That snapped her wide awake. Her eyes rolled toward Everett’s closed door. “I’ll be right there,” she whispered.
She hung up and stuffed her phone into her sweatpants. Thunder rolled in, starting with a purr before it grew to a roar. Then a flash of faraway lightning crept past her blinds like slashing fingers.
She needed to sneak out, confirm it was Jones, and let Mendelson gloat for a moment, since that was clearly what he was looking for. She felt strangely calm at the idea of laying eyes on Jones again. She wasn’t sure what she’d feel if he weren’t in custody. Scared or just angry? But at this exact moment, she felt nothing, like her mind had switched off her emotions for safety.
Pulling on a hoodie that lay over the corner of the couch, she moved quietly to the door to slide her feet into tennis shoes. Then she slipped out, locking the apartment door up tight behind her. The office was dark without the lantern, but a bit of light filtered through the windows from the business park across the street.
Jones had finally screwed up. He’d finally gotten too desperate and taken too many risks. She no longer cared about the optics of having him caught here, because Everett would be safe, and they were free now. She and Everett could walk away from Herriman and never set foot in this town again if they wanted. Well, aside from her supervisory duties, of course. But Everett could start over far away.
She opened the office door and was nearly tugged out by a gust of wind that spat rain beneath the hood of her sweatshirt. She rushed down the walk, wondering what this would all look like on Sharon’s security cameras.
Right, they wouldn’t work without power.
And yet . . . She was two steps from the pedestrian gate when she realized there were still a few lights on above the doors in the business park. Weird. She squinted into the dark maw of her driveway, trying to make out Mendelson’s car. She was surprised he didn’t have the spotlight on to make sure anyone within a two-mile radius could witness her embarrassment.
“Hello?” she called softly. A gust of wind pushed at her. It pushed at the gates. And the pedestrian gate opened an inch before clinking back into place.
What in the world? Why wasn’t it locked?
For a split second she felt only confusion as she began a slow turn, searching out the area around the office for Mendelson or Jones or someone. But as her gaze cut through the night, sliding over the driveway gate, over the cement, toward the curb and the sidewalk beyond that, her brain sent a warning. Not even a thought, just a quick rise of the hair on her arms, a sharpening of her vision.
A terrible premonition.
Something was very wrong, and she knew it deep in her animal soul even before Lily saw the rush of a blank, black space in the storm, the reaching out of a shadowed arm, and the dull glint of light on a leather glove.
She had one heartbeat to grab for her phone, but no time to pull it free. She sucked in a breath, but her scream was caught by rough leather and the hard, strong hand beneath it.
She fought. She kicked and bucked and twisted, but she was already fighting against the crushing crook of an arm, and it was too late. She could only manage to whimper and wish she’d done a thousand things differently in her life.
“Shhhh,” he shushed into her ear. When she drew in a sharp breath through her nose, she was horrified to realize he smelled bright and fresh, like minty toothpaste and nice shampoo. That couldn’t be right. It couldn’t.
“All I need is a little information.”
Mendelson.
Mendelson? That made no sense.
Why would he do this to get Jones? She’d already given him the information, and now he thought she’d stay quiet about being assaulted by a cop?
Oh God. That meant he was crazy. Or . . . was it possible Mendelson was one of Jones’s victims and couldn’t see past his own need for revenge?
She found herself whimpering against his gloved hand again.
“Where did you take my wife?” he growled.
That shocked Lily into shutting up. What the hell was he talking about?
“I’m going to move my hand, and you tell me where you took my wife and child.”
Wife and child? No. That couldn’t be. Only Connie had brought a child with her, and Mendelson had looked straight into Connie’s face without a word. But . . . When it hit her, her veins flooded with ice water. A wife. With a child.
“Amber?” she whispered as he slowly eased the pressure on her mouth.
But saying her name had been a mistake. His fingertips dug hard into her chin and jaw. “Yes,” he sneered, ruthlessly grabbing her face. Her teeth cut into her cheeks, and she tasted blood.