Hidden Fates (Hidden Heroes #4)

Chapter 28

“Oh, come on, Man, are you seriously going to take this from me?” Garrett practically whined, but he was only messing with Caden who gave him a look that unequivocally told him he wasn’t messing around.

“He’s part of an FBI case, and you know it. The state of Texas can tack on any charges it wants to, but we get him first.”

Garrett ran a hand over his brow, wiping away the sweat. He knew the FBI needed Ryker to make their case and put Russell Graham away, but a part of him wished he could’ve seen this thing through to the end. Orly and Luke weren’t the only ones Ryker and Russell’s guys had hurt. Reese had been kidnapped and was still worried sick that something was going to happen to him.

“You can watch.” Caden nodded to a door a few feet away from where Garrett stood, and Garrett moved to do just that. If he couldn’t be in on the action, at least he’d get the satisfaction of watching his good friend take him down.

“You got him?” Luke appeared seemingly out of nowhere and came up to Garrett. “Caden called. Said you got the guy.”

“We got one of the guys,” Garrett said. “It’s not Russell, but I think he can take us to Russell.”

Luke sighed and nodded. “Let’s do this.” He opened the door Garrett had been about to walk through, but suddenly jerked back. “What’s this?”

Garrett peered into the room over his friend’s shoulder. A large monitor sat on a table against the wall with a few chairs in front of it. “We should be able to watch everything on the screen.”

Luke stared at the said screen for a long moment. “I kind of hoped I could be in the room.”

Garrett put a hand on his shoulder. “You and me both. But don’t worry, Caden and Blake will give him hell.”

Luke reluctantly nodded his agreement and stepped inside, but just as Garrett was about to go in, his phone vibrated in his pocket. “Be right there,” Garrett said, pulling it out to glance at the screen. Caller I.D. showed it was Skyla calling. “Hey, Skyla, what’s up?”

“Garrett, we were just wondering what the holdup was,” she said, in an easy light hearted tone.

He had no idea what she was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“Reese isn’t here yet. I tried calling her, but she didn’t answer. How long do you plan to keep her?” Skyla laughed, and Garrett quickly realized she was reacting to someone who was there with her and not to her conversation with him. “Garrett? When is Reese coming? We’re all here and just waiting for her.”

A sinking feeling twisted his gut, and his hand automatically went to cover the ache. He glanced at his screen again and realized Reese had never sent him a text message that she’d arrived at Madigan’s. He’d been so caught up in chasing Ryker, he hadn’t even realized how much time had passed.

Garret cleared his throat, choosing his words carefully. The last thing he wanted to do was worry the women. He had no doubt they’d be terrified if they suspected anything was wrong. “I’m sure she just got caught in a bit of traffic. She’s on her way.” He ended the call and quickly opened the app linked to the new GPS locator he’d given Reese. But there were no missed alerts. In fact, it wasn’t transmitting at all. It was like Reese had turned it off or pulled the battery out. Had it died already?

He muttered a curse word just as the door to the observation room opened and Luke came out. He gestured behind him. “I think Caden is making the guy sweat before going in there. Why aren’t you coming in? What’s going on?”

“Hey guys,” Tanner said, approaching them. “I heard you made an arrest. Was it Russell?”

Garrett swallowed, hard. “No. And Reese never showed up to Madigan’s.”

“GPS locator?” Luke asked.

“Nothing.” Garrett showed him the screen of a map with no pin anywhere in sight. “I think it might’ve died or something.”

“She’d call if there was something wrong. Maybe she made a stop on the way.” Tanner suggested. But Garrett had a feeling something wasn’t right. Reese wouldn’t ignore a call from Skyla, and she would’ve told him if she wasn’t going straight to Madigan’s.

He checked to see if he could find her using her cell phone with his phone since he’d linked them when he’d bought it for her, but that didn’t seem to be working either. Garrett was starting to panic. His truck was an older model with no tracking on it, and if the GPS locator was turned off, and her phone was out of range, he had no way of finding her.

He was about to dial Reese, hoping she’d answer and tell him she was just fine, when his phone buzzed again. Caller I.D. showed it was Reese calling. Garrett let out a huge sigh of relief and hit the button to answer. “Hey, everyone at Madigan’s is worried about you. Are you okay? Where are you?”

***

Reese nearly crumpled at the sound of Garrett’s voice. She wanted to scream into the phone, to warn him to stay away. If he came anywhere near this cabin he was going to die. She would never survive that. But Russell had taken the time to gag her with a filthy rag before actually pressing Garrett’s name on her phone, making it impossible for her to say anything to the man she loved. The only thing she could do was grunt and moan, hoping he’d somehow decipher what she was trying to tell him. It wasn’t until she heard Garrett say, “Don’t you dare touch her. I’m on my way,” that she realized it was all over. Russell had already told him where they were, and Garrett was walking into a set up that would end with his death.

As soon as the call ended, Russell yanked the rag out of her mouth but his fingers bit into her shoulder as he held her in place. “Sorry about that little sis, had to make sure you didn’t give away our epic plan.”

Reese struggled against his hold, not that it did much good. He had her in a death grip, for no other reason than to hurt her. It wasn’t like she could go anywhere with him right there. Not to mention, she was quite literally tied to a chair with her hands behind her back. “I had nothing to do with any of this. How could you do this to me? I know we’re not blood siblings, but our parents loved each other before my mom died.”

Russell seemed to consider her words. “That was only because my father didn’t know the truth about your mother,” he bit out.

Reese shivered at his words. Her mom had been nothing short of an angel. She taught third grade for over twenty years, and raised Reese all by herself until Russell and his dad came along. “You’re just trying to get a rise out of me. I won’t fall for it. My mom was amazing.”

Russell smirked. “If only she’d kept her mouth shut, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“What are you talking about? None of this has anything to do with her, and you know it. This is all because you decided to take the law into your own hands and kill a woman in cold blood.” At the rise of his eyebrows, Reese continued. “Yeah, don’t think I don’t know all about that. How could you, Russell? What did that poor woman ever do to you?”

To Reese’s surprise, Russell pulled up a chair and sat in front of her, crossing one leg over his other thigh, like he was getting comfortable for a friendly chat. “That poor woman? Is that how you think of all women, Reese? Victims? Blameless? Let me guess, you only like men who see themselves as heroes and protectors, don’t you?”

Reese swallowed, prepared to do battle with this man in any way she could. “Not that you’ve ever been a hero or a protector.” She barely noticed when his hand came up and backhanded her across the face. The sting was enough to make her eyes water, but she pressed on. “Why don’t you tell me how you really feel?” She didn’t care that she was egging him on. He wouldn’t kill her. Not yet, at least. Not until Garrett arrived, and she needed to figure out a plan of her own. Maybe if she riled him up enough, Russell would make a mistake. It was her only hope of saving Garrett.

Russell ran a hand through his slicked back hair. “I’m not a heart-to-heart kind of guy.”

“No, you’d actually need to have a heart for that, but that’s not what I meant. Why did you send me to Desert Cove? Why did you have some goons try to kidnap me?” Reese had a strong feeling she knew the answers, but she still wanted to hear it from him - the man that up until just over a year ago, she’d considered to be her brother.

“We both know why I did what I did, so let’s not play games.” His tone grew darker, but Reese wasn’t about to let up. She needed to get him angry and out of his head before Garrett got here.

“I’m not playing games, Russell. This is me, Reese, your stepsister, and I want to hear it from you. Why did you do all those things to me? Even when we were kids, you hated me. You played along in front of our parents, but you never missed an opportunity to get me in trouble. So, this is me asking, why?”

Russell let out a breath and stood, bracing his hands on the back of his head. “Why? Why! Are you really that dumb?” His hands dropped to her shoulders in a painful hold, but Reese didn’t flinch. He was unraveling, and she wasn’t about to throw him the slightest bit of a lifeline. “You want to know why. I’ll tell you why. Because you had a mother that actually gave a damn about you. You had a mother that would stay up half the night worrying about you. You had a mother who set rules for you and actually expected you to follow them. But you were just a brat. A lazy, spoiled, self-centered, brat who took everything for granted. So, yeah, I enjoyed knocking you down a peg or two whenever I could. Oddly enough, it gave me a strange sense of satisfaction.”

“Your dad loved you.” Reese said the words before thinking them through. She hadn’t wanted to comfort or coddle Russell, but there was something about him in that moment of confession that reminded her of the scared and lost teenage boy who’d moved into the room next door to her when their parents got married.

Russell laughed, the sound menacing and slightly broken. “My dad didn’t have a choice. He got stuck with me. And he did the best he could, I’ll give him that. But he didn’t want me anymore than I wanted him. Or you. Or your perfect little mother who thought she could mother me into being a model son and brother. He got what he deserved though. I made sure of that. And so did she.”

There was so much hate and anger in his words, but Reese didn’t miss the slight hint of pain. The pain of a boy whose mother had left him to pursue a career as an actress and never looked back. But then his last words caught up to her. She knew he’d stopped all communication with his father, but what did her mother have to do with that? “So did she? What do you mean by that?”

Russell smirked again, his dark eyes dancing with a sinister delight that made her skin crawl right up until the moment she connected with him and saw his death. She let the horrific scene that unfolded before her play out without reacting to it because she was determined to keep him talking. “What did you do?” Reese demanded.

He shook his head and sat back in the chair, pulling hers closer to him until their knees were touching. “Did you know that your mother had a gift similar to yours?”

Reese had suspected it, but they’d never actually talked about it. After her mom died, Reese made peace with the fact that she’d never know.

“Hmm,” Russell mused. “Did I just surprise you? Anyway, apparently what you two had was genetic or something. Strange, right? I know she never told you. I think it was because she didn’t want you to feel overwhelmed or burdened by it. Or maybe she was ashamed of it. Who knows. I came home for dinner one evening and she greeted me at the door. I thought it was rather sweet, but then she made a fatal error.”

At his use of the word ‘fatal,’ she drew in a ragged breath, terrified of where this conversation was going. “What did you do?” She asked, her voice low, as she barely held on to the last thread of control she had.

“It’s not what I did,” he assured her. “It’s what she did. See, she hugged me and then told me about her gift. I had no idea about it until that night. When I asked her why she’d decided to tell me, I thought she was going to say how worried she was about me since I’d just gotten my badge and was working long hours. I was prepared to console her and promise her that I wasn’t going to die. But then she brought up your friend, Greta Munster. Do you remember Greta?”

Reese bit her lip and nodded. She and Greta had been friends since middle school. One night, Greta mysteriously disappeared during Reese’s first year in college. Her body was never found and when Reese’s mom died in an awful car accident a few weeks later, Reese was too lost in her grief to care about much of anything. It wasn’t long before Greta was labeled a runaway, and the news stopped covering her story. “You killed her,” Reese said, not even questioning it.

“Who?” Russell asked. “Greta?”

Reese nodded, unable to speak. If her mother’s gift worked the same way hers did, and she’d seen Greta’s death, she’d probably been trying to talk Russell out of committing murder.

Russell shrugged. “I mean it’s what your mother claimed I was going to do. But that’s not what I wanted to tell you today.”

Reese found it hard to breathe, waiting for him to drop the other proverbial shoe. He’d all but admitted to killing Greta, or else why bring her up at all. But then, something dawned on her. After her mother’s car crash, Russell had insisted on being on her case. It had been ruled an accident and he’d assured Reese that nothing could’ve prevented it. She’d believed him and had her body cremated so she could spread her ashes over Red Rock Canyon, her mother’s favorite place in the whole world. She’d sold the car for scraps, needing the money for school and art supplies. There was literally nothing left of her mother, no way to prove what he’d just insinuated, and the bastard knew it.

Her vision blurred with tears and a rage so hot, her blood boiled with it. “What did you do to her?!” Reese screamed, losing the tenuous grip she’d had on her anger. “What did you do to my mom?!”

But before Russell could answer, the sound of a vehicle approaching in the distance had him standing and looking out the window that faced the front of the cabin. Then he looked back at her with a wide grin. “Showtime.”