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Or continuing through the woods about a mile until they reached an old farm road.
Since he hadn’t seen another vehicle, it was possible the kidnappers had parked on that farm road. Of course, it was risky to be so far away from transportation in case something went wrong.
And something obviously had.
They likely hadn’t wanted to shoot at a hostage when they were so close to getting their hands on the entire chunk of ransom money.
“Bennie and the woman have to be alive,” Cassidy mumbled, and her breathing got even faster.
Mercy. She was on the verge of hyperventilating now, and Sawyer reached behind him and touched his fingers to her lips. Cassidy jerked back as if he’d burnt her. Their gazes met. Not one of those ordinary meets, either. This was one of blasted nonverbal connections between a man and a woman.
Who’d once been lovers.
Not a good time to remember that. Never a good time, actually. And he scowled to let her know that.
She scowled, too, her eyes narrowing a bit, and just like that, he’d cured her panic attack and hyperventilating.
“Let’s find him,” Cassidy snarled, and considering she’d just whispered it, she’d done a thorough job in conveying that snarl.
Her gaze fired around. “I have the picture,” Cassidy shouted without warning.
Sawyer reeled to her so fast that his neck popped. “What the heck are you doing?” he mouthed.
“Giving them what they want,” she mouthed back, her teeth clenched.
“If they’d wanted the photo bad enough, the kidnappers would have hung around.” And maybe they had. If so, Cassidy had just given away their position.
So, Sawyer moved again, trying hard not to let his anger turn what should be quiet footsteps into stomps. They’d only made it a few feet when he heard another moan. It was weak, barely audible, but it had come from a clump of cedars about fifteen yards away.
But that wasn’t the only sound.
There were footsteps that even the rain couldn’t conceal. Sawyer froze, holding back Cassidy again, but he didn’t have to hold her for long. There was a blur of motion, and Sawyer automatically took aim.
It was someone running.
Someone dressed all in dark clothes who quickly darted out of sight. In the video, Bennie had been wearing a light colored T-shirt similar to the one Cassidy had on.
The runner had to be one of the kidnappers.
There were more footsteps. Not from the same direction where the runner had disappeared to, but on the opposite side of the clearing. It wasn’t the running pace of an injured man who was hurt enough to moan. This was another runner.
And likely the second kidnapper.
Sawyer cursed himself for bringing Cassidy into this. Of course, if he’d left her to wait for Grayson, she would have no doubt been another set of those fast-moving footsteps trudging around in the rainy woods.
The seconds crawled by while he waited and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. He certainly couldn’t just start shooting with Bennie out there.
Behind him, he heard more footsteps. Not a runner this time, but the slow, cautious steps of a lawman. Sawyer glanced over his shoulder and spotted Grayson.
He motioned to the clearing so that Grayson would know what he was about to do.
“Stay here,” he warned Cassidy, and Grayson moved closer to her.
Good. If bullets started flying, Grayson would be able to pull her to the ground.
Sawyer tightened his grip on his gun and stepped out, making a beeline toward the cedars where he’d heard the moaning. No moans now, which might mean the kidnappers had moved their injured hostage.
When he reached the cedars, Sawyer used his elbow to push aside some of the branches. The first thing he saw was more blood.
And lots of it.
It had mixed with rainwater, making it impossible to tell just how much, but the bleeder had left a trail for him to follow.
No more footsteps. Just the sound of his own heartbeat crashing in his ears.
Sawyer pushed back another cedar branch, and he cursed when he saw the lifeless body on the ground in front of him.
Chapter Four
“No!” Cassidy blurted out. Nothing could have stopped her from running to Sawyer.
And toward the person lying on the ground.
Sawyer stooped down, touched his fingers to the person’s neck and shook his head. “Dead.”
Her heart was practically beating out of her chest by the time she made it there, and she tried to brace herself for the worst. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure she could handle the worst.
Sawyer took hold of her to stop her from going closer, but she still got a good look at the person lying on the ground.
Not Bennie.
The victim was a woman with jaggedly chopped hair, black with streaks of blue. Cassidy had no idea who she was, but she had no trouble seeing the bullet wound on the side of her head.
Despite the gruesome scene, the relief was instant and overwhelming. It robbed her of what little breath she had left. But the relief was also short lived. It wasn’t Bennie. But where was he?
“Bennie?” she yelled.
No answer. Nothing.
Cassidy would have bolted again to go look for him, but Sawyer stopped her. “Who is she?” He tipped his head to the woman on the ground.
“I don’t know.” Again, she tried to leave, and Sawyer stopped her.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he insisted. “The kidnappers have already killed one woman. You want to make it two?”
“I want to find my brother,” she insisted right back.
“We’ll do that. Come on. This is a crime scene now, and it needs to be processed. That’s our best bet at finding Bennie.”
Maybe. But everything inside her was screaming for her to run and find her brother. Even if she knew it wasn’t the logical thing to do.
“Something obviously went wrong here,” Sawyer said as he led her away from the body. “But the kidnappers will contact you again. They’ll keep Bennie alive because they want to get that ransom.”
That made it through the panic and the haze in her head. Yes, the kidnappers wanted the money. She had to believe that, hold on to it. Because it was the only way to keep herself sane.
Sawyer and she approached Sheriff Grayson Ryland, and he handed Sawyer a set of keys. “Use my truck and get her to the hospital so she can be checked out. I already have an ambulance and CSI team on the way.”
“The woman’s dead,” Sawyer told him.
The sheriff looked as if he wanted to curse, and he made another call. This time to the medical examiner.
“Please let me know if the men come back with Bennie,” she said to the sheriff.
He nodded, continued his call, and Sawyer got her moving toward a silver pickup parked just up the road. Not a slow pace, either. They were practically jogging, and he kept watch, his gaze firing all around.
Cassidy doubted the kidnappers would kill her. But she rethought that. She’d broken their rules by not returning with the photo in time.
Was that the reason they’d killed the woman?
The emotion was already high, boiling through her, and that caused her to gasp. “Did the kidnappers kill her to punish me?” she managed to ask.
Sawyer didn’t answer because he obviously didn’t know. He stuffed her into the truck, got behind the wheel and drove out of there fast.
“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she told him. “I’m okay. Or at least I will be when we find Bennie.”
“It’s standard practice to be checked out. After all, you were kidnapped.”
Yes, and she was rattled, but there wasn’t a scratch on her. She knew after seeing that video that Bennie wouldn’t be able to say the same thing. Those men had clearly hurt him.
“Don’t try to make sense of this,” Sawyer warned her after glancing at her face. “Let’s just get an ID on the body and go from there.”
It didn’t seem nearly enough, not with Bennie’s life at stake. Still, she knew Sawyer was right. They couldn’t go blindly running in the woods looking for him.
“But what does that woman have to do with the kidnapping and my brother?” she asked.
“Maybe she was one of the kidnappers.”
Cassidy was about to disagree, but the truth was, she had no idea if anyone else was involved. “I only saw the two men with cartoon masks.”
He spared her another glance before his eyes went back to the road. “And you’re sure they were both men?”
Was she? Well, she had been until Sawyer had asked that question. “Only one of them spoke, and it was definitely a man. But even if the other one was a woman, why would he have killed her?”
“Maybe because he didn’t want to split the ransom money with her. It happens all the time. Despite the cliché, there’s not much honor among thieves.”
He was right, and the kidnapper could now be a killer. A killer who had her brother.
Even though it wasn’t cold, she was soaking wet, and Cassidy began to shiver. Sawyer noticed, turned on the heat, and he sped up the wipers, too. It didn’t help much. The rain was coming down even harder now, and the wipers couldn’t keep up with the downpour.
“This is destroying the crime scene, isn’t it?” Cassidy asked.
He lifted his shoulder, kept his gaze pinned to the road. “Grayson’s a good sheriff. If there’s anything to find, he’ll find it.”
She thought about that a moment, trying to piece together this puzzle. “They held Bennie and me in your grandfather’s bar. Why? Why would they believe you and I have a connection?”
Another lift of his shoulder, but that wasn’t a casual response she saw in his eyes. No way. He was troubled by all of this—especially about the baby that she’d photographed in his arms.
Why would the kidnappers have wanted that?
She was about to ask him, but his phone buzzed, and she saw Grayson’s name on the screen. Cassidy held her breath, waiting and praying again that this wasn’t bad news about her brother.
“The dead woman had a wallet in her pants pocket,” she heard Grayson say. Since the call wasn’t on speaker, she scooted closer to Sawyer so she could listen to every word. “According to her driver’s license, her name is April Warrick.”
Cassidy repeated it, hoping it would spark some kind of recognition. It didn’t.
“I’m having someone run a background on her now,” the sheriff added.
“Good, we’re almost at the hospital. After Cassidy sees the doctor, I can help get all of this sorted out. What about the baby?” Sawyer asked. “Any calls about her? Is she okay?”
“She’s still with Mason at the E.R.—where you told him to take her. He says the baby’s fine, that he’s just waiting on the paperwork.”
That was something at least. Cassidy hated the thought of an innocent baby being put in the middle of this mess.
“I told Mason to have the doctors do blood and DNA tests on the baby,” Sawyer added.
Grayson stayed quiet a moment. “You want the DNA compared to yours?”
“Yeah.” Sawyer paused, too. “And if I’m not a match, then I’ll run it through the system to see if we can find out who is.”
She wasn’t sure what to hope for. At least if the child were Sawyer’s, then she would have him to protect her.
“Any sign of Bennie?” Cassidy asked. She moved even closer to Sawyer, until they were shoulder to shoulder. He noticed, glanced down at the contact between them and scowled. But Cassidy stayed put.
“Nothing yet,” Grayson answered, and with that, Sawyer did hang up. Another glance at her had Cassidy moving back to her side of the seat.
“You still haven’t forgiven me,” she mumbled. No surprise there. Sawyer wasn’t ever likely to forgive her.
“What do you think?” he mumbled back.
His voice was a growl, and it should have unnerved her. Along with that steely glare he was giving her. But sadly, even now, her reaction to Sawyer was a different kind of unnerving.
The images of them naked in bed flashed through her mind. Memorable images. But with bad timing. Then and now. She had been his one-night stand.
His decision, not hers.
She’d known him for months before that one-nighter. Months of lusting after him. And when Cassidy had finally run into him at a party, they’d left together to go back to his place for that one glorious night.
“I was attracted to you,” she reminded him. Still was. “That’s why I slept with you, not so I could get information about the investigation you were conducting on my brother.”
