Page 86 of Keeping Guard
“What’s the man’s name again, her ex?”
“Dalton. Never asked what his last name was.” He should have paid more attention to the man. There were a lot of things he should have done, like not leave Peyton alone for a minute, or convince her to file a report with the police when Dalton put bruises on her arm, or convince her to get a restraining order.
He’d promised to keep her safe, and he’d failed. Just like he’d failed his team. After he rescued her, made sure that Dalton was arrested...or dead, he’d leave. His medical leave was about up anyway, so time to go. Peyton would get her life back, and it would be even better now that she was back at the brewery and had repaired her relationship with her father. She wouldn’t need him anymore. That thought was a punch to the gut but true.
“You ever going to tell me the story about those dice?” Jack said, glancing at the pair of dice Noah was rolling in his hand.
“Who says there’s a story?” Jack was the only one of his teammates who’d ever asked why he carried them. He’d always shrugged off the question.
“Are you telling me there isn’t?”
“Not saying that.” He eyed the GPS. “I’ll tell you why when you tell me your jail story. We’re almost there. Her phone and tracker are back in the same location. I think we should find a place to park and walk in. Scope things out before Dalton knows we’re there.”
“Copy that.”
“You will reach your destination in five hundred feet,” the feminine voice from the GPS said. “Your destination is on the right.”
Jack drove slowly past, both of them scoping out the dirt lane. Four mailboxes lined the entrance to the road. There was no way of knowing which was their target house or how soon they would come up on it.
“Find a place to park,” Noah said.
“Here looks good.”
Noah eyed the spot. There was just enough room to get the truck off the road without driving into the ditch. The truck wouldn’t be hidden, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Dalton didn’t know what Jack drove.
After parking, they slipped into the woods that bordered the dirt road. Two children were playing in the yard of the first house they came to. He and Jack stayed hidden as they passed by. An old man was sitting in a recliner that was on the porch of the second house, and a teenage girl was hanging up clothes in the backyard of the third house.
“The last house it is then,” Jack said.
“Let’s just hope she’s actually there.” She’d better be, and she’d better be unhurt.
They halted at the edge of the woods. The house on the other side of the road looked abandoned, but there was a silver Mercedes parked in front. “That’s his car.” Noah blew out a breath, his heart racing in relief that he’d found her.
“Let’s circle around and come at the place from the side,” Jack said.
Noah nodded his agreement, but as they took a step back, gunfire sounded from inside the house. “New plan.” He raced across the street. There had better not be so much as a scratch on Peyton, or Dalton was a dead man.
An older man stumbled out of the house. “I didn’t sign up for crazy,” he said as Noah ran past him.
Noah skidded to a stop inside the doorway. “Peyton?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Dalton returned and dragged her out of the room. He pulled her down a dark hallway, his fingers digging into the skin on her arm. He was going to leave bruises again. This time, she was definitely going to report his abuse to the police, like she should have done the first time.
Turned out they were in a house, one that looked like it had been vacant for a long time. Ugly wallpaper was peeling from the walls, and the carpet was so nasty that she didn’t want to walk on it even wearing shoes.
He brought her to the living room, where a man who appeared to be drunk propped up a wall.
“Who’s that?” When should she try to escape? She glanced out the dirty front window. Dalton’s car was parked in the yard. She’d borrowed it once to run away. Looked like she was going to have to borrow it again.
“That’s the magistrate who’s going to marry us.”
She scowled at Dalton, then glared at the other man. “I’m not marrying him, so you can just be on your way.”
The man belched.
“Get on with it,” Dalton said.
