He finished making his sandwich. “So, what happened at the hotel?” He’d been dying to know. There could have been a shoot-out. Everyone could be dead. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but then again, he was suffering from lack of sleep and a general fear that gnawed at his insides day and night.
“Our body-shop man found something interesting on the car,” Gerald continued, ignoring Collin’s question. A sharpness to the man’s tone caught his attention. “You said you found a tracking device and destroyed it?”
“I did. I can show it to you. It’s probably still in the garage where I smashed it.” He started to head for the garage, but Gerald waved him back.
“Our man found a second tracking device. Which might explain how Jon Harper found you so easily.”
Collin swore. He hadn’t even thought to check for a second one. Who put two tracking devices on a vehicle? Jon Harper. The cop. Not the friggin’ carpenter.
“I...” He closed his mouth since he had no excuse. He’d messed up again. He didn’t want to think about what would happen when he did it a third time.
“As for the hotel...” Gerald was studying him closely.
He took a bite of his sandwich, pretending he hadn’t been on needles and pins waiting for word.
“What do you care?” the boss asked, narrowing his eyes at him.
Collin chewed and quickly swallowed. “I just want to know. Crossing the border with Kate will make it easier than without her. She did great on the way into Canada. She—” He broke off, realizing at the same time Gerald obviously did that he didn’t want her to be dead anymore than he wanted her to be with Jon Harper.
“You do realize that you’re going to have to take care of her when this is all over,” Gerald said. “You can’t let her live.”
“I know.” In truth, none of this was going down as he’d envisioned it. Had he actually thought Kate would join him in his misadventures? He sure as hell hadn’t planned to have the rental car break down in Buckhorn, Montana, the home of carpenter Jon Harper, ex-cop and possible husband to his fiancée.
Since then, he’d been winging it. But he knew Gerald was right. Kate couldn’t be freed anymore than Jon Harper could. Both would go to the authorities straight as a bullet. He gritted his teeth at the thought of how stubborn they both could be. Jon Harper had come to Canada to save a woman he supposedly didn’t know from Adam. And Kate...she’d gone with a complete stranger after he’d crawled in her window. The thought made him wince like biting down hard on a rotten tooth.
But could he kill her? He’d done a lot of illegal and immoral things in his life. Murder wasn’t one of them. And this was Kate. Maybe he didn’t love her like a man should love a woman, but he’d wanted her. He’d needed her. Unfortunately, both were still true.
“I’ll take care of it,” he snapped. “So, are you going to tell me what’s going on at the hotel or not?” he asked, tired of Gerald keeping him in the dark.
The front door opened, making them both turn. Collin saw Jon Harper first, then Kate and the man behind her with the gun. Kate’s gaze met his. If looks could kill, he’d be a smoldering heap on the floor. Yeah, he thought, I’d be able to kill her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“TAKE HIM DOWN into the basement and tie him up.”
Collin realized that Gerald was talking to him. “Why me?”
“Phil will stay up here with Kate to make sure you don’t have any trouble with Mr. Harper,” Gerald continued. “Everything you need is in here.” He handed him a paper sack from some hardware store.
Collin took the sack and glanced at the closed door the man indicated. He didn’t want to do this. He had a thing about damp, dark places. He felt sweat break out and trickle down his spine. “Gerald—”
“Just do it,” the man snapped.
The last thing he wanted was to go down there. But Collin knew he had little choice. He could just imagine the men’s reaction if he told them about his claustrophobia or his anxiety attacks. After they quit laughing, he’d be lucky if they didn’t tie him up in the basement.
He pulled his gun, motioned for Jon to open the door and go down the steep steps first. A single bulb hung from the ceiling at the bottom of the stairway. The dim light exposed an expanse of cold concrete, stacked boxes, several old washing machines in various stages of dying, along with a lot of other junk and debris. The smell rushed up the stairs, gagging him with the musty damp stench of it.
It was exactly the kind of place Collin abhorred. He felt a shudder as he followed Jon down the stairs. At the bottom, he opened the sack and saw a length of cotton rope and several rounds of duct tape.
In the corner, he spotted a straight-backed wooden chair. “Pull that over here,” he ordered Jon. For a moment, he thought the man wasn’t going to comply. But slowly, the carpenter limped into the corner and drew the chair out into the light. It did Collin good to see that the carpenter wasn’t as tough as he had pretended to be. “Sit.”
“You know you don’t have to tie me up,” Jon said in his gravelly, low voice. It felt eerie down here in the circle of light from the overhead bulb. Beyond the dim light, dark-shadowed shapes hunkered in the corners. “You have Kate. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her life.”
“You already have,” Collin snapped.
“I just wanted to get her away from you before you dragged her into something that could get you both killed,” Jon said quietly. He sounded so measured. Another reason Kate had fallen for this man. There was something solid about him, honorable, trustworthy. Hell, the man sounded like a damned Eagle Scout. All of that, too, wouldn’t be wasted on Kate.
“Shut up.” Collin shoved him down onto the chair. Jon almost went over backward but caught himself. His brown eyes darkened. “Just know, if you let anything happen to her, I will hunt you down and kill you. And I think by now you realize that I’m serious.”
The way he said it, quietly as if talking about the weather, Collin felt a chill run the length of his spine. He fought the urge to shoot the man and get it over with. Instead, he tucked the gun into the waist of his jeans and ripped off a long piece of duct tape. Grabbing the man’s wrists, he forced them together as he began to wrap the tape around them as quickly as possible. He could feel the darkness of the basement as if it was creeping up behind him.
He could also feel Jon’s eyes on him. The man’s declaration hadn’t been a threat. It had been a promise. It was why Collin couldn’t have Jon out there hunting him down. He’d make that phone call the first chance he got.
That’s if Gerald didn’t kill Jon the moment he and Kate left.