The Negotiation

“Rings a loud one.” Dane looked at the paper but only saw the face of a man he’d never forget. “Tracy Markinson’s been dead for almost a decade,” he said. “Definitely not stealing bubble wrap in Birmingham.”

Chance slid his finger around the brim of his hat and then thumped it once. “Which is why I thought I needed to take a drive out to see you.” He cast Dane a knowing look. “And why I thought talking in private might be the best move. I didn’t want to waltz into the department and just throw this at you. Thought doing it here, in the fresh air, might be better. Plus, you know how much I hate offices.”

Dane didn’t speak for a moment. He was seeing ghosts. Ghosts of his past. Ghosts he’d created. And where there were ghosts, there was her.

He didn’t say it, but Dane was glad Chance had told him outside the department. He prided himself on being surefooted when it came to his job. Right now? Right now he felt like he was treading air.

“How exactly did it trace back to him?” he finally asked. Even to his ears his voice had gone low, nearing a whisper. “You said license plate?”

“Yes, sir. It was attached to a burgundy van that left the warehouse with the dog crates. Tracy was the last person who legally owned it, but past that, I’m not sure on any more details. Once I saw the name, I thought I’d come talk to you first.”

Dane’s gears were still moving slow. Like a cup of molasses had been poured over them. He’d worked a lot of cases since Tracy was killed. Ones that had made his blood boil. Ones that had kept him up at night. Ones that had shaken the entire sheriff’s department and county to their cores. Yet what had happened to Tracy? That was a case that had changed Dane’s entire life in the blink of an eye.

An eye that might be looking at him now.

“After Tracy died, his things were given to the family he had left and then the rest were donated, if I’m not mistaken. Birmingham might be far for some, but it’s definitely within driving distance. Not hard to get his van up there. It could be just a coincidence that it happened to be his old one,” Dane pointed out.

Chance picked his cowboy hat off his leg and put it on. He looked out at the small park and the autumn leaves that had started to fall. The scene contrasted with the heat that hadn’t yet left South Alabama.

“It could be,” he admitted. “Coincidence, maybe. Bad luck, maybe that, too. But my gut says it’s not, and I aim to find out why it’s telling me that.” Chance stood. “I’ll be at the hotel on Cherry for a few days, looking into some things. You’ve got my number. Don’t hesitate to call it. I’ll do the same if I find anything. Unless you want me to keep this one out of your hair?”

Dane shook his head.

“If there is a loop, keep me in it if you don’t mind,” Dane said. “And, Chance? Thanks for reaching out.”

The cowboy gave a small nod and walked over the fallen leaves to his truck in the parking lot. Dane watched as he drove away. Riker County was nothing short of surprising, no matter the season. It might only house one large city, but the trouble that found its way into its borders never ceased to amaze Dane. If it wasn’t a new criminal organization trying to take over, it was kidnapped children, manhunts and enough gunshots traded between the bad guys and their department to last him a few lifetimes.

Dane left the bench in an attempt to exit his current road of thought.

Even before the recent uptick in chaos around his home, there had been only one night that had burned its way into his soul.

The night he’d made a decision.

The wrong one.

Dane hopped into his truck and pointed it toward the department in the heart of Carpenter, Alabama. He had too much on his plate to fight with his past again. Now wasn’t the time.

He turned the volume up on the radio, let a crooning song croon, and was about to write off Chance’s gut when his phone vibrated in his pocket.

“I need a vacation,” he told the cab of his truck, fishing out the ringing phone. “One where I just don’t answer this blasted phone.” Hell, he’d needed one for years now. No time like the present, right?

Dane didn’t recognize the number but unlocked his phone all the same. As the captain of the Investigative Bureau at the Riker County’s Sheriff’s Department, he had to be always ready for the unknown. Not to ignore it just because it was easy. Life wasn’t easy. There was no reason to suspect work would be, either.

He turned down the radio and cleared his throat. “Captain Jones, here.”

“Dane!” The sound of a bad connection was almost as loud as the woman’s scream. On reflex he held the phone away from his ear for a moment. “Dane! There are men at the school trying to take us!”

All at once Dane’s body and mind synced. No sighing. No thoughts of vacations. No molasses on the gears.

That wasn’t just any woman.

It was the widow he’d helped make seven years ago.

“Rachel?”

“There are three of them! One in a van and two—two are chasing us!”

A shout sounded in the background. Dane tightened his hold on the steering wheel, knuckles going white. The rustling noise wasn’t a bad connection. It was movement. It was running.

“Rachel, where are you?”

There was more rustling and the sound of something slamming shut before she answered.

“We’re in—we’re inside Darby Middle,” she said, out of breath. “Only four of us here when they—when they showed up.”

Dane cut the wheel hard, turning in the opposite direction. Another shout sounded in the background.

This time the shout was closer.

“We gotta hide,” came a small voice, much closer to the phone. A student at school on a Saturday? Rachel didn’t get a chance to respond before someone else was yelling.

“Rach—” Dane started. She cut him off.

“Dane, there’re children here,” she stressed. Something made a scrapping noise.

The fear in her voice was unmistakably true and poignant. It stirred something inside Dane’s chest he didn’t have time to investigate.

“Dane, please hurry!”

Dane pressed his gas pedal to the floor. Any more force and it felt like it would have gone through the floorboard.

“I’m coming,” he promised, voice rising to show he meant it. “Just stay on the—”

A series of crashes cut him off again. There was another wave of rustling. This time it sounded violent.

On cue Rachel cried out.

“Rachel,” Dane yelled into the receiver.

“Ms. Roberts!”

“Run, Lonnie,” she yelled in response. But it wasn’t to him. Instead Dane felt like he was under water, unable to break the surface to get to her.

“Run!”

Dane heard a new voice. It belonged to a man. An angry one at that.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he yelled.

Dane held the phone away from his ear again as a loud crash reverberated out of it. “Rachel!”

But it was too late. The call dropped.

And then Dane was left alone with nothing but silence.

* * *

THE FINGERS THAT threaded into her long hair were angry. They wasted little time in pulling her backward in one violent motion. The change in Rachel’s momentum was jarring. She yelled out as she fell into the man in overalls, feet coming out from under her.

There was a moment of pause when her terrified mind let her know that she could give up right then. It would be easier to let the men take her, especially since one had her by the hair. Like trying to hold your breath under water as long as you could but having to surface and breathe in air when you couldn’t stay down any longer.

“Rachel!”

Dane’s voice coming through her dropped phone was small compared to that of the man at her back, but it heralded in her good sense. She wasn’t going to let terror seize her body; she wasn’t going to let the men, either. With both hands, she did something David had once showed her. Cupping both hands, she threw them up and behind her with all the force she could muster at this awkward angle. Her head burned where he was pulling her hair, but her hands slapped over the man’s ears with surprising precision.

He howled in response. The pain at her roots lessened as he let go.

However he wasn’t the only man in the room. No sooner had she scrambled to her feet than the sandy-haired man lunged at her. Rachel didn’t have time to ready to fend him off. Luckily she didn’t have to. A large-bristled broom swung so close to her head she felt the wind off it seconds before it connected with her attacker’s face. Instead of swinging it around again, the broom’s wielder used it like a batting ram, charging forward enough that it sent the surprised man on his backside.

Lonnie let get of the handle when she was clear. Rachel didn’t have time to thank the boy for saving her. The men behind her were a tangle of limbs but neither was hurt enough to be down for too long. She and Lonnie had to get away.

She grabbed his hand again and ran toward the second doorway leading out of the classroom. While she was seeking safety, Rachel had run in the opposite direction of the front office. She didn’t know where Jude was and didn’t want to chance having him walk out in the middle of the men.

“You bitch,” one of the men yelled from the other room. The sound of desks overturning followed. Rachel tightened her grip on Lonnie’s arm and skidded around the hallway corner. They’d been lucky that the study hall room had been open. The rest of the classrooms were not. If she’d needed any open for decorating, she was supposed to go to Gaven to unlock them.

Now?

Now she was doing the fastest recall she’d ever attempted, trying to remember which doors might be open while adrenaline had her heart thumping a mile a minute, trying to drill itself out of her chest.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway they’d just left.

Rachel didn’t want to admit it, but they were running out of time and out of distance.

She just hoped they weren’t also running out of luck.

Chapter Three

The heat from outside did nothing to break through the chill that had fallen in the cab of his truck. It moved into Dane’s bones and stayed there even when he screeched to a stop in front of Darby Middle and jumped out onto the lawn.

In the time it had taken to book it over to the school, he’d called everyone on the horn that could help. Local PD had a cruiser on the way. Billy was sending deputies and flooring it over, too, and their dispatcher, Cassie, had even managed to contact the principal. Gaven Martin had been given orders to protect himself and one of the children who had been at the school. He’d also confirmed that the only other people at Darby Middle were Rachel and another student named Lonnie.

It was nice to have so much communication and movement on the ground. However the time it took to get from point A to B had stretched too long. Dane’s gut dropped to his feet when he saw the parking lot was empty. No driver. No van.

Which meant the mystery men, or at least one of them, had left the premises.

Dane only hoped Rachel and the boy hadn’t been along for the ride.

He pulled his gun out and didn’t stop long enough to even think about waiting for backup. Instead he hurried to the front double doors like the devil himself was nipping at his heels.

Dane didn’t have any kids, and the ones he did occasionally babysit for friends didn’t live in Darby. Point of fact, he’d never been inside the middle school before. A wave of cool air mixed with the faint smell of cleaning supplies pressed against his face as he moved from the outside concrete to the beige tile inside. The door shutting behind him was the only sound that reverberated across the hall in front of him. For once, the quiet didn’t sit right with him.

He held his gun higher and went to the glass door closest to him marked Main Office. It was locked. Another closed door could be seen at the end of the room with the principal’s nameplate across it. Gaven and the other student were hiding on the other side.

Dane moved his attention back to the hallway in front of him. It cut to the right and was empty. Closed doors lined each side along with small lockers around the bottom half of the walls. Dane stayed alert as he hurried to the first set of doors. Both were locked. He went to the next two. They were also locked. He kept on until there was a room with a door wide open. His heart hammered in his chest. Some of the desks inside had been toppled over, a broomstick was broken in two and, in the middle of it all, there was a discarded cell phone.

Dane didn’t bother picking it up. He knew it belonged to Rachel.

This was where she must have fought the men.

Her cry echoed in Dane’s mind.

He hadn’t liked hearing it over the phone.

He didn’t like remembering, either.

Moving as quietly as he could, Dane exited the room through its second door. If Rachel had run in through the main school entrance and then into the classroom, he’d bet she would have gone deeper into the school rather than back outside. That was if she had broken away from the men and wasn’t in their custody now.

Dane shook his head.

He wasn’t going to think about that just yet.

The adjoining hallway led to another that formed three sides of a box that made up the school. Most of the doors were shut and locked. Dane checked the bathrooms quickly and wordlessly. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. No one made a sound. If Rachel and Lonnie had run this way, their options to hide had been limited. By the time he made it to the end of another hallway, he worried that they might not have had the chance to even make it that far.

But then he saw it. An open door at the end of the hall.

Dane hurried over. The door led into a small gym. Bleachers were pulled out, a few soft mats were pushed into the corner and light from outside streamed in through the tall windows on either side of the room. Two doors that must have led to the locker rooms were located on the far wall, another was in the corner and had a set of locked chains around the handles. A soccer field, surrounded by trees, at the end of the property could be seen through the glass on the top half of each door.

Or at least where the glass had been.

One window was completely busted out.

Dane cursed beneath his breath as he got closer. There was blood on the broken glass. Someone had busted it in an attempt to escape. Dane cursed again as he shook the handle of one of the doors. The chains clinked their objections. If Rachel had broken out of the school, she must have been desperate.

Dane lowered his gun and kicked the door hard.

He should have been there sooner.

He should have—

Movement out of the corner of his eye made him spin on his heel. His gun came up high and ready.

“Dane?”

Rachel peeked out from under the closest set of bleachers. A boy was at her side.

Dane could have sung in relief.

While it had been years since he’d seen the woman in person, he realized right then and there he hadn’t forgotten the details of what made Rachel Rachel.

Her hair might be shorter, but it was still dark, smooth and straight. It framed a long, thin face with high cheekbones and a faint dimple in her chin. Her complexion was tanned, though, if memory served him correctly, Dane would bet it was a farmer’s tan. Rachel had always liked to go outside but wasn’t a fan of sunbathing. He’d often teased her when she wore shorts and her ankles and feet were different shades.

But of all the details Dane remembered, it was her eyes that made him feel like they were suddenly in the past.

Denim blue. Like a favorite pair of worn blue jeans.

They fastened to him now, a mix of emotions he didn’t have time to separate and examine. “Are you two okay?”

He lowered his gun but didn’t holster it. Just because he hadn’t seen the mystery men didn’t mean he was letting down his guard.

“Yeah, we’re—” Rachel started but the boy, Lonnie, interrupted.

“She cut herself good when she broke the window,” he said, voice stronger than Dane would expect in the situation. He motioned to her arm. It was pressed against her chest, her other hand cradling her wrist.

“It’s not that bad. Just a little blood. I’m fine.” She must have read the question in his expression. “I thought if it looked like we made it outside, they would go outside and we could hide and wait it out here.”

Dane couldn’t deny that plan was impressive, if not risky. “The van you said was out front is gone. And, as far as I could tell, the rest of the school is empty. Except for Gaven and the other student.”

Rachel had opened her mouth, worry already in her eyes, when he hurried to add, “Who are both fine and locked in the office.”

Rachel let out a sigh of relief, but her body didn’t start to relax until a welcomed sound started in the distance.

Sirens.

Dane flashed the boy a small smile. “Backup has arrived.”

* * *

THE EMT HAD cleaned and bandaged the cut along the top of her wrist but hadn’t gotten to scolding her until he’d looked at the swollen parts of her knuckle.

“You’re lucky the glass was already compromised,” he had said. “Or else you might have broken your hand instead. It’s going to hurt for a few days, regardless.”

Rachel had kept her mouth shut on the EMT’s commentary. While he had only been trying to help, he hadn’t been the one running through the school trying to keep away from men hell-bent on grabbing her and the kid in her care. She had broken the window because she was going to try to get Lonnie and herself through. They’d already used up their luck by losing the two men for a minute or two, giving them enough time to get into the gym. But the moment after she’d cleared the glass away, Rachel had made a split-second decision to keep hiding.

Guilt and worry and fear wound around her stomach, even though she was now safe. It was just dumb luck that the men had seen the broken window and believed what she had wanted them to. That she had run to the woods with Lonnie at her side. Once they’d seen the empty window, they’d run in the opposite direction, both swearing.

It could easily have gone the other way.

Now Rachel was sitting in the Riker County Sheriff’s Department, staring at a nameplate that read Captain Dane Jones and struggling to shake loose the added sorrow trying to creep in. Even without the morning she’d just had, being in the building was enough to turn her mood. Down the hall, years ago, she’d listened to Dane and his colleagues attempt to do their best to save her husband.

She’d seen the way their bodies had been as tense as hers as they’d gone through each scenario with vigor. The way their determination had kept their brows furrowed and their lips thinned. The way they’d tried to assure her everything would be okay.

However, perhaps the singular thing she remembered most from that day was just after the storm had broken outside and Dane had walked in. She’d been waiting for news, but the department had gone radio silent. Though, she realized later, the silence was for her. They were just waiting for Dane to come back. Waiting for him to tell her.

And there he had been, walking through the hallway with rain clinging to his clothes and sliding off his hair. He wasn’t walking with purpose. He’d been walking on reflex.

Rachel fisted her hand in her lap.

She had known the moment their eyes had met that David was gone.

That day had put a hole in her heart, one that had only grown as the year went on.

Now?

She looked down at the bandage on her arm and felt the dull ache of her swollen hand.

Now, after more time had passed, it was less of a hole and more like a window. She could see the memories in the distance and occasionally, if she opened the window, she could feel their joy and sorrow they often brought.

Rachel smiled to herself with no real mirth.

She’d been a widow for years and yet always around the anniversary of David’s death she found herself revisiting the day when the word was still so foreign. After the day she’d had, though, she supposed she shouldn’t be too harsh on herself.

The door behind her opened and Dane pushed through. He didn’t look at her as he put a file on his desk, along with his phone, and then settled into his chair. This had been par for the course between them after she gave her statement. He’d been avoiding her.

Just as he’d been doing for years.

An old anger started to weave itself around her chest again, making her hot.

She cleared her voice.

“Any luck finding the men?” she started, hopeful.

Dane was already shaking his head before she finished.

“No one has been able to pin down the men or their vehicle, but there’s an all-points bulletin out.” He met her gaze. His eyes were hard, dark. “We’re running your and Lonnie’s descriptions of the men through our database, seeing if anyone matches. Hopefully we’ll get a hit so we can make some moves.”

“And if they aren’t in the database?”

Dane’s expression softened, if only a little. “Don’t worry, we’ll find them. It’s not a matter of if, just a matter of when.” On cue, a knock sounded against the doorway. A man with a detective’s shield around his neck gave her a curt nod.

“Rachel, this is one of our newest detectives, Caleb Foster. You might remember Detective Matt Walker, but currently he’s enjoying his honeymoon.” Dane’s tone changed, if only briefly, to humor. “But it pains me to admit this, Foster here is more than capable of getting to the bottom of this.”

This time the detective chuckled. He extended his hand, which Rachel took with a smile.

“If Dane has faith in you, you must have deserved it,” she responded truthfully. The detective nodded and then all humor was gone.

“The chief is here and wants to talk to us ASAP. I tried to tell him you were busy, but—”

“But the anxious chief of Darby PD waits for no woman or man when he’s ready to get some answers,” Dane finished.

The detective nodded.

“All right, tell him I’m coming.”

Caleb said a quick goodbye to her and was gone as fast as it took Dane to get out of his chair. His brow was furrowed. He was already miles away from her.

And that brought the anger back.

“I’m going home,” she said before he could disappear on her again. “Unless there’s something else I need to do? Or there’s something else you need to say?”

Dane paused midstep. For a moment Rachel thought he was going to actually talk to her about something, but he did what the Dane from the past few years had done perfectly.

He took the easy way out and avoided her.

“No, that’s all,” he said. “We’ll call you if we have any more questions or need to follow up.”

“And how do I get back to my car?” she pressed.

“I’ll send someone in to take you back.”

Rachel knew her expression had hardened. She felt the anger tensing her up. Dane started to say something more but hesitated. She remembered a time when they’d had no problem talking.

But now everything was different.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he finally said, though his eyes were already on the door.

Rachel waited until he was gone to respond. “Thanks for picking up the phone.”

Chapter Four

Dane was a jackass, plain and true. He thought it the moment he left his office and he thought it through his meeting with Darby’s chief of police, Detective Foster, and Riker County’s sheriff, Billy Reed. A meeting that had gone over their limited facts and debated who would handle the case, seeing as it had happened outside the sheriff’s department’s jurisdiction.

However, unlike Dane, Billy was a charmer. The people of Riker County loved their sheriff, and that included the chiefs of police from the towns and city that they encompassed. When Billy took office, he had worked hard to keep relations between all local law enforcement friendly, so when the time arose where they wanted to cash in some favors, it wasn’t frowned upon. At least, not for long.