Page 67 of Teach Me
“It looks like they were drugged as well, but then he slit their throats.”
Jess, her neck ringed in red.Don’t think about it. Don’t. It’s gonna be okay.
“He took out the cameras too?” No way would Jack miss something this big going down.
“They were hacked and looped. We didn’t notice until it was too late. If I hadn’t found those files… I underestimated what he could do. After all this time, knowing what— Fuckin’…” Jack’s voice faded out, and Con heard a door slam. When Jack returned, the air on the line sounded different, quieter, enclosed. An engine started. “God, Con, I’m so sorry.”
It's okay. It’s gonna be okay.“Has the tracker been activated?” They’d made sure a tracking bug was sewn into the lining of every bra Jess had. They would be able to track her in real time, even internationally.
Jack paused. “You need to get there as fast as you can.”
“Jack, the tracker—”
“She’s not wearing it!” His shout rang in Con’s ear. “They found her clothes, all of them, in the tunnel.”
Fucking— Jesus.He almost didn’t get the door open fast enough to throw up. Images of what could be happening to Jess right now, to her vulnerablenakedbody, filled his head. He couldn’t lock them away. He’d seen too much violence in his job not to know what it looked like on a human body; the thought of seeing that on Jess, on the body he’d touched and tasted and loved, sent him into another round of heaving and shuddering before he could stop it.
“Con, damn it, get your ass back to the cabin now. I’m right behind you.”
He hit the gas before the door was even closed. He didn’t know if Jack ended the call; he didn’t care. He forced himself back under control, forced the thoughts swirling his mind like a toilet bowl back into submission. Thinking that way couldn’t help him or Jess now. Nothing mattered but that she was alive when they found her. That was all. She just had to stay alive.
He wiped his mouth and pushed harder on the gas, speeding around a curve.
It’s gonna be okay.
I’m coming, Jess. Hold on.
The thirty minutes it took to pull into his driveway seemed to last forever.
The lights flashing a red and blue warning outside his cabin door threatened to undo him once more. An ambulance, rear doors open, was parked behind several patrol cars. Two body bags, obviously full, lay on the ground in front of the house. As Con parked, paramedics came out the front door pushing a gurney with Mark strapped on, an IV attached and oxygen flowing through a mask. He was still out. Considering his height and weight, he had to have been hit with a major sedative. At the thought of the same stuff pumped into Jess, Con’s stomach churned, but there was nothing left to come up.
Gaines’s black sedan already waited in the driveway. Jack’s 4x4 sprayed gravel just behind Con’s car as he rushed to park. His friend was at his door, a steadying hand on his arm, as Con stepped out of the car.
They met Gaines halfway across the yard. “What happened?” Con demanded.
“The lock shows no signs of tampering. We checked the log. It lists an entry ninety minutes ago with your fingerprint.”
Fuck. Why he was surprised, he didn’t know. His fingerprints were on file after his military stint and forming JCL, though they weren’t a matter of public record. Hacking for them seemed like just another link in the chain Hoolbrooke had forged with seeming ease. Tricking the scanner had been just as easy as everything else, for this bastard anyway.
That Con had underestimated his opponent so thoroughly—that he couldn’t fathom.
“And your men?”
“Long-range ketamine darts.” Gaines ran a hand through his already messy curls, the only betrayal of his emotion. “The knife wounds were clean, no hesitation.”
“And totally unnecessary if he’d already darted them,” Jack said grimly. “The only reason Mark is alive is probably that Holbrooke needed to reach Jess before she either fought him or got away.”
Con tried to take a page from Gaines’s book and keep a rein on the panic in his veins. “Any signs that she fought?”Please say no. Please…
“There’s a blanket half off the couch. My guess is he caught her asleep. Might’ve drugged her before she even woke up.”
God, he prayed so. “Now what?”
“What we need to know is where he might have taken her,” Gaines said.
Con could already see the wheels turning in Jack’s head. “He wouldn’t want to go far. Too much time would cut into his plans.”
Conlan didn’t even want to consider what those plans might be.
