Читать книгу Mistaken Twin - Jodie Bailey - Страница 15

I can’t give you anything. Wyatt dropped his head against the seat of his truck and stared across the street at Jenna’s apartment. Maybe he was being overly suspicious, but it sure did feel like her insistence was a lie. Fine. He’d go around her. He’d find out the truth on his own.

Any news yet? Wyatt tapped out the message to fellow officer Brian Early, then rested his cell phone on his leg, settling in his seat to watch Jenna’s front door. He’d had Early bring his personal truck then take his SUV to the station. He wanted to remain as inconspicuous as possible as he sat parked in the dark end of the alley across the street from Jenna’s apartment. Thankfully, the historic building’s second story offered only one way in, the very stairs he’d practically had to chase her up earlier to keep her from running headlong into the unknown of her own apartment.

In some ways, she appeared to be heedless of the danger. In others, she appeared to be hyperaware of exactly what was going on, of what his department suspected. A brazen attack on Jenna could be random, or it could mean traffickers had already gained a toehold in the town, and they weren’t planning to be too careful about hiding themselves. If that was the case, this could be the start of a violent struggle for control of his hometown.

It was a leap, sure, to go from an attack on one woman to a human trafficking ring that had been dormant since the early fall. But his gut... His gut wouldn’t let him downplay the coincidence of those Texas license plates. A thin thread, but a thread nonetheless.

His phone buzzed on his thigh and he glanced at the screen. Nothing yet. Guy’s a ghost. Could be he cut and ran.

Anything on the car? They’d called in the county and had the car behind Jenna’s shop processed, but it would take time to get more than an owner’s name. Without a clear link to the traffickers, nobody higher up the chain than the county was going to get involved. In fact, the state and federal agents had cleared out weeks ago, their final report stating the gang had either had trouble with the van while passing through, or had been spooked enough by law enforcement’s presence to move on.

The almost-physical gnawing at the back of Wyatt’s brain said no.

His phone buzzed. Registered in Texas. Same county as the box truck. Working on getting more.

Thanks. Pushing deeper into his seat, Wyatt worked his shoulders back and forth, trying to ease some of the tension building there. Jenna had been cagey tonight. She tended to keep a low profile, and she was definitely hiding something. She’d asserted a dozen times that she didn’t know the man who’d been waiting for her in the shop, and Wyatt had finally stopped asking.

But something about her answers to his questions rang false. No, he didn’t think she was a criminal, but she certainly was not telling him the truth. Frustrating would be an understatement.

Chief Thompson was going to have to put someone else on this protection detail. Even with thin evidence, the man was cautious, wanting to be certain the smugglers weren’t behind this. Mountain Springs wasn’t a town with a high crime rate, even with all of the tourist activity. Violent crime was practically nonexistent. A kidnapping was unheard of.

The suspect was definitely an outsider, and no one randomly came to town to cause trouble. Until they knew for certain Jenna was safe, they’d keep an eye on her. But Wyatt couldn’t be the guy on point this time. The two of them had the worst kind of personality conflict. Worse than oil and water, they were ammonia and bleach. Put them in the same room and everyone else fled to get away from the toxic reaction.

And that was on a normal day, when she had no reason to lie.

Wyatt had had his fill of lying women. After what Kari had done to him, it was hard enough to trust anyone else. Nearly a decade later, the wound his former fiancée had inflicted still smarted, mostly in his pride. She’d strung him along for months, her eyes on what she viewed as “the prize.” Wyatt had been a young soldier from a small town, ignorant of the fact there were women in the world who preyed on guys like him, on the steady paycheck and benefits the army offered.

Hearing Kari tell a friend on the eve of their wedding how she’d “hit the jackpot” in death benefits and insurance if he died while deployed...

Her callousness had gutted him. The calculated way her expression shifted from disdain to adoration when he made himself known and it was clear what he’d heard... She’d tried to play it off as the nervousness of a young bride, as a joke.

His life was no joke.

His heart hadn’t shattered when he’d turned and walked out of the room, away from his dreams for the future. It had hardened into a mountain of stone.

Jenna Clark’s behavior since she’d arrived in town shook that mountain like an earthquake every time he looked at her. Something about her had a way of tweaking his attitude.

Leaning forward, he studied the front of the building that housed Higher Grounds Coffee Bar downstairs and Jenna’s apartment upstairs. Lights still shone from the coffee shop, which had stayed open past its usual eleven o’clock closing time due to the shows at the Fine Arts Center. Couples and groups of all ages flowed in and out of the large glass front door, seeking warmth against the cold, likely too full of energy from the bluegrass concert to head to the bed-and-breakfasts in town or the hotels about half an hour away. Nobody seemed out of place or overly interested in Jenna’s apartment upstairs.

He leaned forward an inch more. Light poured from the upstairs windows. If he’d expected Jenna to make her way to bed and at least try to rest by now, he’d have missed the mark. She probably wouldn’t catch five minutes of sleep tonight.

Leaving her alone had felt wrong, as though he had abandoned her, but he couldn’t stay after she’d turned on him and practically threw him out. Wyatt’s question had hit a nerve, but as much as he’d replayed their conversation before she showed him the door, he couldn’t figure out what was wrong.

Unless, though she’d denied it repeatedly, she truly knew the man who’d had his arm wrapped around her throat.

In the big picture, did it matter? The image of Jenna being treated so roughly made him bristle with anger and dredged up memories he fought daily to keep buried. Nobody did that to a woman.

Nobody.

A crowd of seven or eight college students exited the coffee shop and made a right up the hill toward the Fine Arts Center and the parking lot beyond it. A man at the rear of the pack broke away and edged to the left. He wore a hat pulled low so that his face was hidden in shadow. He leaned against the faded brick at the end of the building closest to Jenna’s, seeming disinterested in the crowd. The way his head moved, though, he was watching. Waiting.

Wyatt sat taller and wrapped his fingers around the door handle. The guy could have a buddy inside paying their bill. He could be two seconds from lighting a cigarette.

Or he could be trouble.

After double-checking to make sure the interior lights in the truck were off, Wyatt slipped out and eased the door shut.

The stranger didn’t seem to notice. He simply stood, leaning against the wall, watching as a chatting, laughing group passed between his position and Wyatt’s.

When the people cleared the space, the man lifted his head and looked directly across the street at Wyatt. With a sly half smile, the man lifted his hand and flicked a two-fingered mocking salute against his forehead before he turned toward the stairs to Jenna’s apartment.

A jolt of familiarity shot through Wyatt. He was the same man who’d tried to kidnap Jenna at her shop. Wyatt shifted to run, but a weight slammed into the small of his back, driving him to the ground and forcing the breath from his lungs. His cheek smacked the pavement and he slid several inches on his chest, rough gravel grinding into his shoulder. Using the momentum from the fall, he rolled onto his back and threw his arm out in time to deflect a blow from a muscular man wearing a dark shirt and a baseball cap.

His face wasn’t covered, which could only mean one thing...

He didn’t intend to let Wyatt live long enough to identify him.

With a lethal smile, he dove toward Wyatt, his face shadowed in the dim light from across the street.

Wyatt rolled to the side, years of military and police training kicking in with a vicious muscle memory. As his attacker stumbled, Wyatt threw out his leg and kicked beneath the left knee.

The man went to the ground with a howl, his cheek smacking the pavement with a sickening thud.

Handcuffs out before he even thought to grab them, Wyatt planted a knee in the man’s back and held him to the ground, cuffing his attacker before he could catch his breath. Tugging a second pair of cuffs from his belt, Wyatt jerked the guy upward and anchored him to the tow hook on the truck bumper.

The stranger’s head lolled to the side, blood dripping from his top lip, where his teeth had driven in. He sneered at Wyatt with a horrid amusement. “Don’t be in any hurry. The girl’s already dead.”

Footsteps pounded on the metal stairs outside the apartment.

Jenna set the coffeepot on the granite kitchen counter next to the .38 revolver she’d taken out of her closet after Wyatt left. The likelihood she would be able to pull the trigger while aiming at another human being was almost zero, but it still made her feel better to have protection at hand.

She stared over the bar at the door as the footsteps stopped outside. Wyatt had probably decided he had more intrusive questions to ask. Well, the door was dead bolted and the chain was on. Let him think she’d gone to sleep, was in the shower, whatever... He was not coming in here again tonight. She had to have time to think, to pray. The packed bag in the attic called to her, but what if running wasn’t the way out this time?

The door rattled as he grabbed the knob, then there was silence.

Jenna reached for the coffee carafe again.

The door exploded inward, wood splintering around the lock.

The coffeepot slipped from Jenna’s hands, hit the side of the sink and shattered in the basin as she released a strangled cry and stumbled backward until her back collided with the cold stainless steel refrigerator.

A man hulked in her doorway.

Not a man. The man. The one from her shop. The same leer curled his lip as he stepped onto her door and stood between her table and her couch, blocking her exit.

Panic robbed her muscles of strength. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t move. There was nothing to do but stare as the man stalked slowly toward her, his dark eyes never leaving hers. A deepening bruise ran along his jaw where Wyatt had delivered a near-crippling blow earlier.

Wyatt. He was watching. He had to have seen what was happening. He’d be on the stairs any second, bursting through the door to save her. She swallowed hard, pulled herself taller and found her voice. “You’d better leave. The police are watching.”

“Is that a fact?” The man stopped, his chuckle a low rumble. “You mean your boyfriend? The hero who rescued you earlier?” He sniffed and waved a hand in the direction of the door, his eyes practically glittering with amusement. “Sorry, hon. By now, he’s dead.”

The words hit her in the chest, rocking her backward until she was pressed fully against the refrigerator. The cold of the metal seeped through her shirt into her spine, bringing a shiver. No. He had to be lying. Wyatt couldn’t be dead because of her.

He couldn’t be dead at all.

Methodically, as though he enjoyed torturing her with his presence, the man stepped closer until he stood in the doorway of the kitchen between the column and the wall, a few feet from her position. “Here’s what you need to know to make this easier on both of us.” His hand went to his side and rested at his hip, where a gun was likely concealed beneath his navy blue windbreaker. “My boss pays me whether I bring you in alive or dead, though there’s twice as much in the bank if you’re breathing. He’d like the pleasure of taking care of you himself. It’s really up to you to decide what happens next. You can come to Texas with me all nice and quiet, or you can find yourself in the morgue next to your boyfriend. Either way, my wallet thanks you.”

The truth hardened her resolve and it flowed from her core to strengthen her weakened joints. If she walked meekly out her front door with this man and let him take her to El Paso, she was dead. Logan would never let her survive, not if he was willing to go to these lengths to drag her to her past.

No. She could die right here, but at least she’d go down fighting. She turned and backed down the long galley kitchen one foot, two. If she could reach a knife, something...

Her gaze drifted to the counter. The pistol.

His eyes followed hers and he walked into the kitchen, feet heavy on the tile floor. “I wouldn’t if I were you. You’ll never make it.”

No, she wouldn’t. Jenna jerked her hand toward the gun and, when the man lunged for it, she shifted to the right and shoved his back with everything she had in her, edging around him as he stumbled off balance and crashed into the wall behind her.

She ran for the door as more footsteps rang on the stairs from outside. Jenna stopped, her heart thumping painfully, freedom a breath away.

She was trapped.

A man appeared in the doorway.

Wyatt, his pistol drawn. In one smooth motion, he grabbed her by the wrist and tugged her behind him, leveling his weapon on the assailant in her kitchen. The man grabbed his head and stood staring wide-eyed at the police officer he’d assumed was dead.

“Put your hands behind your head. Don’t you dare even twitch in any other direction.” Wyatt’s voice was deep and commanding, daring the stranger to disobey him.

More sounds on the stairs. Officers Brian Early and Mike Owens crowded around Wyatt, weapons drawn, easing into the room.

Holstering his pistol as the other officers moved to apprehend their suspect, Wyatt reached for Jenna and drew her to his chest, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

“It’s over. We got him.”

Jenna shook her head. He could believe it was over if he wanted, but it wasn’t. There was clearly a price on her head, and unless Logan lifted the bounty...she was dead.