand clamped on to her again, buckling her knees. “Shit!” she cried out, wincing against the renewed pain.

He changed his grip to a vicelike hold on her upper arms, forcing her to her feet as she was shoved down a wide corridor. “Ladies shouldn’t talk like that.”

“Fuck you.”

She was rewarded with another rough push through an open doorway. She staggered but stayed upright as Manny hit a switch and lights flared to life above her. She barely had time to take in a large room crisscrossed by electric cables attached to two huge movie cameras as she turned toward him, eyeing him warily. Something about his pose, alert and ready to pounce, triggered a memory: A dark figure, imposing in a way that implied muscles rather than height. Threatening without saying a word.

“It was you! Not Emmett. You’re the one who chased me through the woods!”

He closed the door and faced her. “You shouldn’t have talked to Artie. You talk to too many people, Sophie.”

“Yeah, it’s all my fault.”

“This is true,” he said, apparently immune to sarcasm. “I tried to warn you, but you don’t listen.” He shrugged, then flexed his hands, cracking his knuckles. Ready to begin whatever he had planned.

Fresh fear ripped through her. Raising her voice as loud as she could, she screamed, “Help!”

Manny shook his head at her pitiful efforts. “Soundproof,” he told her.

Zane hadn’t been afraid until he saw Sophie’s Jeep in the parking lot. There was no sign of Manny or his van. He stood on the truck’s running board, scanning the entire equipment yard. “Sophie!” he yelled. Then yelled again, with more urgency, “Sophie! Manny!”

No response.

Taking out his phone, he dialed her number. The ringing in his ear wasn’t echoed anyplace on the grounds of Natural Designs. After four rings, it went to voice mail. “Hi, this is Sophie, please leave a message.”

He ended the call and tossed the phone onto the seat.

Fear burned in snapping red flames at the edges of his mind as he tried to think.
Why had she come here?

It didn’t matter, only that she had, and that she had left again without her Jeep. And, most likely, with Manny.

With a killer.

He had to be sure they weren’t here. Pulling out his key, he dashed to the locked gate of the equipment yard, swung it open, and ran into the barn. Then behind it.

No one. They weren’t in the office, either.

He ran back to the truck, started it, then sat gripping the wheel, forcing himself to think. Where would Manny take her? The wilderness? His house? Another town? He had no ideas, no way to narrow the possibilities.