A Billionaire's Redemption - By Cindy Dees Page 0,90

to start hurting and you’ll end up just like those critters.”

With her head torn off? Horror filled her throat with acid bile. “So this is all about my father?” she forced herself to ask calmly. “You’re admitting that I never did anything to you?”

“Hah! Uppity bitch. Always so perfect and unattainable. No one was good enough to kiss the bottoms of your shoes. Spurned us all. Nobody in Vengeance good enough for Miss High-and-Mighty.”

What? She was nothing of the sort. She was shy and awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin. “Is that how everyone saw me?” she asked him in surprise.

“We called you the ice princess.”

“And there I was, hoping it was just that everyone was scared to death of my father,” she replied wryly.

James looked over at her, and she thought she saw...something...in his pale gaze. A hint of sanity. For just an instant. Maybe there was hope for reaching him yet.

The van began to slow and she looked up to see the distinctive shape of an oil derrick interrupting the flat line of the open plain on their left. The Vacarro Field. It stretched across thousands of acres of prime oil land, and this was just the first corner of it. There was an entire airfield tucked in the middle of the property, in fact. No less than twenty massive oil-drilling platforms spread across the property in an east-west line that followed the oil below.

James turned the van onto a dirt road winding into the property. A trail of dust marked their passage. It hadn’t rained out here.

They approached the first towering steel structure. The huge, rotating hammer head of the pump was parked at the four-o’clock position.

“How come the well’s not pumping?” James asked.

“I have no idea. Maybe it’s down for maintenance.”

The road led them another mile or so to another well, which also was still and silent. “What the hell?” James growled. “You shut the field down to squeeze my family dry, didn’t you? Bitch!” he exclaimed.

The van picked up speed and bumped across the rough track, deeper into the massive isolation of the Texas plains. The road ended at the airfield, which sported a half-dozen large hangars. Willa didn’t remember those from the last time she’d been out here. But then, it had been years since she’d visited the oil field with her father. He’d been on a press junket, as she recalled. Trotting journalists out here to crow about domestic oil production being the future of America.

Heat devils made the air over the long asphalt airstrip waver. Indian summer must be here. It couldn’t be much past 10:00 a.m., and it already felt well over ninety degrees.

James stopped the van, and the pistol came out of its holster to point at her. He walked around front, the weapon trained on her the whole time. He yanked her door open. “Get out. This is where the road ends for you.”

He stepped close and grabbed her by the arm. Oddly, he froze, nostrils flaring. “Pain and suffering, blood and agony,” he crooned to her. “Gonna kill the little Merris girl. Slowly. Hours and hours of screaming.” He groaned in pleasure. She glanced down involuntarily and was appalled to see a telltale bulge in his pants. Shuddering, she stumbled as he yanked at her arm, dragging her forward.

She was done praying for her life. Now she only prayed that her death would be fast.

Chapter 19

Gabe was glad McGrath was at the wheel as they drove the treacherous roads through the pass where Willa had almost died last night. The guy was clearly a trained offensive driver and flung the SUV around the vicious curves like a Formula One racer.

They came out of the worst of the terrain and the big SUV picked up speed, devouring the road like a hungry beast. “Faster,” he urged anyway.

“I’m flooring it, Dawson. Just topped one-forty.”

They had to get to her in time. Willa had to be all right. He was going to strangle her when he caught up with her, but she’d damned well better be alive when he did it. Hang on, baby.

“The Vacarro Field is just ahead, isn’t it?” McGrath asked.

“Yes. On the left. There’s an unmarked turnoff that leads into the field maybe a mile from here. Next road into the field is about five miles ahead. Bastard could’ve taken either road in.”

The SUV slowed. A faint cloud of dust hung over the road in front of them, and McGrath murmured, “Guess that answers that.”