Wild Card (50 page)

transported the FBI agent Chuck Leon, when his cell phone rang.

Silence filled the apartment when Noah pulled it free of its holder, and mouthed,
Sabella's cell
.

He attached the electronic GPS tracker into his phone, then flipped it open.

"Blake."

"I'm sorry," Sabella whispered.

She was crying. Noah could hear the huskiness in her voice, the tears.

"It's okay, baby," he told her gently. "Are they there?"

"They want to talk—" Her voice cut off, and if he wasn't mistaken, he heard her cry out.

His nostrils flared, the need for blood exploding, pounding in his head.

"The sheriff is with you, we know that." A mechanical voice came over the line.

"He is."

The thin, distorted chuckle did nothing to disguise the glee in the abductor's voice.

"Tell him to stay there. If he leaves, they both die."

"Very well."

There was silence. "You're being agreeable. That's very good."

He remained silent.

"You went over the truck, didn't you, Blake?" the voice drawled. "You found the evidence and turned it in. Didn't you?"

"I did."

They knew. He knew. He would give them that much.

"Yeah, that putz agent we questioned just didn't convince us that he found it. He's still alive, by

the way. Do you care?"

"Not particularly."

Another chuckle. "You're not an agent, are you? What are you then?"

"Let's say, a concerned bystander," he drawled. "My mother was Mexican. She wouldn't have

liked you very much."

It was a lie. His mother had been pure blue blood.

"Then your mother was a whore. We kill whores."

Noah waited. A heartbeat. Two. Three.

"What do you want?" He kept his voice calm, cool. It was icy. There was no burning rage.

There was no impatience. He had known they would call.

"Belle is a beautiful little whore too." The voice was smug, taunting. "She'll make a nice play thing when you're dead."

"You have to kill me first," Noah pointed out.

He didn't look at the men in the room. He stared at the single picture that Sabella had kept in

the apartment. A picture of them before they married.

His arms were around her shoulders as they stared into the camera, her expression soft,

vulnerable. Loving. He could almost smell that day. The scent of her perfume, the scent of sex

still clinging to them.

"Yes, we do get to kill you first." Laughter trickled over the connection. "It's good that you're alone except for the sheriff. All your mechanics in place as they should be. Everyone just busy

little beavers, aren't they, Mr. Blake?" We're watching, you know.

"That's their job," he agreed.

No emotion. He felt nothing. He kept staring at the picture of him and Sabella. No, the picture

of Sabella and her husband. The man he was then didn't resemble the man he was now. There

was no fear, no worry. There was a sense of death, a knowledge that no matter the outcome,

blood was going to spill and it wouldn't be all his. None of it would be Sabella's.

"You'll make an interesting hunt," the abductor said to torment him. "A nice little addition to my trophies. That wasn't nice of you, poking your nose in where it wasn't wanted."

He nodded slowly. Here it came. Finally. The end of the road.

"Here's what you're going to do, Mr. Blake. And you're going to do it alone. If we see anyone

else leave the garage, then the girls die. If you don't follow directions exactly, they die. If

you're late, they die."

Melodrama. Fuck, he hated the wait.

"Yeah, I breathe the wrong way and they die. I got it."

He was aware of Jordan wincing, the looks the other men gave him.

Another chuckle. "Do you know the national park?"

Like the back of his hand. "Not very well. I haven't had time to do much sightseeing."

There was silence. Noah waited it out. He let it flow over him, refused to consider the risks. He

was a nobody here. They didn't suspect anything. He was a mechanic, nothing more.

"Do you know where they found the little female FBI agent? I know you been in town long

enough for that."

The canyon was about an hour away.

"I know."

"You'll be met. You have an hour after this call disconnects to get there. Would you like to tell

your little girlfriend bye?"

"If you want your hunt, I'll see her alive before it begins. She's of no use to me dead."

Laughter again, grating, knowing.

"Sure. You can say your goodbyes in person. You'll be met. You have one hour."

Noah disconnected. He dragged his jacket from the back of a chair. He was already outfitted in

the chaps. The butter-soft leather conformed and moved easily with him. Hiking boots. Skin

tag locator on both shoulders. Belt buckle equipped with a locator as well. All deactivated until

needed.

"You'll have to slip out with the others," he told Rick as he moved for the door.

"Like hell. If she's in on this, then I'll take care of it." The sheriff's eyes burned with anger as he caught Noah's arm.

"Grip my arm again and your throat comes out." He peeled the sheriff's hand from his arm.

"You'll come in with the others. And she's the only way they could have taken Sabella so

easily. You know it, as well as I do."

Rick's jaw clenched, a muscle ticking furiously at the side.

"We need someone to prosecute, Noah," Jordan reminded him. "Remember that when the hunt

starts. We'll be in place and ready to move. T will track you from the rendezvous."

Noah nodded and left the apartment, slamming the door behind him.

He could feel the eyes on him. By time he made the rendezvous, it would be nearing dark. The

others could slip into place then. Getting them out of the garage wouldn't be a problem.

Noah had been a SEAL. He believed in escape routes to hell and back. And Jordan knew them

all.

He straddled the Harley and set the motor to throbbing before kicking into gear and tearing out

of the parking lot.

The wind whipped through his hair, and he heard Sabella's light laughter, her passion moans.

The sound of tears in her voice when she called.

She was frightened. He could hear the fear. But he heard something else too. He had heard

trust. There hadn't been hysteria. She hadn't begged him to save her. She had known he would

come for her. He had heard that in her voice. Her knowledge, her trust.

She was a woman any man could be proud to call his own. But Sabella was still tender, still

vulnerable. She was a woman who loved with everything inside her. And that was how she

loved the man he had been.

With everything inside her.

He kicked the gas to the Harley and let it tear down the road. He knew exactly where he was

going. He'd tracked the area after the unit moved in and canvassed every inch of it. The female

FBI agent's body had been found at the base of one of the small rises, her body dug up by

scavengers. The area had been widely publicized.

For a second, just a second, an image of Sabella flashed in his mind, eyes wide in death, her

face white, lips bloodless. He twisted the gas and let the Harley tear down the road. Rage bit at

him, hard, fast, before he countered it, before the icy hunger for blood overrode it once again.

He wasn't a husband. He wasn't a lover. He was a dead man. And he was about to have

company in hell. It was that simple. That was how he had survived for the past six years and. It

was how he had rehabilitated, it was how he rebuilt himself.

He was a husband. A lover. And what belonged to him had been threatened. Taken. It wouldn't

happen again.

Dusk was settling as Noah pulled in, only feet from where the dead agent's body had been

found. Three black-masked shadows waited on four-wheelers at the base of the rise.

Noah kicked the stand on the Harley, turned it off, and dismounted slowly. He stared back at

them. None of them were Mike Conrad. But there was Delbert Ransome, those watery brown

eyes gleamed like a rat's. The other two men he identified by the shape of their faces and the

color of their eyes. One was a ranch hand from the Malone ranch. The other was the sheriff's

deputy, Hershel Jenkins. Damn. Rory was going to be pissed. He and Hershel had been

drinking buddies at one time.

Hershel moved from his four-wheeler and pointed to the small rack behind him. In his hand he

carried plastic restraints.

Noah moved to the back of the ATV, slid on, and let the son of a bitch cuff his wrists to the

edge of the rack. Seconds later, they were tearing off through the night.

He felt the first electronic skin tag tracker on his left shoulder heat up. It had a five-minute

range. Eyes were already watching. He could feel them. The SEALs would be in place. Reno,

Clint, Kell, Macey, and Ian. They would have been deployed from the bunker the minute they

knew the rendezvous point and they'd be tracking.

Satellite would be trained on the ATVs' progress. The ATVs' headlights cut through the

darkness, but Noah knew there were others watching as well. Militia members, to make certain

there was no backup.

There was plenty of backup.

They'd thought Noah would be taken, not Sabella. The outsider coming in and taking over

something it was rumored the militia wanted. That being the garage. He had controlled it,

controlled its owner. They hadn't expected Sabella to be taken.

Noah held on to the rack, braced himself, and flowed with the hard thumps, the deliberately

rough ride. These boys thought they knew how to hurt. They didn't know anything about pain.

About madness. About death.

Noah knew. And he knew they had no idea what monster they were bringing into their midst.

The night vision contacts were working, though not as well as goggles would have. The faded

green aura of the landscape was clearly visible. He could see another of Gaylen Patrick's ranch

hands in a pickup as they passed it, tucked into the shelter of a small grove of pines.

He saw the shadow behind it and smiled. Yeah, there were a lot of shadows moving in these

mountains tonight.

Ten minutes. Fifteen. Twenty minutes.

Finally, the ATVs turned off into a small canyon and pulled in front of an opening into the base

of a nearly sheer cliff.

They hadn't known about this one. It was perfectly hidden by the brash and bramble in front of

it and the ledge of the cliff over it. There was a faint light coming from inside.

The restraints were cut and a rifle shoved in his face as he was pointed to the opening.

How easy it would be to shove the barrel of the weapon up the deputy's ass while he took out

the other two. Silently. It could be done so silently.

He grinned instead and turned, walking into the entrance and waiting for the contacts to adjust

as the light deepened. Sabella's abductors' precautions against the light showing from the

outside allowed the contacts time to adjust until his vision was clear when he turned into the

main cavern.

He stepped in, his gaze finding Sabella immediately.

Someone had hit her. Her cheek was bruised, blood still marred her nose. Her gray eyes were

dark with anger. And fear.

The cavern was large enough. She was tied to a small cot, her wrists cuffed to the metal frame,

though she had been left sitting.

Across the room Mike Conrad grinned back at him. He hadn't bothered to cover his face.

Sienna sat between his splayed legs, playing with the ends of her hair as she stared back at him

maliciously.

"All that leather just looks hot," she drawled. "Come on, Mike, let me make him fuck me

before you go hunting. That illegal ass you kidnapped last month did it. His wife cried so

pitifully. I want to see Belle cry while her lover fucks me. Just like her husband did."

Noah had never touched her. There had always been something about Sienna that just put him

off. There had been no challenge. No sense of depth.

"Strip." He shrugged, staring back at her. "I have time if you do.'"

Head games. He knew head games.

She pouted and sniffed. "Not on your life. You're probably diseased after fucking that heifer."

She nodded to Sabella.

He lifted his shoulder negligently and turned to Mike.

This had once been his friend. Strange, he'd never seen the bloodthirstiness in Mike's eyes

before now. What had changed? What had changed him?

Mike grinned. "As you can see, she's alive. She's not very talkative though."

He glanced over at her as he felt the tracker on his right shoulder heat. He shook his head at the

setup, looking around again.

Mike and Sienna watched him, obviously less than pleased at his reaction.

"I told you the bastard wasn't as easy to intimidate as you thought he was."

Noah didn't tense. He didn't turn. He stood still, relaxed. Yeah, he knew that voice. Gaylen

Patrick. He waited long seconds before turning just enough to see the other man.

He waddled in, his thick lips creasing into a smile, followed by the shorter, trimmer form of

Federal Judge Carl Clifford and the paunchy Marshal Kevin Lyle.

"Quite a little group," Noah drawled.

Smug satisfaction filled Patrick's beady hazel eyes.

"Yeah, we have some pretty good boys that like to play." He walked over to Mike and Sienna.

When he reached out and twisted one of her hard nipples she moaned like a bitch in heat and

leaned into him.

Camp whore. Damn, he just hadn't seen this one coming.

"I want a minute with Sabella alone." He stared at Patrick, aware of who was running this