“The clerk at the hotel has an Ethel Mae Jonas registered at Morningshade since day before yesterday. I’m doing a scan of all the hotels in the surrounding area using this name,” Trent said. He had his laptop and was pecking away trying to find as muchinformation as they could on Alayna Jonas. He’d already been working on this and didn’t have much to go on except that up until the week before Alayna’s disappearance, regular bi-weekly deposits from the Clark County Government and an account named TH Services Inc. had come in for almost two and a half years. The amounts from TH Services had sparked a red flag for Trent and he’d run a report to find out more about the company but so far had come up with nothing.
“Dammit,” he grumbled after a few minutes. “Nothing else on that name either.”
“We’re about three minutes away,” Dev announced taking the exit and slowing down at the corner before turning down a side street. “Should be around this next corner,” he said and made the left turn.
Ben’s fingers clenched and unclenched. His gun pressed heavily against his back. He was licensed to carry a concealed weapon and had a year’s worth of training at the shooting range. Every now and then he and a couple of his cousins, of course Trent included, went out to the range just for practice then made a day of it by having lunch and playing ball afterwards. The Donovan men were big on protection, just as big as they were on following the law.
Only this time, Ben wasn’t sure he would be able to abide completely. He just didn’t know that he wouldn’t kill Vega if given the chance.
The first thing he noticed when they pulled into the parking lot of the motel was a parked police car. It was sitting directly in front of room number 616. Ben looked down at the GPS Dev had been following. On the side of the device was a yellow sticky note that Trent had placed there when they’d left the Ramsey’s house. It read room 608.
“He’s in there,” he said hurriedly opening the door and stepping out of the truck.
“Who?” Dev asked moving around the front of the vehicle to join up with Ben.
“The leak,” Trent answered. “The dirty cop is in there with Alayna.”
“He’s in there with Victoria,” was the last thing Ben said before he started running across the parking lot toward the rooms.
Chapter 19
Victoria
“Get up, you stupid slut!” he yelled.
Victoria still held Alayna’s hand from when she’d pulled her down to the floor. No tear gas had come in, but something worse had entered. She could see his hand grabbing a chunk of Alayna’s hair and pulling her up from the floor. Victoria didn’t let her hand go so she was jerked to her knees with the action.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked looking at her.
Before she could answer Victoria felt a wave of something familiar. She narrowed her eyes and stared closer. She knew him. And the moment he took a second look she could tell he knew her too.
“Fuck! You better not have been running your mouth!” he shouted at Alayna then used his grip on her hair to toss her over the bed. “As for you Miss Prosecutor, you’re about to lose this case bigtime!”
He raised his hand to slap her and Victoria acted solely on instinct. After her father’s death she and her mother had taken every self-defense class they could find. Naomi actually held several belts in the art of Taekwondo while Victoria had leveled out at the black belt because she’d entered college and becametoo busy to attend the classes. Needless to say, she could handle herself very well.
The arm that blocked Officer Hall’s ensuing assault and the follow up jab to his nose with a palm heel strike proved her point. Blood immediately spewed from his face and Victoria took the seconds that he stood there stunned and calling her all kinds of names to run over and help Alayna up from the floor.
“Stay behind me,” she instructed her.
“He’ll kill us both,” Alayna whimpered, pulling on the sleeve of Victoria’s shirt. “Let’s just go. There’s a window in the bathroom. We can get out while he’s bleeding,” she pleaded.
But Victoria knew that wasn’t going to work. Hall wasn’t going to be out of commission much longer. He was too angry for the pain to really stop him. She looked around quickly, trying to find anything she could use as a weapon because he was definitely going to come for her first.
She knew who he was. Sure, Alayna did too, but he had her so afraid she hadn’t even told Victoria his name and probably would’ve had to be thoroughly coerced to divulge that information. But he was greedy, he’d come for her and now Victoria knew exactly who he was. And it hadn’t taken her long to figure out what he’d done. He was the one who’d taken Alayna. He could because he was a cop, he would’ve known where the other officers were holding her and it would’ve been easy for him to walk right in and grab her. Her question was why. But that would surely have to wait as just as she’d expected he swiped his hand over his blood soaked face and turned immediately to her.
“They should have killed you when they had the chance. I told them scaring you wasn’t enough. But that’s okay, I’ll take care of it,” he spat.
He reached into the front of his pants and pulled out a gun, big and black was all she really saw before the front door was kicked off its hinges.
Hall whirled around to see who’d decided to join his little party. Victoria gasped when his gun was now pointed directly at Ben.
“Sonofabitch!” Ben yelled.
“Drop it!” Dev and Trent came from behind with their follow-up and guns drawn.
It was Officer Hall, the smart-ass from the crime scene the night Victoria’s house had been attacked. A quick glance over the man’s shoulder and he saw Victoria, a frantically screaming woman right behind her.
“I’m not dropping anything. You’re the intruders. I’m the fuckin’ law. You drop it!” Hall yelled with clear distaste.
