“These aren’t amateurs. They’re not going to rattle a doorknob and walk away.”
“I know that too.” Wes watched the road narrow ahead of him. “Keep pulling. Anything else that moves near that address, I want to know.”
“Already on it.” Calloway’s voice dropped. “Go get her.”
The call ended.
Remington was fully upright now, his ears forward, his body oriented toward the windshield as if he could already see something through it that Wes couldn’t.
The trees thinned briefly on the right, and through the gap Wes caught a glimpse of the valley below—farmhouses, a church steeple, the pale glint of a creek catching the afternoon light. Everything looked so ordinary and peaceful.
Everything around him was completely indifferent to what might be happening inside one small house at the end of a gravel driveway.
He pushed the truck as fast as the road would allow.
Only five minutes and he should be there.
Rowan stared at the bottle.
The pills shifted inside as the man nudged it closer across the table.
She couldn’t let that man get those pills anywhere close to her face.
Before she could second-guess herself, she swept her arm across the table.
The bottle hit the floor hard, the cap flying free on impact. Pills scattered across the kitchen tiles in every direction. Small white tablets skittered under the cabinets, beneath the refrigerator, and across the grout lines in a dozen different directions.
The man went still.
For one suspended second, no one moved.
Then his hand closed around her upper arm and hauled her to her feet so fast the chair scraped back and nearly toppled. “That was a mistake!”
Rowan twisted hard against his grip, driving her elbow back the way she’d done in every action sequence she’d ever filmed—except this wasn’t choreographed and there was no mark on the floor and no one to call cut.
She connected with something. His ribs maybe.
He grunted, and his grip loosened just enough.
She pulled free and moved.
She didn’t have a plan. There was no plan.
There was only the back door and the understanding that if she didn’t reach it nothing else was going to matter.
She made it two steps.
The man caught her by the back of her shirt and yanked. The floor seemed to rise up as she lost her balance. She went down hard on one knee.
Pain cracked through the joint, and she gasped, catching herself against the cabinet with both palms.
“Please.” Lauren’s voice came from somewhere behind her, thin and desperate. “Please just stop. You don’t have to do this. You don’t have to hurt her.”
Neither man responded.
Rowan tried to push herself up. The first man got there first, hauling her upright by the arm. She clawed at his forearm with her free hand and felt her nails catch skin.
But it didn’t matter. It didn’t slow him down at all. Within seconds he had both her wrists locked in one hand and her back against the counter with his forearm across her collarbone.
