Rounding another corner, Keara’s SUV jolted as it ran over something in the road. The back of her vehicle did the same and then the tires started making a rhythmic thump thump thump.
Flat tires.
What the hell had she hit?
Glancing around her at the darkening woods, Keara put her SUV in Park and pulled her gun as she stepped out of the vehicle.
Scanning the area and seeing nothing unusual, she walked to the back of her vehicle. There was a plank of wood driven through with upward facing nails directly behind her back wheels.
Adrenaline rushed through her, all her senses on alert as she lifted her weapon. She spun around just as something flew toward her head.
Keara ducked, trying to center her weapon at the figure that had rushed out of the woods, but the slab of wood still made contact with the top of her head.
Pain exploded in her skull, bringing tears to her eyes. Her feet came out from underneath her and her arm slammed down on the edge of the board of nails, making her lose her grip on the gun. It skidded away from her, out of reach.
Then the man she’d seen only from a distance that morning was filling her vision, a smile on his face. The bomber, murderer, arsonist. The man who’d shot at Jax. The man who’d killed Juan.
He wavered in her sight, her vision blurry from the hit to the head, her lungs screaming from the hard landing. Fighting the urge to throw up, ignoring the burning pain in her arm, Keara shoved herself upward, launching at him.
But he moved fast, swinging that slab of wood again.
Even though she threw up her arm to block it, the wood still made contact with the side of her head.
She hit the ground again, head throbbing, nausea welling up hard.
Then she was moving, her head bumping over every uneven piece of ground, into the woods.
Her vision went in and out, as dizziness threatened to overtake her, threatened to suck her into unconsciousness. Panic erupted, flooding her system with terror, but keeping her awake. She was weak from the blows to her head, too dizzy to stand. Too dizzy to fight.
He left her for a moment and she swallowed the nausea, tried to move, but her body wouldn’t cooperate. Then the bushes in front of her were moving and she blinked, trying to right her swaying vision, until she realized it wasn’t bushes she was seeing.
They were camouflage, broken branches strategically covering the truck he’d hidden just off the road. He planned to put her in that truck, to take her somewhere else.
It wasn’t a quick death he planned for her, but probably a painful one.
Keara rolled onto her belly, biting down on her cry of pain as her vision swung one way and then back again and her head throbbed violently. Where was her gun?
Too soon it didn’t matter because she was being lifted, thrown over his shoulder with frightening ease. He carried her around to the back of the truck where a metal gun box was propped open.
Keara kicked, raking her fingernails over the backs of his arms, still coherent enough to think like the cop she was. To get his DNA on her.
He yelped and swore and then he was swinging her fast enough to make her nausea overwhelming, make her vomit on the ground beneath him. Soon the ground disappeared altogether and she was being stuffed into the empty gun box.
She shoved upward, trying to escape, but he’d dropped her into the box awkwardly, making it hard to move. The multiple blows to the head and the new wave of dizziness slowed her down, too. The lid closed, leaving her in darkness.
As she heard him move away from her, she took deep breaths to reduce her panic, then slammed against the metal lid, trying to open it. The lid buckled slightly, but held. Then the truck started to move, taking her away with Juan’s killer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Have you heard from Keara?” Jax asked Ben over the phone, trying not to give in to worry. He’d called the agent after Keara hadn’t picked up, and told him the same news he’d given Keara’s voice mail.
“No. She’s on her way back from talking to someone up the mountain. She got a weird vibe from it, though. Said she’d stay in touch on her way down.” There was a pause and Jax imagined Ben frowning at his watch. “If I don’t hear from her in the next ten minutes, I’ll give her a call.”
Could she have followed a trail right to the bomber’s home? Or maybe he’d followed her up there, ambushed her on her way back?
Jax only halfway paid attention as Ben went on about what a great find Jax had made and said he’d start running the name Todd Margrove immediately. Then he asked if Jax thought it was Rodney’s elusive roommate from back in Texas. From the way he asked, Jax had a feeling he’d repeated the question a few times.
“Yeah, maybe. Look, let me call you back, okay?” He hung up without waiting for an answer, dread forming in his gut.
Maybe he was overreacting because he’d been shot at that morning, but he suddenly couldn’t stop picturing Keara in trouble. “Come on, Patches. Let’s go for a drive.”
Woof! She leaped to her feet, danced around him even as she didn’t get the usual laugh out of him.
He moved faster the closer he got to his SUV, scanning the semidarkened parking lot. He opened the back door and Patches jumped in, then Jax got behind the wheel.
“Hold on, Patches,” he told her, driving faster than was legal as he whipped out of the parking lot and headed for the mountain. It was closer from here than the police station and he couldn’t wait the ten minutes for Ben to follow up
