Maeve flexed her fingers, willing some feeling back into them. In vain. Had it gotten colder? The air-conditioning fan seemed to never take a break. She didn’t know how that was possible, unless Callen had adjusted it before closing the door. He was out there right now. Going after a potential killer alone. The man was trained to deal with any number of volatile situations, but confronting a suspect wasn’t something any agent or officer tackled alone. They’d been partners these past couple of days, and she’d…she’d liked it. Working together, breaking through the hard things with apologies and innocent touches and setting their sights on the same goal. It’d felt like they were a team again. Them against the world.
And she wasn’t ready to give up on that.
All right. New plan. Because she hadn’t come this far to die here today. Maeve rubbed her hands together again. This time, no amount of warmth came from the friction. She was out of time. She’d gotten a pretty good look at the padlock and its location before stepping into the container. She could guess where it was from the inside, and she happened to have a lifetime’s worth of ammunition to test her theory. Pulling one of the handguns free from the mounted rack, she dropped the magazine and collected a box of bullets from the table underneath. In less than a minute, she had a full magazine. She was good with a pistol. Callen had made sure of that.
Sucking in a deep breath, she shoved one of the tables to the other side of the container and took cover behind one perpendicular to the door. There were so many things that could go wrong with what she was about to do, but she no longer had a choice. She would freeze if she didn’t get out of here. Gripping the gun between both hands, she leveled the sights around where she thought the padlock might be. Wait. No. She grabbed one of the bulletproof vests and strapped it into place. Itwouldn’t protect her against a ricochet to the head or neck, but some protection was better than none.
She took aim again. And pulled the trigger. A hole outlined in moonlight appeared where the bullet had gone through the door. Her laugh couldn’t be contained. Rushing to the door, she pressed one eye to the hole and gauged where the next shot needed to be. She had to take the risk. Setting the end of the barrel directly against the door and behind the padlock, Maeve took the shot.
The padlock flew off the hinge, and she put her weight against the door. It protested open as a rush of chilled night air—far warmer than inside—swept across her face. She was free.
And without a vehicle.
Callen’s truck was gone, but a full set of bars registered on her phone. She tapped his contact information, not sure the number he’d had a year ago would still be in use. “I’m going to kill you and then I’m going to kill you again.”
The line rang.
And a cell phone lit up a few feet away. Callen’s cell phone.
Ending the call, Maeve collected it from the gravel. The screen had been broken, as though shattered during a struggle. Callen wouldn’t have left his cell phone behind. Which meant something had gone wrong when he’d left the container. He hadn’t locked her inside.
He’d been ambushed.
Pocketing his phone, she slipped the sidearm into the waistband at the small of her back. “I’m keeping this.”
There was only one reason someone may have come after Callen: Framing him for Iliana Meyer’s disappearance hadn’t worked. His abductor was obviously skilled enough to take down a former security operator, which meant Callen didn’t have much time.
It took her brain longer than it should have to work her phone and request a rideshare as it defrosted from near-freezing temperature inside the container.
But she knew exactly where to start the search.
Chapter Fifteen
He was going to die.
Callen pressed his feet into the floor as the river rushed inside the truck. Shocking cold water worked into his boots and up his calves. Faster than he expected. The truck was sinking at an alarming rate, tipping to one side in a losing battle against the current. Any minute now and the entire thing would roll with him inside.
His breathing shallowed to counter the burn of the freezing temperature, but every new inch gained sent his nervous system into overdrive. The hood of the truck disappeared beneath the river’s surface, whitecaps cresting against the black metal and illuminated by the headlights. He’d taught every client of his—including his family members and Maeve—how to escape zip ties, but Callen couldn’t get the angle right on breaking free from the steering wheel. Every shift, every tug cut deeper into his skin and threatened to sever the nerves and tendons running the length of his hand.
He wasn’t going anywhere. Well, that wasn’t true. He was going to the bottom of the river. His skull hit the headrest, shooting sparks of pain and lightning across his vision. The water reached his waist, his jeans clinging to him and filling with ice-cold water. The Virgin River wasn’t normally this active in winter, but an excess of snow and an unusually hot summer had sloughed enough runoff out of the mountains for this moment.
Callen twisted his torso toward the center console. He’d had a hunting knife stashed in the back pocket of the passengerseat. If the killer hadn’t gotten to it, there was a chance he could cut himself free. Except the bastard had claimed to know where every weapon Callen stashed in this truck had been kept. He didn’t know how that was possible unless the bastard had somehow gained access to his vehicle, but he couldn’t think about that right now. His wrists screamed at the increase in pressure, but he gritted his teeth through it.
Until blood swelled and dribbled into the river water cresting his navel. Damn it. He’d trained for this. How to escape a sinking vehicle. How to use force and momentum to break through zip ties. The combination, however, would be what killed him. Callen kicked at the truck’s floor. “Come on!”
Water skimmed along the bottom of the steering wheel, and the truck’s headlights flickered. It’d gotten to the electronics, and before he had a chance to prepare himself, the entire truck went dark.
He couldn’t see the level of the water, only feel it creeping up his chest. No amount of struggling or shifting his weight would stop it. His skin burned everywhere it touched until he couldn’t take a full breath. It was those first few seconds of a cold shower after a workout, jarring and short-circuiting his brain.
He had to calm the hell down. There was a chance he would have more to work with while underwater. Where the lights and the water levels and the fact that he couldn’t get his legs free wouldn’t distract him. Closing his eyes, Callen sucked in a shallow breath, then another in quick succession. Forcibly hyperventilating expanded his lung capacity. As soon as the water filled the cab or the truck hit the bottom of the river, he could use his feet as leverage to break the ties.
It was the only plan he had. One that would guarantee he’d reach Maeve in time. Because the son of a bitch had locked her in the storage container, and while he had every reason to believe she could take care of herself, the man with the mask had madeit clear this plan had been in progress for a long time. There was no way the bastard would just let her walk away.
And Callen wanted that. More than anything, he wanted Maeve to be free of this threat, of this case, of him. She deserved that. She’d spent the past year trying to make up for a single mistake that had altered the course of her life, and all it’d gotten her was heartache. Grief, rejection, loneliness. Despite being there for his parents and doing what Callen couldn’t in holding his family together, he was sure Maeve had only accomplished it by sacrificing herself. Because that was the kind of woman she was.
Strong, confident, tenacious. All at the expense of her mental and physical health. She’d risked her career coming to Zion, to work a case that the police had already given up on, and Callen couldn’t let it end like this.
He had to get out of here. He had to get to her.
