Easy Little Lick (Copperline #3) Read online

  “Jaysus,” Denny breathed.

  “Her husband is a prick, used to beat on her, so she wanted out. He didn’t like that idea. She tried to go about it the right way, the legal way by getting some kind of protection order, but her case was thrown out.”

  “That can happen, unfortunately,” Felicity commented. “It happens all too often.”

  “They said there was lack of evidence,” I continued, “but her husband is a lawyer with connections.”

  “So she took Max and ran?” Felicity asked.

  I nodded, wincing at the remnants of the hangover that swirled around in my head. “Exactly.”

  “We will get something filed here,” she nodded. “I don’t care who he is back where he’s from, but she’s the one with connections here. We won’t let him touch her.”

  “Thank you,” I said with a grim smile.

  “I take it she’s here,” Denny asked.

  “Yeah, she’s up in your old room.”

  “Why don’t you go get her,” Felicity said as she pulled her phone from her purse, “and we’ll get the details worked out. I’ll make a few phone calls while you’re doing that, starting with my dad.”

  I climbed the stairs up to the bedrooms on the second floor, feeling slightly more optimistic after talking to Felicity. Hopefully, Ilsa would feel some promise, too.

  “Ilsa?” I quietly called as I knocked on the door.

  There was no answer. I turned the knob and peeked in, not wanting to disturb Max if he was asleep, but my stomach fell when I looked into the room.

  They weren’t there.

  Not so much as a sign of them. The diaper bag, Ilsa’s purse… gone.

  Fuck.

  I ripped back down the stairs into the great room. “She’s gone.” Running out the kitchen door, I realized her car was gone, too. “Fucking hell,” I breathed.

  As if I hadn’t already felt guilty enough about last night, the things I said to her echoed around in my head. Things I never would have said if I hadn’t been angry and hurt and totally bombed like I was. Things I had wallowed in, listening all night to Drew and Justin and their own fucked up views on women.

  “Why did she leave? It doesn’t make any sense,” Felicity murmured.

  I looked over at her feeling like a complete fucker, and by her expression, my guilt was written all over my face.

  “What did you do?” she asked warily.

  “I got pretty blitzed last night after she told me,” I groaned. “Wallowing in self-pity. I said some shit… did some shit.”

  “Where would she have gone?” she asked.

  “I have no idea. Anywhere.”

  Felicity dialed her cell phone. “Dad, you know that girl I just called you about? Well, she’s gone. She took off.” She paused for a minute. “Yeah, I am… very worried. Her husband has been creeping around, and I’m not sure what he’ll do if he gets a hold of her. Can you do something?” Another pause. “We don’t know what he’s driving, but… well, could you put out word to keep an eye out for her?” She looked over at Denny and I. “I know, but she’s not safe out there. Okay, just a sec.” Felicity lowered the phone and handed it over to me. “He wants to know what she’s driving, how long she’s been gone, stuff like that,” she said.

  I took a deep breath and took the phone. “She’s got a dark blue Impala,” I told him, “about four years old.”

  “When did you see her last?” he asked. All business. No nonsense.

  “Pretty late last night,” I answered.

  “Did she say anything at all to indicate where she might be going?”

  “I thought she was staying here, but… well, then I was kind of… an idiot.”

  There was a quiet moment on the other end. “What do you mean by that?” the Sheriff asked.

  “Well, I, um… I was upset and a little drunk.”

  “Why were you upset, Cody?”

  I looked over at Felicity and Denny who were watching me closely. “Because I love her… and she didn’t tell me. She didn’t trust me.”

  Felicity’s face went soft. She kind of made an ‘awe’ face and leaned into Denny who put his arm around her.

  “I take it that you didn’t know she was married,” Sheriff Williams asked.

  “No sir,” I replied, “I didn’t, and I didn’t really handle it well when she told me.”

  He asked me a couple more questions, said he’d see what he could do to track her down, but, short of putting out an APB or something, he wasn’t entirely sure he had much to offer. She hadn’t been gone long enough to file a missing persons report and, honestly, I likely didn’t even know enough about her to complete one.

  Because, after everything she’d told me, I still didn’t even know her real name.

  “You fucked her, didn’t you?”

  We stopped by the Copperline to see if Doug had heard from her at all, and he had. She’d called to let him know she wouldn’t be back, that she was sorry for the short notice.

  Doug now looked like he wanted to kill me. I didn’t blame him. I kinda wanted to kill me, too.

  “In more ways than one,” I gloomily replied.

  “Dammit… I didn’t think it would be you, Cody. I told you guys not to fuck her, and now she’s gone.”

  “We’re trying to find her.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that. I’m not sure how, but that girl’s in trouble and she’s scared.”

  “I know, and I actually do know why.”

  “I tried to watch out for her. She came in here looking for work, but asked if I could pay her under the table, so I know she was running from something.” He turned to glare at me again. “I told you to stay away from her. As long as she was here, I could have helped keep her safe.”

  I slammed my fist down on the bar. “She wasn’t safe here, Doug. The fucker looking for her called this bar. That was him last night on the phone. He called and asked for me because he’d been watching her and knew we’d hooked up.”

  “Shit,” Doug muttered. He clenched his jaw and gave me a hard look. “You've gotta find her, Cody.”

  “I know.”

  I didn’t know where to start or where to look. Ilsa’s phone kept going straight to voicemail. I left message after message, apology after apology, and nothing. I kept hoping Felicity’s dad would turn up with something.

  Anything.

  I had to find her.

  All day I racked my brain trying to think of anywhere she might have gone, but the only thing I knew was that she probably wouldn’t go back to Indianapolis where she was from. That left the rest of the fucking United States, really, and every minute she was gone had me that much more convinced that I’d never see her again.

  Justin and I drove all over Ophir and all over Butte, then along the back roads nearby. Brannon and Sophie also cruised around the area, as did Denny and Drew.

  Nothing.

  We looked everywhere. She was nowhere to be seen.

  Hoping Ils would come back, Felicity hung out at the Mofo house with Eoghan for most of the day. She also checked in with her dad from time to time.

  Nothing.

  I even drove up Pipestone Pass where we’d ridden on my bike, that first time I’d held her and loved her. I desperately hoped with everything in me that she was there, just hiding out. That our little spot on top of the mountain was a place of solace for her.

  But there was no sign of her. In the hours she’d been gone, she could truly be anywhere within a couple hundred miles.

  Finally, with no place else to look and no way to contact her, I headed back home.

  I went straight to my room and collapsed on my bed. The faintest whiff of her scent wafted around me, a reminder that she’d been here. That just when she needed me the most, I’d been a total dick to her and made her run away. I’d been so caught up in the fact that I’d done the unthinkable—I’d slept with a married woman—my mind sort of tuned out that she was scared and suffering.

  I lay there for hours trying t
o sleep, but mostly just wallowing in the fact that she was gone. Missing her. Missing Max. Wishing I could go back in time and undo my petulant, drunken display. When I did finally manage to doze off, thoughts of her filled my dreams. Smiles turning to dread. Laughter turning to fear.

  And I slept fitfully, unable to escape the pain of missing her.

  My ringing phone woke me up. It was early, barely even light, which meant it was really early in the long Montana summer day. I rolled over to my side and glanced at my phone, then jolted awake when I saw Ilsa’s name on the screen.

  “Ilsa,” I said into the phone, “Jesus fucking fuck. Where are you?”

  “Cody,” she whispered, “I only have a second before Simon comes back.”

  For a second everything lurched in my gut.

  Fuck.

  He had her.

  No. God no.

  “He caught up with me,” she whispered, feeding my sense of foreboding. “He grabbed Max and told me to get in the car. I couldn’t let him take my son, so I came with him… but I’m so scared.”

  “Ils—” I started, but she cut me off.

  “I don’t know what to do, but you said once you’d help me. Don’t let him take us back, Cody,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion.

  “Fuck, Ils, where are you,” I asked, jumping out of bed and dragging on a pair of jeans as I spoke to her. “I’ll help you, I won’t let him take you, but I need to know where you are.”

  “I don’t know exactly. He’s taking us back to Indianapolis. We’re someplace east of Billings on I-ninety-four, at a rest area.”

  “Okay, listen to me,” I said as I pulled on my shoes and grabbed my keys. “I’m leaving right now, headed that way. I’ll drive like a motherfucker, but I’m a couple hours behind. Hopefully he’ll have to stop for the night, even if he’s coked up, so you’re going to have to call me or text me whenever you can to let me know where you are.”

  “Okay,” she replied.

  “Turn your phone off in between so you can save your battery.”

  “Okay,” she repeated.

  “You need to get off the phone now, Ils, so he doesn’t catch you with it, but I’ll drive all the fucking way to Indy if I need to, alright? I’ll break down the goddamn door and take you out of his fucking house.”

  “Cody, I’m so scared,” she whimpered.

  “I know,” I said as I tore out of my room and down the stairs. The house was quiet in the early morning. “But I won’t let him hurt you anymore. You just do what he says to keep yourself and Max safe.”

  “Okay.”

  “Give me your home address, Ils, in case your phone dies or something happens where you can’t call.” I leaned over the counter and scribbled it on a piece of paper that I shoved in my pocket. “Now hang up and hide your phone before he comes back.”

  “Okay.”

  “Ils?”

  “Yeah?” She sounded terrified.

  “I’m coming to get you. It’ll be okay.”

  I heard a shaky breath through the phone, and then a wavering “Okay.”

  Then dead air.

  I scribbled a note to my roommates, leaving Ilsa’s address there too in case something happened to me.

  Then I was out the door, in my truck, and on the road.

  Eastern Montana was unique in its beauty. Nothing like the mountain peaks near Ophir, but the wide open skies and prairie seemed to go on forever. It made the world seem so big, made the distance between Ilsa and I seem endless. Miles and miles and miles…

  She sent me a text in the middle of the afternoon. They’d crossed into North Dakota and had just passed a small town called Medina. I could almost feel the fear and uncertainty in her short text, and my chest tightened with regret and remorse once again for the way I’d reacted and made her run.

  She said Max was safe, but getting fussy from being in the car so long. Simon had said something about maybe stopping in one of the small towns along the road. Judging by their location, I’d cut the time down between us considerably. Of course, I was driving ninety to nothing, determined to stop them.

  The sun was low in the sky as I crossed into the Dakotas. The landscape was dry and sparse, the road long and straight before me. The longer it took for another text, the more anxious I got. The more I started imagining all kinds of shit going down.

  Had he found her phone? Had he hurt her?

  My thumbs drummed nervously on the steering wheel as I pressed a little harder on the gas. It felt like forever.

  Finally, just after dark, I got another text. Valley City. Simon was in the office of the AmericInn hotel getting a room for the night.

  I stopped to get gas and check Google Maps. Valley City was a little over a hundred miles away from me, and I could be there in just over an hour if I pushed it. I sent her a quick reply asking her to let me know what room, and I’d head straight there.

  About forty-five minutes later, maybe thirty miles from Valley City, my phone rang again.

  “Cody,” Ilsa gasped, frantic and out of breath. I could hear Max fussing quietly in the background.

  “Ils, are you okay? What room are you in? I’m close. Maybe twenty minutes…”

  “Simon went to get something at the front desk, and he left Max with me. I ran, Cody. I've got Max and we are back in a bunch of trees behind the hotel.”

  “Jesus, be careful. Keep Max quiet and watch out for that fucker. I’m close.”

  “I just crossed a road, but I’m not sure what it’s called. I’m back in the woods, but kind of walking along it until I get to an intersection.”

  “Stay out of sight until I get there, Ils,” I warned.

  “I will,” she said, gasping for air. “Wait, there’s a road.” I could hear her moving faster, and she murmured quietly to Max. “It’s okay, baby. We’re almost safe. Cody’s coming.”

  “Dody,” I heard Max whimper.

  Fuck, his scared little voice reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. I shoved my foot flat on the floor as I saw the streetlights of Valley City come into view.

  “Okay,” Ilsa gasped, “we’re on Riverview Drive where it intersects with Eighth Avenue. There’s a bridge off to my right and some trees down along the river.”

  “Get down in those trees and stay there,” I ordered. “I’m just coming into town. I need to look on the map to see how to get there, so I've gotta hang up for a minute.”

  “Okay,” she whispered.

  “Stay there. Right there. Don’t move.”

  “Okay, Cody.”

  “Dody,” I heard Max whine. “Want Dody.”

  “He’s coming, baby,” she murmured as the line again went dead.

  It felt so much longer than the six minutes it took me to get to the spot she was hiding. Fortunately, that spot was essentially right off the interstate.

  So close.

  I was so close to them.

  Eighth Avenue went north to south, but I’d just crossed the river so, even without checking the map, I knew I’d have to turn to the left to get to where she was. A moment later, and I saw the bridge, and I jerked my truck to the side of the road and jumped out to find her.

  “Ilsa!” I shouted. “Ils, where are—”

  “Here!” she cried, running out of the trees towards me with Max in her arms. Tears were streaming down her face as she flew into my embrace.

  God, she was here. She was real and I was holding her. It was amazing. My legs almost gave out with the intense relief that coursed through my veins.

  I pulled back to look down at her, to brush the wetness from her cheeks. My other hand came to rest over Max’s little blond head, his eyes wide and reflecting in the moonlight.

  “I've got you,” I whispered. “I’m here.”

  I didn’t even hear the shot.

  It came out of nowhere.

  Just the strangest sensation in my shoulder, a burning stab of numbing shock. A sharp cry rang out—a scream—and I realized it was from Ilsa. Looking down at my sh
oulder, I saw the rapidly spreading darkness soak my shirt and a spattering of blood that had hit her cheek.

  “Get back,” I shouted at her, pushing her back down towards the trees and away from the road. “Run!”

  Pure adrenaline took over as I whirled around and charged at the dark figure on the road. I felt a little dizzy, but pushed through it, bearing down on him as he aimed at me again.

  But I reached him first, using the weight of my body to knock him back before he could get the shot off. He wasn’t a small guy, but nowhere near my size, and definitely not built like me. I fought tooth and nail to throw him hard into the ground. The two of us hit the pavement, my arm scraping along the asphalt as I pulled back and hit him hard in the jaw. The gun went flying.

  The burn in my shoulder began to spread, growing sharp and painful. My arm felt weak. Fuck, my whole body felt weak. Spots began to appear before my eyes, blurring my vision, but I pulled together every shred of strength in me and hit him again. Just when I thought I might be coming out on top, he shoved his hand up against my wound, digging into the raw flesh.

  The pain was staggering, and it ripped through my body, shocking me into momentary submission. I felt his hands at my throat as he rolled the two of us, smacking my head hard against the road. Dizzy with pain and blood loss, it was all I could do to stay alert, to not let the darkness take over. I shoved at him hard, a sudden burst that threw him off me, and he staggered back.

  My head was swimming, my focus was off, and the throbbing in my shoulder made it almost impossible to move. I crouched as he started to come at me again, and then…

  Another gunshot.

  And another.

  He took a stumbling step towards me, like his own mind hadn’t realized what happened, like he wasn’t bleeding out from a gaping chest wound right before my eyes. A second later, he dropped to his knees, then fell flat before me. I looked behind me to see Ilsa standing there, Max clutching her leg, and the gun in her shaking hands.

  I started to stand, but the entire world seemed to weave around me, and my body collapsed onto the ground. As my eyes began to drift shut, Ilsa dropped the gun and scooped up Max, coming to kneel beside me.