Sweet Dreams (Colorado Mountain #2)(208)

“Dalton?” Frank asked.

“Jonas!” Tate bellowed. “Come down here!”

“Tate, Dalton?” Frank repeated.

“Call the Feds,” Tate demanded instead of answering as his son ran down the stairs.

“Dad?” Jonas asked.

“Computer, Bub. Go fire it up. Now,” Tate ordered and Jonas took off toward his office.

A couple more officers were coming down the stairs as Frank kept talking.

“Tate, buddy, now think about this. This might not be what you think. It might not be May-December. It’s Christmas, Laurie could be doing anything. I get you’re tweaked, Neeta, Tonia. But Lauren isn’t his type and you cast suspicion on someone in something like this –”

His vision got blurry again and his hands clenched into fists as his body leaned into Frank.

“You hesitate one more f**kin’ time when I tell you to do something, I swear to f**kin’ Christ, I’ll rip your goddamned heart out. Call the f**king Feds!”

Frank stared at him for half a second, then lifted his hand to the radio at his shoulder, pressed the button and muttered, “Dispatch, we need a 10-18 call to Special Agent Tambo. Suspected May-December activity at Jackson residence. Out.”

Tate heard Jacinda in Dispatch reply with a shocked, “Jackson residence? Out,” but he wasn’t listening. He was walking to his office.

* * * * *

Lauren

“You shouldn’t have fought me, Laurie,” Dalton whispered. “Why’d you fight me?”

I tasted my cloth gag and blood.

This was because I’d woken up in Dalton’s truck, sorted out my head, realized I wasn’t bound and then opened the door, rolling out to the earth even though the truck was speeding through the hills. This did not feel good and I suspected I did myself damage but I still got up and did my best to make a run for it, straight through the spiky pine and leafless aspen of the hills surrounding where Sunny had been attacked.

Dalton had caught me. He knew those woods. I didn’t.

Then he’d beaten the shit out of me no matter how hard I tried to fight back, he bested me and dragged me back to his truck. He cuffed my wrist to the door and then he’d driven me here.

Here.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away because, in a line, their hair was in plastic baggies nailed to the walls.

I saw Tonia’s gleaming black locks, Sunny’s shorn, frizzy, ash blonde hair.

And Neeta’s thick, lush dark brown.

I felt the sick slide up the back of my throat.

“He lives up there Laurie… bet my f**kin’ life on it, he lives up there. He knows that spot. He knows those woods. Bet my f**kin’ life he lives up there. He hunts up there. That’s his space. It’s his.”

Tate knew where I was, he had to know. He’d find me, he could do anything for me, he’d find me.

Please, God, let him find me.

“I didn’t want it to be you,” Dalton told me. “I didn’t. Fought it Laurie. But you should have married him before you moved in. Good girls get married, Laurie. They get married before they move in and let men touch them. I could handle it but then you let Jonas live with you. You and Tate, f**kin’ each other constantly, right when his boy was there. His boy. I see it. See the way you two are together. Barely able to keep your hands off each other. Your tongues down each other’s throats every chance you get. And I heard about it. You goin’ down on him in the mornin’.” He sucked in breath. “Jonas could see you, he could hear you. And I know he did. He did. Hedidhedidhedid.”

I swallowed back the bile then yelped behind my gag as I heard the fabric tearing and my head snapped around to look at him.

I was on a dirty mattress on the floor, the mattress covered in brown stains. Blood. Old blood. Tonia all but died here. Neeta did die there. And God knew who else.

I was bound and I was gagged, my hands tied over my head to an old, rusty radiator, my legs, opened wide, tied to huge, wide screws fixed to the floor.

“You shouldn’t have let him hear you, Laurie,” Dalton whispered and then the blade sunk into my side and my cry of pain was muted by the gag.

His mouth came to my ear as the blade slid out.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

* * * * *

Tate

“I’m gettin’ nothin’,” Tate said to Bubba who was standing at his back.

Bubba and Krystal had shown up five minutes ago. Bubba had had to drive like a wild man to get up there as fast as he did, all the while talking to Tate on his phone, giving Tate the info he had.

Dalton was off for two days when Neeta was done, he was off when Sunny was attacked and he was off when the girl in Chantelle was brutalized.

Krys had brought the application with them but Bubba had given him the details on his way up the hill, Krystal reading the data to him in the truck and Tate had been running the info through his databases for the last fifteen minutes.

Dalton Caulfield McIntyre didn’t exist. His address was in town but it was a f**king warehouse. He didn’t own a car. He didn’t own property. He didn’t have a record. He didn’t pay taxes. He didn’t have a f**king driver’s license. He didn’t even have any credit history.

Tate knew Dalton had a truck and a bike and Tate knew Krys, and now Laurie, withheld taxes on Dalton’s wages but for some f**king reason none of this showed anywhere.