Page 45 of Fortune’s Control (Fortune’s Creek #1)

“I know where she is. Jack, I need you.”

Detective Moore grabbed my shoulder. I shrugged it off.

“If you run in without a plan, people might get hurt. Wait until your sheriff arrives, and let them handle it,” he said.

“I don’t wait for others to make my decisions.” I stared down at him, glaring until he looked away. “Right now, I have questions, and you’re going to answer them. Jack, you know where my gun safe is?”

“On it.” He headed to my office.

“You can stay here, or you can come along and be useful. I don’t care which. I want my wife back, and I won’t wait for the sheriff’s department to drive halfway across this county so I can ask their permission. He’s your partner. Do you really want to sit here while he kills another woman?”

Moore drew back at my question. “You think I let him do this?”

I kept silent.

The ambulance left, and the sirens faded into the distance.

I wanted to be gone before local officials got in my way. “Jack!”

“Two shotguns and a box of shells.” Jack looked down at Moore with an amused expression. “Are you coming along?”

I didn’t care. Aiden was on his way to the hospital, and my wife needed me. “Jack, you drive,” I said, and tossed him my keys .

Jack started the ignition while Moore stood on the driveway like a goddamn idiot who couldn’t find the difference between right and a rancid boil on his ass.

He dived towards us, opening the back door, and leaping so that he ended up sprawled across the back seat.

“I’m only here to stop you two from doing something illegal. ”

I ignored him. “Thank you for driving.” It galled me to admit that I couldn’t. Fear for Lilah and a desperate desire to get her back combined to place me in a slow-moving hell. My hands shook, and my leg burned with fire.

“We’ll get her back. Damn, I almost feel sorry for the asshole you’re about to kill,” Jack said to distract me.

“I said nothing illegal,” Moore insisted.

“I told her I loved her, Jack, and I want to give her a ceremony, a proper one this time, like she deserves.”

“You’ll do all that. Aiden did us all a favor with his joke, not just you.”

I didn’t ask what he meant. “Drive faster.”

“What’s the plan for when we get there?” Jack asked.

A plan didn’t matter if we didn’t get to her in time. They didn’t shoot her like they did Aiden, which meant they wanted her alive, and not much time had passed. Lilah would talk and delay. She’d fight. “You remember the time we all skipped school, and we snuck up on the twins?”

*****

I positioned the detective between two trees, halfway between the truck and the first cabin.

“I won’t ask you to do anything illegal.

You’re a man of the law, and I respect that, but I am asking you to make a choice.

Stay here, and pretend you hear nothing.

If you hear a couple of gunshots, look the other way because you didn’t hear them.

Do you get that? Only one whistle, and you pretend it didn’t happen, either. Can you do that?”

Moore stiffened, and I thought he might protest, but he said, “I get it. Gunshots. Give me a reason. Do you get what I’m saying?”

“Two whistles, and it’s your chance to play the hero. Today’s glory is all yours. You’ll catch some bad guys, detective, just as soon as I get my wife back. Stay here.”

“Two whistles? Why two whistles?” he asked.

I lifted a hand to signal Jack.

Please let her be safe. Please let me not be too late.

I approached the cabin’s front door and noted the closed blinds on the windows, as well as the pale gray sedan.

We left the blinds open after our previous visit.

I pressed my ear against the door and heard two distinct voices, but their deeper tone didn’t match Lilah’s.

Looping twine around my phone, I tied a hasty knot and started a new video.

The cabin needed a pair of new doors. Years of neglected maintenance and harsh storms caused the bottoms to rot and wear, so they no longer reached the floor.

With an apology to my left leg, I stooped to check the exposed gap, ensuring my phone could fit through it.

With a sigh, I shoved my phone through the narrow gap and waited.

The muffled yells continued as I drew out my phone and checked the video. It confirmed the two men arguing. There was no sign of Lilah.

The fighting stopped, and a crash sounded as I whistled, opened the door, and aimed.

**** *

Terror gripped me.

Lilah lay on her stomach, whimpering with pain. The man straddling her hips held a knife to her neck.

The rushed activity hid Jack’s silent entry through the back door. He aimed a shotgun at Davis’s back while the detective pointed his revolver at me.

“Tell your man to let her go, or you’re dead,” I ordered.

“That won’t happen. Put down your gun, or Nelson slits her throat. If you’re banking on him choosing me, she’s dead. He won’t do that. Nelson always wants the kill.”

Nelson, the presumed younger brother, tightened his grip on Lilah’s hair until she cried in pain.

I tried again, louder, to hide Jack’s presence. “I can’t do that. Lilah, are you hurt?”

She came at me with a question of her own rather than an answer. “Did you find Aiden? He’s hurt. They shot him.” The fear in her voice tore through me, but so did her bravery. A knife at her neck, and she worried about our friend first.

“He’s dead. He sent me here before bleeding out. No one knows we’re here.” I yelled to keep the three sets of eyes focused on me.

I stepped closer, adjusting my aim. Nelson, or whoever he was, sat over her, limiting my ability to attack. Any movement from me or a surprise gunshot would only result in him attacking Lilah.

“That’s bullshit.” Davis cocked his gun and trained it on Lilah.

“Who else is here? My partner, I’ll bet.

What are you? Bait to flush us outside or a distraction while he waits for backup?

I know you hick types. A bunch of dumb fools thinking they know better.

I’ve interviewed plenty of smarter criminals than you. ”

Jack’s jaw ticked, but he offered no further reaction.

“You killed our friend. Isn’t that enough? Put the gun down and go. No one will stop you. Frankly, we don’t care where, as long as it’s out of this town. I’ll wave you goodbye.”

Jack risked another step forward, and the old floor creaked, betraying his presence.

“What the--” Davis didn’t get to finish.

Jack squeezed the trigger, and red bloomed on the detective’s cream shirt. He let out a gargled noise and fell to his knees, dropping the revolver.

Lilah screamed as I leaped at Nelson. He rolled off her and onto me as we battled for his knife.

“I’m not an easy victim like the young woman you target.”

The muscles in his arm drew the knife closer to my chest. I covered his hand with my own and smiled.

The knife twisted and turned, so the blade’s tip angled closer to his shoulder. I strained, pushing as he fought against me, and the knife sank into his flesh with one last stroke.

Nelson screamed and fell back as Jack’s boot landed on the guy’s side. He yelped as another kick landed on his chest.

“You stabbed me.” He touched the knife as if he meant to remove it, but then gave up. Tears and snot streamed down his face. “You killed my brother. He was my only family.”

Wounded and without his brother to help, he shrank into himself, revealing the weak coward he’d always been.

“You’re lucky the police are here, or you’d be dead, too.” I whistled a second time. “This way, the victim’s families get some justice.”

Moore, along with several deputies, swarmed into the cabin, and another kind of chaos took over.

Lilah flung herself into my arms, and I gripped her, afraid to let go. “Are you okay? ”

She clung to me and let out a sharp, ragged breath. “I knew you would come.”

I stroked her hair, desperate to search her body for any scratch or wound, no matter how minor. “Always. I’ll always come for you.”