Trumped Up Charges

Chapter Sixteen



Hadley backed away from Quinton, trying to think beyond the sudden crippling fear. “If you come any closer, I’ll scream.”

He reached down and pulled a long, sharp knife from a scabbard hidden inside his right boot. “Go ahead. See how much scream you can get out before I slice your jugular.”

“What do you want from me?”

“The rest of the five million you owe me.”

“The ransom only stood if you produced the girls. You didn’t.”

“No, but now I have you. A new kidnapping. A new deal. Five million seems such a paltry sum for a full-grown woman.”

“You can’t get away with this, Quinton. The police are on their way here right now. They’ll break through that door and shoot you.”

He smirked and shook his head. “That’s not the way it works, Hadley. You should know that. Didn’t you learn anything from the professional negotiator you hired? The one in control sets the terms. Your boyfriend will meet them if he wants you back alive.”

And she wanted to be alive. Her life was starting anew. She had Adam and Lacy and Lila. She had everything she’d ever dreamed of. She couldn’t lose it to a monster.

“What is it you want, Quinton?”

He placed the blade of the knife along her cheek. “Get your boyfriend on the line. I’ll do the talking. While I do, why don’t you slip into something comfortable? We can start celebrating where we left off on your fourteenth birthday.”

Dread crawled over her flesh. She couldn’t bear to think of him touching her private places and defiling her in ways that would never leave her mind.

He trailed the tip of the knife along her skin until it reached a spot just below her earlobe. “Make the call or Adam Dalton will find you drowning in your own blood.”

He was going to kill her no matter what she did. He’d been waiting to get back at her for fifteen years. For him, this wasn’t only the money, it was payback time. And if Adam rushed to her rescue, he’d kill him as well.

Lila and Lacy wouldn’t have either parent to look after them. She loved them and Adam too much to let that happen.

She took the phone from her pocket and punched in the private number of Detective Shelton Lane.

* * *

ADAM EXPLODED BEFORE Lane had finished the first sentence.

“I’ll kill him.”

“Don’t go off half-cocked, Adam. I’ve talked to the local authorities. They’re sending officers to monitor the situation until a SWAT team arrives. Let them handle this. They’re skilled in dealing with dangerous situations.”

What the hell did the detective think the marines were? Boy Scouts?

Quinton was a madman. He couldn’t be trusted to let Hadley live until he could get to her, much less until a SWAT team would arrive from who knew where. Especially after she’d already double-crossed him with that call to the detective.

Adam grabbed both girls and raced toward the outdoor stairwell. He ducked into the room where the cleaning woman was emptying trash cans.

“I need your keys. And I need you to take the girls down to the office and stay with them until the cops arrive. They’re on their way.”

She started to protest, but must have decided he was too frantic to argue with. She pushed the keys into his hand.

“Go downstairs with this nice lady. Your mommy loves you and she’ll be right back,” he whispered when both girls began to whine.

He had a key. He had no weapon. He grabbed a steak knife from an empty room service plate. What he wouldn’t give for a government-issued AK-47 now.

Adam slid the key into the lock of 217 as the cleaning woman led the girls downstairs. He turned the key and burst into the room.

One look and he knew he hadn’t been fast enough.