Page 16 of Lone Star Christmas Mission

His boss didn’t make them wait long to tell them why she’d called. “Harvin’s on the line,” Ruby said. “And he’s set up a meeting place.”

“Where?” Cash asked.

“He won’t say. The asshole won’t say,” she repeated, the frustration in her voice. “For now, he wants Kayla and you to go to Coyote Creek Road. It’s about twenty minutes from your place.”

Cash shook his head and started a search on his phone. “I’ve never heard of it,” he told Ruby.

“Neither had I, but here’s what my techs found as soon as we had a location. The road is about ten miles long, narrow, and is in serious disrepair since there are no ranches or residenceson it any longer. Lots of woods, a dried up creek, and several abandoned houses and barns.”

Sweet heaven. It would be impossible for even Maverick Ops to cover that much ground.

“Hold on a sec,” Ruby said. “Harvin apparently has something else to say, and he wants us to see a picture.”

Kayla’s heart dropped. She couldn’t imagine any picture from a killer would be a good thing.

Ruby was only off the line for a couple of seconds, and when she came back on, she was muttering some raw profanity. “I’m forwarding you the photo,” she blurted. “Harvin says you’ve got fifteen minutes to get to Coyote Creek Road, or he starts shooting.”

Cash’s phone dinged with the incoming photo, and he turned his phone so they could both see it when it loaded.

Kayla groaned. She’d been right about this not being good.

And it wasn’t.

God, it wasn’t.

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Chapter Seven

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Harvin had another hostage. This one in a Santa suit, too.

Even though Cash wasn’t actually looking at the photo at the moment, he could still see it so damn clearly in his mind. That image meant he was having a fierce battle with himself to focus on stopping Harvin from killing not just the new hostage.

But also Kayla and him.

That fierce mental battle was involving several moving parts. Some literal ones since he was driving. While Cash did that, he listened to the chatter on his phone of Ruby barking out instructions. Ones that would hopefully give Kayla and him a decent shot at surviving this.

“I want feed from the drone as soon as it’s in place,” he heard Ruby tell one of the techs.

That drone would give them info to help them pinpoint Harvin’s location. Once they had that, then Ruby could put some boots on the ground to get them near the site. Close enough not to be easily seen but to be able to provide backup.

Cash trusted the “boots” that Ruby had chosen. Jericho McKenna and Rafe Cross. Both veteran members of Maverick Ops, and they were already on their way to Coyote Creek Road. They would be armed and ready.

But Harvin would be ready as well.

And Cash had to consider that Harvin was nowhere near the location where Kayla, Jericho, Rafe, and he were heading. In fact, the attack could take place enroute, and that was the reason Cash was keeping watch around them.

Not an easy task.

The entire area was basically jammed with trees, thick underbrush, and bluffs. Too damn many places for Harvin to lie in wait and ambush them in a hail of gunfire.

The SUV was bullet-resistant, but that didn’t mean shots couldn’t get through. It also didn’t mean Harvin wouldn’t resort to something more powerful than bullets. He could use explosives or even strip spikes on the road to disable the tires so he could then move in for an easier kill.

In case any of that happened, Cash did have plenty of backup weapons in the vehicle, but he didn’t want to get into that kind of pissing contest with some asshole who’d set up the sick rules of this deadly game.

“I’m tracking you,” Ruby said, “and it appears you’re within a minute of taking the turn onto Coyote Creek Road.”

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