Page 8 of Wicked Obsession

“I didn’t. I swear. It’s the shoes. My foot slipped.”

“You’re thinking I won’t kill your friend here. You’re thinking if I do that, I ain’t got any leverage, but you know, I can hurt her without killing her. One more fucking mistake and I will hurt her bad, got it?”

“I have it. I’ll be careful. I promise.”Oh, God.A sob escaped as a soft hiccup.

You can do this. You’ve performed under pressure manytimes in the past. Not this particular kind of pressure, but nonetheless high-stakes situations. Lock down the emotions. Act now, feel later.

The light went green, and she concentrated on moving her foot smoothly from brake to accelerator. Despite her internal pep talk, Langley continued to shake as he guided her into an area that appeared remote. She hadn’t realized there was a part of San Diego that was this undeveloped. They continued driving.

“See that pole up there on the left?” he barked from the backseat after what seemed like forever.

“Yes.”

“Right past it, there’s an entrance. Turn in there.”

Langley leaned forward, trying to spot anything that resembled a road or driveway, but nothing leapt out at her. She couldn’t miss it. She couldn’t risk angering the man another time. She couldn’t put Sarah in jeopardy. Her pulse throbbed wildly against her throat, and she swore she could feel the rush of blood in her veins.

There was nobody behind them, and she slowed the car further. She barely saw it in time. To call that overgrown track an entrance was pushing it.

The unpaved drive was rutted, and they bumped along it. Langley tried to avoid as many of the holes as she could, afraid the man mightaccidentally squeeze the trigger on one of the bounces, but it was hard to do when the path was littered with them.

She was about to take a chance and ask him how far he wanted her to drive when they came around a curve and she spotted a house. That was their destination, she was certain. Langley kept the car moving slowly.

As they got closer, the tears welled again, and she blinked them away impatiently. The structure was single-story, large patches of shingles were missing from the roof, revealing the wood below, and the porch leaned slightly to the right. Overgrown bushes and tall grass obscured much of the front, but she could see that some of the siding had gaps—perfect entry for mice, rats, and insects of various kinds.

Boards covered the windows, but they appeared almost as old as the house, charcoal in color from years of weathering and dirt. It looked like something straight out of a horror movie, the site where the teenagers went to party and ended up dying at the hands of a psycho killer.

Langley looked around again, but there were no other signs of civilization.

The experts were right. The secondary location was always worse.

Chapter 3

Ryder scowled. Fucking SoCal traffic. Didn’t these damn people have homes or jobs or somewhere else they could be other than the roads? Okay, so he’d been aggravated before they’d left Florida and his mood had only soured since landing in California. Over ninety minutes ago, his gut had started churning, and he’dknownLangley was in trouble. She needed him and where was he? Stuck behind some shitting cement truck.

Mako stopped when a traffic light turned yellow, and Ryder shifted impatiently in his seat. His teammates had refused to let him behind the wheel of the Explorer they’d rented, and Mako drove more like an old woman than his namesake, the fastest shark in the ocean. “For fuck’s sake, yellow doesn’t mean stop,” he muttered. Moreloudly he asked, “How is it that we can deploy a twelve-man team halfway around the world faster than the four of us can reach the other side of the United States?”

“Because when we head to the Middle East or South America,” Rowland said with annoying calm from the backseat, “we have the logistical support of the US Army behind us.”

They were hours later than he’d planned.Hours.He thought they’d land in San Diego late Friday night. Instead, it was Saturday, according to the dashboard clock it was closing in on 1130, and he hadn’t reached Langley yet. Everything had taken a thousand times longer than he’d expected. Hell, there’d been a delay just rounding up the other three members of his team because damn Griff had picked up some woman at Big Joe’s and disappeared.

“Relax, Ski,” Mako said. “We’re almost there.”

Ryder caught the sidelong look Bryce gave him as he accelerated through the intersection. He needed to take it down a few notches because if they walked into a hot situation with his emotions out of control, he’d jeopardize Langley and his teammates. They were here as a favor to him, he realized that, and he owed them. “Sorry,” he apologized gruffly. “I’m worried about Langley.”

“We know,” Griff said. He was seated behindMako. “We got your back. We’re the four musketeers, remember?”

“Thanks,” Ryder said and took another deep breath.

They turned onto a less-busy street and Ryder straightened. They must be getting close now. He studied the neighborhood. The houses looked as if they’d been built in the 1970s, and while the lawns were cut and everything was neatly trimmed, most had big trees and lots of shrubs. The bushes would be good cover if they needed it, but they could also conceal a threat. From the beginning, his plan had been to get Langley out of here quickly, but now he moved up that timeframe to ASAP.

It only took a few more minutes for Mako to pull to a stop at the curb. “That’s it,” he said. “The blue one a few doors up.”

Ryder studied the home. It was small, one story with a white picket fence and a large tree in the tiny yard. More bushes, and the neighbor on the right had a privacy fence—additional concealment. There were no vehicles parked in front, and the home appeared quiet. Too quiet. 11:27 on the SUV’s clock. The churning in his gut became more insistent. “Stony, you come with me to the door. Griff, Mako, watch our flank.”

He opened the vehicle’s door and was greeted by low humidity and mild temperatures. Nothinglike Tampa in August. The leather jacket he wore over his jeans and T-shirt was unnecessary, but it hid the pistol holstered at his shoulder. Odds were the feds were right and he wouldn’t need it, but fuck that. He wasn’t taking any chances with Langley’s life.

When they reached the front porch, he rang the bell. He could hear it echo in the house, but there was no other sound from inside. Rowland stood behind him, facing the street, and Griff and Mako were positioned at the foot of the stairs, one on either side, keeping watch. Ryder rang the bell again with the same results. He tried knocking, but no one stirred.

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