Page 8 of Lone Star Hostage

What wasn’t a mystery was that the kidnappers had known this had once been his home. They knew what had happened there.

Hope it doesn’t bring back too many bad memories for you.

So, yeah, this was connected to him.

“The kidnappers could be using this location to rattle you,” Ruby commented a moment later. “That might be all there is to it. That, and the fact that the house has been vacant for two years now. So are the houses on either side of it.”

That could definitely play into a kidnapper’s plan, having the house and the surrounding area to themselves. But Presley thought it was more than that.

But what was themore?

He didn’t know. Yet.

“What’s your ETA?” Ruby asked, cutting off any possible answers that Presley might have to his own questions. Those answers were best saved for later, anyway.

Focus.

“We’ll be there in ten to fifteen minutes, depending on traffic,” he answered. Which meant the kidnappers hadn’t given them much time. Still, if they could get the two cops and Angel in place, that would be enough backup.

Hopefully.

“I’ll get the drone there,” Ruby added and ended the call.

Presley kept on driving, kept on moving through the syrupy downtown traffic. Since Billie was in on this potential shitstorm with him, Presley knew he had to tell her something. So, he picked the most sanitized version he could think of.

“As a newborn, I was abandoned at a fire station. I was adopted by a seemingly normal couple, Jeanie and Hugh Nolan. I was raised here, in this house where we’re going. It wasn’t a perfect life, but it was solid enough. I never went hungry, and there was no abuse.”

“So, what went wrong?” Billie asked when he fell silent.

Presley knew this because he’d looked at the police file once he’d become a cop. “My mom had asked my dad for a divorce. According to some of her friends, she’d met someone else. My dad went ballistic when she told him, and he shot and killed her.Then, he went to his bedroom, wrote a note to me saying he was sorry, and he went out with a single shot to the head.” He stopped. Had to. “After that, CPS took over and I was put in a foster home.”

Billie no doubt knew about him ending up in the system. It’d been a good home, for the most part, but it’d recently been in the news for an old murder that’d happened there.

“Ruby could be right,” Billie concluded. “The kidnappers could have chosen this spot because they knew it would be an emotional gut punch. It could throw you off your game and make you a less formidable opponent.”

“Maybe, he admitted. “But if they wanted less formidable, why not demand someone other than the two of us do the drop? Why not pick Jesep or his two likely pampered trust fund kids?”

“Because one of them could have orchestrated this and be paying the kidnappers,” Billie was quick to point out.

It was something that had already occurred to him. Still, why choose someone who could kick the kidnappers’ asses? Yeah. That didn’t make sense.

Shoving that aside as well, Presley took the turn on Barlett Street and glanced around to make sure they weren’t about to be attacked. He didn’t see any threats, but he’d heard right about the neighborhood going downhill.

Hell on steroids, this was bad.

He drove past house after house in serious disrepair. Yards, too, with weeds waist high in places. Abandoned graffiti junkers lined the streets, and he imagined it would be easy to stash a hostage in one of those cars and then lay in wait inside the house.

“This feels wrong,” Billie remarked, obviously picking up on the bad vibe, too.

Presley made a sound of agreement and parked just up the street from the house. It was just as rundown as the rest of the neighborhood, but all the windows looked intact.

“Drone feed isn’t showing anyone around the residence,” Ruby relayed. “Are the cops and Angel there yet?”

He was about to say no, but then he spotted Angel’s van stopping about a half block away. While Angel was parking behind a junker, a black sedan pulled into a spot on the other side of the street. The sedan was about as nondescript as a vehicle could get, which meant these were almost certainly the cops.

“They’ve arrived,” Presley informed Ruby.

“Good. How do you plan to approach the house?”

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