The ties that bind 2, p.30
The Ties That Bind 2, page 30
part #2 of The Ties That Bind Series
It was a complete lie. He’d heard the 911 call on his police scanner and was across the street from the Burger King, getting gas. He’d watched Claudia falling apart, feeling helpless as they loaded Harley into the ambulance and she jumped in for the ride.
“Billy’s not due in until the day after tomorrow,” Ransom corrected him with a frown and Marcus cringed. Shit! Now he had to explain to his baby that her plans were altered.
“You were supposed to think that. I was picking her up and was enlisted to help decorate the Airstream trailer that she’s renting for you guys,” Marcus dryly informed him. “It was going to be a surprise, and now that you know, she’ll be pissed at me for ruining it.”
“Oh my,” Claudia said with an exhausted laugh. “Guess the cat’s out of the bag now. That was sweet of her.”
“What time does her flight get in? I’ll go and meet her instead.” Ransom it wasn’t a suggestion. Right now, he’d welcome a distraction from this nightmare that was his current reality. Shit just couldn’t get any worse, or so he hoped.
“Should be in the next hour. Let me give you the info.”
Ransom was relieved that Marcus wasn’t putting up any protest. He needed to hold Billy, feel tangible proof that something in his life was actually going right.
Billy’s arms were loaded with bags as she searched the baggage claim for a cart rental. She was thirty minutes early and planned to kill time by grabbing a bite to eat before Marcus arrived. She couldn’t wait to see Ransom’s face when she surprised him with the trailer. In one of her bags, carefully packaged, were the ornaments she and Melody had collected throughout the years. Billy wanted to share them with him and recount the stories behind each one. But there were nearly a hundred ornaments, and his ears would probably fall off if he didn’t die of boredom first. Ransom would probably knock the ornament out of her hand and shut her up with a kiss that would lead to newer traditions, like getting hot and heavy and tangled up in the tinsel.
At least that’s how Billy hoped the night would go.
She’d just put all her bags on a cart when a man shouted in Billy’s ear, making her jump. “Is that you, Isabelle?!”
Annoyed, Billy faced him but didn’t recognize the white man wearing the baseball cap. He was nondescript and almost homely looking, reminding Billy of that cartoon character Ziggy. He’d mistaken her for someone else, but upon a longer study, he now looked vaguely familiar to Billy after all.
“Sorry, but you’re mistaken.”
Instead of releasing her, the man pressed the barrel of a gun to her side, under her trench coat and smiled. “No, I don’t think I am, Billy. You need to come with me.”
She couldn’t afford to panic. Billy tried to catch the security guard’s eye, but he was conversing with an elderly couple by the conveyor belt. The barrel jabbed against her ribs, and she inhaled sharply.
“Don’t do anything foolish, please. I really don’t want to hurt you. Instead, what I’ll do is shoot that pregnant young woman to your left. Do you really want to be responsible for the deaths of a mother and her unborn child?”
“How do you know my name???” Her knife was in her purse that was trapped underneath her jacket to prevent being pick-pocketed.
“The less you know the better. Let’s go.”
He led Billy to an idling black Ford F-150 at the curb. The man opened the back seat and shoved Billy in as the driver automatically hit the locks before swiveling around to greet her.
“Good to see you again, Billy,” Pitch greeted with a congenial smile, his angelic features serene. “Please don’t think about making a break for it. Your door lock is child-proof.”
Every warning Ransom had ever given her about his brother’s friend was warranted, Billy deduced from his eerie calmness.
“Where Harley is all emotion and physicality, Pitch uses his brain for anything but the greater good. Always has in order to get what he wants. Pitch can’t be trusted; he’s got his own agenda.”
“Pitch.” She greeted him, trying to keep her voice neutral, aware that her captor sitting next to her had a fixated stare and gun trained on her. “Who’s your friend?”
“That’s my good buddy, Digger. Say hey, Dig.”
“Ah. I thought he looked familiar. We met once, briefly, at Inferno.”
“Hey.” His voice was soft and his smile pleasant. Neither of those things reassured Billy that she wasn’t in any danger as the truck pulled away from the curb, leaving her cart of luggage behind.
“How have you been, Billy?” Pitch asked conversationally, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. “School going okay?”
He was conversing with her like they hadn’t just kidnapped her at gunpoint. Billy wanted to scream and rant at him, lose her mind, and fuck shit up, but Pitch looked…expectant. He wanted that reaction from her. She’d bet money that was what got him off. Billy would be damned if she’d give him that satisfaction.
“School’s great. I was worried about calculus, but I have a feeling I aced the exam. How have you been?”
His blue eyes hardened, and his mouth compressed into a nonexistent line. “Who, me? Not so great. My best friend’s turned into a drug addict, and his father and his motorcycle club have been holding me captive for the last two weeks. I managed to escape only to be kidnapped by a crazy ATF bitch who insisted that I give a videotaped, signed confession to get my freedom. The kicker is I need to take you and keep you for awhile until she says to release you. Make sense? I don’t blame you if you don’t believe me. It sounds a little fucked up and far-fetched to me, too.”
Heart racing, Billy looked out the window, trying to quell her rising hysteria as they bypassed the bright lights of the city heading out of town. “Damn. And I thought my week was stressful.”
“Do you have any idea what a popular girl you are, hated or loved, Billy?” Pitch went on to ask, then answered his own question. “Ransom wants you; Harley wants you; Claudia hated you for breaking Ransom’s heart; Slade didn’t care for you; Marcus wants you in his life, and Lorelai is using you. Me, personally, I don’t see your appeal, but you sure do know how to rile up emotions in everyone you encounter.”
Pitch gave a mirthless laugh. “You are completely oblivious to the power you wield at your fingertips, and that’s the craziest damn shame of it all.”
“Is this the part where I apologize for not being a cold, callous manipulative bitch like you, taking advantage of peoples’ emotions?”
Pitch’s tight smile was nasty. “That wasn’t very nice, Billy. I’m looking forward to you making it up to me.”
“I bet you are.” The city lights were fading into the distance. Pitch was made no effort to hide his urgency in fleeing. “Where are you taking me?”
“Somewhere that you won’t be a bother while ‘boss bitch’ makes her move.” His eyes crinkled with malicious glee. “And, man, is it a doozy! I almost wish I was there to see it.”
“And I get to leave when Lorelai’s done?”
“Sure, you can,” Pitch smoothly agreed. A little too easily for Billy’s liking. Even if Ransom hadn’t warned her about him, she wouldn’t have trusted him.
“She said we weren’t supposed to touch you,” Digger mumbled, drawing Billy’s attention to him.
“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Billy smiled encouragingly at him.
“Shut up, Digger!” Pitch snarled at his partner, who flushed and looked down at his feet, then quickly raised his head and focused on Billy once more. Digger was the follower who’d do anything Pitch asked of him. Even hurt or kill her; Billy was sure of it. If they’d made a deal with the ATF, Pitch would want to keep his hands as clean as possible. He’d make Digger do the grunt work.
“Don’t even think about doing anything foolish, Billy.” Pitch’s warning drew her attention back to the rearview mirror. His eyes burned diabolically in the dark cab of the truck. “Lorelai’s orders were to bring you back when she called. She didn’t say in what condition, though.”
“My father and Ransom will find me,” Billy replied with a confidence she was far from feeling. There was no doubt in her mind that Marcus and Ransom would look for her. Billy returned her attention to the obsidian darkness outside the window, choosing to focus on that instead of the alternative of her grandparents being dealt the devastating blow that her battered and bruised body had been discovered in a shallow grave somewhere.
They’d find her. She just had to keep her cool and rely on her wits to survive until they did.
Ransom stared at the flight screen, focusing on one particular number with trepidation. Billy’s flight arrived thirty minutes earlier than scheduled, but she was nowhere to be found. Ransom had spent the last thirty minutes canvassing the airport for any sign of her. Rudely, he pushed himself to the front of the information desk of the airline she’d flown.
“Flight 9285 from San Francisco. There was a young woman on board. I need to know if she was on that flight,” he abruptly cut into the conversation between the employee and another passenger. To the man, he added, “Sorry.”
The young woman thought Ransom was attractive and would have considered flirting with him if it wasn’t for his rude, demanding attitude. Plastic smile in place, she requested, “Sir, please move to the back of the line behind you. I’ll be with you once it’s your turn.”
“Ma’am, I need to know if my girlfriend got on her flight. Her father said she was supposed to be on it, but I don’t see her anywhere. That’s not like her. Can you please help me?” Ransom tried to rein in his menacing aura, but her condescending expression was making it hard.
“I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t show up for a polite, well-mannered, dreamboat like you,” she deadpanned, typing in the flight number. “What’s her name?”
He’d ignore her sarcasm and the filthy looks of the impatient travelers he could feel boring into his back as long as she helped him. “Willamina Stanton.”
Ransom felt his heart slow then crystallize with fear as she typed in the information and surveyed the screen. She looked up and around, puzzled. “Sir, are you positive that you were supposed to pick her up at the airport? It confirms that Ms. Stanton was on that flight. Is it possible that she could have caught a cab and is on her way to surprise you?”
“No!” Ransom snapped impatiently. “May I please use your phone?”
“Yes, of course. I’m going to call security over while you do that, so you can give them a description of her.”
With shaking fingers, Ransom dialed information and got the number to the hospital. He called and requested Harley’s room number.
“Hello?” Claudia’s voice was low but suspicious, and Ransom didn’t blame her. No one from Chatham knew that Harley had overdosed and was fighting for his life.
“It’s me, Ma. Is Rage still there?”
“Yes, do you have Billy?”
His stomach dropped at her question. “I need to speak to him, Ma.”
“What’s going on, Ransom?”
Fuck! He didn’t want to be the one that told the man who didn’t approve of him with his beloved daughter that she was missing. “Do you have any pages or messages from Billy saying she arrived? I’m at the airport, but she’s not here.”
“No, I do not. What do you mean she’s not there, Ransom?”
“I mean that her arrival was confirmed, but I’ve checked everywhere except the ladies’ rooms, and she’s not here, Rage.”
“I’m on my way.”
He hung up and Ransom closed his eyes and shoved his hands through his hair. “Sir, security is on their way to talk to you.”
He opened his eyes in time to see an airport employee wheeling a cart of luggage by. A flash of color caught his eye.
“Stop!!!”
“What do you know?” Marcus barked as soon as he set foot in the airport security office occupied by Ransom and two security officers monitoring the cameras.
Ransom held up a neon green alien luggage tag and tossed it to him. “Her bags were found abandoned curbside. They’re pulling up security footage now. I bought her this when we visited Roswell this summer.” His fists clenched; he tried to prevent his logic from succumbing to his wrath. “She’d tied it around one of her suitcases that belonged to her mother.”
He looked like he was about to lose his shit, and Marcus felt the exact same way. Whoever had his baby had signed their death warrant with this move. “Why aren’t we viewing the footage now?”
The guard didn’t even look at him when he answered in a dismissive tone that made Marcus want to beat his head against the monitors. “We need to wait for our boss’s approval. He’s on vacation with—”
Marcus dug into his back pocket and extracted his ATF badge, thumping him in the forehead with it. He tossed it to the other guard for verification. “Bitch, my name is Marcus Glover, and I’m a federal government agent! My daughter is missing, and we ain’t waitin’ on shit! Pull the motherfucking footage, up or the only place you’ll be working security at is 7-motherfuckin’-11!!!”
“Yes, sir!” The man accessed the footage and pulled up the time frame that Billy arrived.
Marcus smiled wryly at a fulminating Ransom. “You’re dating my daughter. You were bound to find out sooner or later. It was one of the reasons I wanted to keep Billy away from Chatham.”
“Does she know?”
“Not until Thanksgiving night.”
“What else did you tell her?”
“I told her about your real family business. She deserved to know.”
Yet, Billy had stayed with him. Her twenty questions at lunch by the beach and the warning of not lying for him or doing conjugal visits made even more sense to Ransom now.
“Sir, here she is at baggage claim.”
Ransom’s breath caught as he observed the black and white video of a smiling Billy in a knee-length black and white houndstooth coat, jeans, and black combat boots, waiting for her luggage. She’d changed her hair, and it was styled in long, thick braids. He could feel her happiness through the screen, and she didn’t appear to be in any danger. She gathered her bags and disappeared from the screen.
“Where did she go?!” Marcus grilled him.
“I’m assuming to get a cart. We don’t have that angle, but this is her again leaving with this white guy.”
The man was wearing a hat and kept his head lowered. He was pressed up against Billy as she wheeled her luggage cart. She kept glancing around as he guided her toward a waiting dark-colored truck, opened the back door, and shoved her in.
“He’s got a weapon on her,” Marcus deduced. “It’s the only way she would have complied. Zoom in on the license plate.”
Ransom leaned over the man further to view the video but didn’t recognize it. Marcus, however, did. He grabbed the phone and dialed a number.
“What do you know, Rage?”
“I know who owns that truck.”
Something was going on.
Minnie was sure of it. She slowly spun around the pole to Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up”, covertly watching Shakes, Blaze, Deke, and Jester ignoring the dancers as they conversed at the main table reserved strictly for Immortals. Their expressions ranged from glum to pissed-off as they drank heavily and gestured wildly among themselves. There was no sign of the Lawsons and Minnie was relieved. After leaving Lorelai, she’d toyed with the idea of giving Ransom a heads up as to what she was planning.
Minnie liked Ransom.
He wasn’t like his fellow bikers and had somewhat of a moral compass. Ransom didn’t treat her or the other girls like pieces of meat, and most importantly, his sexual appetite matched hers. Minnie was a confident woman and had never been jealous or felt competitive with another woman. But she was jealous of the infamous Billy that had caught his eye and held his heart. Ransom had fucked her with a vengeance as if trying to forget the girl. Minnie wasn’t mad at all. She’d taken all of him and found herself looking forward to the next time she could get him in bed. Minnie also liked his conversation and the photos he took and hid from the world.
Fuck the dumb shit. Ransom didn’t belong in Chatham, and he sure as hell didn’t deserve what was coming. Minnie was going to page him if he didn’t show up tonight. She’d just finished her routine when Ozzie shouted from the bar, waving the telephone receiver. Casually, she made her way through the tables, winking and ruffling men’s heads as she went to retrieve the call.
“Who the hell is callin’ me here, sugar?”
The stocky bartender shrugged in return. “Don’t know; just don’t make a habit of it. You already got eyes on ya, so hurry up,” he warned, making her aware that the club members were watching.
“Guess I’ll be quick then.” Minnie took it from him. “Hello?”
“You’ve been compromised,” Marcus snarled on the other end. “Get to the safe spot and call me at the number I’m going to page you from. Now.”
He disconnected the call and adrenaline pumping, Minnie feigned distress. “I gotta go, Ozzie!”
“What’s up, Minnie?”
“My mother had a heart attack. Doctors said she might not make it through the night. Would you mind telling the guys?”
“Yeah, get out of here. I’ll square up for you.”
Avoiding speculative eyes, Minnie hauled it to the dressing room as fast as she could without drawing too much attention to herself. She threw her regular clothes on over her skimpy attire and grabbed her coat. Minnie slipped out the back entrance and down the back alley of the buildings until she got to Inferno. Strange. The bar was completely dark. Lorelai had said nothing to her about closing up early. Minnie checked her surroundings before using the key Rage had given her when she first arrived in town.
She entered the building and locked it behind her, listening. Satisfied she was alone, Minnie moved toward the bathrooms and tapped the wooden panel next to the ladies’ room. The secret door slid open and then shut behind her. She ran down the stairs to find the cells empty. Alarmed, she pulled out her piece and grabbed the cordless, pulling her pager out she dialed the number Rage had entered. He answered on the first ring.
