The Missing Millionaire

They hadn’t displayed any weapons other than the knife the woman had used to cut him free. Of course, that didn’t mean they weren’t armed, but he’d take his chances.

Grabbing his suit coat from the end of the bed, he went to the door and listened hard. No sound. Even the television had fallen silent. Quietly, he searched the room. He was more unsteady on his feet than he liked. He fumbled putting on the shoes he took from the dresser.

While he was feeling more clearheaded by the minute, the room had a tendency to list, especially when he bent over. A quick search proved his cell had been stripped clean of anything he could use as a weapon. He didn’t even have his belt. All he had were the keys he’d taken from his jailer.

Well, drunk or drugged, he should be able to take on one woman. Three might prove a challenge, but if they didn’t shoot him, he had a chance.

Putting his hand on the door handle, he twisted slowly. The knob turned without a sound. Surprised they hadn’t locked him in, he inched the door open, praying it wouldn’t squeak. Through the slit he’d made, he peered into the hall. A pillow and blanket lay on the floor. There was no sign of his jailers.

Harrison didn’t hesitate. He opened the door, stepped through and closed it behind him as quietly as possible, nearly tripping over the pillow on the floor. He caught himself with a thud against the wall. The sound seemed unbelievably loud in the silence of the house. He paused, but no one shouted. There were dim lights at both ends of the narrow, dark hall. The television had sounded as if it had come from his right, so he went left.

A toilet flushed as he reached the small country kitchen. Footsteps moved rapidly overhead. Harrison didn’t waste time searching for a weapon. He went straight to the door, found it unlocked and opened it, half expecting an alarm to sound. Someone was running down the stairs.

He was outside, closing the door at his back. He missed the bottom step and stumbled off the porch, going to his knees. The grass was thick and high, prickling against his hands. He barely noticed. Car keys gripped in his hand, he ran toward the front of the house, heedless of noise.

A large van with tinted windows was parked in front on the rutted dirt-and-gravel strip that served as a driveway. Two smaller vehicles were parked beside it. He debated. She’d said car, hadn’t she? He chose the larger sedan, hoping the key would fit. He had a feeling he wouldn’t get a second chance.

In the dark, the small lock was invisible. He nearly dropped the key twice before he jammed it into the hole.

She came out of nowhere. One second he was struggling with the lock, the next he was falling to the ground in a tackle the NFL would have approved.

And the house exploded.

Chapter Two (#u5fcb7b69-e1d4-5a70-8302-18fb46f04153)

While Harrison was still trying to understand what had happened, the woman leaped to her feet, running toward the blaze. Flames licked at the dry wood with greedy hunger. He climbed to his feet, shocked to see the entire building engulfed in flames. The heat was staggering.

“Elaine! Kirsten!”

He went after her as she attempted to get on the porch. The front window burst outward in a shower of glass. Flames shot through the new opening.

“Get back!” He grabbed her, but she pulled free.

“We have to get them out!”

He was pretty sure it was too late, but his gaze swept the grounds, lit by the voracious fire. “Is there a ladder?”

“I don’t know!”

They ran to the side of the house, seeking another way inside. As if the fire anticipated this, every entrance was thick with dark plumes of smoke as deadly as the flames themselves.

Knowing it was foolish, Harrison used the porch railing to pull himself onto the hot roof. The dry wood framing made the old house a tinderbox. Another window popped, sending more tongues of flame licking up the faded wood siding. Thick, black, noxious smoke filled the air.

“Get down!” the woman yelled.

There was no choice. Harrison swung back down and jumped to the grass. His lungs hurt as he coughed up the smoke he’d tried not to inhale.

She gripped his arm. “We have to go.”

“Your friends…”

“They’re dead. It’s too late.” She tugged him between the van and the car, grabbed the keys from where they dangled in the lock and moved past that car to the smaller one. The smaller car had been protected from the explosion by the other two.

“We have to go,” she repeated.

Harrison shook his head. “The fire department—”

“Can only watch it burn.” She opened the passenger door.

His head throbbed. He coughed hard. Coughing as well, she practically shoved him down onto the passenger seat. Slamming the door, she raced around to the other side and slid behind the wheel.

“Where’s your cell phone?” he asked as the engine roared to life.

“In there.” She nodded toward the house.

Surely someone would call. The flames would be visible for miles. Fire lit the surrounding area as it feasted on the house. Without lights, the small car careened dangerously across the choked lawn and down the rutted path that served as a driveway.

Harrison reached for his seat belt as he bounced all around. “Slow down. You’re going to wreck.”

“No.” She swiped the back of her hand across her cheek.

“I’m sorry. Your friends—”

“They weren’t. I didn’t even like them. But nobody deserves to die like that.”

He tried to make sense of her words as she turned the car onto the main road and sped up. “Turn your headlights on. You’re going to kill us.”

“You don’t get it, do you?”

Her fingers gripped the steering wheel fiercely. “Those explosions back there were deliberate, Mr. Trent. Tony lied to me.”

There was anguish in that last.

“Someone wanted you dead tonight,” she continued.

“No.”

She didn’t seem to hear his stark protest.

“If you hadn’t knocked that syringe aside…If you’d gotten a full dose of the drug, or hadn’t escaped when you did…” She stared at the blackness beyond the windshield, never once looking at him. She drew in a shaky breath. “You were supposed to die in there.”

Harrison tried to absorb words that made no sense. Nothing that had happened tonight made any sense.

“We all were.”

It took him a second to realize she meant they were all supposed to die. “That’s crazy.”

“I only realized my keys were missing when I went to the bathroom, or I’d have been inside that house along with you. We probably wouldn’t have had time to know what happened.”