Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(92)

The sound of an engine revving echoed on the road. She stepped back. Then turned and ran.

The drive dropped down to the left and curved to the right. Her feet pounded hard against the concrete as she ran downhill, trying not to stumble and fall. At the bottom of the drive, she spotted a giant, contemporary mansion set on a cliff overlooking a sea of trees. Pushing her muscles harder, she raced toward the portico and rushed up the three elongated steps to the twelve-foot, ornate, double wood front doors.

She pounded her fist against the doors and yelled, “Hello?” Not waiting for an answer, she grabbed the iron handle and pressed down on the latch, but the door was locked. Slamming her hand against the door again, she hollered, “Hello? Is anyone in there?”

A rush of heavy footsteps sounded on the driveway. Whipping around, Raegan spotted two burly men in black racing toward her. Her eyes flew wide. She let go of the door and ran back down the steps, sprinting around the side of the three-car garage.

A flat concrete pad spread out behind the garage. Three steps led up to a back door. She jiggled the doorknob, only to find it locked. Jumping off the landing, she followed more elongated steps down the side of the house. Her pulse roared as she hustled to the bottom level. A staircase swept up to a deck that ran all along the back of the main level of the house. She paused to catch her breath and scanned the deck. There would be nowhere to hide up there. Heart thundering, she rushed underneath to the patio below.

The patio at the lowest level gave way to another deck that arced out over the cliff. No lights shone down here, and even in the middle of the day, with the trees all around blocking the daylight, it was hard to see. Her feet skidded to a stop just before she went sailing through a giant octagonal-shaped hole in the decking.

She jerked back several steps and gasped. The wood around the hole was fresh, unstained, as if it had been recently laid in preparation for a hot tub. Raegan scanned the railing on the far side, realizing there was nowhere here to hide either. She turned to go back the way she’d come when a voice shouted from the deck above.

Her heart shot into her throat as she froze and looked up. She strained to listen, but all she could hear was her pounding heartbeat. And then . . .

At her back, footsteps shuffled just before another voice chuckled close.

“There you are,” a man said behind her. “Feisty, aren’t you?”

Raegan swallowed a scream and whipped around. She couldn’t see more than a silhouette, but she knew the man was big, at least six three and over two hundred pounds. Panic built in her chest, making her skin prickle and her breaths shallow. She glanced to the right and left, only to find she was trapped.

The man moved toward her. “Come on, now. You’ve had your fun. It’s time to go.”

Defiance rose up inside Raegan. She wasn’t leaving. Not without her daughter. Swiveling away, she ran. The man behind her swore and sprinted after her. His hand darted out, grazing her elbow. Pushing her muscles as hard as she could, she jumped and prayed he didn’t jump with her. A grunt sounded at her back as she flew through the air, followed by a strangled scream and, finally, a thud.

Raegan’s body slammed into the wrought-iron railing. The air whooshed out of her lungs as she gripped the banister tightly, holding on as she looked over the cliff. The man sailed through the hole in the decking and hit the rocks far below.

Gasping, Raegan stumbled back from the railing and turned before she fell through the hole too. But she didn’t have more than a moment to catch her breath. A shout echoed on the verandah above, followed by the rush of footsteps. Her adrenaline spiked all over again, and she knew she had only a split second before the other thug found her. Looking across the deck, she spotted French doors on the house. She quickly rounded the hole, raced forward, and grasped the door handle, praying it had been left unlocked. The knob turned in her palm.

Relief sparked in her veins like a live wire. She stumbled inside the house, whipped around, and locked the door. Stepping back, she looked up and around. The game room was decked out with a giant TV along one wall and a bar along another. An archway past the bar opened to another room. To her left she spotted stairs that ran up to the main level.

She bolted toward the stairs, grasped the railing, and used it to help pull herself up. The stairs curved up to the right. Skipping steps, she rushed up to the main level and screamed, “Emma!”

No answer met her ears. No voices. She sprinted through rooms on the main level, searching. “Emma!” The elaborate kitchen opened to an enormous great room. Still no voices, no sounds met her ears, nothing to indicate anyone was home. “Emma!”

Fear tightened her throat as she checked one room after another—formal dining room, office, library, guest room—finding each empty and silent. In the marble entry, she scrambled up the ostentatious curved staircase and hurried across the bridge flanked by railings that looked over the entry on one side and the great room on the other. A whir sounded near her ear, followed by a thwack in the Sheetrock to her right.

Raegan’s eyes grew wide as she jerked forward, twisting around to see a hole where a bullet had torn through the wall. Her adrenaline surged. One glance over the side confirmed the man she’d heard outside had found a way in. In the center of the great room below, he lifted the gun again and pointed it right at her.

Another whir sounded. She yelped and threw herself around a corner.

“Little bitch,” the man yelled. His footsteps pounded against the marble in the entryway. “Come back here.”