Harlequin Love Inspired Suspense March 2021--Box Set 2 of 2 Dana Mentink (e books free to read TXT) 📖

his seat and rubbed a hand across his eyes. “There’s a turn just before the trail where I can get out without her seeing. I’ll circle around, get behind her if I can.”

Beckett sighed. “Thank you.” He pushed the truck through the restless night.

Hold on, Laney. I’ll be there soon, honey. He drove rapidly, pushing the speed limit except for the ten-second stop just before the trail where Jude leaped out and disappeared into the night. Beckett kept on, mind whirling. He would string Irene along, keep her there until Jude could get into position. She would not get away and she would not be able to hurt Laney…unless she already had.

The thought would have rendered him immobile, if he actually could make himself believe it, but his soul would not allow it. God would not take her and his baby. Even if he was not ever to really be her husband again, God would not end their story that way. He clung to that with the desperation of a man dangling over a cliff, holding the fraying ends of a rope.

His phone buzzed again.

“I can see your headlights. Turn right in fifty yards and stay on the phone,” Irene said.

He did, the truck rattling over the ground.

“Shut off the engine and stand in the path and keep your hands where I can see them.”

He killed the ignition and a set of headlights blinked on, blinding him. His eyes adjusted to make out the figure of Irene, arm outstretched and aiming a pistol.

“Give it to me,” she said.

“Where’s Laney?”

“Close by.”

“Not good enough.”

“It will have to be.”

“It’s not, Irene. I have no reason to trust you. You killed two people and abducted your patient.”

He heard her breath hiss out. “I don’t have time to explain it. Give it to me. Now.”

He saw a flicker of movement behind her. Jude?

“I want to know where my wife…” He didn’t get the sentence finished before she pulled the trigger. A bullet whizzed by his temple. Reflexively, he hunched down, pulse hammering.

“I’m an excellent shot and I can search your dead body just as well as your live one. I’m going to ask you one more time and then I will kill you. I will drive from this spot to where Laney is and kill her too. Then I will leave here with the packet or without. Your only chance to save what you love is to give me what I want. That’s it. No negotiating.”

Still no Jude. If he gave her the packet, she would likely shoot him anyway. Jude would find Laney. In what condition?

Slowly he pulled the envelope from where he’d tucked it under his shirt.

What choice did he have?

None at all.

* * *

Blood trickled down Laney’s wrists. There was no point in yanking against the zip tie that bound her to the pole. She had to figure out another way. The fleeting patches of moonlight were not enough to illuminate the cloud-swept sky. Any moment Beckett might be arriving at the rendezvous with Irene.

“All right, girlfriend,” she muttered aloud. “You’re gonna have to get out of this all by yourself.”

She looked up at the tip of the rusted pole. It stretched some three feet above her head. There was no way she could climb to the top, even if she weren’t tied in place. Willow, Beckett’s extremely athletic cousin, could probably have done it, but not under the present circumstances. She raised her hands as far as she could behind her back, and her probing fingers encountered a place where a protruding hinge had corroded, leaving a sharp metal edge.

An impractical plan formed in her mind, but she did not allow herself to think of the yawning possibility of failure. She slid down the pole to the ground and used her taped feet to scoop as much gritty soil as she could into a pile. Standing on it, she realized the pile wasn’t high enough—she still could not reach the sharp spot, so she sank down and scraped more. Her thighs ached and her shins cramped. Panting and sweating, she crafted her hard-won debris into a taller mound. Carefully, she climbed to her feet again, stood on the pile and slid her arms up the pole.

Now her wrists were just even with the roughened metal. Immediately, she began to saw away at the zip tie. The position was excruciating on her muscles and she had to stop several times to rest. After five minutes of determined sawing, she began to despair. Maybe her plan would not work.

But five minutes had become ten, maybe fifteen since Irene had left. She was running out of time. Another round of backbreaking contortions, and she felt the glorious sensation of the zip tie giving way to the rusted metal hinge. She kept sawing.

When she thought she could not sustain the effort one more moment, one wrist came free. Now she was able to turn and apply herself to sawing away the other manacle. When she finished, she collapsed on the ground, sweating.

You have to find him, warn him. She had to get back to the main road and that would be challenge enough in the dark. With her fingernails, she found the seam of the duct tape and unwound it from her ankles. She stood painfully, pushing past the muscle cramps, wishing her eyes would adjust like Beckett always said they would. Walking only a few steps, she tumbled and went to her knees. Muttering, she got up again.

How was she going to get back to the main road without breaking a limb? She shoved her hands into the pockets of her sweater, pulled out the lighter. Stripping off her sweater, she found several long, dry sticks. Bundling them up, she used the duct tape from her ankles and secured the sweater in a tight knot around the top. “Too bad. I really liked this sweater.”

She lit the bunched sweater with her lighter and it began to burn, along with the duct tape. It wouldn’t