She immediately cursed herself for making such a vow. The truth was, she really had no way of knowing if Jennifer was still alive. Rachel prayed she was right about that. But standing here talking wasn’t helping the situation. They needed to move.
“Addy, your mom is being held at gunpoint by some really bad guys in a room somewhere close to the garage.” Rachel hesitated, wishing like hell she didn’t have to put it all out there like this. “I don’t know all the details, but your father is somehow involved with Alton Marshall, the man your mom is trying to send to prison. I think your father and Marshall may be working together.”
Addy’s eyes went wide. “Working together? Are you sure?”
Rachel nodded. “I’m sure. I wish I weren’t, but I am.”
Addy swallowed hard. “There’s a workshop behind the garage. Dad used to work on old cars when I was little as a hobby. He hasn’t done it in a long time, though.”
“Do you think you can help me find a way to get there without anyone seeing us?” Rachel asked.
Nodding, Addy reached up to wipe the tears off her cheeks. “There’s a back staircase at the far end of this floor that leads to that end of the house. If we’re careful, we should be able to get to the workshop without anyone seeing us.”
Addy reminded Rachel so much of Hannah in that moment she wanted to hug her. But they had no time for hugs.
Taking Addy’s hand, Rachel headed for the bedroom door, pausing only long enough to confirm there was no one in the main hallway. Then they both hurried as fast as they could along the hardwood floor.
Rachel was glad she had Addy with her or she would never have found the back staircase or followed the myriad twists and turns that led to the area behind the garage so quickly. She got the feeling this part of the house had been added on after the original construction and the passageways had been necessary to connect the various rooms.
“There’s a long hallway around the next corner,” Addy whispered, pointing ahead of them. “If you go left at the end, you get to the garage. If you go right, it’s the workshop.”
Rachel nodded.
If they were going to stumble across any of Marshall’s men, this would be the place, Rachel thought as they moved. But they made it down the dimly lit corridor and all the way to the workshop before Rachel smelled anyone. Unfortunately, there were two men with Jennifer, on the other side of the closed door to the workshop. That sucked. But on the bright side, she could make out three heartbeats in there, which meant the prosecutor was alive.
Rachel could have kicked in the door easily, ripped it off the hinges, and gone in shooting. But that would have alerted everyone else in the house, and that wasn’t something Rachel wanted to deal with, not when she had to worry about Addy and her mom.
Turning to the girl, she motioned her back down the hallway, then followed.
“Your mom is in there, but there are two men with her,” Rachel said. “I need you to stay here while I deal with them. Then we’ll get out of here.”
It was obvious from the look on Addy’s face that she had a hundred questions, but Rachel didn’t give her a chance. Motioning for her to stay, she slipped her small pistol into the back pocket of her jeans, then headed for the workshop.
Rachel pushed the door open quietly, not wanting to alert either the men or Jennifer that something unusual was coming their way until the last possible second. The two dirtbags were leaning back against a workbench, eyes focused on Jennifer. The ADA was sitting on the floor with her back to a built-in cabinet, dirt on her clothes and a bruise forming on her cheek.
The men were so focused on Jennifer they didn’t realize Rachel was there until it was too late.
As they reached under their jackets for their weapons, the urge to extend her claws and tear out their throats was difficult to ignore, but she did—not only because she couldn’t let Jennifer see something like that, but because she had no desire to give the clown an opportunity to make an appearance. She wasn’t completely sure there was a direct connection between her inner wolf and the clown, but every time she’d been in high-stress situations—chasing the killers at the mall, trying to find Addy when Aaron had slipped away with her, the shootout at the courthouse, the therapy session with Hadley—the clown had come out. She hoped that staying completely calm would keep it from happening now.
That was hard to do as the men aimed their guns at her, but she forced herself to stay calm as she closed the distance between them, intent on ending this as quickly—and as quietly—as possible.
Before the man closest to her could pull the trigger of the large-caliber automatic in his hand, Rachel grabbed his wrist and slammed a palm into the underside of his elbow. It snapped easily, but before the man could scream in pain, she punched him in the throat as hard as she could.
Rachel was in the second guy’s personal space before he could even understand what was going on. She batted his gun hand aside, then drove a knee into his crotch. While he was busy trying to recover from that, she got one hand on his chin and the other in the hair at the back of his head and twisted. The crack his neck made echoed in the room like a gunshot.
She glanced at Jennifer to make sure she was okay, ignoring the stunned expression on the ADA’s face as she collected up the dead men’s weapons. They were large-frame Glocks loaded with 10 mm ammo. They were too big and unwieldy for her hands, but they were better than the little .380 she’d brought. She was rummaging through the men’s jackets for spare magazines when Addy peeked her head around the corner of the doorway.
Addy slowed when she saw the two bodies on the floor, but then ran over to her mom, hugging Jennifer even as she tearfully helped her mother to her feet. Rachel hated to break up the moment between mother and daughter, but she had to.
“Jennifer. Addy. We need to go.”
They both looked at her as they wiped away tears.
“Does that door lead to the garage?” she asked, pointing at the far side of the workshop.
Jennifer nodded. “Yes. My car is in there, but the keys are in my purse in the living room.”
Crap.She’d been hoping Jennifer might have the keys on her.
