“Okay, so they grabbed the ransom. But where is Jessie?”
Lynch shook his head. “I don’t know, Kendra.”
Kendra nodded as she absorbed the awful realization. “Then either she drowned.” She swallowed. “Or they took her.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
“Jessie swims like a fish. I won’t believe she drowned. But I can’t see why in hell they’d have any reason to take her, either.”
Kelland had heard her. He looked up from the netting and shook his head. Then he pointed to the concrete embankment next to him.
There, just inches from the water, was Jessie’s motorcycle helmet.
CHAPTER
11
Shelby Tool and Machine Company
Lancaster, California
Five Hours Later
James Dorset leaned impatiently back behind the wheel of his pickup truck, trying to ignore the awful smell coming off his skin and hair. He hadn’t been able to shower since pulling Jessie Mercado out of the Los Angeles River the night before, and the smell was only getting worse.
He took another look around at his surroundings. This was a lousy place for him to have to cool his heels while he waited. He was parked behind the large main building of what was once the Shelby Machine and Tool Company, which obviously hadn’t seen any action in years, maybe decades. The buildings sat in the middle of a thousand-acre parking lot riddled with potholes and desert weeds protruding from every crack in the asphalt. Winds howled across the desolate landscape.
Dorset wasn’t even aware of the place’s existence until a few days before, when he and Paul Fantinelli had stowed a motorcycle there after their highway run-in with Jessie Mercado and Kendra Michaels. His hand instinctively went to his injured right leg, which still might require surgery.
Bitches.
No matter. In spite of everything that had gone wrong last night, he had made himself a very rich man. Now if only Fantinelli would get his ass back here so that he could—
Fantinelli’s van sped around the far end of the building. Finally. As the van approached, Dorset climbed out of his pickup.
Fantinelli parked, opened his door, and joined Dorset in the shadow of the building’s rusty awning. He was a tall man with a thick red beard. “How’s the leg?”
“Hurts like hell,” he said sourly. “I still think you should have let me punch Mercado’s face a few times on the way out of town.”
“Huh. I ask you, what kind of man wants to beat up an unconscious woman?”
“My kind. Especially if she’s why I may have to walk with a limp for the rest of my life.”
“I see your point.” Fantinelli smiled. “But Kendra Michaels is the one you should be mad at. She’s the one who sent you sailing over your handlebars.”
“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten about her.” Dorset gestured toward the dilapidated building. “I might pay her a visit one day soon. Are you sure no one’s around?”
“Nah, it’s been deserted since the ’nineties. Half my family used to work here. It went belly-up when the aerospace industry collapsed. Don’t get nervous. We’re safe out here.”
Dorset nodded. “Okay, if it’s so safe, maybe you can tell me why the boss wanted me to hang out here and not go with you and the other guys when you took Mercado and the money back with you?”
Fantinelli looked uneasy. “I need to talk to you about that.”
Dorset stiffened. “This doesn’t sound good.”
“It isn’t.”
Dorset’s face flushed with anger. “What the hell? Is he trying to screw me?”
“No. Calm down. It’s not that at all.”
“Then what is it?”
Fantinelli hesitated for a long moment. “It may just be smarter for you not to be seen. They may be onto you.”
“What?”
“The FBI’s been sniffing around. An agent even went to your old apartment building in Burbank.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Is there any other reason the Feds might be interested in you right now?”
Dorset shook his head. “No. How in the hell did this happen?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they typed your DNA from blood off your wrecked motorcycle.”
“I told you, my DNA isn’t in any database.”
“It is now, Dorset, even if your name isn’t attached to it. And if they catch you, you’re one blood test away from being placed on that highway where we offed Adrian.”
“Shit.”
“And as long as you have this kind of heat on you, you can’t be anywhere near Delilah Winter. Or any of us. You’ll have to lay low.”
“Here in this rat trap of a factory?” Dorset tried to quell the panic and anger he heard in his own voice. “How long am I supposed to stay here? What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Fantinelli took a deep breath as he looked out at the barren landscape. Then he said soothingly, “Not long. I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch. Don’t worry, Dorset. We have a plan.”
* * *
“Listen, you have to open your eyes, Jessie. I can’t take this.”
Dee…It was Dee’s voice.
“Wake up!” Dee’s voice was fierce. “I know she lied. She just wanted to hurt me. You’re going to be fine. I won’t let her do that to us. But you have to open your eyes and prove it to her.” She sounded so upset that Jessie forced her lids to open. Dee was looking down at her, tears pouring down her cheeks. “See. I told you. It wasn’t poison; it was just more of that damn sedative she gave me.” She wiped the tears away with the back of her manacled hands and lifted her chin. “Now, don’t you dare go back to sleep.”
“I have no intention of doing that.” Jessie shook her head to clear it. “Are you okay?” She looked around and recognized the interior of an aircraft of some sort. Plane. They’d been right about what Dee had been trying to tell them…“This has to be where you’ve been kept since you were kidnapped?” Her gaze flew to Dee’s face. “What was that about poison?”
“Listen to you.” Dee’s voice was shaking. “You’re always worried about me. I’m fine. This isn’t about me. I’m not the one those nutcases tried to drown. They almost killed you. I told you to be careful.”
“This is still very much about you,” Jessie said. “And I don’t like it that they didn’t release you. They got the ransom?”
“So Charlotte told me.”
“Charlotte?”
“Dorset called her the dragon bitch.” She gestured around the plane. “She kind of runs things around here.”
“Where is everybody?” Her gaze was wandering over the plane’s interior. “We’re alone here?”
“For the time being. She’s outside talking to Fantinelli, one of the men who brought you here. There were three of them, Muntz, Blackman, and Fantinelli. I think Fantinelli was the one in charge of the others, but he left after they’d finished sedating and handcuffing you. He only just came back, and Charlotte said she had to talk to him.”
“You mentioned…Dorset. He was here with you?”