Fatal Vendetta

DEADLY SHOWDOWN

While reporting on a fire, Montana TV journalist Elizabeth Kramer is abducted—and saved only by the heroics of rival reporter Zachery Beck. But her kidnapper returns, taunting her, luring her to danger and making her relive a past she never put to rest. Elizabeth doesn’t like asking for help, but this time she can’t stay alone and stay alive. And Zach knows how to evade danger. When tragedy thrust him into the public eye, he changed his identity to remain hidden. Protecting Elizabeth means stepping out of the shadows…but as her stalker closes in for a deadly showdown, it’s a risk Zach has to take.

She was not going to die out here.

She told herself that even as a clawlike hand grabbed her hair, rendering her immobile.

She couldn’t scream, couldn’t move. Terror embedded itself deep in her muscles. She could feel herself shutting down and the world going black as ten-year-old memories crashed in from all sides.

Help me.

As if someone heard her plea, lights shone through the broken window. A car was coming down the hill.

Her assailant pulled her close and whispered harsh words before he took off.

She drew what felt like her first breath when she felt Zach’s arms surround her and lift her off the floor.

“It’s going to be all right, Elizabeth. I’m here.” He pulled her close to his chest.

Even as she burrowed into the comfort of his arms, she recalled the departing words of her assailant and knew they were true. You will never feel safe again.

Ever since she found the Nancy Drew books with the pink covers in her country school library, SHARON DUNN has loved mystery and suspense. Most of her books take place in Montana, where she lives with three nearly grown children and a spastic border collie. She lost her beloved husband of twenty-seven years to cancer in 2014. When she isn’t writing, she loves to hike surrounded by God’s beauty.

Fatal Vendetta

Sharon Dunn

www.millsandboon.co.uk

When justice is done it brings joy to the righteous,

but terror to evildoers.

—Proverbs 21:15

For Richard, my friend and soul mate, for bringing me back to the land of the living and teaching me to breathe again.

Contents

COVER

BACK COVER TEXT

INTRODUCTION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

TITLE PAGE

BIBLE VERSE

DEDICATION

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

Dear Reader

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

ONE

Elizabeth Kramer’s heartbeat skipped into double time as the fire trucks sped around her KBLK news van. She didn’t like the idea that another tragedy had struck Badger, Montana, but knowing that she might make a difference through her news reporting created a sense of excitement in her.

“The police scanner was a good investment.” Elizabeth looked over at her cameraman, Dale, who sat behind the wheel.

“Good thing you had it on.” Dale kept his eyes focused on the flashing lights of the fire trucks as he pulled back out into traffic. “We should be the first news team there.”

The prospect gave her spirits a jolt. Since the move ten years ago back to Montana to rebuild her life and then take care of her dying father, she was determined to succeed as a reporter, to put the past behind her.

When they arrived at the warehouse, flames shot out of the upper story. Cool summer evening air surrounded Elizabeth as she exited the van. She caught sight of the gathering crowd. Even at a distance, she could see the expressions of shock and fear on the faces of the onlookers. A reminder of why she had chosen to become a reporter in the first place. Her father had been a police officer. To him, work had been about sacrifice and service. Now that he was gone, she wanted to live by his example, using her chosen vocation, the gifts God had given her, as a way to help others.

Elizabeth tugged at the hem of the blazer she’d hurriedly thrown on over her T-shirt and sweats. Dale would shoot her from the waist up. No one would see her cartoon-emblazoned pants.

Her heart raced as she scanned the crowd, recognizing the fire chief and the arson investigator from Badger PD. Interesting. Maybe the fire wasn’t an accident. “Let’s get some coverage from the eyewitnesses until the first responders can give us some info.” She turned a half circle, reading the faces of thirty or so people who had gathered to watch the warehouse burn. Most of them were probably Johnny-come-latelies who would have nothing to contribute about what had happened, but surely somewhere in the crowd was the man or woman who had been here for the early stages of the fire and made the 911 call.

A woman with her arm around a teenage boy offered a welcoming expression. Elizabeth stepped toward her but stopped short when Zachery Beck emerged from the shadows holding a tablet computer. He closed in on the woman before Elizabeth could reach her.

Dale came up behind Elizabeth. He shook his bald head. “How did Zach Beck get here so fast?”

Elizabeth clenched her jaw. “Beats me.” She studied the tall, unassuming man. His blond hair was a little too long and wild to qualify for the messy-on-purpose look. The five o’clock shadow and ripped jeans indicated he was a man who didn’t care how he looked. He didn’t have to care. Zach wrote an independent news blog called Minute by Minute that was taking a lot of KBLK’s viewer and online base. Zach had a gift for being the first reporter at every major news event. She had to admire his talent even if he did scoop her.

How had he managed to get out in front of her this time?

She moved in closer to listen to Zach question the woman. He was typing as she talked. Did he actually send raw, unedited stories straight to the blog? She’d read his news stories. The articles were polished and professional.

“And when did you first notice the flames shooting out of the upper floors?” Zach offered Elizabeth a nod before turning his attention back to the woman.

The woman drew her son into a tighter hug. Embarrassed, the teenager rolled his eyes, but didn’t angle out of his mother’s embrace. “We just finished eating at the fried chicken place down the street and we were headed back to our apartment on Wilson Avenue.”

Zach asked one detailed question after another. She understood how he managed to get such good interviews. His voice was soft, inviting conversation rather than intimidating. He leaned in anytime the woman spoke. Everything about his body language indicated that the spotlight was on the woman, not him. Was it an act he’d perfected as part of his skill set as a reporter or was he really that humble?

When Zach finished, Elizabeth stepped toward the woman. “Hi, Elizabeth Kramer from KBLK. I wonder if we could get you on camera answering a few questions for us?”

“I already told that man everything I know. It’s been a long night for David and me.” She turned and walked away, still not letting go of her son.

Elizabeth let out a heavy breath.

Dale came up behind her. “I got some visuals of the fire. We need some talking heads before you do your stand-up.”

Fuming over losing the important interview, Elizabeth glanced at the fire chief, who was still engaged with the arson investigator. She walked over to Zach while he filmed the fire.

“Congrats on getting that interview with the eyewitness,” Elizabeth said.

Zach offered her a crooked grin. “Yeah, sorry about scooping you on that. Guess I wore her out. She didn’t want to be on TV with the beauty queen.”

She didn’t like it when people brought up her pageant days. That was over a decade ago when she lived in Seattle before her life had fallen apart. How did he even find that out? Had he been investigating her? She swept away the pain that talking about her past produced.

Focus on the story, Elizabeth.

“If you don’t mind, I listened to you interview her. I’d like to use some of that info in my report even if I can’t get her on camera.”

Zach’s eyebrow went up. “You do whatever you need to do, Betsy.” Then he smiled in a disarming way. His blue eyes had a Paul Newman coolness to them.

She bit her tongue. He knew what her name was. The jabbing at her happened every time they were both chasing the same story. Let it go. He’s just trying to bait you. She peered over his shoulder. “Looks like the fire chief and the arson investigator are free.”

“I already talked to them. No question about it. The fire was started on purpose, really basic incendiary device.”

Elizabeth could not push down her frustration anymore. “How could you possibly have found that out so fast?”

Zach laughed, putting on his best New York accent. “Youse gotta have your sources, lady.” He ambled away toward the circle of firefighters, who slapped him on the back. He’d cultivated his relationship with the first responders way more than she had been able to even though her father had been sheriff in a town not too far from Badger.

Elizabeth shook her head. Zach delighted a little too much in their friendly competition. It seemed clear that the humble guy who did the interviews was the act and the always-looking-for-the-upper-hand Zach was the real deal. Too bad. Those blue eyes suggested a much gentler man.

Another news truck pulled into the lot.

Dale leaned close to her. “So what now?”

They would end up getting the same footage as the other station when the police chief made his statement. Since Zachery Beck had stolen her thunder by getting the eyewitness report, she had to find an angle no one else had.

She peered at the faces in the crowd. Sometimes the arsonist showed up to watch the reaction to his work. A large man in a pulled-down baseball hat toward the back of the crowd raised and lowered his head. He’d looked at her only for an instant, but she thought she’d caught a flash of some emotion.

She edged toward him.

The man took a step back, turned and walked away. The darkness behind the warehouse enveloped him. Had she caught a look of guilt on his face, or was she just so desperate for a story angle, she was jumping to conclusions? Maybe he was involved, or it could be that the guy knew something but was afraid to talk. She couldn’t call herself a real reporter if she didn’t pursue a lead, even a tentative one. She glanced around for Dale, who was filming the firemen working. No time to catch his attention.

Feeling a mixture of fear and excitement, she slipped away from the crowd toward the darkness where the man in the baseball hat had disappeared.

* * *

Zachery glanced around. Where had Elizabeth gone? He’d seen her doing her broadcast only a moment ago. She was a good reporter. Way better on camera than he’d ever been. He might be good at finding the stories, but she was great at delivering them.

He watched her every night. Not that he would tell her that, though. He kind of enjoyed their friendly professional jousting. He couldn’t believe he’d let it slip he knew about her beauty queen days. It wasn’t on the official profile the TV station posted on their website—he’d had to go digging for the information. Wanting to find out more about her was only partially motivated by the know-your-competition rule he’d learned in journalism school. He found her intriguing. She treated every news story like she had a personal stake in it.

He pulled away from the crowd of police officers. The firemen had nearly gotten the blaze under control.

“Don’t forget about hoops on Friday,” one of the firemen shouted at his back.

“Yeah, sure.” Who would have thought that playing basketball with the first responders would give him an in? They answered his phone calls and gave him inside info even when they were on the way to an emergency.

“See you then, Beck,” said one of the other men.

He was still having trouble getting used to responding to a last name that wasn’t his. He didn’t enjoy the deception, but it was the only way he could go back to living a normal life.

Over a year ago, he’d been reporting on the fighting in Syria when he was taken hostage by terrorists. Once he was released and back in the States, a lot of media attention had been directed his way. He wanted to cover the stories, not be the story. So he left Baltimore and came to Montana. Now he reported small-town news in a part of the world where it was easy enough to hide who he’d been. He didn’t care where he lived as long as he could write and not have people asking him personal questions.

Zachery glanced back toward the crowd. His story was already wrapped up and posted by the time the other reporters were showing up. The only one who’d come close to being able to keep up with him was Elizabeth. Yet another thing he admired about her. But though he thought she was pretty and smart, he couldn’t see their relationship getting beyond fun, professional competitiveness. Something about her demeanor suggested she was all about work. She had an aloofness to her he couldn’t decipher.

What did it matter? After all the terror of his hostage experience, and then the ugly furor of the media frenzy, he needed time to put himself back together before he even thought of trying for some romance in his life.

He loved his job, and working to beat the pretty redhead to a story made him a better reporter. It was good for both of them, iron sharpening iron. Another news truck pulled into the lot, and Elizabeth’s cameraman turned his attention to filming the police chief while he made his public statement.

Zach watched as a man in a hat disappeared around the corner of the building. A moment later, Elizabeth followed him.

A shiver, which had nothing to do with the night chill, ran over Zach’s skin. Chalk it up to having spent so much time in war zones; his instincts for knowing when bad things were about to happen were finely honed. It wasn’t a cognitive thing. His gut told him when danger was close. Right now, he didn’t like the way his stomach clenched when Elizabeth disappeared around the corner of that building.

He shoved his phone in his pocket and dashed toward the shadowed darkness where Elizabeth had gone.

TWO

The illumination from the streetlights didn’t reach to the back of the warehouse. Elizabeth’s eyes probed the dark corners, trying to spot the man in the hat. Running wasn’t always an indication of guilt, but her journalist curiosity wouldn’t rest until she was sure the man was just an innocent bystander.

Her foot hit something hard and metal, sending a sharp pain up her leg. She stopped for a moment, pulled out her phone and switched on the flashlight at the end. The place looked like some sort of automobile graveyard. Piles of tires, bent metal and rusted-out cars populated the field.

She aimed the flashlight into the shadows. No sign or sound of the man anywhere. She would have seen him if he’d headed toward the well-lit street a hundred yards away, so he had to be here somewhere.

“Hey, I want to talk to you.” The waver in her voice gave away her fear. She stepped farther from the warehouse, shining the light all around. The sounds of the firefighters faded. Her pulse drummed in her ears.

What was she doing out here anyway? She couldn’t waste any more time. She turned to head back to civilization when the creak of metal caught her attention. Her heart pounded against her rib cage.

“Hey,” she said, edging toward where the noise had come from. “I just want to talk to you. Did you see something to do with the fire?”

Gravel crunched beneath her feet. Lifting her arm, she aimed the light at the shell of a car.

A hand went over her mouth. The smell of gasoline and dirt filled her nostrils.

Adrenaline shot through her body. She fought to twist free of her captor as memories of the assault she’d lived through in college bombarded her. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see.

His arms were like iron around her waist as he pulled her through the field. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t get away. She feared she might faint. How could this be happening again?

She dragged her feet.

“Stop it.” His breath was like hot lava on her skin. He pressed his mouth close to her ear. “I have a gun. Come with me or die.”

Oh, please, dear God, no.

She took in a breath as she struggled to clear her head and get beyond the terror. Not only was her life in danger, her mind was drowning in the violent memories from ten years ago. But fighting back the fear was a familiar struggle—one she lived with almost every day. And this time, conquering her emotions might be the only way for her to stay alive.

“Stop resisting me.”

The hard edge to her captor’s words told her staying alive meant doing what he asked, for now. She stopped struggling. Her eyes scanned the dark landscape. There must be some way to save herself.

She trudged forward, turning to see the warehouse and the junk field in her peripheral vision. The lights looked a million miles away. Who was this man? Why was he doing this?

He poked the gun in her back. “Open the door.”

A car materialized in front of her. They were on a dirt road behind the warehouse. Her hand reached out toward the handle.

She struggled to clear her mind of the horrifying images from ten years ago. Hands around her neck. Craig Miller grinning at her. She’d trusted him enough to go on a date with him.

Stay alive.

She fought to find her way back to this night and the new threat.

She knew from having covered abduction stories that once he had her in the car, her chances of getting away diminished.

He pressed close to her back, his clothes brushing against hers. She leaned forward as though to open the door but spun at the last moment, putting her head down and charging toward her abductor’s chest.

The blow made him grunt, but he remained upright. He yanked her blazer collar. Cold metal pressed against her temple.

“I said get in.” He pushed her hard against the car.

The impact knocked the wind out of her. She was shaking from the inside out as she reached for the car with a trembling hand and pulled open the door.

“Why are you doing this?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He jerked her hands behind her back and wrapped wire around her wrists before shoving her in the backseat and slamming the door shut behind her. Pain pulsed through her rib cage as she angled to sit up.

The driver’s-side door opened. The man sat behind the wheel. The car roared to life. Nausea roiled through her stomach as black dots filled her vision. She struggled to remain coherent.

As the car sped through the darkness, she wondered if this time she would die.

* * *

Zachery’s heart raced as he watched the dark figure push a woman into the car and speed off. That woman, who was probably Elizabeth, had clearly been abducted. He knew where that road led. He sprinted through the junkyard toward the side street where he’d parked his car, yanked open the door and jumped in. He thought to call the police but knew there wasn’t time for them to get here and follow the car. He’d have to follow himself, and call it in once he found out where the man was going.

The engine revved to life, and he zigzagged down city streets to the edge of town, where pavement met gravel. Up ahead, he could see the red taillights of a car as it rolled over the hills out into the country. That had to be the guy. There were no other cars out this way.

Taillights winked out. The kidnapper knew he was being followed. Zach slowed his own car, trying to discern the shadows in front of him. Moonlight provided a hint of illumination as he came over the crest of a hill. He didn’t see or hear any evidence of the car anywhere. His tires rolled silently over the dirt road.

After he drove for several minutes without seeing anything, he pulled over to the shoulder and got out. He saw no sign of a house or even a barn, no lights—no place where the man could have gone. Darkness consumed the road a couple of hundred yards ahead of him. To one side was a stretch of forest. Not even the mechanical clang of a distant car engine met his ears.

Time to call in one of his cop friends. He yanked on the car door.

Zach climbed back into his car, fumbling for his phone at the same time he turned the key in the ignition.

“Hey, Dan, it’s Zach,” he said as soon as the other man picked up. “I think I need your help. I’m out on Old Forsyth Road.” He gave Dan the details of what he’d witnessed as he pulled out onto the road. He scanned three hundred and sixty degrees around him. He wasn’t going to give up, and he wasn’t going to wait for the police.

Whatever it took, he’d find the guy. There couldn’t be that many roads out this way.

He turned onto a side road.

Backup would be nice when it arrived, but he couldn’t wait around for it. A woman’s life was at stake.

* * *

Hope rose up inside Elizabeth when her kidnapper switched off his lights. She turned her head and stared out the back window, seeing only shadows on the road. Someone must have seen the kidnapping and come after her. Why else would he turn off his lights?

As her body jostled on the seat from the car speeding down the road, Elizabeth wondered who had spotted them—maybe one of the police officers on the scene?

She lifted her head even as pain coiled around her rib cage and pulsated. “Why are you doing this?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?”

A jolt of fear shot through her, and for a moment, she wondered if the man who had date raped her in college had come back to torment her. She shook off the rising terror. This man had a big build. Craig had been short and muscular. She’d remember her attacker’s gravelly voice forever. She heard it in her dreams. This wasn’t Craig Miller, the man who had nearly destroyed her, and the reason she had left a promising career in Seattle.

She struggled for breath as the memories flooded her mind.

Hold it together.

She stared at the back of his head. With the baseball cap, she couldn’t see his face or even what color his hair was. All she had to go on was that momentary connection she’d made when he’d been a face in the crowd. She couldn’t even recall any of his features. “Where would I know you from?”

“Ha, nice try. The intrepid reporter always knows what questions to ask.”

Even his voice wasn’t distinctive. She twisted her hands, working the wires around her wrists loose.

Someone was looking for her. That gave her a fighting chance. All she had to do was stall for time. They drove for what felt like at least half an hour until he came to a stop. The back door cranked open, and he grabbed her arm just above the elbow. Squeezing hard, he yanked her out. She fell on the ground. Though the wire was now loose enough for her to slip free, she kept her hands behind her so her kidnapper wouldn’t know.

“Before this night is over, you’ll know who I am.” His voice held menace that made her shiver.

She lifted her head, noticing the outline of a house. The broken window and dilapidated porch indicated it was abandoned.