Montana Abduction Rescue
Author
Jodie Bailey
Reads
17.0K
Chapters
16
Following the death of a crime boss he put behind bars, Ian Carpenter leaves witness protection — and runs right into an ambush. To escape assailants bent on revenge, he turns to his former handler, US marshal Meadow Ames, and her K-9 partner. But the stakes grow higher when Ian's cousin is abducted. With threats closing in, can they rescue a kidnapped teen…and stop the criminals for good?
ONE
He should have known this was a trap.
Ian Carpenter sped down a winding back road near Glacier National Park, pushing his old reliable pickup to the limits of its capabilities as he raced to save himself from his pursuers.
What was happening? The threat to his life had ended three months earlier when Ronnie Thornton died in prison, the last member of a crime family whose threats had driven Ian to take refuge in witness protection. It should have been safe for him to return to his hometown.
It wasn’t.
Behind him, a sleek sedan kept pace, toying with him. The driver raced up on his bumper then backed off before charging again. Likely, he was searching for the right place to clip Ian’s pickup and spin him off the mountain.
He had to get off the road and to good cover before that happened or they barreled into a populated area and put others at risk. Glacierville, Montana, rested peacefully in the valley, and the last thing he wanted was to see an innocent family caught up in this wild chase, the victims of whoever was running him down.
Gripping the steering wheel, Ian took a curve at a speed that made his palms sweat. Only his prior training with the Peak County Sheriff’s Department kept the truck from hurtling off the mountain.
His pursuer misjudged the curve. The back end of the car slipped to the outside.
Ian didn’t slow to watch. He pressed the gas pedal to the floor, trying to reach the one place where he might be safe and help could potentially find him.
There.
The turnoff snuck up on him, and he wrenched the wheel, tearing through brush and past trees onto an old logging road that wound deep into the woods. He winced as branches screeched along the paint of his restored Ford pickup. When he’d first gone into hiding, the vehicle had been his outlet, the physical labor of repairs a way to block his fears and regrets from drowning him.
Best not to worry about a paint job when his life was on the line.
A large metal gate appeared in the center of the road. Ian slammed on the brakes and fishtailed to a stop just short of the barrier.
This was new.
Guess he was on foot from here.
Grabbing his pistol from a custom pocket on the side of the seat, he shoved the door open and raced into the underbrush. Ian barreled down the rocky hillside toward the densest part of the forest, where a creek cut a ditch at the base of Calham Mountain, about seven miles outside of Glacierville.
When he reached thick underbrush and deep shadows, he pulled his phone from his pocket and surveyed the area, trying to orient himself.
From the logging road above, the sound of gravel under braking tires skittered across his nerves.
He’d gained a lead, but not much.
Heart racing, he opened a new text then typed the number he’d long ago committed to memory. There was no one else who could get him out of whatever this was. 911. At our old place. Outsider
Typing out his old code name nearly knocked him back two years, but any emotion was drowned by adrenaline and urgency.
He sent the text along with a prayer that Meadow Ames would see it and come immediately.
Not that God had time for his prayers, but it was worth a try.
When he’d been undercover with a multiagency human-trafficking task force led by the US Marshals, Meadow had been his handler. If he ever needed her to back him up, it was now.
Otherwise, he was as good as dead.
Pocketing the phone, he listened. Judging from what sounded like wild elephants crashing through the brush above, there were at least two people in pursuit.
Who were they? This had to be about something other than the undercover op that had taken down the Thornton family’s human-trafficking ring. Ronnie, the patriarch, had died awaiting trial in prison three months earlier. His son and their most trusted bodyguard had been killed in an explosion during a takedown gone wrong on the day Ronnie was arrested.
After Ronnie had hired an assassin who’d almost succeeded, Ian had been moved into witness protection, where he’d spent the better part of eighteen months in Texas living as Zeke Donner. With Ronnie dead, he’d been cleared to return to the area, though he’d been hesitant to do so.
Only his cousin’s call for help had dragged him back.
Either some unknown foe wanted him dead, or he’d stumbled onto a greater mystery.
Well, he wasn’t waiting to find out. Carefully, he crept toward the stream and the footbridge above it. He’d met Meadow there often when he had intel to pass along on the op. He would conceal himself in the underbrush to wait for her and any backup she brought with her.
Hopefully, she’d muster an army.
At the edge of the clearing, Ian stopped and scanned for a good place to hunker down. It would have to be far enough from the water to keep his pursuers from stumbling upon him but close enough for Ian to see Meadow when she arrived. He kept moving, careful not to break branches or disturb leaves.
Behind him and to the left, the sound of movement stopped.
Ian froze. Their stillness would make it easier for anyone listening to hear his movement.
“Hey, Deputy!” The shout rang through the evergreens and echoed off the slope.
Ian’s breath caught in his throat. They knew he’d been a Peak County sheriff’s deputy.
This wasn’t some random act.
He shrank into the underbrush, hardly daring to breathe until his pursuers moved. They were only a few hundred yards away and would easily spot him if he tried to maneuver while they were hunting.
“You aren’t getting away from us, traitor!”
Traitor?
Wait. That voice. It was familiar.
Sweat sheened his skin. It couldn’t be. Silas Thornton was dead. DNA had identified his body in the rubble of a warehouse after a catastrophic explosion. There was no way he was stalking Ian through the Montana wilds.
Ian inched to the right, angling to see up the slope. Several hundred yards uphill, a woman crossed a narrow clearing, moving parallel to Ian’s position.
Recognition jolted through him. Desiree “Des” Phelps had been Ronnie and Silas’s chief muscle and their most trusted enforcer. Although built like a ballet dancer, she had the strength of a lion. A seriously angry lion.
Realization burned hot in his veins. They’d been played. After the task force had arrested Ronnie and rounded up his underlings, they’d surrounded a warehouse in Missoula to apprehend Silas and Des. The team tossed several flash-bangs into the building, and one had ignited a fuel tank. Two bodies inside were incinerated, but DNA from two teeth and a toe had identified them as Des and Silas.
Clearly, the pair had sacrificed their own body parts in order to avoid prison, and now they were hot on his trail.
As they began to stalk the underbrush again, Ian eased along as well, keeping to the thick vegetation along the creek as he moved away from them.
An animal startled in the bushes nearby, racing up the slope.
A gunshot cracked through the trees, and three more followed, slicing through the air only feet from his position and sending panic through his system at the remembered piercing of a bullet that had nearly ended his life.
This was it. He was done.
Defenseless.
Paralyzed by fear.
Closing his eyes, Ian waited for death.
“This was a colossal waste of time.” Deputy US Marshal Meadow Ames sat back in her chair and reached over her head, trying to stretch the tension from her shoulders. She’d been holed up in a conference room at the Glacierville, Montana, police department all day, hunched over computer files and physical files, studying the murder of Henry Mulder until her neck ached and her eyes burned.
Across the table, Elk Valley, Wyoming, police officer Rocco Manelli dragged his hands down his face. He looked as exhausted as Meadow felt. Like Meadow, Rocky was a member of the Mountain Country K-9 Unit, composed of law enforcement officials from across several Rocky Mountain states. “I’ve chased suspects for miles on foot and not been this exhausted.” At his feet, his K-9 partner, a chocolate Lab who specialized in accelerant detection, yawned. Rocco grinned. “Even Cocoa has had enough.”
“At least Cocoa is awake.” At Meadow’s feet, her partner, a vizsla trained in tracking and search and rescue, snored lightly. “Grace zonked out an hour ago.” People often mistook Grace for a Weimaraner, although that breed was typically gray while her K-9 partner had a gorgeous rusty coat.
Shutting the laptop the Glacierville PD had provided so they could access the department’s electronic files, Rocco gave her a rueful look. “I’m with you. This was a bust.”
They’d spent the day digging through evidence and interviews in the homicide case of Henry Mulder, who’d been killed a few months prior by a serial murderer dubbed the Rocky Mountain Killer that Meadow and Rocco’s interagency K-9 unit was hunting.
Ten years earlier, the killer’s first three victims were found in a barn in Rocco’s hometown of Elk Valley, Wyoming, on Valentine’s Day. All were in their late teens and early twenties, and all were shot in the chest. They were graduates of Elk Valley High School and members of the now disbanded Young Ranchers Club.
A decade later, the killer was active again. Five months earlier, Henry Mulder had been killed in Glacierville, while Peter Windham had been murdered in Colorado. More recently, Luke Randall had been killed in Idaho. Like the first three victims, they were each shot in the chest and found in a barn. They, too, were EVHS grads and former YRC members.
There was a chilling difference in the latest three killings, however. Stabbed into the new victims was the same typed note: They got what they deserved. More to come across the Rockies. And I’m saving the best for last.
In response to the murders, FBI Supervisory Special Agent Chase Rawlston had been tasked with heading the Mountain Country K-9 Unit. Fifteen K-9 officers from various federal, state and local agencies were working together to hunt down the killer before he could strike again.
Combing through the files in Glacierville had led to nothing but a literal pain in Meadow’s neck. Neither she nor Rocco had taken a break since lunch, when they’d dashed to a café up the street for sandwiches then out to their SUVs to feed the K-9s and to check their phones, which the police department didn’t allow inside rooms with evidence after a leak of confidential information several years before. Meadow longed for sunlight and a muscle-stretching run, even though the July weather was unusually warm.
They retrieved their weapons from locked storage, turned in the borrowed laptops and files, then headed into late-afternoon sunlight.
Rocco slid sunglasses onto his face. “You headed to your house?”
While the MCKU was investigating, home base was the Elk Valley Chateau Hotel in Elk Valley, where the first murders had occurred. That HQ was almost fourteen hours away, so they’d been authorized to stay in Glacierville while they dug into the Mulder homicide.
Because Meadow’s home was only about thirty minutes from Glacierville, on the road to Missoula, she’d opened it up to members of the unit who were in the area, setting up a space in the guest room for the team members and their K-9 partners. “I am. You heading that way or going somewhere else first?”
Rocco glanced at his watch and then at the sky, where dark clouds were piling up on the western horizon. “I think I’ll drive around and admire the scenery, mull over what we read today and what we saw at the crime scene yesterday. Give me a chance to clear my head. Might stop and eat at the farm-to-table place you told me about. All you ever have when somebody bunks at your house is cereal.”
“You’re the only one on the team who complains, food snob, but I understand wanting to take in the scenery. Just keep an eye on the weather.” The mountains around Glacier National Park offered the kind of spectacular views that helped clear her head after a long day of dealing with murder and mayhem. It was one of the reasons she’d accepted the position with the US Marshals office in Missoula, where she’d been based before taking the temporary assignment with the MCKU. “I’ll likely be asleep by the time you show up, but you know where the key’s hidden. We’ve got to be up and rolling early since Chase wants a seven a.m. video conference with us all.”
“Yes, Mom.” Rocco headed for his SUV with Cocoa at his heels. “See you later.”
Meadow clicked the button to open the rear of her vehicle, where Grace’s custom kennel was located. The SUV had been outfitted with everything from a built-in water bowl to automatic windows and an alarm should the air-conditioning ever shut off while Grace was inside.
The K-9 bounded into the vehicle and settled in as Meadow filled the water bowl then shut the door.
Rocco was backing out when Meadow climbed into her vehicle. She grabbed her cell phone from the locked glove box and glanced at the screen.
The temperature warning flashed angry red.
Great. Meadow slipped the phone into its holder, positioned in front of an air vent, and cranked the AC. While it didn’t often crack ninety degrees in Glacierville, the day had been unusually warm, and her car had been closed up for longer than normal. She rolled out of town and headed for home, waiting for the phone to cool down and power up.
She peeked at Grace in the rearview then pointed the car south. “You ready for one more night at home?” They’d wrap up odds and ends tomorrow and head back to Elk Valley the next day. It might be a while before she saw home again. The one plant she’d managed to keep alive had given up hope, but she’d watered it the night before and would water it again tonight. It had come back from worse neglect. “So, home, girl?”
Grace tilted her head as though she understood, then found a chew toy and busied herself with it. Grace’s training had taught her that inside the vehicle was an off-duty space. Vizslas were known for chewing, and Grace was a champion at destruction if she didn’t have something to keep her busy.
Meadow’s shoulders had just begun to relax when her phone lit up and pinged repeatedly. She pulled into the parking lot of a coffee shop and popped the device free, flicking the screen to see if she’d missed many calls and emails. She doubted it, given that the team knew to call the police department if an emergency came up while their cell phones were out of reach.
She grimaced at the number of notifications. In the distance, the dark clouds continued to build. If she wanted to beat the coming storm, she’d need to get moving. “I’ll try to make this quick, Grace.”
The K-9 didn’t seem to care. She and her chew toy were perfectly content.
Meadow opened the texts first, since the most urgent messages would be there.
Her fingers froze. Three notifications down was a number she didn’t recognize, though the sender was clear.
Outsider.
She’d never expected to see that code name again. It swirled hot and cold around her heart.
Forget the rest of her messages, Ian’s 911 took precedence. She slammed the phone into its cradle, jammed the SUV into Drive and roared out of the parking lot, headed for the mountains between Glacierville and Cattle Bend. Ian wanted to meet in their “old place,” where they’d exchanged intel when he was undercover. That meant he was twenty minutes away, in Calham Nature Preserve.
She prayed the entire drive. There was no way to know what the threat was or how long Ian had been in the area.
She gripped the wheel tighter, ignoring the burn behind her heart. There was also no way to know why Ian hadn’t reached out when Ronnie Thornton had died and the threat to Ian’s life had ended.
He’d remained distant and silent while Meadow had pieced together the heart Ian could never know he’d broken. Despite the fact that he’d repeatedly talked about his aversion to dating and marriage, she’d managed to fall hard for the law enforcement officer with the light brown hair and deep blue eyes. There was something broken about him, something that her own heart had connected with. In the end, she’d wound up shattered when he went into WITSEC, and that pain was only magnified when the threat to his life ended and he didn’t reach out.
Until now...when he needed help.
She roared into the parking lot at the trailhead, unsure if she was relieved or disturbed to see no other vehicles. At the rear of the SUV, she pulled her badge over her head and shoved it into her pocket, then removed the MCKU patches from Grace’s harness. She had no idea what she was getting into, and sometimes it was safer not to be immediately identified as law enforcement.
She slung a small backpack over her shoulders, checked her sidearm, then plunged down the path toward the creek, where they used to meet when Ian was undercover and she was his handler. It was the one place he’d felt truly safe when they were working together on the human-trafficking task force, the one place they’d felt free to openly talk about everything from the case to their personal lives.
Where they’d become friends.
And where her feelings had grown deeper as time passed, while his had stayed firmly in friend territory.
Right now was the wrong time to be leading with her heart. Besides, she’d put her feelings for Ian on ice when he’d disappeared into WITSEC.
As Meadow neared the creek, she stepped off the trail to follow a narrow footpath that disappeared beneath the bridge.
No one was near.
Motioning for Grace to sit, Meadow listened, wary of calling Ian’s name. Without knowing the nature of the threat, her options were limited. Calling out could put them in jeopardy.
If she had something of Ian’s for Grace to sniff, she could set her partner onto his trail. Unfortunately, all she had was memories.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, and wind tangled the treetops.
She clucked to Grace, who trotted beside her as she inspected the clearing. Up the hill, someone had clearly walked through the underbrush.
Ian? Or someone else?
She carefully followed the trail, eyeing the ground and the bushes until...
A cell phone.
It felt as though her heart stopped for several beats as she knelt and inspected the phone, then flipped it over. It must have fallen from a pocket, landing on its corner. The screen was shattered, and the device appeared unusable. It either belonged to Ian, or to whoever had threatened him.
She’d take her chances.
She collected the phone, let Grace scent it, then gave her partner a moment to pick up a trail.
Nose to the ground, Grace sniffed in a small circle, then took off parallel to the creek, following a barely there path through the underbrush. After pausing to regain the scent, she headed off again with Meadow at her heels.
With a jerk on her leash, Grace pulled toward the creek then stopped, looking up and down the bank. No scent.
Whoever they’d been trailing had crossed about two hundred yards up from the bridge, where the underbrush was thick. Where were they heading now? Were they friend or foe?
She led Grace through the water and toward a thick stand of brush about halfway up the hill.
She headed into the deepening shadows and paused to scan the sky. The clouds were thickening and—
Something rustled in the trees behind her.
A hand clamped over her mouth.
