Bridal Falls Ranch Ransom (16 page)

* * *

J.P.
stared out the window
onto the city below and waited for Eve to dress and come out of the bedroom. It was
seven a.m., but a bone-deep ache had awakened him hours ago. An ache he knew would never heal as long as he was alive.

He wanted Eve Brooks. Hell, probably had from the moment he set eyes on her.

“Mmm. There you are.” She wrapped her arms around him from behind and put her cheek against his back.

Closing his eyes, he clasped her fingers with his own and memorized the sensation. He’d taken the liberty of contacting an ex-FBI buddy this morning, who’d agreed to act as a bodyguard for her. There wasn’t much more he could do, except tell her the truth.

Sobering, he turned out of her grasp. “Eve. Sit down. I have something to tell you.”

She smiled, her blue eyes flashing with a sex-crazed glint he found infectious, but he couldn’t join in this morning. Couldn’t let himself fall under the influence, or he was a goner.

“I’ve got something to tell you, too,” she said. “But you go first, since I’m assuming it’s the same thing you were trying to tell me in the parking garage yesterday evening.”

“Yeah.” He watched her settle on the sofa, but he couldn’t bring himself to sit. His nerves were fried, his emotions shot full of holes. The only thing not fazed by this dilemma was his revved-up libido.

He smoothed a hand over his head and stared at her sitting on the sofa in her cowboy boots and jeans.

“You know I worked for the FBI before I opened my security company.”

“I did know that.”

“What I never told you was I worked the hostage rescue unit as its tactical commander.”

“That’s a great title. I’m sure you did a kick-butt job.”

Frustration jolted through him as he moved closer to her and perched on the edge of the club chair directly across from her.

“You don’t understand, Eve. I worked your half sister Shelly’s kidnapping case. I was calling the shots on the ground.”

A brief mask of realization slipped across her features and settled in the hard set of her mouth. “You were there that day?”

“I gave the order to move in early on the kidnapper’s location. We had it pegged based on a phone trace, but they must have spotted us before we could reach them—”

“Shelly’s dead because of you!” Eve’s heart shattered into a million tiny pieces. “Because you jumped the gun!”

She stared at the man she loved, the man who’d brought her back to life and sealed it last night in her bed.

The faceless FBI bureaucrat she’d always blamed for her half sister’s death was sitting across from her right now, and she’d had the misfortune to fall for him?

Irony branded itself on her soul, sucking the breath from her lungs. She fought off the first wave of a panic attack.

“Go! I never want to see you again.” She pushed to her feet, walked to the door and pulled it open.

“Eve, let me explain. I have to—”

“Just go!” She closed her eyes when he hesitated in front of her for a heartbeat, then stepped past. She couldn’t risk even a single glance into his eyes, or she’d fall apart before he reached the elevator.

Mustering every ounce of calm she could find, she closed the door softly behind him and crumpled to the floor.

* * *

“S
crewdriver
,
on the rocks
, hold the vodka.” J.P. slid his empty cocktail glass across to the bartender and slapped a twenty-dollar bill on the bar next to the tabloid rag. He stared at the front-page picture of himself and Eve in the parking garage yesterday. A photo he could use to identify the maniac who’d taken it...if the rag would reveal its source.

He gritted his teeth to keep from mentally strangling the paparazzi jerk who’d taken the shot via distraction on four wheels. The absurd headline was even more outrageous.

Eve Brooks Back from the Brink of Death? What’s Wrong with Her Face and Who’s Her Cowboy Hunk?

“It’s nine a.m., buddy. I’m trying to put together a booze order. You know you can get O.J. over in the Grand Café?”

“I like your orange juice better.” And the fact that he could keep an eye on the executive elevator from here. He glanced at his watch. It had been two hours since he’d ripped out his own heart and left it beating on the floor of Eve’s suite.

Maybe he should have kept the information to himself.

Maybe he wanted to be able to live with himself.

Maybe he should have told her how she made his heart hammer, and his mouth go dry, and his tongue say goofy things.

Maybe he should have told her he loved her.

“You okay?” the bartender asked as he slid another glass of orange juice toward him on a bar napkin. “You don’t look so good.”

“I should have said those three words to her face.” He picked up the glass and took a sip.

“One-night stand?” The bartender wrinkled up his face.

“I love you.”

“That’s heavy.”

“I know.”

He had to go back up there.

“Keep the change.” He slid off the stool and aimed for the elevator. She would probably slam the door in his face, but he couldn’t let her go without telling her how he felt. Last night had only made it clear.

Pulling the pass key out of his shirt pocket, he put it in the card slot and pulled it out. The doors slid open. He stepped inside and punched in the floor code.

The double layer of security gave him a measure of trust, knowing she was locked safely inside her room. Dear God, he hoped she hadn’t experienced a relapse. She’d come so far emotionally from the shattered woman who’d spoken to him from behind the screen, afraid to let him or the world see her face, no thanks to the paparazzi.

The bell in the elevator car chimed, Eve’s floor number lit up and the doors eased open.

He stepped out into the corridor. Four doors lined the wall, all private suites like hers.

An odd smell hung in the air, a medicinal odor he associated with a hospital. Had to be something the housekeeping staff used. Strange he didn’t see a cleaning cart in the hallway.

Pausing outside the door to her suite, he raised his hand and knocked a couple of times.

“Eve. I know you’re in there. I need to speak to you...just hear me out and I’ll leave.” He waited.

“Eve?” Leaning close to the door, he pressed his ear to the panel. No sound of movement inside.

Caution raked across his nerves, along with the strong chemical scent, stronger now that he was right outside her door.

Sucking in a nose full of the odd smell, he sniffed it out, tracing it to the door handle.

Someone had used it recently with the chemical on their hands.

An uneasy sensation coursed through his body. He dug in his shirt pocket, took out the room key and shoved it in the slot.

The lock disengaged. He forced the handle down with his elbow to ensure he didn’t disturb any fingerprints that might still be on the surface.

J.P. shoved the door open and burst into the room.

“Eve!” Stopping in his tracks, he stared at the trashed room, where a struggle had taken place. A struggle she’d had to endure while he cooled his heels in the bar downstairs.

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.

A minute later he was on the line to hotel security.

Chapter Sixteen

J.P. stared out the window, listening to the uniforms speculate in the background. If he could rewind the clock two hours, he’d have stayed with her. His lapse in duty had cost him the woman he loved, but it could cost Eve her life if they didn’t find her in time.

“We’ve got blood.”

He turned around and stepped toward the forensics technician holding up a swab tipped in pink where the two-part chemical test had reacted to the hemoglobin in the sample.

“Where did you take it from?”

“What’s left of the champagne bottle. Looks like it was used in the confrontation.”

Mentally he retraced the scene in his mind. Eve had let someone in. There wasn’t any sign of forced entry. Was it someone she knew? Or someone with an access key?

The club chair he’d landed on just before she asked him to leave had been tipped over, maybe when its occupant was attacked from the front. A standing floor lamp beside it had also been knocked over in the struggle.

He knelt down, spotting a dark smudge on the rubbed-bronze fixture. “Take a look at this.” He motioned to the technician. “Could be more blood.”

“Kind of looks like it. Hard to tell for sure because of the dark finish.” The technician opened another swab and rubbed it across the stain. A drop of phenolphthalein reagent, followed by a drop of hydrogen peroxide, rapidly turned the tip pink.

“Positive for blood.”

Pushing to his feet, he stepped back, putting together the rest of the scenario. Eve had probably been sitting on the sofa when the kidnapper entered, or she let him in. The champagne bottle had been his first weapon of opportunity. She must have fought back, and when it didn’t bring her down, he’d been forced to use the lamp. But what about the chemical smell? The technician had determined it was ether. He’d probably used it to make sure she was out.

Gritting his teeth, he tried to put the mind-numbing images out of his head, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t rest until he found her. He had to get moving.

“Just a heads-up.” He gestured to the technician. “You’re going to find my DNA in here. I spent the night with Eve Brooks last night.”

“Good to know. I’ll need an exemplar sample from you to run a comparison.”

“Can you take it now?”

“Yeah.”

He followed the technician over to the wet bar, where he took a cheek swab from inside his mouth. The man sealed it inside its sterile container. “Name?”

“J.P. Ryker.” He watched him label the sample and put it back inside his kit.

“Ryker?”

He turned at the familiar sound of his former FBI cohort’s voice. The only fellow agent he’d confided in about his reasons for leaving the bureau.

Mike Bennett extended his hand. “How the hell are you?”

Reaching out, he shook it, noting Mike hadn’t changed much in the two years since he’d left the bureau.

“I’ll be better when we find her.”

“Eve Brooks is your client?”

“Has been for close to a month.”

Mike eyed him, speculation drawing his brows together. “Any idea who’d want to kidnap her?”

“The same nut job who kidnapped her business partner, Thomas Avery, eight months ago and wasn’t able to collect the ransom.”

“I don’t think we caught that case.”

“I know you didn’t. Eve’s got a thing against the bureau, seeing how I botched her half sister Shelly McGinnis’s kidnapping case three years ago and she wound up dead.”

“Simon McGinnis’s daughter?”

“Yeah. He’s married to Eve’s mother, Katherine.”

Realization dawned across Mike’s features in a mix of surprise and disgust. “Damn. Does she know who you are?”

“She does now. I told her this morning before she was abducted. She was angry. She asked me to leave. I complied.”

“You can’t blame yourself for this, or what happened three years ago. There isn’t an agent on the team that day who wasn’t affected by the tragedy.”

“I’ve got to find her, Mike. I’m headed down to hotel security right now to view the hallway security footage.”

“You’ve gotta keep me informed of what you find if you want to stay in the official loop.”

“I will.” He nodded to his old friend and left the suite. It helped he’d picked up an ally, but the clock was still ticking on Eve’s life.

He’d already wasted three hours.

* * *

T
hirst, bone-dry death.

“Wat...er.” The word traveled up her throat and rasped out of her mouth. She opened her eyes in the darkness, sensing more than seeing someone in the room. The silence around her was deafening. The hum in her eardrums constant.

Where was she?

She was alive. She knew that much by the excruciating pain circumventing her wrists tied above her head. There was no feeling in her hands, and the chill of the hard floor under her butt confirmed she was sitting on the ground.

The click of a button directly in front of her knifed a beam of light into her eyes.

Mind-numbing pain pulsed inside her head. She shut her lids against the onslaught.

“Drink.” The demand was firm and in a female voice.

The maid who’d come into her suite shortly after she’d demanded J.P. leave?

J.P.

The woman clutched her chin, tipped her face up and shoved a water bottle between her teeth.

She swallowed the liquid as fast as she could, but the gusher coming out of the bottle overwhelmed her.

The woman jerked the bottle away.

Fighting to breathe, she choked and coughed until her insides ached.

A wave of nausea roiled in her stomach, but she contained it by sucking air in through her nose and exhaling out of her mouth.

“It’s the drug on an empty stomach. I’ll bring you something to eat.”

Horror skimmed across her fractured equilibrium. She watched the light source on the woman’s head gyrate and spin off into the darkness.

She’d been given a drug? It explained why everything was a blur. Everything but her memories of J.P. holding her, loving her. Mentally she hung on to the image in her head and used it to blot out the pain.

I’m here, J.P.... Where are you...?

* * *

J.P.
rubbed his neck
and rocked his head back and forth to relieve the tension.

An hour and he still hadn’t caught a glimpse of anyone entering the suite.

Pressing the advance button, he watched frame after frame of the empty corridor click by.

“Bingo.” Taking his finger off the forward button, he reversed the digital video, then hit Play again.

A maid’s cart moved into the lower right-hand corner of the monitor. He watched her knock on the door. The door opened. He caught a brief glimpse of Eve. His heart squeezed in his chest. Remorse locked down tight on his conscience.

The woman in uniform entered the suite. He watched the time pass on the time stamp. One minute.... Two.... Three.... Four.... Five, the door opened, the maid snagged her cleaning cart and maneuvered it into the suite, careful to keep her head down. Careful to avoid looking directly into the security camera he was certain she knew was there.

“Dan.” He motioned to the chief of security who’d made it his mission to help out any way he could. The reputation of the Omni was at stake. He’d explained he couldn’t have guests being kidnapped out of their rooms.

“Did you find something?”

“Yeah. Look at this.” He rewound the footage and played it again. “I’m going to need the name and address of that maid.”

“Certainly.” The security chief went back to his desk and hammered the information into his computer. Two minutes later he handed J.P. a piece of paper with a name, address and phone number.

“According to our payroll department, it’s Jenny Garza’s floor, but she never clocked in today and she hasn’t been to work for the last couple of days even though her cleaning cart is missing. No phone calls either. She’s MIA.”

J.P. pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number on the paper. It rang and rang, but no one picked up.

“Contact the police, have them do a welfare check at Miss Garza’s residence.”

Dan nodded and hurried to his desk to call the police.

J.P. rubbed his eyes, praying he could catch a break. Was Jenny Garza involved, or was she a victim of a determined kidnapper who needed her pass keys, cart and floor code to get to Eve?

* * *

“I
t’s hot
.”

Eve forced open her mouth for another spoonful of flavorless soup the woman with the light on her head shoveled between her chapped and swollen lips.

Taking measured swallows, she worked to keep from choking again. Her throat was raw, her sense of place distorted.

“Let me...go,” she whispered before the next spoonful appeared in the ring of light aimed at her face. “I’ll pay...as much as you want. You can have it all.”

Silence. Bone-chilling silence. She shuddered, unable to control a wave of vibration centered deep in her body.

Desperation squeezed her throat shut. She turned her head to avoid the next spoonful of sustenance she was beginning to suspect contained more drugs.

“Suit yourself. It won’t be long now.”

Eve closed her eyes and sank back into the darkness.

* * *

J.P.
rolled up on the
address in East L.A.’s Boyle Heights and parked the courtesy car the hotel had loaned him to drive for as long as he needed it. Dan had relayed the bad news to him.

Jenny Garza was dead.

A knot lodged in his chest and refused to dissolve. If the kidnapper was responsible for the murder of an innocent hotel maid in order to obtain her pass keys and floor codes, what was he capable of doing to his sweet Eve?

He climbed out of the car, spotting Mike Bennett standing inside the perimeter of bright yellow crime scene tape the cops had used to cordon off the single-family home.

“Ryker.” Mike saw him and broke out of the circle of agents he was briefing. “Hey, good call, buddy. Unfortunately we’re too late.”

“You pulled this from the locals?”

“Yeah, we took jurisdiction in the investigation. I’m hoping we can find some evidence to put us on the trail of Eve’s kidnapper.”

“Did you find Garza’s pass keys?”

“Negative.”

“What more do you need? Whoever took Eve used the keys they stole from Garza, and the floor code they probably had to squeeze out of her. Any indication she was coerced?”

“Plenty. She was tied to a chair. She has multiple contusions and choke marks on her neck. Someone wanted information and obviously got it so they could gain access to Miss Brooks.”

“Any idea what Garza’s cause of death is?”

“No. We’ll have to wait until the autopsy.”

He gritted his teeth. “Better make it fast. Eve doesn’t have much time.”

“There’s something else you need to know. I got a call an hour ago from Thomas Avery, Eve’s fiancé—”

“Ex-fiancé.”

“Not according to him.”

Anger leached from his bones as he stared at Mike and tried to control his emotions. A hothead response wasn’t going to do anybody any good, least of all the woman he loved.

“Avery says a call came into his office this afternoon with a ransom demand for Eve Brooks’s return.”

“Let me quote it verbatim. Half a million dollars in unmarked bills. Put it in a stainless steel briefcase. Not a duffel bag. Wait for my instructions, or she dies.”

“I don’t know whether to arrest you or try to lure you back to the bureau as a mind reader.”

“Same ransom demand that came through in Avery’s case and in the contacts the kidnapper made with Eve at her Idaho ranch.”

“Avery recorded the call. I’ve got an agent picking it up right now.”

“What’s the kidnapper’s time frame?”

“Ten a.m. tomorrow.”

“Where’s the drop scheduled to take place?”

“A storm drain off the Pacific Coast Highway.”

The same storm drain where Thomas Avery was held?

“Cross-reference the location with information on Mr. Avery’s kidnapping eight months ago. LAPD found him based on directions his kidnapper gave to Eve. Maybe it’s the same location the kidnapper has requested for her ransom drop. An area he has scoped out. I’m going to head back to the hotel after I swing by my office and pick up a file.”

“You’re saying the kidnappings of Thomas Avery and Eve Brooks are linked?”

“Yes. The disgruntled kidnapper contacted her again about a month ago.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Because he wasn’t able to collect the half-a-million-dollar ransom in the California desert.”

At least that’s what the kidnapper wanted them to believe.

“Keep me in the loop, Ryker. I’ll be back at the Omni in an hour just so you can tell me what the hell’s going on.”

J.P. nodded and turned for his vehicle, nursing a notion in his gut as fragile as a newborn baby. There was only one way to prove it.

He climbed in the car, fired the engine and pulled away.

If Eve could face down her demons, he could face his, too.

* * *

J.P.
closed the bootlegged
file he’d kept locked away in his office for the past three years, a file he’d never read in its entirety, until now. Nitpicky details the follow-up boys in suits had compiled long after tactical storm troopers like him had snuffed out their firepower and gone home. The nitpicky stuff that solved cases, the stuff he’d never appreciated.

Rubbing his hands up and down on his face, he tried to get his mind working again. He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for clarity. Something he could utilize to help find Eve.

The FBI had lifted a solitary fingerprint in the Shelly McGinnis case. A print they’d lifted off her body in the lab using a heated superglue vapor trick. The investigating agents had run the print through IAFIS, the FBI’s fingerprint identification system, but didn’t get a hit at the time.

Would anything pop if they ran it again?

Glancing up, he saw Mike Bennett headed for the makeshift office Dan had set up for him in the hotel’s security area, a small cubicle with glass windows down one side, giving him a full view of the entire office space. Reaching down, he slid the manila file folder under the keyboard.