Page 103 of High Seduction
Ken held a gun straight in front of him, forcing Tim to back up.
Adrenaline and fear shot through him instantly. “Shit.”
“Yeah, shit.” Ken waved the gun, continuing to close the distance between them. Erin emerged into the hallway, her arms locked behind her as John manhandled her forward.
“Don’t hurt her,” Tim snapped, a hand raised before him in caution. Erin’s eyes had gone wide, her lips a tight line as Tim backed into the living room and the others crowded around him. “I don’t know what you’re doing here, but we don’t want any trouble.”
“You should have thought about that before you took off. Now where is it?” Ken asked.
“Not trying to be a smart-ass, but where is what?” Tim frantically rolled through escape options, discarding them as quickly as they came to mind. If it had been only one person with a gun, he might have risked rushing the man, but two?
Waiting was the only option.
Ken kicked the grey-striped backpack Erin had abandoned to the floor the other day. “There was another one of these in the helicopter. Where is it now?”
Erin shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. Either in the back of the truck, or at headquarters. I can’t remember if that’s one of the bags we dropped off the other day.”
“Both of you, drop your cell phones.”
Ken waited until they’d reluctantly followed his directions.
“Take her outside to check the truck,” Ken ordered John before facing Erin. “Don’t try anything. Your boyfriend stays with me as insurance.”
Tim cleared his throat. “I need to give her the keys for the canopy. They’re in my pocket.”
“Slowly,” Ken said.
“I’m not stupid,” Tim assured him. He pulled out the keys and held them in an open palm. “Get whatever it is you need, and go. We just want to get on with our lives, and you’re welcome to get on with yours.”
Erin took the keys from him, her eyes haunted. They’d seen John kill a man—Ken had ordered it. It wasn’t going to be that easy to simply walk away a second time. But saying that out loud wasn’t going to help anyone.
One second, and the world had turned.
Tim watched the laughter and hope in Erin’s expression fade to misery. Fear. Tim did the only thing he could. He lied like an ace.
“Do what John tells you. We’ll be okay.”
The woman he loved stepped outside and took all the warmth with her, leaving him alone with a gun pointed at him, and a horrifying fear that this was one situation he wasn’t going to be able to talk his way out of.
***
Erin moved slowly toward the car, desperately taking in everything around them as John silently escorted her, his grip on her arm steady. She wasn’t aware enough of who drove what in her neighborhood to identify an unexpected vehicle, but they had to have gotten from the ranch to Banff somehow.
The gun had disappeared, but she wasn’t positive she could escape his hold easily. Breaking his grip and running was out of the question, not with Tim still in the house.
“Do you want me to open the back?” she asked, the keys dangling from her fingers after undoing the two side locks holding down the back canopy window.
“I don’t see the pack in there,” John snarled, leaning against the truck and glancing in a side window. “Yeah, open it.”
She lifted the canopy and dropped the tailgate, but the only things in the back were the two small gym bags they’d had with them on their holiday. “We must have dropped it at headquarters with the rest of the gear from the chopper, but I’m not sure.” Desperate to make sure there was a reason for them to stay alive.
John growled his frustration. “Get in the back,” he ordered, jerking the keys from her fingers.
Shit. Erin moved slowly, but followed his directions, bruising her knees on the hard metal, bare fingers cold on the chilled truck bed. He put his hand on her hip and shoved, toppling her off balance. By the time she’d made it upright, he’d flicked up the tailgate, dropped the canopy cover, and locked her in. She had plenty of room to move—the canopy cover was as tall as the roof of the truck cab. There were windows on all four sides, but being able to see wasn’t reassuring at the moment.
She was still trapped.
“Don’t make a fuss. We’ll be bringing out your boyfriend, and if we find a group of neighbours gathered, it won’t be good for anyone.”
