Page 64 of Love on the Run

Jake chafed at the delay, but he had to admit Quinn was probably right. “Sun will set in about two and a half hours.” His shoulders bunched up. “Callie could be dead by then.”

“She could be dead already,” Quinn noted coolly, as he pulled out his gun and checked the mechanism. Finding it satisfactory, he slid a full clip in.

“Don’t say that,” Jake hissed.

“Hey, I don’t like the idea either,” he said, sliding the gun back into the holster. “If she knows as much as you say, I want her alive. But we have to face facts. And the fact is Malcolm Foster has her, and we don’t.”

“We’ll get her back,” Ty said confidently. Jake hoped he was right.

“I’m still not sure it was a good idea to bring the dog.” Quinn frowned at Bruiser, as if disturbed by the idea of a creature that was not subject to FBI regulations.

“He has Callie’s scent,” Jake explained patiently. “Once we get inside, there are a dozen places they could have hidden her. We’d have to search each room. Bruiser can lead us right to her.” Jake reached down to pat the dog’s head. “He’s not going to get out of control,” he assured Quinn. No, if anyone was going to lose control, it would be him. The thought of Callie being so close by and still in danger drove him mad. Quinn was a hard-nosed jerk, but he was level-headed, and Jake had to admit it was a good thing he was there. If he had been alone, he’d be inside already, and there would be bodies on the floor by the time he was done. And if Callie died… Jake took a deep breath, blotting out the thought.

“Stay calm,” Ty said in a low voice, too low for Quinn to overhear. “There’s always time to go crazy later,” he muttered, repeating the words of one of their old sergeants.

“I hope it doesn’t get to that.”

Jake radioed the deputies to let them know to stay in place. He gave Kyle the rough timeline, and explained the plan. “Whatever happens, don’t freak out. I’ll radio you if something changes.”

They waited. Bruiser lay down in the long grass, closing his eyes for a nap. Ty also relaxed, no doubt focusing on not aggravating his side. He’d been right before, when he called it barely more than a nick. Jake just hoped nothing worse happened.

He tried to keep still. Too many thoughts were flooding his head, from stupid, nearly suicidal ideas to speed Callie’s rescue to worrying how Callie was handling herself. He found it difficult to not jump up and pace around. Time dragged, and he felt like a caged tiger.

Then he noticed Quinn again. The man hadn’t moved since he last spoke. Though he should have looked ridiculous lurking in a forest in a suit and tie, the agent somehow settled in to the surroundings, so still he might have been carved from stone. Jake wondered what Quinn’s training had been. Not military, so far as he could tell. But the guy clearly didn’t just work behind a desk.

After an hour, the radio buzzed. Jake snapped it up. “What’s happening?”

Kyle’s voice crackled, “SUV coming down the road to the hotel. You guys might need to hurry it up. Over.”

The three men watched intently as the big car cruised up the road, leaving a cloud of dust in its wake.

“He’s here.” It was Ty who said it, but they all knew it. The timeline had just gotten shorter.

* * * *

While Callie waited in her prison, she thought about Jake. He would have developed some intricate plan to get free, she was sure. No, Callie amended, he never would have gotten into this position in the first place. He was too smart to get caught. Without warning, Callie found tears welling up. It was so stupid to miss someone she had only known for a few days, but she missed Jake. And she missed him because she had fallen in love with him.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Callie muttered to herself. How had she let things get so bad? If she had trusted Jake right away, she would have told him the truth, and Malcolm never would have gotten to her. Instead, she’d been stupid and suspicious of him, unwilling to trust her own heart, and now she would probably never see him again.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, but at the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door, her head snapped up. Someone was coming. She stood up quickly, holding the scrap of wood like a knife.

The lock popped, and the door swung toward her. The shadow of a man blew past her. “Callie!” It was Skinner. “Time to go.”

He had just stepped into the main room. Callie shoved him with both hands, one still gripping the wood, and he lost his balance, falling. “What the…”

She swung around and dashed through the door. She didn’t know where she was, but she headed toward what looked like the end of the hall, where there’d be stairs. Skinner, already recovered and up again, yelled behind her. Callie couldn’t move fast enough, and she felt Skinner gaining on her. “You little bitch,” he breathed. Callie snapped around, plunging the pointed end of her stake toward his face. He flung up his hand, but she connected, and Skinner shrieked in pain, stumbling backwards. Callie tried to turn and run, but he lashed out furiously at her, catching her jaw with his fist. Callie saw stars.

“I’ll kill you for that, you stupid…”

Callie blinked, and saw her strike had left a nasty mark across his face, a deep scrape now oozing red. Skinner, half blind, pulled out his gun.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The voice came from the end of the hall. Callie froze, her heart thudding to a stop. “You don’t touch her,” Malcolm roared, storming up to Skinner. “Callie ismine.”

Without another word, Malcolm hit Skinner so hard, he toppled to the ground. He rose slowly to his knees, holding his bleeding nose.

Malcolm turned to Callie, who hadn’t moved a muscle. He looked at her pale face, where Skinner’s hit had left its mark, and then to her leg. “Hello, precious,” he said quietly. “Rough day?”

Callie quailed, but struggled not to show it. “I’ve had better,” she whispered.

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