Defending Everly (Mountain Mercenaries #5)(75)

He continued. “You’re going to get in your car and drive to the grocery store parking lot up the street. Park at the back of the lot. The surveillance cameras can’t focus on what’s going on all the way back here. I’ll be waiting for you in a white van with a huge sign on the side that says Tuttle Plumbing. Don’t fuck this up,” the man warned. “You’d rather your sister be alive out in the world somewhere than dead, wouldn’t you?”

“Don’t hurt her,” Everly said between clenched teeth.

“Of course I don’t want to . . . she’s my life,” the man said. “But I will if you force me to.”

“I won’t.”

“Remember, I’m watching you. And that red shirt you’ve got on will stand out a bit too much for my liking. You should go change. Put on a black T-shirt instead.”

Chills ran up and down Everly’s spine.

She hadn’t fully believed the man when he’d said he could see her. She’d been planning on calling Ball the second she hung up. But she’d dug the red shirt out of the bottom of her drawer five minutes ago. There was no way the man on the phone could’ve guessed what she was wearing.

Dying to look for where he’d stashed the cameras, Everly forced herself to stand stock-still instead. “Okay. What else?”

“Flip-flops. You should put on a pair of sandals or flip-flops.”

“Okay.” She had no idea why in the world he wanted her in flip-flops, but at this point she didn’t care. “How do I know Elise is okay, that you even have her at all?”

“You want proof?” the man asked.

“Yes.”

Her phone vibrated in her hand. She took it away from her ear and stared at the picture that just came through.

Elise was sitting on the ground next to a tree, clearly in some wooded area. Her hands were bound behind her, and she was wearing the same clothes she’d worn to school that morning. Her eyes were red, and she had tear tracks through the dirt and dust on her face.

Everly heard the man talking and brought the phone back up to her ear.

“. . . about thirty minutes ago. This will be your only chance to save your sister. Are you brave enough to take it, knowing I plan on killing you?”

Everly opened her mouth to answer, but the phone line went dead.

Furious that Elise was tied up in the middle of some damn forest somewhere, scared out of her mind, not able to hear anything that was going on around her, Everly could practically feel the hate in her soul festering.

She hurried to her bedroom and threw the red shirt she’d been wearing on the floor. Everly pulled on a Colorado Springs Police Department navy-blue shirt, just to be spiteful—and as a reminder to herself that no matter what happened, she could handle this jackass—then took off her tennis shoes and socks. She stuffed her feet into a pair of cheap flip-flops she’d bought to wear to and from the pool in the apartment complex and hurried back into the other room.

She grabbed Elise’s phone from the counter and, thinking fast, took the time to go over to the sink. Assuming she was being watched, Everly pretended that she was crying—well, mostly pretended—and she stood there with her head bowed for a minute. Then she turned on the tap and threw some water on her face. Taking a deep breath, she pumped a large amount of soap into her hand. Lathering the fruity soap, she thoroughly washed her hands before drying them on a towel hanging on the handle of the refrigerator.

Then she went back to the phones and took a deep breath. She laid her hand over her sister’s phone for just a second, taking a second deep, steadying breath.

By the time the sun rose the next morning, either she’d be dead, and Elise would be on her way to wherever the crazy asshole on the phone wanted to take her. Or she and Elise would both be home, safe and sound, and her abductor would be dead.

She grabbed both phones and placed them in one of the drawers in the kitchen. Then she turned and headed for her apartment door. If whoever had her sister thought she would be too cowardly to come for her, he was wrong. He’d flat-out said he was going to kill her, but Everly was trained for this shit.

And she had Ball. He’d realize that something was terribly wrong, and he’d do whatever it took to find both her and Elise. Of that, she had no doubt whatsoever. The reason he’d been so pissed at his former partner was because she hadn’t acted like a true partner should. The same with his ex. Being a good partner meant everything to Ball.

He’d come for her. She knew it.

And she took comfort in the knowledge that, if the kidnapper did manage to kill her, Ball and his fellow Mountain Mercenaries wouldn’t rest until they brought Elise home.

The kidnapper’s mistake was not in thinking she’d never stop looking for her sister . . . he was exactly right, she wouldn’t. His mistake was in thinking someone else wouldn’t do the same. He obviously wasn’t stupid, but for some reason, he was overlooking the obvious, that Ball wouldn’t stop either. This asshole didn’t understand honor and devotion, at least not in a way that wasn’t obsessive and creepy. And Everly knew down to the very marrow of her bones that Ball wouldn’t rest until he’d tracked down Elise and the kidnapper, and made him pay.

He’d told her the story about his mysterious handler’s wife, how she’d disappeared more than a decade ago but Rex had never stopped looking for her. Never stopped believing she was out there somewhere.