Oregon Outback (8 page)

Finished with filling the tank, he hung his head. “Lord, please, help me make this right.”

His phone buzzed in his pocket. Jonas yanked it out, hoping Darcy was calling, though he knew she was dining with the potential buyer at that moment.

Darcy’s ID. His pulse spiked. “Darcy?”

“No, not Darcy. If your girlfriend was here, she would call me Alberto Marino.”

The buyer was answering her phone? Something wasn’t right. “Where’s Darcy then?”

“But if you were here, you would call me Carl Gambini, Roberto Gambini’s nephew.”

Noooo!
His heart stopped …

Then started.

The worst kind of dread shot through him. “You listen. Your fight is with me, not Darcy.”

“You have something that belongs to me. If I don’t get it back, I’m going to destroy your life, everyone you care about—just like you did to my uncle—and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I already searched through the stuff you left in Chicago, and I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I found something almost as good. Pictures of a beautiful woman. The one woman you love. If you don’t return my money, I’ll hurt her. And when I’m finished with her, I’ll hurt your brothers.”

Though Jonas was trained to respond, he was in a state of utter shock. His mind scrambled to figure out what money Gambini was talking about. But Gambini wouldn’t want to hear that he didn’t know, and a denial wouldn’t buy him any time or help Darcy.

“I’ll bring you the money in exchange for Darcy.”

“You’d better have the full half mill.”

A half-million dollars? “Where do you want to meet?”

“I’ll call you within the hour. If you want to see Darcy unharmed, you better not contact the authorities. You, of all people, should know what can happen.”

Gambini ended the call. He’d sucker punched Jonas, who should have been on the lookout for trouble. But he honestly considered Gambini’s rants from behind bars nothing more than idle threats. It was difficult for a stranger to show up in this town without the locals knowing about it.

And with that he realized … Darcy’s buyer. Jonas threw his leg over the bike, straddling it. It was his fault. Again.

He wouldn’t waste time berating himself. He had to save Darcy.

Help me make it right …

Jonas called Lucas. “I need you to drive the roads and look for anything out of the ordinary. Darcy has been kidnapped by the relative of someone I put away. I don’t want him to hurt her, so you need to use stealth. Do. You. Understand?”

“Got it.”

“I’m on my bike about an hour out and headed back. Keep calling me if you have to. Call the sheriff, too; let her in on the news, but again, don’t draw any attention or it could mean Darcy’s life.”

“Don’t worry, Jonas. We’ll get her back.”

Next Jonas called Tom. “Gambini’s nephew has kidnapped a woman. Her name is Darcy Nichols. He wants to trade her for a half a million dollars that he thinks I took. Know anything about that?”

Jonas gave Tom the rest of the particulars and was assured help was on the way, though details were sorely lacking.

If only he’d stayed away from Oregon’s high desert country, away from Carnegie and Darcy, then she’d be safe right now. But Gambini had discovered her photograph in Jonas’s apartment.

She’d never been safe with Jonas holding on to her. She’d never be safe until he let her go.

O
utside the restroom, Darcy pressed her body against the wall, listening. She stood around the corner from Marino.

She’d slipped out the moment he made the call, and from her hiding place, she heard every word. His name wasn’t even Marino. It was Gambini.

By the conversation, she knew he was talking to Jonas. Jonas had stolen money from him, and now he wanted to trade Darcy’s life for the money. Her pulse thundered in her ears. Her breathing would give her away if she couldn’t calm down.

She’d been frozen to the ground, listening, and now it might be too late to run. They were out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by miles of arid, deserted land and, beyond that, ten thousand acres of sand dunes. Thank goodness she’d worn flats. Still, Darcy would never make it to Lucas’s, but she could hide. An image of the perfect hiding place appeared in her mind.

Oh no, Lord, please no …

Gambini disappeared from sight. Darcy guessed he was going to check on her. This was her chance to escape. She propelled herself from the wall and into the Oregon wilderness.

“Are you finished yet?” His voice echoed through the small opening in the wall of the restroom. He had to think she was an idiot.

Running as fast as she could, she didn’t look back.

Gambini shouted. He’d spotted her, but now she had the advantage. She had a head start, she could run, and she knew where to hide. At that moment, she would give anything to be hang gliding, the earth far beneath her.

But she did her best to fly with her feet.

If she could put enough distance between them, she could lose him, weaving through trees and sagebrush, then hide in the fissure. It was her only chance.

She kept up her pace for a quarter mile. Though she was in great shape, she couldn’t catch her breath. With the sun quickly setting, Darcy held on to hope that she could use the night and her familiarity with the area to outlast Gambini.

Footfalls approached from behind, coming up on her fast.

She darted behind a copse of trees, crept around boulders, and veered up the path to the Crack-in-the Ground, to the place where Lucas and Emily had been able to climb down beyond the main entry point.

Memories lashed at her. She and a friend were exploring the crack while their parents picnicked nearby. They’d been warned to stay away. Darcy had scrambled over boulders and hidden in a deep hole—a place not readily visible to tourists. During her climb down, she’d somehow dislodged a rock that slid against her arm, wedging it against the rock wall. She called for help. Hours passed before she was discovered. Her friend was afraid to tell her parents where they had gone for fear of getting in trouble.

Darcy could use her knowledge of the place to hide now. What if something happened to her this time? What if she was never found? She swallowed the acid rising in her throat. She’d rather take her chances with a geological oddity, than with Gambini.

Darcy scrambled down into the thousand-year-old fissure. She stood at the bottom and gazed up the seventy-foot rock wall that lined either side.

As she pushed farther along, she descended deeper and the shadowed crevice grew dark. The twenty-degree drop in temperature wrapped her in a blanket of cold. Finding what she was looking for—a rocky outcrop hiding a deeper hole—Darcy shoved herself in a corner, pushing down the panic.

Always the panic. The anxiety.

Completely shrouded in darkness, she wouldn’t go deeper. Couldn’t go deeper into darkness. Into that small, tight space. Unless her life depended on it.

Listening, she steadied her breathing.

Minutes crept by before she slid to the ground. Had she lost her abductor?

She would wait for Jonas. He would find and save her, wouldn’t he? She could trust him on that, forget that her childhood friend had left her behind to save her own skin.

Thoughts of Jonas turning into a rogue FBI agent involved with Gambini sent her heart racing, quickening her breath. Jonas couldn’t have stolen the money. She wouldn’t believe it. Gambini was the liar. That had to be it.

Her life was at stake because of that money.

In the end, only death kept them apart …

Her words to Emily about tragic love stories accosted her. Darcy shuddered at the thought.
Lord, give us another chance
.

Did she believe that Jonas was innocent because she loved him? Because she needed him? No—it went deeper than that. She knew in her core that he couldn’t be involved in something illegal, despite his troubled youth. He hadn’t carried that with him into a law enforcement career.

He’d changed for the better.

“If only you could see him now, Daddy,” she whispered.
Then maybe you’d approve of us this time …

She still wanted her father’s approval. In the cool darkness, Darcy imagined that her father had given his blessing for them to be together. He finally told Darcy how proud he was of her—fulfilling her hope, her dream.

Against the smooth, cold stone, she had a startling revelation. A tear escaped, warming her cheek.

His approval would not fill the emptiness.

The phone vibrated in his pocket. Jonas slowed to a stop on the side of the road, hating that he had to lose time.

“Lucas, what have you found?”

“There’s an abandoned sedan at the rest stop a few miles north of Christmas Valley where we took the girls for the picnic.”

“That could be anything.”

“Illinois plates.”

The odds jumped a few notches. Maybe Gambini had driven to avoid being tracked.

“Search the area. If you find anything, wait for me and the sheriff. Do not act on your own. I’m just fifteen minutes out.”

Jonas urged the bike back on the road and accelerated, not caring that he had to pass cars already driving too fast. He hadn’t been good enough for Darcy a decade ago. Her father had called him a troublemaker with no direction.

He’d taken the man’s advice. But even Special Agent Jonas Love was trouble for Darcy.

None of it made any difference. His life had ramped out of control. If Darcy was going to survive, Jonas had to let go of the reins. He needed divine assistance—someone who did a better job of running things than Jonas did.

Lord, please protect her, save her. I’m giving her up completely to You, if that’s what You want
.

It was hard … giving her up. But it felt right.

Waiting. Listening. Darcy shivered in the black night. Pebbles and dirt skittered from the surface into the fissure.

She held her breath. Desperate for peace and safety, she silently sang the words to Psalm ninety-one.
“I will say to the Lord, You are my refuge, and my fortress, my God in whom I will trust …”

Thud
. Someone had dropped to the ground.

Gambini was coming. Footsteps crunched between the crevice walls. He would find her. She searched for a rock—something to use as a weapon—and stood, pressing herself against the cold wall, willing herself invisible.

She heard faint breathing, not her own. Fear wrapped around her throat, cutting off her breath. She remained quiet. Listening.

Inhale … exhale
…inches from her.

Could he hear her heart pounding?

The walls again … closing in. Darcy was trapped. There was no escape. Her anxiety sucked all the oxygen out.

I’m in a vacuum … can’t … breathe …

She imagined invisible forces propelling her through the air, through her life, and to this place. But no invisible force controlled her path now. Or stood in her way. Only a man intent on harming her.

His will over hers.

Her will, now, over the panic, the anxiety.

Let him feel the full force of
her
will.

She swung the rock, aiming for a head. A hand gripped her wrist. Squeezed. The rock dropped.

Another hand stifled her scream. She bit into flesh.

“Shh. It’s me, Jonas.” His voice was sharp, strained. She’d bitten hard.

Darcy’s legs grew limp. She trembled, relieved.

Jonas kept his hand over her mouth and whispered in her ear. “He’s still out there. We have to be quiet. Do you understand?”

Darcy nodded. When he removed his hand, he sucked her to him like a violent whirlwind, gripping her, hugging her. His tense muscles shuddered—and she knew he was relieved to find her.

She held on to him as if holding on to life. She wanted to whimper, to sob. But this wasn’t over yet. His hands caressed her, his arms held her tight, and in his embrace, she could hear his silent question—was she okay?

When he released her, he took her hand, leading her quietly along the fissure away from where Darcy thought was the best place to hide. What was he doing? Did he have a plan to get them to safety?

Moonbeams filtered into the crevice in places. Jonas carried a weapon strapped to his waist, and he tugged it free now, held it at the ready.