Page 322 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“After what he did to you, I’m surprised you want anything to do with him.”

“What do you know about it?”

“Not much. I overheard him and Sergeant Strauss talking about it. He basically told her how he’d ditched you when times got tough. You should find yourself a real man who can handle adversity.”

“Like you?”

He chuckled. “The ladies love me.”

“This one doesn’t.”

“Can’t win them all.”

He turned down a dirt road. “Where are you going?”

“Taking a shortcut.”

“You sure it’s a shortcut?”

“I know the area like the back of my hand.”

“All right.”

He swerved around a giant pothole at the last second, and when she looked back, she watched Sandra slam into it. “We need to help her.”

“I’ll take care of it. You wait here.”

He slipped from the vehicle and started toward Sandra’s car. Before he could reach it, Emily was at his side, and Sandra was opening the driver’s side door of her car. He reached for Emily’s service pistol and caught her in a headlock with one arm while pointing his own weapon at Sandra. “Toss your weapon over here.”

When she didn’t immediately comply, he tightened his grip on Emily’s throat. “She dies now if you don’t do as I say. You’ll have seven days to try to save her if you obey my orders.”

Sandra tossed her weapon to him, and he snatched it up and stuck it in his waistband without releasing his hold on his own weapon.

“Now give me your backup gun and your cell phone.”

She tossed her cell phone. “I don’t have a backup.”

“I’m not an idiot. Toss it here now or you die.”

“I don’t have one.”

Emily shuddered when his gun fired, and she watched Sandra slump down with a neat hole in her forehead.

“Nobody gives us country boys credit. We know how to shoot.”

She didn’t respond.

“Move.” He pushed her toward the Interceptor and shoved her into the driver’s seat. “You can drive now, so I can keep my eyes on you.”

Before long, he forced her to drive down another dirt road leading them back out to Route 940. She should’ve recognized the trap. He’d driven down the dirt road with the intent of disabling Sandra’s car. He’d known she wouldn’t be able to get around that pothole, especially considering she hadn’t known it was there. All the protections Wade had put in place amounted to nothing. Pete knew his way around them.

Tears threatened, but she wouldn’t let him see her cry.

Pete hadEmily pull up to an old farmhouse and climbed out of the SUV, keeping his gun trained on her as he walked around to the passenger side. “Open your door.”

She did as she was told but ran through her options in her mind. If she went with him, she feared she’d spend a week at his mercy before being dumped at the park to be torn apart byvultures. At least his first five victims had burials. The last two were deprived of that dignity.

“Austin knows I left the park with you. You’ll be the first person they suspect when I turn up missing.”

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