Controlled Burn (Blackbridge Security 8)

I relay what I have found.

“Ping her phone again,” I urge.

“It’s there. Your cell is right on top of her. Let me call.”

Ringing echoes through the house, and I move like my ass is on fire, hope rolling over me, but it all crashes when I locate her ringing phone in the bathtub.

“Fuck,” I mutter. “She was here. Her car is gone. Call the police and get them to this location.”

I hang up the phone and go back to the woman, only to find her standing in the open doorway of the house, staring at the driveway.

“You can’t leave until you speak with the police.”

“They took my car,” she whispers, more tears streaming down her face. “You aren’t going to leave me here alone, are you?”

Red-rimmed eyes beg me, and I would in a heartbeat if we had any leads on where Kendall and her kids are. I will haul ass out of here if Wren contacts me with any information, but I can stay for now.

“What kind of car did they take?”

“An older model champagne-colored Ford Taurus,” she explains. “It’s not much, but it’s paid for.”

I shoot that information to Wren. “Do you know the license plate?”

She shakes her head.

“What’s your name?”

“Megan,” she swallows. “Megan Dobbs.”

I relay that information to Wren because he can get her plate number through the DMV.

“What else can you tell me about them?”

She shakes her head, crumpling to the nasty floor, and that’s where she stays, sobbing uncontrollably until the cops arrive.

Chapter 31

Kendall

“If the gun wasn’t enough,” the guy in the passenger seat says after looking down at his phone, “maybe this will keep your ass in line.”

Although I’m driving my own car, I look over when he turns his phone in my direction. On the screen is a picture of my three babies in the very clothes I sent them to school in this morning. Tears burn the backs of my eyes, and I open my mouth to beg, but he growls.

“Watch the fucking road!”

I gasp when I look back out the windshield, slamming my foot on the brake to keep from rear-ending the car in front of us that has slowed for a traffic light.

“Why are you doing this?” I cry, wondering if my anguish is going to be noticed by someone around us. Would them calling the cops help or hurt this situation? Probably hurt, I realize, so I wipe away my tears, and try to look and act as normal as possible. Knowing my kids are with someone I don’t know, someone aimed at hurting us because of their father and not Finn, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

“You know why,” he snarls as if I’ve somehow personally wronged him when this is all on Ty.

“Do you hurt children and innocent women often?” I snap, hating that he has the power to scare the life out of me.

“I do what I’m asked.”

“For Keres?”

I feel his eyes on me as traffic begins to move again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Of course he’d never admit to working for Keres. Hell, the MC may have outsourced the job to keep their hands mostly clean. Who knows how Adrian operates his club these days? They managed to skate away scot-free from all the other investigations according to the information Finn shared with me, so maybe this is how they do it.

My words must affect him because the man begins to thrum with agitation as he tells which turns to take. It’s left and right and right and left, so many turns that once we get to an unfamiliar area of town, I can no longer keep track of where we are.

“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper.

“You sure talk a lot for someone who claims to love her kids. Keep fucking talking. It’ll only take one fucking text for me to create your worst nightmare.”

With this, I snap my mouth closed. My hands continue to shake on the steering wheel as I drive. I wordlessly obey when he tells me to turn. I’m not willing to risk my kids’ safety with stupid questions or snide comments.

Eventually, we pull up to an industrial part of town, and this area looks worse than the neighborhood I drove to earlier, but it’s quiet and devoid of anyone loitering around. It’s the perfect place to end up with a bullet in the head because no one would be around to hear the shot.

The man doesn’t point his gun at me as he climbs out of the car, walking toward an old, rusted metal door. He knows he doesn’t have to. With my kids’ lives at stake, I’ll do anything he wants.

Surprisingly, the electricity is still on in the warehouse, but he doesn’t turn on a light until he shoves me through the door of what looks to have once been the manager’s office. The single light in the middle of the building probably can’t be seen from the outside, once again making it the perfect place to hide for anyone not wanting to be found. I doubt the police or even a hired security company would wander this far into the industrial park, and since he made me park my car behind a set of dumpsters deep into an unlit alley, I know even if someone did happen by, it wouldn’t be seen unless they drove that way themselves or decided to go for a walk down a long alleyway.