Reaching the top of the hill, Jake watched as the front of the train—the locomotive—whizzed right past him down the tracks and headed out onto a train bridge that crossed over the river. Jake knew he couldn’t second-guess himself. He ran straight up beside the train, looking for some way to jump onto one of the freight containers. The gravel that lined the tracks made it difficult for him to keep good traction. He nearly fell twice before regaining his balance. The train was moving at high velocity. Jake was quickly approaching the bridge. It was now or never. Jake figured he had one shot at this. If he jumped and missed, he might badly injure himself, or worse.
The yellow cargo containers had bars to open and shut the big sliding doors. He had to go for one of those bars. One more glance behind him to time it out. He was twenty feet from hitting the bridge and running out of room. Three . . . two . . . one. He jumped, reached. His left hand caught a bar, but his right hand missed. His shoes dragged on the gravel for a moment while he frantically tried to reach back up with his right. A column for the bridge was about to hit him. Using every bit of strength in his left arm, Jake pulled himself back up and finally got his right hand onto the same bar. Then he snuggled in as close as possible as his container raced out onto the bridge over the water.
Jake spun his head around, peered behind him. The guy with the gun appeared beside the tracks just as the caboose of the train sped past him. The train was going too fast for the man to catch up to it. And Jake was already too far away for the guy to get a good shot at him.
He’d survived—but barely.
THIRTY-ONE
Jake hopped off the cargo train once it slowed to pull into a Central Austin loading station. Then he hustled on foot back through the city until he finally returned to his truck parked next to the Palmer Events Center. From a distance, he could see the chaotic scene over at the Alliance Children’s Garden. Police and emergency vehicles were spread all over the place, and a big crowd of onlookers had gathered where Jake had stood talking with Brent about twenty minutes ago. Was Brent dead? Had the bullet taken the man’s life? Jake had no plans to get close enough to the scene to find out. But the thought that the man might be dead because he’d shown up to meet with Jake was tough to swallow. Everywhere Jake went right now resulted in more dead bodies.
First, Judd McGee. Now, Brent Grisham.
Why? What was going on? How was this all connected?
Jake decided he had no choice but to toss his new burner phone. If the text exchange he’d had with Brent might somehow be traced back to him, Jake couldn’t chance leaving himself open to that kind of exposure. But having no line of potential communication with Piper or her captors left him feeling severely anxious again. He had kept a small sliver of hope alive that Piper might suddenly be released and would call him on the phone. That hope was now dead.
All this had to somehow relate to Sarah’s discovery that her brother was stealing millions from the family firm. But would Steve really go to such lengths to cover up his crime? Would he have his own sister killed? His niece Caitlin too? And then have Piper kidnapped? It was hard to fathom, even with Steve’s personal and marital issues. Steve and his wife, Brooke, fought a lot and had embarrassed themselves plenty of times at family functions. When they were unable to have kids, Brooke seemed to turn on him. They’d done medical testing and discovered Steve was infertile. This had been yet another factor that had put Steve in a weak position with his overbearing father, who clearly obsessed over having a brood of grandchildren. Brooke also seemed to despise him for it. But they never divorced, probably because of pressure from both wealthy families. Stability protected money and power, according to Lars. Which Jake found ironic since he knew Lars had secretly encouraged Sarah to divorce him numerous times and move on.
Pulling away from the parking lot, Jake drove out of downtown proper and into the exclusive suburb of Westlake. He was headed straight to Steve’s house to confront the man directly. He could feel his anger surging with the thought that his brother-in-law might be behind Piper’s abduction. Like everyone else in the family, Steve lived in an exquisite place near downtown. Jake wondered if he would actually be home. He figured most of the Kingston family might be gathered over at his in-laws’ estate today. No doubt his father-in-law would be blaming him for everything that had happened while not realizing it was probably his own son who had caused this devastation.
Jake slowed as he pulled down a street of luxury homes in a neighborhood called Rollingwood until he came upon a private cul-de-sac. Steve’s house was a super-modern two-story with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over a heavily wooded area. Jake parked up the street away from the house. He quickly changed out of the black hoodie he was wearing—it had mud all down the front—and put on the dark-gray cotton jacket. He also swapped out his baseball cap for the ski cap again. Getting out, Jake briskly walked toward the cul-de-sac. He kept his eyes down on the sidewalk as a neighbor pulled out of a garage in a Cadillac Escalade and drove on past him. How long could he keep this up? Every time someone gave him a second look, it sent shivers down his spine. His nerves felt completely shot. But he knew the answer—he had to keep going until he finally had Piper safely back in his arms.