Hit and Run (Moreno & Hart Mysteries) Read online

  “If my wife sees those pictures, I’m dead.”

  “We have more worries than pictures of you screwing a fourteen-year-old. And I’d be more concerned about Diana than your wife.”

  “Fuck off.”

  Bells started going off in Scarlet’s head, and not ringing because she’d been slapped around. Perez had something on Laurens and she must have either gone to her boss Mercer, or Mercer questioned her about it and she became suspicious.

  I saw something I shouldn’t have seen.

  But it was more than something she’d seen. She must have taken pictures. Pictures of Laurens with an underage girl. And Laurens thought the pictures were on her phone. He couldn’t find her phone. Wouldn’t it be in evidence?

  Yet, if it was in evidence, Mercer would know, and find a way to get in and delete the incriminating evidence. He didn’t even need to steal the evidences, just corrupt the photos.

  Scarlet considered what she might have done if she’d been Gina and stumbled across a situation like Laurens and a young girl. She would have arrested him. So why hadn’t Gina? Was there someone else in the mix, someone who was a cop? Or was Gina going off on her own investigation? Simply gathering information? Maybe she stumbled across it by accident.

  If Mercer was protecting Laurens, Gina must have figured it out and wanted to talk to Jason about what to do. She’d called him … but what if she’d called him on her house phone? What if she’d already hid her cell phone? Laurens—if he was the one who’d killed her—had been searching the place until Jason arrived. He’d taken the hard drive, possibly hoping to find out if she’d downloaded the pictures to her computer. Either he found them and suspected they were taken with her phone—and likely still on her phone—or he hadn’t found them and thought they were on her phone. He also might be looking for memos or emails she’d written about whatever she’d learned.

  That’s why they’d gone after Jason. They must have thought he’d taken the phone when he arrived. If the police had the phone, Laurens would be in prison or Mercer would have destroyed them.

  Scarlet wasn’t sure about anything anymore except that she had to find a way to stay alive.

  We’ll have eyes on you.

  John had said that. And he’d sounded concerned, more concerned than he should have been. Had he learned something he hadn’t told her? Did he know about this abduction attempt? Why wouldn’t they have clued her in?

  She was going to give him and Richardson a piece of her mind when she got out of this mess. And she would get out of this. She had a hot date lined up with Alex Bishop tonight and tomorrow … she wasn’t going to be dead.

  The SUV was slowing down.

  Laurens stuck his head toward the front.

  His partner glanced at Scarlet and caught her eye. Did he wink? Was she seeing things?

  “We’re here,” Laurens said.

  “Where’s here?” Scarlet asked.

  He didn’t answer, nor did she expect him to.

  The partner opened the back of the SUV and jumped out. He jerked Scarlet out by her arm and she fell. Gravel cut into her knees. Laurens followed. “Wait here, Harper,” he said to the driver.

  She didn’t ask the stupid questions like where are you taking me? Or what are you planning to do to me? Either they were going to kill her or they were going to torture her for information, then kill her. Maybe they planned on using her as leverage. Though with Jason in the hospital under guard, how they were going to use her as leverage was anyone’s guess.

  Thirty minutes, maybe a little more, had passed. Krista would know that something had happened to her. She would have called John. They knew she was missing. Could they find security tapes of the abduction? The SUV? Krista wouldn’t have waited. If Scarlet hadn’t gotten off that shuttle bus, Krista would have been on alert.

  It was full dark now, and she was heading into a building, not a house. The building was dark save for security lighting on the corners and above doors. A warehouse of sorts, but with more windows than a typical storage place. One story. Based on the terrain and the area, they were in Burbank near the airport, but up into the foothills. As if to punctuate her theory, a plane descended over the Verdugo Mountains.

  The good news was that if she got away from these three men, she could easily find her way out. The bad news? She didn’t think she’d be about to get away.

  Laurens typed in a security code and the door clicked open. To the left was a large, open space that she sensed more than saw; to the right was a long, narrow hallway with offices off to one side. He took her into the first office and turned on bright lights.

  There was blood on the walls. Scarlet could have lied to herself and said the red spatter was some sort of really bad modern art, but the room also smelled of death. A lone chair sat in the middle. Laurens’ partner pushed her onto the chair. She twisted a bit to get her skirt down over her thighs; of all the days to wear a dress. Never again.

  Laurens said to the partner, “If Jones doesn’t have the phone and this bitch doesn’t have the phone and the police don’t have the phone, where the fuck is the damn thing?”

  “She obviously hid it,” the partner said.

  No shit, Sherlock.

  But Scarlet didn’t say anything. Laurens was in a mood and could easily shoot her. Every minute she was alive was another minute someone would find her. Or she’d figure out a way to escape.

  “Where?” Laurens said. “We know she brought it home with her, and I didn’t find it.”

  Laurens was the one who’d searched the place. Which meant Scarlet was right and he had killed her.

  The partner said, “You didn’t find it because Jones interrupted your search.”

  Laurens growled and rubbed his arm.

  I think I hit the bastard, Jason had said.

  One more nail in Laurens’ coffin.

  “It’s there,” Laurens said. He paced. “I didn’t find it. The police didn’t find it. But I don’t want to go in with her nosy neighbor watching everything. I tried yesterday and he wouldn’t leave his damn porch. I wanted to shoot him for being a prick.”

  Scarlet tensed. Laurens was losing it. He’d seemed so calm today at the cemetery, but he was obviously on edge. What had happened between this morning and now?

  Someone put pressure on him. Like Diana Vartarian. Maybe there was more than a picture of Laurens with underage girls.

  “Mercer should have taken care of this,” Laurens grumbled. “He keeps fucking up like this and he’s going to be the next on my list. He’s no use to us anymore if he can’t control his own people.”

  “Special Operations took it over because a cop was dead. It’s standard protocol.”

  The partner. Was he a cop? He knew the in-speak. Maybe that’s how they knew where she would be—Richardson had trusted the wrong people.

  Or maybe it was Richardson who’d betrayed her. Bringing in her brother on some fake operation in order to secure her trust?

  Long shot. But something about this guy was odd.

  “If Jones didn’t have it and it wasn’t in the evidence log, then it has to be at the house,” Laurens said. “Tie her up good. We’re going on a treasure hunt.”

  The partner zip-tied her ankles to the chair and they left, locking the door behind them.

  The lights went out.

  She was alone.

  When they found the phone, they would kill her. No doubt about it. If they didn’t find the phone, there was a fifty-fifty chance they would kill her. If she could convince Laurens she had an idea on where it was, it might buy her some time. She’d take them on a wild goose chase. Back to her car, for example. Or to the hospital; she could say she hid it in Jason’s room.

  Would they believe her? She wouldn’t if she were them. They would assume if she did have access to the phone, she would have turned it over to the police.

  But what if she could convince him it was at Leah’s house? Jason had been there before she showed up. Could she be convincing? That it
was the only place the phone could be?

  Because she really believed it was in Gina’s house. That was the only explanation that made sense, and if they found the phone, she was dead. If they didn’t, she had to bluff until Krista or John found her.

  Scarlet fought against her restraints. They were so tight on her wrists that her fingers were numb. Her ankles weren’t as tight. She slipped off her shoes and tried to manipulate and wiggle her foot out. It took her a good two minutes, but she got her first foot out. She started to work on the other, though she wondered what she was going to do with her hands behind her back.

  Then she remembered a trick Krista had taught her on how to break zip-ties. They’d practiced one day months ago, and Scarlet marveled at how Krista could snap them. She tried and tried and couldn’t, even though she could see how it was done. They’d practiced until Scarlet’s wrists were raw, and then in frustration she’d managed to break them.

  If ever there was a time to get out of restraints, now was it.

  Her second foot slipped out easier than her first. She stood up. It was extremely disconcerting to be in the complete dark. She didn’t want to move far from the chair because she planned on using it as a weapon and didn’t want to be hunting for it.

  What had Krista said? Scarlet closed her eyes and pictured their training session. Get the zip ties as tight as possible. Check. They were already so tight that Scarlet had no feeling in her hands. Completely relax. Harder, but she forced herself. Hunch over and pull the arms up as far as she could, then slam them down against her ass.

  Her wrists burned, and she failed. Why was it so easy for Krista?

  Be calm. Focus.

  She closed her eyes—not that it mattered in the dark—and took a deep breath. Then she slowly let it out and slammed her wrists again down on her butt.

  Suddenly, she was free. As the blood rushed to her extremities, her fingers tingled. She tried to pick up the chair, but had no grip. She shook out her hands, waited for the worst of the tingling to stop, then picked up the chair.

  Slowly, carefully, she walked over to the wall, then felt along for the door. She found the hinges and stood on the inside where the door would swing toward her and she’d have the best chance of putting the first guy down.

  She heard a key in the lock. That was too fast—less than thirty minutes had passed. They couldn’t have gotten to Gina’s and back. Maybe—but that meant they found the phone immediately.

  The door opened, but the lights didn’t go on. Faint light came from the hall, but not enough to see much of anything except a long, dark shadow.

  She had the chair over her head ready to slam down on the bastard as soon as he stepped through.

  “Scarlet,” a voice whispered.

  “John?” Her brother? They’d found her! Thank God. She didn’t know how she was going to battle two big guys with guns when all she had was one wooden chair.

  “Where are you?”

  “I got free. You’re lucky I didn’t bop you on the head with this chair.”

  “I can’t turn on the lights. They have someone watching the place. We’re going to get you out the back.”

  “How?”

  “Shh, I’ll tell you in a minute.” He leaned out the door and looked.

  “Why don’t we take out the guard?” she whispered.

  “Shh,” he repeated. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  “Stay close.” He then spoke into a small radio. “Clear?”

  “Clear,” a voice said.

  “That sounds like Alex,” she said.

  “Quiet!” John hissed.

  She shut her mouth. John had a hold of her hand and was pulling her along in the dark. They didn’t go the way she’d been brought in, but instead went down the hall and to the right, into the back of the building.

  Right out the back door, someone met them.

  Alex.

  He touched the side of her head and frowned. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I’m fine. Just knocked around a bit. How did you find me?”

  “Richardson has an inside man,” John said. “We couldn’t jeopardize his cover. We didn’t know until the last minute that Laurens had ID’d you at the Mission this morning and planned on grabbing you. If we stopped it, then Laurens would know about the undercover cop. So we let it continue.”

  “You should have told me.”

  “It was Richardson’s call. I promise, we never lost sight of you. And our undercover cop would never have let you die.”

  “I feel so much better.”

  She was feeling sorry for herself because her head hurt.

  “So how did you get into this?” she asked Alex.

  Alex smoothed back her hair. “John asked me to follow you.”

  “God, I’m the worst PI on the planet. You were following me when you called me?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to keep it from you. Richardson thought it was best if you didn’t know. More authentic.”

  “I’m going to deck him when I see him.”

  “We have to go,” John said. “Our car is parked down the road. We need to stay low, behind the building. The guard is walking the perimeter, so we need to keep it quiet and be alert.” He nodded to Alex, and they both drew their weapons.

  “I don’t suppose you have an extra for me,” she mumbled.

  They didn’t, which also made her mad. She hated being used. She asked, “Does Krista know what happened?”

  “We didn’t know she was there,” John said. “She called us and said something was wrong, but we already knew that. Richardson filled her in briefly. Ordered her to go home. No more talking.”

  Scarlet followed her brother; Alex was behind them. They stayed arm's length apart as they walked along the back of the building to the corner. John put up his hand to halt them.

  He peered around the corner, then motioned for them to go.

  Alex took the lead while John covered them, and they ran to the next building over for cover. When John caught up with them, then stopped.

  A car was coming up the road.

  They waited. The car wasn’t the SUV; it was a sedan. It stopped right in front of the building she’d been held in. A lone man got out of the driver’s side but Scarlet couldn’t tell who it was from the distance. The guard approached him, but at sixty yards she still couldn’t make either of them out. Then the man entered the building.

  “Shit,” John muttered. “We stay here.”

  It was clear that they had to partly expose themselves to get to the car, and it was best to just stay hidden. John pulled out his phone and sent a text message. “I’m alerting Richardson to our situation,” he whispered.

  Alex looked around to the hill behind them. “We can get out through the mountains. Go on foot.”

  “We might have to, but there’s not much cover there. And Scarlet lost her shoes.”

  “What happened to your shoes? Alex asked.

  “I had to get out of the zip ties. But forget about my feet, we need to get out of here.”

  A door slammed and a loud voice barked an order that Scarlet couldn’t make out. They’d realized she was gone.

  “Richardson says he’ll have a team here in seven minutes,” John whispered.

  “We can’t stay here,” Alex said. “If they come around the back, they’ll spot us.”

  John surveyed their location. The back of this building was right up against the mountainside. It was too steep to climb at this point, but if they exposed themselves, there was a more gradual incline. It also made them easy targets.

  But staying here wasn’t an option, either. They were trapped.

  “We have to go,” Scarlet said. “I’m not going to sit here and wait for two thugs to shoot me.”

  John hesitated just a moment, then nodded. “Alex, I’ll cover you both.”

  “You’d better be right behind us,” Scarlet said.

  They didn’t see either the guard or the new guy. The lights
were on in the building; they had to be searching it. The three of them ran along the edge of the building as quietly as possible. They made it to the front corner when the door opened and a man emerged.

  It was Tony Mercer. And he had a gun in hand.

  They saw him a second before he saw them.

  John said, “Go, go!” to Alex and Scarlet.

  Scarlet turned to follow Alex when they faced a man with a gun who appeared to have come out of nowhere. It was the guard. He had circled around the other way and caught up to them from the opposite side.

  He aimed his gun at Alex’s head. He was only five feet away. Even a bad shot would kill Alex. This guy didn’t waver.

  “Drop it,” he ordered.

  Alex’s jaw tensed.

  Scarlet looked from the guard to Mercer. Mercer hesitated. It was clear to Scarlet that he was weighing his options.

  “Mercer’s going to bail on you,” Scarlet said to the guard. “Walk away now. He’s going to turn on you so fast it’ll make your head spin.”

  “I don’t work for Mercer. Drop it,” he repeated to Alex.

  Alex slowly squatted to put his gun on the ground.

  Scarlet had backed up against the building, trying to make herself a small target. John slowly turned around.

  “You, too, Moreno,” the guard said.

  How did he know her brother?

  “Traitor,” John said through clenched teeth. The rage on his face was unlike anything Scarlet had seen before.

  Traitor?

  “You know him?” she asked.

  John said, “Craig Franklin. Former LAPD.”

  “Wish I didn’t have to kill you, Moreno.”

  “Bastard.”

  “Blame your sister,” Franklin said, a shrug in his voice. “Put it down, John.” He moved his gun from Alex to John. Alex caught her eye and tilted his head toward the road.

  Scarlet needed to distract Franklin before he shot her brother or her boyfriend. She and Alex were between Franklin and John. From that distance, any shot could be fatal. Mercer was still watching from the other building about twenty yards away. He also had a gun and, at that distance, could hit any one of them if he was good enough.

  But no one was going to be shot. Especially not someone she cared about.