Page 81 of Mountain Rescue
There were so many memories in this cabin that he’d never forget. Maybe Jack would let him buy it. His intention had been to clear the rooms, but as he walked down the hall, he went past the smaller bedroom, drawn to the spot where he’d first met the woman he was falling in love with.
An inexcusable lapse when the cold iron of a gun barrel pressed to the back of his head. A mistake he never should have made, but it wasn’t as big of a mistake as the man holding the gun had just made.
“I’d pull the trigger right now if my boss didn’t want you to suffer,” said the man who was about to learn a lesson.
“Do you know why you shouldn’t get close enough to me to dig your gun into my head?” Dallas said conversationally. Jack and Noah would hear that he had company, but they wouldn’t move from their location, knowing he wasn’t going to die at the hands of this idiot.
“Shut up,” the man said as he pushed the gun harder against Dallas’s head.
Dallas sighed. He hated stupid people with guns they should never have in their hands. The trick was to first get his head away, and he jerked it to the side, away from the gun’s barrel. As he did that, he spun, wrapped a hand over the man’s on the gun and pushed the barrel to the side. With his other arm and using all his strength, he thrust his elbow up into the man’s throat while at the same time kicked his kneecap hard with the heel of his boot.
As soon as the man’s fingers loosened on the trigger, Dallas relieved him of the gun. The man grabbed his throat as his knee gave out, and he fell to the floor.
“Word of advice. Never get close enough to an adversary for him to turn the tables on you. Like taking candy from a baby,” he said to the dude looking up at him, wondering how he was flat ass on his back. “You picked the wrong person to play with. Where’s your boss?”
The man spit at him.
“Wrong answer, asshole. I’m good with you dying today, so if you want to see tomorrow, tell me where your fucking boss is.”
“Have a tango in my sights,” Jack said into Dallas’s earpiece. “Going after him.”
“One moving in from my side,” Noah responded. “Sounds like an elephant tromping through the forest. Time to party.”
Dallas chuckled. This really was a party compared to life in the sandbox. That these men coming after them thought they were hot shit was a joke. He pressed his gun into the man’s ear. “You have three seconds to tell me where your boss is before I pull the trigger.” As tempted as he was to do it, he wouldn’t. But the bastard didn’t need to know that.
“Go ahead. If you don’t kill me, he will when he finds out you’re not dead. About now, I’d say he’s putting a bullet through Rachel Denning’s heart.”
Dallas’s world stopped on its axis. The man had to be pulling his chain. “You’re lying. He doesn’t know where she is.”
“Ebers put a tracker on the Jeep before you caught him. When the police come, make sure you tell them I’m cooperating.”
“Ghost, he’s messing with you,” Jack said, having heard the conversation over their comms.
“What if he’s not?” Dallas took a few seconds he didn’t have to bind the man’s hands and ankles together with zip ties. “I’m outta here. Come get him.”
Not getting Rachel back wasn’t an option. And when he did, they were going to talk about where they went from here, because not having her in his life wasn’t an option either. As he raced to the SUV, he tried calling her, but got her voice mail. He tore off the comms and tossed them on the passenger seat, and as he sped back to their new cabin, he prayed he’d be in time. He had to be in time.
The twenty-minute drive from the cabin only took him fourteen minutes to return. Dirt and gravel flew up behind the SUV as he sped toward the cabin. A black Mercedes was parked in front, the nose only a few feet from the porch. He stopped directly behind it to prevent Hargrove from using the car to get away.
Dallas pocketed the SUV keys as he raced up the steps. The front door was open, and he growled at seeing the splintered wood where it had been kicked in. Holding his gun in front of him, he entered the cabin.
The only sound was Bella’s barking. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were all in sight, and nothing looked out of place...except, was that blood on the floor? If that was Rachel’s blood, Robert Hargrove was a dead man.
He eased down the hallway, following the blood trail, his heart erratically beating in his chest at the thought of what he might find. Since his car was still here, Hargrove hadn’t left, but Dallas didn’t sense him or Rachel in the house.
The blood led him to the first bedroom, and he eased around the corner. The room was empty, but there was a pool of blood next to one of the twin beds. Was that Rachel’s? He couldn’t think how it could be Hargrove’s. It took every ounce of his training and discipline to stay calm. Losing his shit wouldn’t help her.
“Where are you, Rachel?” he murmured. He cleared the closet, then the next bedroom and second bathroom. That only left the main bedroom, where it sounded like Bella was trying to dig her way through the wall.
When he eased the door open, she blew by him, running toward the front door. “Bella, come!” She skidded to a halt, looked at him, then the door, then barked. He got the message. She wanted him to follow her. First, he had to clear the main bedroom. “Come, Bella.” She whined but came to him.
“Rachel?” he said. “If you’re hiding, it’s safe to come out.” Nothing. He cleared the room and bathroom anyway, and as he was walking out of the room, he noted the wall next to the bedroom door. Bella had been maybe one more dig from breaking free.
She sure wasn’t the same dog as the one that had tried to climb into her own skin the first time he’d talked to her. Her leash was on the kitchen counter, and when he walked over to get it, he saw Rachel’s phone on the counter. His heart sank. Without it, she couldn’t call for help.
“I sure wish you could talk,” he said as he clipped the leash to Bella’s collar. When they got outside, Bella put her nose to the ground, went back and forth at the bottom of the stops for a few seconds, then raced for the corner of the house, pulling him with her when she reached the end of her leash.
At the back of the cabin, with her nose still to the ground, she headed for the woods. Because he had to think positive if he didn’t want to lose his mind, it had to mean Rachel had managed somehow to escape if Bella was leading him toward the trees. When she started running, he picked up his speed to keep up with her.
