“Check the stalls,” one of the men muttered to the other, and they began to make their way along the grimy stalls. First, the one farthest from Lawson, and then, the one next to him.
And finally, both guys were standing right in front of his stall. He planted his hands on each side of it for leverage, as one of them tried the door.
“It’s locked,” one remarked. “She must be in—”
Before he could finish what he was saying, Lawson swung his legs toward the door with all of his might and slammed his feet into the flimsy wood panel. It crashed off its hinges, and smashed into the two men standing on the other side.
He sprang down on to the floor and quickly surveyed the situation: one of the men had been tossed against the far wall and slammed his head into the dirty tiles, while the other was half-pinned by the door on top of him. He shoved it off his chest and scrambled to his feet, reaching for a weapon at his side.
“What the hell—” he blurted out, but Lawson took advantage of the obvious shock written all over his face. Lawson lunged for the assailant’s gun and grabbed it out of his hand, then took his arm, twisted it up roughly behind his back and slammed theman into the wall. The man let out a cry of pain, then Lawson tossed the gun aside and pulled out a pair of cuffs he’d brought with him. He snapped one of them around his wrist and attached the other to a metal pipe hanging on the wall above him.
The other man had gotten to his feet, and Lawson rounded on him. Using the man’s dazed state against him, Lawson grabbed his arm, then slapped a second cuff on his wrist before he knew what was happening. There was a wound on the man’s head, dripping blood down his face, and Lawson doubted he would have been able to put up much of a fight, anyway, even if he had wanted to.
Lawson pushed the guy back against the wall and lifted the man’s cuffed arm above his head, attaching the other end of the cuff to the metal pipe running along the ceiling. He checked the man for weapons and didn’t find any, so Lawson pulled out his phone.
While he was dialing the sheriff, he leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath, waiting for the other man to answer. After a few rings, the sheriff picked up, his voice a little groggy.
“Sorry to wake you, sheriff,” Lawson greeted. “But I have a couple of guys with me here I thought you might want to meet.”
“You got them?” Sheriff Willis asked, his voice sounding surprised.
“I got them,” Lawson replied, unable to keep the grin off his face. Yeah, maybe he shouldn’t have been celebrating so soon, but any win was one he would welcome right now.
“Tell me what happened, exactly,” Willis demanded. “I need to know what I’m dealing with here.”
They had talked a few times about what they intended to do, but the guys had ended up making a few alterations at the last minute. Lawson stepped out of earshot and swiftly filled in the sheriff on the plan the guys had put together, with the broken-down vehicle on the side of the road as a lure. The guys who had turned up expecting a helpless woman were now cuffed to a metal pipe in a public restroom in the middle of nowhere.
Sheriff Willis let out a sigh.
“You bring them down to the station,” he told him. “But like I said before, if you don’t have anything we can pin on them right now, we’re going to have to let them go. You hear me? I’m not intentionally bringing this kind of trouble into my town.”
Lawson nodded, even though the sheriff couldn’t see him. He got it. They couldn’t just lock up these guys and throw away the key, no matter how much he would have liked to do just that. No, they had to go through the proper judicial process.
And if that meant Lawson needed to get a confession out of them before they could lock them up, so be it. He couldn’t risk having to cut them loose, and allowing them to run back to Granger and tell him about their trap and that someone else was on their trail.
“I’ll meet you at the station in an hour,” he told the sheriff, and Sheriff Willis muttered his agreement, still clearly in the process of waking up.
Lawson turned his attention to the two men opposite him. Both of them were scowling, muttering curses at him with hatred in their eyes. If he was going to do this, he was going to have to get the information he needed from them quickly. He had about the length of the drive back to Blue Ridge to squeeze some of the truth out of them, and he hoped he’d scared them enough to get them to spill, one way or another.
He smirked, looking between them. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, boys,” he told them, then went about undoing the cuffs from the pipe and dragging them to the truck waiting outside.
Chapter Thirteen
“We’re here,” Sarah breathed as she saw the lights of Warrior Peak come into view. This was what she needed right now—that sense of safety, that sense of calm. No matter how tempting it might have been to let the fear get the better of them, as long as they had made it to the lodge in one piece, everything was going to be okay. It had to be.
River turned the car off the main road and onto the connector road that led up to the lodge. As soon as she made the turn, she pulled over to the side and shut off the car lights; all the women held their breath as they waited to see what the car behind them was going to do. Sarah stared out the back window and, much to her surprise, the vehicle continued on up the road, without so much as slowing down.
Thank God. Maybe they had just been paranoid after all. She felt a little guilty for letting her nerves get the better of her, but she figured she was way better off being safe than sorry when it came to all of this. She didn’t want to take any chances or make it easy for anyone to get close to them. Not when she knew what kind of danger was out there waiting for them. Much as she wanted to believe they’d already had their fair share of turmoil these last few months, she knew that life didn’t work like that.
“Come on, let’s get up to the lodge,” Hannah said.
River turned on the car lights and they continued up to the main building. As soon as she parked in the gravel lot, River turned off the engine, and they all headed inside. Sarah could tell they were all lost in thought, wondering if they had been foolishin overthinking the possible threat, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were back now, and nothing was going to happen to them as long as they were here.
A few minutes later, as Hannah hung outside the front door with Sarah, Xavier’s truck rushed up the driveway. Hannah breathed a sigh of relief, and she ran over to Xavier to give him a hug as soon as he stepped out. He wrapped his arms around her tightly and surveyed the area, making sure it was safe.
“You guys alright?” he asked as he led Hannah back toward Sarah.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” Sarah assured him. “We just got a little spooked by some guys at the bar, that’s all. Thought they were following us, but whoever it was just continued down the road after we turned off. Guess they must be staying at one of the ranches nearby.”
