All in the Timing Read online

  Chapter Seven

  Frank was going crazy, had been from the moment his mother had called. The words, “she’s gone,” were still echoing in his head. His mother had been distraught, freaking out, the agents barely able to keep her from doing something, anything to find Eli. Not that he blamed his mother in the least. If he’d been there, Frank would have been of a like mind.

  Fuck that, he was of a like mind. He wanted to track the mayor down and squeeze that pudgy asshole’s neck until he revealed where Eli was. Which was why there were ten DEA agents between him and any vehicle off the Carver Ranch. Brant had guessed right at Frank’s state of mind. Not that Frank was giving any outward indications. He was too well trained to ever show anything.

  Pacing was his sole method of trying futilely to contain his rage. When he got his hands on whoever did this, they were dead. No ifs, no ands, and definitely no fucking buts. Dead.

  “What? When? Shit, copy that. You sure? Okay, no, that’s good. Keep the line open and keep talking to us. I’m mobilizing now,” Brant said.

  “What?” Frank demanded.

  “Megan was just snatched from the club. Simon’s on her tail, and he’s tracking the guy or guys who took her. We need to go. Everyone grab your gear, we’re out of here,” he called out.

  About fucking time. He headed for the door only to come up against his brother’s heavy hand on his chest.

  “I won’t stop you from going,” Brant said.

  “Damn fucking straight you won’t,” Frank told him. He was barely containing the rage inside, and if his baby brother thought to hogtie him so he’d be left behind, he had another thing coming.

  “But I need to know you’re not going to fly off the handle. I don’t know what the fuck it is you do, Frank, but I’ve seen enough clues to know you can more than handle yourself. I also need these assholes, or at least the majority of them, alive. We need witnesses we can turn on the others so we can get convictions. Can you restrain yourself from killing them outright?”

  Could he? It was a definite toss-up. “I won’t kill anyone unless they touched Eli, and then that asshole is mine. Everyone else you can damn well have. But the bastard that took her, he’s mine.”

  Brant stared at him for a long time before lowering his hand. “Don’t get yourself killed. Elizabeth would kick my ass, and let’s not even touch on what Mama would do to me,” he muttered.

  Oh, he had no plans on getting shot. He had his woman to save and someone to kill. No way was he dying before he saw that done.

  ****

  Forty minutes later, the entire DEA taskforce under Brant’s command circled the Howe Ranch. The mayor had purchased it and let it go to seed over the years because the man was not a farmer or a rancher. Why he’d bought it was still anyone’s guess, except for those men and women crouched in the darkness getting a lay of the land.

  “Main house is where Megan was taken,” Simon Markham, a retired Marine, and Megan’s squeeze, was telling them. “The men have been going between it, the barn, and a shipping container since I arrived.”

  “Any sign of the mayor?” Brant asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m betting he’ll be showing up soon enough. Given the way he was handling the owner of the club, he’s definitely in charge of this nightmare,” Simon said.

  “What are we getting off of infrared?” Brant directed that question to the man holding the piece of equipment.

  “Lots of heat from the house, really hard to pinpoint what’s what. They must have a couple of computers in there at the front of the house. From what I can tell, there are about eight bodies in the one bedroom. Every now and again I can see someone moving up and down what I’m guessing is the hall. Best bet is a guard.” The man turned the device toward the other buildings and the container. “Faint readings from the container, but I don’t think they are large enough to be people. The barn, on the other hand, has at least twelve people in it, prone on the ground or sitting up. Another four that are pacing around.”

  “More guards then,” Simon muttered.

  “Simon, you’re with me on the house. Frank, you are on the barn with the team. Patrick, take Donald and Scott to check out the container. No one moves until I give the signal. We are waiting for the mayor to show up, and then we are going to move. As soon as he arrives and enters the house, I want you to interrupt all services out here, Fitz. No calls in, no calls out, and most importantly, no fucking Internet service. Clear?” Brant looked around as everyone nodded. “Okay, comms check and then get your asses in position.”

  Frank did his comms check and went to move off with the six agents Brant had tasked him with. Only he got held up by a hand again. Turning, he gave his brother a look. “I’m good. I won’t kill anyone. If they shoot back, I will put them down, but they will live.”

  “She’s fine, Frank,” Brant said softly. “Eli’s not a quitter. She’s a fighter. She’ll likely be figuring a way to get out of there to get back to you. People might see her as shy and reserved, but that’s not all she is. Eli is far stronger than you think. She’s fine,” he said again.

  “She better be, or there will be hell to pay the likes not a one of these assholes has ever even conceived of.” Giving his brother one last look, Frank headed off into the darkness surrounding the ranch.

  ****

  Eli looked up at the man who had the knife in his hands. She was shivering, naked, with the wedding gown in tatters at her feet, and losing blood. This man was good, she would give him that. He knew just where to hit, where to cut, and where to burn without there being a massive bleed out. When he spoke, she recoiled mentally. She felt the knife before it actually made contact. All because she was hyper sensitive and just the sight of him wielding the knife had been enough for her to jerk back in fright, in pain.

  When he began to hum, Eli cried out, tears racing down her face, but she didn’t move. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she was tied to a chair. He let the tip of the knife make shallow but painful cuts along her forearms, and she sobbed when the knife once more skated across her upper breasts. In her mind, she kept repeating the mantra, Frank will come for me. She knew that those words were only that—words—but the power of truth was behind them. He would turn Massey upside down in order to find her. She knew that he would. She had faith in the man she loved.

  He stopped suddenly, his head turning toward the main door of the barn. Straightening up, he moved to the door of the stall and spoke in low tones to another man. Then the gunfire could be heard and the men in the barn scrambled around grabbing up weapons and plunging the barn into darkness.

  Eli just grinned. She knew, even though there had been silence apart from the gunfire, that it was Frank who had come for her. She looked at her captor and, even in the darkness, could see the whites of his eyes. “He’s going to pull your spine out through your nose for what you did to me. I would be very afraid if I were you.”

  He stepped closer and backhanded her hard, splitting her lip open again. “Shut up, you bitch,” he growled.

  A thud sounded, followed by another. There were no other sounds except for the distant gunfire. Another thud sounded, and then absolute silence. Even the other women out in the barn were completely quiet.

  Eli laughed, she couldn’t help it. “He’s going to kill you,” she repeated, and spat out the blood that had welled in her mouth. “And when he does, I’m going to be there watching. Make sure that you save the mayor a seat on that ride down to hell, will ya?”

  He raised his hand again to hit her, but it never landed. His knees went out from under him, and he hit the floor hard. A dark shape came into view behind him and grabbed the weapon out of his hands. Frank’s gaze locked with hers. He was angry, really angry. “Eli,” he said softly.

  “I knew you would come,” Eli said with a smile. She nodded and looked at the dead man. “I knew you would kill him, too.” She once more turned her gaze to her love. “Please get me out of this chair? And can I have your jacket?” She was
freezing, hurting, and God help her, she wanted nothing more than to have Frank take her away from there and never look back again.

  Frank wrenched the man’s head to the side with a loud crunch of bone, and then dropped the body to the floor. He stepped over the dead man and pulled a knife to cut her loose of her restraints. “Oh, baby, what the fuck did he do to you?” he whispered. His fingers ghosted lightly over her cheek.

  “Nothing that won’t heal. It was more for pain than anything,” Eli whispered, and moved as best she could into Frank’s arms, soaking up the heat of him against her naked skin. She was shivering, freezing cold, and starting to come down off of the adrenaline that had been racing in her system. “I want to go home. Please?”

  “You’re going to the hospital to be looked at, and then I’ll take you home. No arguments,” he said. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing kisses to her face, and rocked her back and forth in his arms. “I was so fucking scared I’d never see you again.”

  “Me too,” she confessed. “But I also knew that you wouldn’t let him take me for long. You would come for me. You will always come for me, Frank. I know that. You know that. I love you for that.” She was trying to soothe him as best she could. “And I’m good with the hospital, but can I have your jacket or your shirt? I don’t want to leave this room without being covered at least a little. Please?”

  “Yeah, shit,” he said. Releasing her, he stripped the jacket off and helped her slide it on. With a quick yank on the zipper to keep it closed around her, Frank scooped her up in his arms and headed out of the stall. He went for the main doors, but stopped just inside of them. “We need to wait for the all clear.”

  She had her head on his shoulder and nodded. “I’m fine with waiting.” She wished the barn had a heater in it. “I will never complain about the heat again, I promise,” she whispered against his neck, her fingers lightly digging into his shoulders.

  “Yeah, yeah. You say that now, but wait until we get one of our Texas scorchers and then we’ll see. I have this feeling that you’ll be whimpering along with the rest of the state.” He held her closer to him, rocking her in his arms gently. One of the other men gave a thumb’s up suddenly, and they were moving. She didn’t know where, and didn’t really care. She had a feeling it was straight to a vehicle, and then to the hospital.

  “You won’t leave me. Right?” she asked suddenly as they finally got into the vehicle. She whimpered when Frank put a blanket over her legs, something that had obviously been passed to him without her realizing it. “No matter what, you will stay close, right? When we are at the hospital?”

  “I will be glued to your side. They are not going to be able to pry me away from you. Not now, not ever,” he said softly. “They even try it, and I’ll damn well shoot them.” He pulled the seatbelt around her, and once she was buckled in, he got the vehicle moving at a very quick pace. He even put the lights on so the locals wouldn’t stop them, smart man.

  “Good,” she said without missing a beat. Once they were moving, she laid her head back against the headrest and looked over at Frank. Reaching out with a shaky hand, she touched her fingers to his and then squeezed his hand when he took hers. “We are a team, you and me. We stay together, but you need to finish whatever it is that you have to finish away from here first. I know that.” She hated it, but she knew that he had a commitment to fulfill.

  “I won’t be gone long. I’ve been working on bits and pieces of it so it will be a very short trip. With tonight, I have another piece of the puzzle and it should make it all the shorter of a trip. If I can get the information I need. But that’s to worry about later. For now we need to worry about you and getting you back on your feet. You are going to do whatever the doctors tell you to do, clear?”

  “Yes, perfectly, but if they tell me that you need to leave the room, we are walking right on out of there. Do you understand?”

  “I understand perfectly, and am fully on board.”

  She didn’t speak for a couple of minutes and then added, “I knew you were in some sort of agency like Brant’s, but it goes deeper than that somehow, doesn’t it?”

  He was silent for a time, rubbing his thumb lightly over her fingers. “Who or what I work for doesn’t matter. But yes, it’s a lot more intricate than the DEA, or any of the other alphabets. For all intents and purposes, we are ghosts. We don’t exist. The basis we all work from doesn’t exist. The rules we follow are loose, and deniability is high. There are only two people on the planet that know what we are and that we exist at all, even if it is in the vaguest of ways. I work for what’s termed a shadow agency. No paper trail, no personnel lists, nothing that can point to anyone at any time.”

  “Thank you for telling me.” She felt incredible pleasure at him trusting her enough to tell her. She didn’t know how to possibly express to him how much his confidence in her meant, not when all she wanted to do was curl up against him and let the world go to hell in a handbasket.

  “I didn’t really tell you anything,” he said softly. “But you’re welcome all the same, love. I hate having to keep anything from you, even this.” Lifting her hand, he pressed a gentle kiss to her fingers. “I love you, Eli. Now close your eyes and rest for the few minutes it will take us to get to the hospital. I have a feeling you’ll need all the energy you can muster.”

  “Resting. Promise.” He had told her a lot in those few soft words. He told her that he trusted her, that he loved her enough to give her the secrets of his life. It might not have been a detailed map of what he did, but it was enough for her because it told her that he valued her and their relationship a great deal. She couldn’t ask for anything more than that.

  Chapter Eight

  Frank carried her into the house, kicking the door shut behind him. He kept carrying her right up the stairs and into the bathroom. “A quick bath, and then we are off to bed. You need to get some rest. You are also not going into work tomorrow. You will have the day off and you will be sleeping or relaxing the entire time.”

  “I think with everything that’s happened, I should take more than a day off.” She hurt like crazy and although the cuts couldn’t be seen outside of her clothes, her face was a hot mess of bruises and abrasions. “I think I should stay home with you all week. What do you think of that, Mr. Carver?”

  “I think that’s a very good idea.” He set her down on the toilet seat then turned to the tub to get the water running. “I’ll keep it warm, but not too hot. No need to aggravate any of your wounds.”

  “Agreed. And put some of that powder treatment into the tub that the docs sent home with us, too, please.” Another yawn wracked her body. “We will do a fast and dirty bath, then I want to climb into bed with you.”

  “Yup, we will definitely do this fast. I don’t need you sliding under the water and drowning yourself. You’ve had enough for a lifetime already today.” He pulled the baggie the doc had given him and dug out one of the packets, which he sprinkled under the running water. “Tomorrow, I want to talk about it,” he told her quietly. “The sooner we do, hopefully, the fewer nightmares you’ll have in the long run.”

  “I hope that you’re right. Now then, once we are all over and done with this here, we will curl up in bed. I know that the bandages will need to be changed, but honestly, that can wait until tomorrow.” For now, she wanted sleep.

  “We should peel them off so you don’t have that wetness lying against your skin,” he said. “But after you’ve soaked them a bit. No need to peel off even more of your lovely skin because of that fucker.” Standing, he held his hands out to her and pulled her to her feet when she slid her fingers over his. Gently, he undressed her and lifted her into the tub. Easing her down to sit in the water, he turned off the flow.

  Eli let Frank take care of her. She had a feeling that he needed that more than anything right then and, honestly, she was more than willing to let him.

  Twenty minutes later, Eli was helping Frank dry her off and then they walked together to the
bedroom. With her hand in his, she gave it a squeeze and winked. “Now then, bed. Please. I’m so tired.”

  “In you get. I’m going to turn the temperature up a little more so there’s no chance of you getting a chill. Hop in and get comfortable.” He gave her a hand up onto the bed before heading into the hall to make the adjustment to her thermostat. A minute later, he returned to pull the drapery, get undressed, turn off all the lights, and join her between the sheets.

  Once he was in bed, Eli moved so that she could curl up against Frank. She yawned and rubbed her cheek to his chest. “I think that tomorrow I will be hurting a great deal. Tonight, I’m still buzzing with the pain meds they gave me at the hospital. Just don’t freak if I cry tomorrow, please?”

  “I will damn well freak out whenever I believe it is necessary in regards to you. Thankfully, the doctor thought of that and sent home some milder painkillers for you to take. I’ll wake you in a few hours so you can take one. Hopefully, it will allow you to rest without too much discomfort.”

  “Very smart man,” she said with a small laugh. “I hope so as well. Right now, all that I want to do is sleep with you. Once we have had our sleep and all that, life will be good. I’m sure of it.” Not really, but they would work on everything else tomorrow.

  “Remind me in the morning to call the diner to let everyone know you’ll be off for the week. I doubt I’ll forget, but at least this way one of us should remember. Though with this town, I’m sure they’ll all know about what happened at least in the barest of details by the time the doors open.”

  “Good point. I’m sure that they will all know. Your mom has probably called them.” She rubbed her eyes and then gasped. “Crap, your mom. Frank, please tell me that you called her when you found me? If not, she’s going to have a fit. You know that right?”