Hell Breaks Loose (Devil's Rock #2)(21)

His brother gave him a quick hug, hanging on just a little too long. Pulling back, he motioned to the yard. “Keys in the ignition. I put some things in the back for you, too. Place should have some canned food, a few jugs of water and dried goods, but I filled an ice chest up with things you might need.”

“Thanks,” he said.

Reid descended the porch. Grace stayed one step ahead of him. She looked smaller somehow on the outside. He hastened until they were walking abreast of each other. He sent her a quick glance. She looked up at him with that damned cord around her neck, a faint quiver in her lip.

“Sorry ’bout that,” he said as he they advanced to the vehicle. Sorry about abducting you. Terrifying you. Feeling you up.

She shook her head and shot a glance over her shoulder as if verifying it was okay to talk now. He followed her gaze. The porch was empty. Zane had gone back inside. ’Course, that didn’t mean they weren’t being watched from the window.

He guided her to the waiting van, some relic from the nineties that smacked of “I have a kidnapped woman in the back. ”It would have to do. The thing that most worked to his benefit was that Grace had been taken several hundred miles east of her abduction site. And they were only going farther west. While the state was on an overall high alert, no one had seen the van. No one was specifically looking for this vehicle in relationship to Grace Reeves or him. Especially not way out in the badlands of Texas.

He yanked open the back doors, satisfied to at least see a blanket spread out on the hard metal floor.

“I can’t believe they are letting me go like this,” she whispered beside him, as though still afraid they could hear her. “I’m actually getting out of here.”

His chest tightened. He knew what she thought. Maybe he had let her think that by promising to keep her safe. She believed she was going home right now. He could tell her, explain it to her, but that would just be borrowing trouble before he needed to. It could wait.

He reached for her throat. Loosening the cord, he ignored the softness of her skin and nodded toward her wrists. “You can take those off once we get on our way. Climb in.” Right now they needed to put this place behind them.

With a grateful look at him, she turned and clambered up into the back of the van. There was that guilty feeling again.

He shut the heavy door with a slam, walked around the van and climbed up behind the wheel. He adjusted the rearview mayor so he could see her, then drove out of the yard. The van bounced along the unpaved the road.

“How far is it to the nearest police station?”

He flitted a look to the mirror before training his gaze on the dirt road stretching in front of them. “We’re pretty far from anything.” Not exactly an answer. Definitely not the truth. But it was enough for now. All he was going to explain.

She inferred what he intended, and he bought himself a little time. She worked her wrists free and tossed the cord aside.

Eventually he would have to explain the way things worked. She wouldn’t like it, but it wasn’t as though she had a choice. He didn’t break out of jail to play hero. He had saved her life. That was good enough for now. She would go home eventually and have an adventure to tell her future grandchildren. Maybe they’d even make a movie about her life.

He’d keep her safe. That was the only promise he’d made her.

He had to honor the promise he made to himself first.

He had to kill Sullivan.





Eight




The blanket offered little comfort beneath Grace. She felt every bump as she bounced against the van’s steel floor. By the time they reached the smooth ride of paved road, she was sore and knew she would bear the bruises for it. Still, she felt only relief to be leaving that house with all its scary, dead-eyed men behind. She had only one man to contend with now.

And he was an escaped convict.

She’d heard that as clear as day back in the house. Her life was in the hands of a man who had escaped from prison. She clung to the memory of Shawshank Redemption. Plenty of those convicts had hearts of gold . . . and honor. Great. She was holding him up to Hollywood fiction and Morgan Freeman. That was realistic.

She scooted forward and peered at him between the two front bucket seats, wondering how long until he stopped. How far could the nearest police station be? There had to be some type of law out here. A sheriff’s department or something. Obviously, he might not feel comfortable walking her inside himself, but he could drop her off a block away. Even a mile. He didn’t have to turn himself in because of her. She could assure him of that. Hell, she didn’t even have to say anything about him at all.

She waited as long as she could stand it and then asked, “How long will it take to get there?”

He shot her a quick glance and then looked back at the road, one hand draped idly over the steering wheel as though this were just a Sunday afternoon drive. She stared at that hand for a moment, briefly recalling the feel of it on her skin before she gave herself a hard mental shake and banished the image.

“Few hours.”

“Hours?” She frowned. “There has to be some sort of law enforcement closer than that.”

Again he glanced at her in the rearview mirror. It was a moment before he answered, “We’re not going to the authorities.”

She processed that as the van rumbled beneath and around her, vibrating up her bones to her very teeth. “I don’t understand.” Her voice was getting shrill, and she swallowed, fighting for a normal tone. “Where are we going?”