Page 65 of Sniper's Pride

When they did, he found himself in a loft that ran thelength of the barn. There was no hay, though he couldn’t tell if the dirt everywhere suggested it had once been here. There were rusted old farm implements shoved haphazardly against the walls and unidentifiable mounds covered in tarps.

And in the center, near an open trapdoor that led to the ground floor, was a woman duct-taped to a chair.

It isn’t Mariah.

It wasn’t Mariah, he told himself sternly a split second after his adrenaline kicked in like an elbow to his sternum.

And he would have known it was Mariah’s mother even if he hadn’t seen pictures or that video on Mariah’s laptop back in Grizzly Harbor. It was the narrow way the woman stared at him, as if she were gathering her wits before handling the armed man who’d just swung in to her hayloft.

Rose Ellen McKenna reminded him of her daughter in other ways, too. Suspicious blue eyes, a mutinous chin, and no apparent fear when she should have been pale with it.

Griffin didn’t move. He was listening while he held her gaze, trying to figure out who else was in this barn and, more important, where they were.

“Where is she?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

Rose Ellen had duct tape over her mouth, but angled her head toward the floor below them with a certain regal air that Griffin recognized all too well.

He started to make his way across the loft, going carefully because he didn’t trust the wood beneath his feet not to creak and give him away. When he got close to Rose Ellen, he squatted down beside her and did aquick check for injuries. He found a few bruises, but nothing serious. And no blood.

She could still be hurt, of course. But he didn’t think she required medical attention.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” he promised her. “But I need to get Mariah out, too, so I might have to leave you up here and come back while I figure out how to do that. Do you understand?”

Rose Ellen nodded decisively. And something else flashed in her gaze that Griffin recognized all too well. Sheer fury. Like Mariah’s mother wanted to tear herself out of this chair and go handle whoever was downstairs herself.

He related.

“There are two men outside,” Griffin said quietly, right next to her ear. “I need to know how many more are inside. Nod when I get there.”

He lifted up a finger. Then another. Then one more, and she nodded.

Griffin eased himself over to the trapdoor opening and peered down, but he couldn’t see anyone. He could only hear them. Male voices, laughing with a sort of low, easy malice.

He turned back to catch Rose Ellen’s gaze, and waited until she nodded at him. Then he carefully, slowly moved back over to the far part of the loft so he could look outside and get eyes on the two men who had taken up their patrol again.

He spoke quietly into his comm. “The mother is here and unharmed. There are three douchebags downstairs plus the two outside. I can’t see Mariah without exposing myself.”

“Five on four isn’t a fair fight,” Jonas complained from his position to the east. “I can take five by myself. Where’s the fun in that?”

“I get the impression there’ll be fun to go around,” Blue chimed in. “Not much I enjoy more than relieving an idiot of his AR-15.”

“All I’ve seen so far is hired muscle,” Griffin said. “Which means that even if we relieve them all, we’re still going to have a problem. We don’t know who’s paying for this party.”

Griffin stayed in position but eased his head through the opening. Nothing had changed. A pretty day, a green field and greener trees, and no one in sight except the two goons. Now jumpier than before.

He shook his head as he ducked back into the shadows. “I don’t think you cart someone across the country to hang out with hired muscle in a barn.”

“Agreed,” Blue said.

Jonas made a low sound that Griffin interpreted as his agreement.

“Unless you hear something in there that changes the game, I think we wait,” Isaac said finally, once again making the call.

Once again based on Griffin’s intelligence.

But this time he had no intention of leaving Mariah out to dry.

Everyone muttered affirmatives, and then they all settled into radio silence.

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