Page 20 of Lone Star Hostage

“Angel is en route to the sight as well,” Ruby went on, and in the background, Presley could hear not only the engine of Ruby’s vehicle but also the sound of an incoming text. “And apparently so is someone from Strike Force. Hayes Brodie. Billie, do you know him?”

“Yes,” she verified. “I guess you could say he’s Owen’s right-hand man. They served together as Delta Force officers. A little rough around the edges, but I’d trust him with my life.”

“Good. Because that’s exactly what you’ll be doing,” Ruby responded. There was another text ding. “We all will be. And if there are any differences between Strike Force and Maverick Ops, that gets put aside now. Understand?”

“Understood,” Billie and Presley agreed.

Presley couldn’t help but think though that any beef with Strike Force wasn’t between the operatives of the groups but rather between the leaders. He didn’t know what had caused that and now wasn’t the time to find out.

“The kidnapper knew the diamonds were fake,” Presley reminded his boss. “That info had to have come from an insider at the family business. What can we do about that?”

“Hold off on your meeting with Olivia and Ari. Warrants are in the works to get phone and financial records from Jesep and them. And from anyone who works closely with them. I’ve asked for Hattie’s records, too, of course. I want to see who they’ve been communicating with for the past couple of days.”

That was a good start, but unless they were idiots or overly cocky, they must have known this could happen. If one of them was the kidnapper, they had probably covered their tracks by using burner phones.

“Owen was just at Hattie’s vacation cabin,” Billie relayed to Ruby. She was working with the map, moving it to what was essentially a street view. Or rather a road view, anyway.

“Yes, one of those texts you heard was from Owen,” Ruby verified. “He left Hattie’s place after she spoke with the two of you. In fact, she immediately told him to get out.”

So, in other words, Hattie could have been the one to make the latest call from the kidnapper.

“Owen has someone watching Hattie,” Ruby went on, “and she hasn’t left the cabin. That doesn’t mean she’s not pulling the strings.”

Ruby was right about that. Of all their suspects, Hattie had the strongest motive for wanting Billie, Ruby, Owen, and him dead. But how the hell had the woman learned about the fake diamonds?

A guess, maybe?

Because she had some kind of insight or knowledge from the family?

Either of those could be true, but getting those answers would have to wait since there was a more immediate question that needed answering.

How were Billie and he going to approach this ransom drop?

Presley looked at the dash screen. At the bridge. And at the thick trees that lined both sides of the small creek. There weredozens of places for the kidnappers to hide and lie in wait. He didn’t like any of the options he saw, but he was going to treat this as an extraction. A rescue.

Hopefully, this time, a woman wouldn’t be murdered before they could get to her and stop it.

“I think our best bet is for Billie and me to park about a quarter of a mile up from the bridge,” he explained to Ruby. “Not in that small clearing just off the road. Too obvious. They’d expect us to park there.” He tapped the spot on the map. “But right before that, where there’s a rock pile.”

It was out in the open. A serious downside for Billie and him having cover, but the upside was that the kidnappers couldn’t lie in wait. What they could do, however, was climb one of the nearby trees and shoot them with a rifle.

Presley silently cursed having Billie walk into something like that. But then he reminded himself that she was in the same line of work as he was. She knew the risks. Knew how to take out the enemy, too.

“We can leave the SUV there by that rock pile and get down into the ditch,” he continued. “From there, we can make our way to the drop sight.”

Ruby stayed quiet a moment. “Yes, I see the spot you mean. Billie, are you on board with that?”

“I am,” she said without hesitation while she took out the fake diamonds from her pocket and put them in the glove compartment. “You have protective gear in the SUV?” she asked him.

“Plenty,” he assured her. Of course, no amount of gear could prevent them from being killed, but they could make it harder for a sniper to land a fatal shot.

“Your ETA?” Ruby asked.

He checked the GPS. “About thirty minutes.”

Which meant after they parked, it would give Billie and him about twenty minutes to thread their way through that ditch and then the trees to get to Victoria so they could meet the kidnappers’ deadline.

But it was possible that Victoria might not even be there.

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