Page 81 of Guarding Truth
“Rough Rider. What’s your twenty?”
Silence.
She waited, hoping the other woman didn’t respond and bust her.
But a crackle zipped through the air. “In a truck, loading dock thirty-two. Hurry. We have to get out of here.”
Thank you, God.
She bolted for that location, praying that the police had already confiscated the radios and had heard the same message she’d just received. Juliette needed to get there before Theo’s partner did, because she’d probably heard Juliette’s bad impersonation.
The slots were numbered, and she’d passed twenty-five before she’d ducked down this aisle. She raced down the center pathway.
Thirty. Thirty-one. She spotted loading bay thirty-two and hid next to a stack of furniture boxes to scope out the situation. She didn’t see any movement.
A voice from behind made Juliette’s heart stop. “Don’t move.” A woman stepped out of the shadows, but Juliette didn’t need to see her to know exactly who the voice belonged to. If only she had put the pieces together sooner.
Because another person close to Caleb had betrayed him.
* * *
SATURDAY, 3:41 A.M.
Caleb prayed that Juliette, Noelle, and Ivy were rescued.
Theo had dragged Caleb through the warehouse to the loading bays. He shoved Caleb up against the wall of the eighteen-wheeler truck bed, where Caleb lost his balance and slid to the ground. It didn’t help that his hands were zip-tied behind his back. Hiding in the shadows of the empty truck bed, Theo paced. Without his hands, Caleb stood no chance of overpowering this maniac.
He didn’t try to get up. Maybe he could kick Theo’s legs out from under him if the man got close enough.
“Where is she?” Theo muttered. “We’ve got to get out of here.” The guy was losing it. He’d always respected the man’s work, but now his heart broke for Theo’s family. His son was barely two.
A scuffle sounded from outside the truck bed. A figure appeared in the door opening. Caleb’s heart skipped a beat.
Juliette.
Did this mean they’d escaped?
Juliette stood in the opening, not moving. “Ivy is safe. But we’ve got company.”
Another figure emerged from the shadows. A woman.
Was that?—
No.
Before him, with a gun trained on Juliette, stood Abby Prewett. The woman Caleb had trusted to watch Ivy after school.
The woman he’d lived next door to for the past several years, who had been like a grandmother to Ivy, was a part of Rushmore. The neighborhood busybody was working with the bad guys?
All he could say was “Why?”
Abby shrugged. “You know my husband died a slow, painful death. If First United Bank had lent us the money, he could have gotten an experimental treatment that might have saved his life. But my John wasn’t given a chance. They just revoked our line of credit. I want them to pay. Rushmore gives back what the bank stole.”
No wonder the hacker group knew so much about Ivy’s abilities. Abby had spent countless hours with his niece. Another family ruined by vengeance.
Caleb had a knack for reading people, but how had he gone so wrong with Abby? “I can’t believe you used me like that.”
Abby looked contrite, but Caleb didn’t buy it for a second. “I lucked out. You moved in next to me, remember? Once I figured out who you were and what Ivy could do, I joined forces with the other members of Rushmore and formed the perfect plan. Well, until you and the blonde bodyguard ruined it.”