No. Maeve was smart. She would figure out a way out of the shipping container, but he had to buy her time. Keep the guy in the passenger seat talking. “You’ve been watching us. Watching her.”
“Of course I have. That’s the best way to learn about a person. You know that from your time working private security.” A sigh escaped from underneath the mask as the suspect leaned fully back into the headrest. On any other night, Callen would’ve thought they were two friends ruminating on the good old days next to their favorite river from the way this guy was acting. Like they were close. Knew each other. “Their habits, their routines.What they like to cook on Wednesdays and which movies they watch over and over. Who they socialize with, who might be a threat to getting what I want. In case it wasn’t clear, you’re the last one standing in my way.”
“You want Maeve.” Those three words tasted like ash on his tongue. He didn’t have any claim on his ex-fiancée, but Callen sure as hell wouldn’t let this son of a bitch get to her. Another part of him couldn’t wait to see Maeve protect herself.
“Bingo! Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner.” The masked man pointed in Callen’s direction.
Buy Maeve time. That was all he had to do. “And Iliana? How does she play into all this? She wasn’t a threat to getting to Maeve. She was just a forensic analyst from one of Maeve’s first cases. She had nothing to do with this.”
“Iliana. That’s her name. Can’t believe I forgot, but you’re right. You’re right.” Nodding, the stranger dipped his chin close to his chest as though in defeat. It was a ploy, a way to play on Callen’s ability to read body language. Take away the threat, catch him off guard, but he wasn’t going to fall for that. “Lauren did her job. She got Maeve right where I wanted her, which was away from you, by the way. Her disappearance even worked better than I imagined by leading you to break up with Maeve and toss her out like week old takeout, but I guess I did too good of a job getting rid of her body. Maeve ended up in Vegas, too far for my comfort, you see, so I needed another motivator to bring her back to me.”
“So you abducted Iliana Meyer and staged her disappearance to look like Lauren’s to draw her in.” And he hadn’t seen it. Both cases had been connected, but not in the manner he believed. They had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Maeve. “And when Maeve came to Zion you figured she’d come here because of me. So you broke into my storage container, stole one of my Tasers and left it at the scene.”
“You really do make things so much more complicated than they need to be, Callen, but I’m not surprised.” The man behind the mask laughed, something familiar but out of reach under the circumstances. “Lucky for me, you won’t be a problem much longer.”
Every muscle in Callen’s body tensed. “Why is that?”
“Because you’ll be dead.” The killer grabbed for the shifter on the steering wheel and wrenched it into Drive.
The truck lurched toward the riverbank as Callen stomped to hit the brake, but it was no use. The pedal had been removed and the accelerator pinned to the floor. Shoving the door open, his abductor jumped free from the truck cab.
Just as the truck hit the water.
Chapter Fourteen
The shivering wouldn’t stop.
That had to be a good thing, right? When she stopped shivering, that was the point she was in trouble? Until then her body was trying to keep her alive. While the unit itself wasn’t one of those freezer containers, it seemed Callen had installed an air-conditioning unit to keep his giant plastic bin of C-4 stable in wavering temperatures.
Maeve had shoved against the door with everything she had, but she was quickly losing her strength. She could blame it on exhaustion—mental and physical—from the past few days, but her brain had already filled in the blanks. Her internal organs were slowing function, rerouting energy to her brain and heart. It explained the tingling in her hands and toes. Despite her sweats, socks, boots and jacket, the ache seeped into her joints.
Breathing warmth into her hands, she paced to the back of the container in the short amount of space she found she could navigate without draining her phone battery. She rubbed both hands together to try to generate some kind of heat, but whatever she felt didn’t last long. The red light of the surveillance camera hadn’t come on when the door closed, and she hadn’t heard a single noise from outside the container. Another shiver racked through her. Good. That was good. She still had time.
Though how much, she really didn’t know. She’d never been locked in an air-conditioned container before. She couldn’t believe how cold it was. The unit had to be close to givingout at this point. Most units couldn’t operate below a certain temperature, but it sure as hell felt like it was dropping close to freezing. How long had it been since she was sealed inside? Maeve pulled her phone from her jacket. Thirty minutes. Damn. No wonder it was getting harder to keep her eyes open. Her body wanted to sleep. Only problem was, she probably wouldn’t wake up if she gave in. “Think. Think. Think.”
Callen’s most likely illegal collection of C-4 was guaranteed to blow the door hinges straight off the container, but the blast, in this limited space, would also kill her in an instant. She couldn’t use the explosives, and the automatic rifles and tactical gear didn’t do her a damn bit of good. There had to be a way. Rushing back toward the door, she gave in to the knot of panic growing tighter and tighter, feeling her way around the frame. Cool metal almost burned her exposed skin as she memorized the area where she thought the padlock might be on the other side.
She was going to kill him for locking her in here. Well, if she didn’t die soon. Callen had obviously seen something on his surveillance app that’d given him a clue as to whom might have broken into his personal armory and thought better of bringing her along for the ride. She’d brought him into the investigation—trusted him with details she hadn’t shared with anyone else—and this was how he repaid her? Maeve smacked the steel door, pain exploding through her hand. “Callen!”
Damn him. Damn this container. And damn this entire case.
Dragging her phone back out, she checked for a signal, but the walls of the container were too thick. Her battery would last a couple of hours, at least, but at this point she was only holding a brick with a clock. She set her forehead against the door and focused on the next breath. Then the one after that. Her heartbeat pulsed behind her ears, steadying out.
She could do this. She’d been in plenty of difficult situations more life-threatening than this, but given the choice, she’d muchrather face one of the serial offenders she’d hunted than a slow, agonizing death or potential murder charges when she got hold of Callen. Shoving away from the door, she willed her vision to fill in the shape of the structure, but the adjustment never came.
“Okay.” She just had to slow down. Focus. Callen had built a veritable armory-slash-bunker in this damn container. While they hadn’t been in contact over the last year, Maeve knew him better than anyone else in her life. He was security and survival oriented in almost everything he did. Their pantry had been full of canned food, MREs, dehydrated meals and emergency rations. He’d taught her how to process their own chicken broth and make jam, for crying out loud. There was no way he’d moved his entire arsenal without having some survival supplies mixed in. She just had to find them.
And when she got out of this icebox, she would kill him.
She lit up her phone’s flashlight feature and scanned the room. Her battery dropped another percent, but it was worth the risk. “If I were an obsessive grump, where would I keep—”
There. Maeve practically lunged for the shelf across the container. The electric lantern flickered to life at the push of a button, lighting up the whole space. Cutting her own flashlight, she almost collapsed back against the table behind her as relief shuddered through her. She could make out Callen’s entire inventory without feeling as though the walls were closing in. She pulled the lantern from the shelf, raising it to get a full view of the container. There had to be something—anything—here she could use before turning back to the door. “Would it have been too hard to put a handle or release on the inside of the door? No, no it would not have.”
Searching each plastic bin laid out in organized patterns on the tables, she bypassed the explosive—grenades, C-4, what looked like det cord—and moved on to the camping equipment. Nothing that would help her. Her fingers tingled with climbingnumbness, making it that much harder to keep her grip on the lantern. Setting it down, she hefted a crowbar off one of the mounted racks and headed for the door. If there was enough room between the door’s edge and the side of the container, she might actually have a chance at living. She pressed the thin tip of the crowbar into the corner, but there wasn’t any leverage; the two sides of the container met seamlessly. Frustration exploded, and Maeve slid her grip down the bar, using it like a bat. One strike. Two. Each clang resounded through the whole steel structure and shook her straight down to her core, but she and Callen had come in the middle of the night. There was no one here to hear her screams. “What kind of hell is this?”
She dropped the crowbar, out of breath and quickly running out of hope. Out of options. Sinking back against the door, Maeve rubbed both hands down her face. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d shivered, though sweat had gathered along her spine from taking her anger out on the door. She set her head back, tapping her skull against the steel.
This was her fault. All of it. If she hadn’t lost that notebook during Lauren’s missing person investigation, police might’ve been able to find Callen’s sister. If she hadn’t taken a case in which she had a personal connection, she might not have been suspended, Iliana Meyer might not have been targeted and she wouldn’t feel this monumental dose of failure. All she’d wanted to do was make up for her mistake—for disappointing the people who’d given her everything after she’d lost her dad—but working Lauren’s case was only making things worse. She’d given the Russells the hope of finding their daughter, but Maeve didn’t see how that was possible anymore. And Callen… He was never going to forgive her for what she’d done. He was never going to be able to see her as the woman he’d loved. Involving him had just been another mistake in a long line of screwups she couldn’t shake.
