Stone Cold Heart (Tracers #13)(88)

“Just east of White Falls. I’m out on Red Hawk Road, and we need to get a search team here ASAP, including a tracking dog—”

Her gaze fell on a man who stood on the side of the road, watching her. Sara’s stomach dropped. It was Bryce Gaines. He must have sneaked up on her while she’d been focused on her phone call. He stood less than twenty feet away, and he held something black in his hand. A stun gun? A pistol?

Sara’s throat went dry. It was a stun gun. But she was no less afraid. She’d seen what those could do to a body.

“Hello?” Talia’s voice sounded small and distant. “Sara?”

“He’s here.”

“What? Who’s there?”

He stepped toward her, and she took a step back.

“Bryce,” she croaked, as it all fell into place. “Talia, he’s here!”

He stepped closer. “Give me the phone, Sara.”

“It was you. You were the local guide who took him around.”

She clutched the phone in her hand like a weapon and took another step back. A distraction. She needed a distraction.

She stepped back again. “You showed him the caves, didn’t you? Where’s Grace?”

His mouth curved into an eerie smile. And then he lunged.

Sara brought her fist up, smashing his chin but dropping the phone. He grabbed her arm, but she wrenched free and lurched away. She stumbled and ran, screaming at the top of her lungs. Adrenaline flooded her as her limbic system kicked into gear, and she sprinted as fast as she could, as fast as her legs would move with her thin leather sandals slowing her down.

Sara’s heart galloped inside her chest. His footsteps slapped behind her, getting closer and closer, even as she ran so hard she thought her lungs would burst.

Fire blazed through her. She dropped to her knees. Another searing burst, and then there was nothing.





CHAPTER 27


Nolan raced down the highway, gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles burned.

“How much farther?” He shot a look at Talia.

“Uhh . . .” She fiddled with the map on her phone. “As the crow flies, only about a mile. But we’ve got to go around this whole pasture and—”

“Lemme see.”

She showed him the phone with their route highlighted in red.

Nolan stomped on the brakes and skidded to a halt. He threw the truck in reverse, shot backward, then threw it into drive and hit the gas. “Hold on.”

“What the— Nolan!”

The engine roared as they burst through the barbed-wire fence, scaring up a flock of birds perched in a nearby mesquite tree.

“What are you doing?”

“Cutting through the pasture.”

They bumped and lurched over the uneven terrain, hitting rocks and ruts. Nolan swerved around a giant prickly pear cactus. His heart felt like it was about to pound out of his chest as he thought of Sara. She’d been in the middle of a conversation about Bryce Gaines, and Talia had heard a struggle, then the call cut off.

He had her. Nolan felt it in his bones.

They hit a rut and pitched down, then up again. Nolan’s head jerked forward with a tooth-rattling snap. He looked at Talia beside him, gripping the door.

“Don’t look at me! Drive!” she yelled.

Nolan pressed the gas again, navigating the terrain as best he could, swerving around bushes and cacti. In the distance, a line of trees came into view, paralleling a barbed-wire fence.

“That has to be it,” he said. “Red Hawk Road.”

? ? ?

Sara’s body throbbed. She opened her eyes, then immediately closed them as pain ricocheted through her.

Bryce Gaines.

The name echoed inside her head.

He has Grace.

Sara sat up, wincing. Every cell, every nerve in her body was on fire. She looked around. She was surrounded by bushes. She wasn’t in the road anymore, but she could see it, maybe ten feet away at the top of an incline. How the hell had she gotten here? Glancing down, she realized her hands were tied.

Sara stared at the purple bindings with shock. She tried to move her hands, but the bindings were too tight. Her ankles were bound, too. She glanced around frantically, then looked at the bindings again with disbelief as she remembered the autopsy photos.

A hot wave of rage washed over her.

“Fuck. You,” she whispered. She went after the twine with her teeth. Gnawing and biting, she tried desperately to get through the cordage.

A distant noise.

She stopped. Her heart thrummed as she listened. Had she imagined it?

The noise was back, louder now, and it was definitely an engine. It was coming closer. It was coming here. Sara craned her neck to look at the road, and another shock hit her as she saw her black Explorer speeding toward her.

Holy, holy, holy hell. He was going to, what, abduct her in her own vehicle? Use it to dump her body somewhere . . . and then take off? He needed a getaway car now that his face and his white SUV were plastered all over the news.

She couldn’t run or hide, so instead, she played dead. She was motionless, completely still, until she could find a time to strike.

The Explorer skidded to a halt. She listened as the door opened and closed. Footsteps on the gravel. The cargo door squeaked open.

Fear gripped her. He was going to do it. He was going to load her in the back and take her . . . where? To his cave?