Holiday Mountain Conspiracy

by Liz Shoaf

  The loading stair door closed and Mary Grace took a deep calming breath and glanced at her surroundings for the first time. Her breath caught in her throat when she took in the luxurious interior of the plane. Or maybe it was a private jet.

  Her eyes narrowed at the oversize leather seats placed strategically in groupings throughout the plane. Each area had an oblong table in the middle, and if she wasn’t mistaken... Tromping down the center aisle, she lightly ran a finger over the top of a highly polished table. Yep, it was definitely teak wood and very expensive.

  She walked to the back of the plane, jerked open a door and slowly entered a huge bedroom with a king-size bed sitting smack-dab in the middle. She stalked around and discovered a super fancy bathroom. Gold faucets gleamed from a sink surrounded by a green marble countertop. Teak cabinets completed the look. She slid open the shower door and discovered gold fixtures matching the ones in the sink.

  Mary Grace mentally slapped her forehead. She was a seasoned reporter and she had made assumptions about Ned that she shouldn’t have. Everything she’d learned pointed at him being in the CIA, or the military, in some form or fashion, but good ole Uncle Sam didn’t provide rides as nice as this one.

  She had a ton of questions, but she was mesmerized by the gold fixtures in the shower, wondering if they were made of real gold. Leaning over, unable to help herself, she took her fingernail and started scratching the faucet to see if it was real.

  “You’re a real snoop, you know that? And you shouldn’t be leaning over like that with the wound in your side.”

  The low, gruff voice startled her so bad she jerked up from her bent position and heard an oomph from behind her as the back of her head slammed into his chest. If he weren’t so tall, she could have clipped him on the chin, and wouldn’t that have been a shame.

  She whirled around. “Who owns this jet, and shouldn’t we be taking off? Have there been any more shots from the gunman? We were fortunate the first shot only hit the steps.”

  He ignored her questions, turned on his heel and whispered out of the room. It was uncanny how such a large man could move so quietly, which demanded even more answers.

  She followed him but came to a dead stop when he disappeared into the cockpit again. Surely he wasn’t going to fly the plane. Was he?

  She stuck her head through the small door and there he sat in the pilot’s seat, flipping a bunch of switches.

  “Um, where’s the pilot? Are you planning on flying this plane?”

  “Yes.”

  Mary Grace shivered. She was getting more nervous by the second. “Don’t you have to file a flight plan?”

  He did look up at that question and his white teeth sparkled from beneath the messy beard. “A flight plan has already been filed, but we’re actually landing at a small, relatively unknown airfield in Georgia, near Waycross.”

  “What about when we don’t land at the planned destination?”

  “There’ll be records showing we landed where we were supposed to.” He refocused on the controls and waved toward the copilot’s chair. “Take a seat. We’ll be leaving soon.”

  Slowly sliding into the chair, Mary Grace closed her eyes in frustration. Bobby had gotten her into this mess, and now she was worried about her own safety, as well as her brother’s. Just who was Ned, and how was he mixed up with Bobby?

  There were too many unanswered questions, and she wasn’t sure she could trust Ned.

  “I see you agree with me.”

  The question snapped her out of her unsettling thoughts. She blinked her eyes open and stared at Ned as the plane rolled down the runway.

  “Agree about what?”

  He grinned, but kept his eyes straight ahead as the wheels of the jet left the ground.

  “Trust no one.”

  * * *

  Ned’s own words reverberated in his mind. He didn’t trust anyone, and that included the woman perched in the seat beside him. Oh, he might be attracted to the feisty little scrapper from Georgia, but he would never act on it. He preferred a simple life these days, free of emotional entanglements and betrayals.

  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t concerned for her welfare.

  “How’s your wound?”

  She slid him a sideways glance and he didn’t miss the suspicion shining out of her eyes. Well, welcome to his world.

  “It’s fine. Like you said, it’s a flesh wound. It’ll be okay in a couple of days.”

  Ned rolled his shoulders to get the kinks out. Even working for the CIA, before he’d taken a leave of absence, he’d lived in something vaguely resembling peace until he decided to bring the enemy to his mountain, but then Mary Grace had shown up and turned his life upside down.

  “Why don’t you make use of the shower.” He flashed her a grin. “And to relieve that curious mind of yours, the fixtures aren’t solid gold, but they are gold-plated.”

  Her stubborn chin jutted out. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who owns this plane, and it better not be a two-bit dictator from some obscure little country.”

  “You don’t have to worry, the plane is aboveboard, legally owned by an upstanding citizen of the United States.” It was time he got some answers of his own. “We haven’t had time to discuss you. Are you risking a job with your disappearing act?”

  She turned her head away and stared out the small side window. “When I realized what was happening, I took some personal time. I had a lot of vacation time coming and I requested that first.” Without looking in his direction, she stood to leave the cockpit and glanced down at her tattered Christmas sweater and dirty jeans. “I think I will take that shower.”

  Ned grabbed her arm as she swept past him and forced her to look him in the eye. “Two things. One, don’t ever lie to me, and two, there’s different sizes of women’s clothes stashed in one of the bedroom closets if you need anything.”

  She tried to jerk her arm away, but he held fast.

  “I haven’t lied to you about anything.”

  “Good. Let’s keep it that way. What do you do for a living, Mary Grace?”

  A muscle in her jaw ticked and her eyes shifted away. He waited, wondering if she would tell the truth. Deep down, in a place he had protected for a long time, he really wanted her to be who and what she appeared to be. A sister afraid for her brother’s life. Finally, she looked him straight in the eye again, this time of her own accord, and his gut told him she was being honest.

  “I work for FBC, Future Broadcasting Company, as a White House press correspondent.”

  A big invisible fist punched Ned in the gut. A good chunk of his adult life consisted of secrets and clandestine operations. Secrets that could get people killed if they were ever exposed. He hid his unsettling reaction behind a carefully constructed mask.

  Mary Grace leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d appreciate that little piece of information. You’re a man with a belly full of secrets.” She pulled away from the door frame and smiled.

  Ned held his breath while he waited for the ax to fall. That smirk of hers always meant trouble.

  “Do you believe in God, Ned?”

  The question threw him completely off guard. He hadn’t seen that one coming, but he was quick on the uptake. “Why do you ask?”

  The smirk changed into a full-blown grin. “You asked me not to lie, and you better take your own advice when we get to Georgia.”

  He found himself intrigued, and that hadn’t happened in longer than he could remember. “And why is that?”

  “Because we’re stopping at Gram Ramsey’s house before we go to the swamp shack and my grandmother has a way of getting people to spill their guts.” Her smile slid away and her eyes softened. “She’s the best Christian woman I know, but—” she smiled again “—she’s also one tough lady. She’ll
have you confessing your sins and sitting in a church pew before you can blink.”

  Ned scanned the cloudless day outside the front window as Mary Grace left the cockpit. The conversation left him...unsettled. He grew up in a Christian home, but he no longer believed in a God who could allow his best friend to have to live in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

  Relaxing into his chair, his lips curled into a grin as he thought about the woman he was traveling with. Maybe one day he’d tell her he owned the plane. His “hobby” as a landscape painter paid a thousand times better than the money he made working for the CIA. He put the plane on autopilot, laid his head back and allowed himself a few moments to wonder what if. What if he’d never taken that first phone call from the CIA after he left the army? What if he’d retired from the CIA and he and Finn hadn’t gone on that last mission? Everything would have been different now. He might have even been interested in asking Miss Ramsey on a date if he were a normal man, but he wasn’t normal, so it was a moot point.

  Opening his eyes, he switched back to manual and focused on the task at hand. It was wasted time wondering what if. A person could never go back and that was life.

  Pulling out the plane’s secure satellite phone, he made a call.

  “’Bout time you checked in. I was starting to get worried.”

  Ned experienced a host of mixed emotions every time he heard Finn’s voice. They had grown up together, and Ned loved him like a brother, but guilt always accompanied the affection. Ned had trusted the wrong people and Finn would pay the price for the rest of his life.

  “Everything’s fine. How’s the new wheelchair? It’s state of the art, not even on the open market yet.”

  A pause. “The chair’s great. I appreciate it.” Another longer pause. “Something’s happening, isn’t it? Have you caught whoever set us up?” Finn’s voice was tinged with anger and hurt. Ned knew why, but it wasn’t going to change anything.

  “Finn, we discussed this. I don’t want you involved in this hunt. You’ve lost too much already, and I have to live with that every day of my life.”

  A sulky voice responded. “You could at least tell me where you’ve been holed up for so long. Have you been staying on that mountain of yours?”

  He no longer had to keep his location a secret, now that he was on the move. “Yes, I’ve been at the cabin. I recently set it up so they’d come after me, but things changed.”

  He could almost feel the energy crackling to life on the other end of the phone. “What things?”

  “Let’s just say Bobby Lancaster went on the lam and I now have a lead on him. We’ve both always agreed that was the best place to start if I wasn’t able to root them out without alerting them by contacting Bobby.”

  “Where do you think he is? Ned, please don’t keep me in the dark anymore. Let me help. I have just as much invested in this as you do.” He let the words linger. “Maybe more.”

  Ned wanted to include Finn, but his best friend had already lost too much so he ignored the heavy weight of guilt that Finn so expertly threw his way.

  “I’ll keep you posted and I’ll have my accountant send you more money. Let me know if you need anything. Anything at all,” he said, and ended the call.

  A shroud of guilt lingered over him for a few minutes, but he put it away. He was doing the right thing by protecting Finn. He had stashed his best friend in a place where no one would find him until Ned discovered who wanted them dead.

  The only problem was his dependence on a journalist to help him do this. If she ever got wind of some of his secrets, his life could literally blow up in his face.

  SIX

  Mary Grace checked out a variety of women’s clothing in the huge walk-in closet in the bedroom. Either the owner of the plane was a womanizer of vast proportions or it was outfitted to carry different people. Maybe some sort of rescue transportation carrier. Her reporter’s intuition indicated the latter. Just another layer of mystery surrounding Mountain Man.

  Thankfully, she had an extra outfit in the backpack she’d grabbed on her way to the bathroom and had no need of the clothes. She smirked when she unzipped the pack and pulled out another Christmas sweater. She hadn’t missed Ned’s wary expression whenever he stared at her sweater. It only made her more curious about the man. Didn’t he like Christmas?

  She grinned when she passed by the king-size bed on her way to the shower. Krieger and Tink were curled up together sleeping, as if they didn’t have a care in the world.

  She took a quick shower, dressed and left the bathroom, dropping a kiss on her sleeping dog’s snout before heading back into the main cabin. She wasn’t quite ready to face Ned yet, so she started snooping around the living area. On a luxury craft like this one, there had to be hidden technology somewhere. Her heart accelerated when she plopped onto one of the buttery soft leather chairs, stared at the oblong table and noticed a thin pullout drawer beneath.

  Leaning forward, she slid out what could probably also serve as an eating tray, and there sat her heart’s desire. A silver gleaming laptop. Glancing toward the closed cockpit door, she opened the lid and prayed a password wasn’t needed. It was already booted up, so that wasn’t a problem.

  She quickly typed in the home address of Ned’s sister that she’d gotten off her GPS and searched the county public records for the owner’s name. When the name popped up, she sat back in disgust. What in the world was RBTL Corporation? She’d never heard of them. She searched for the name on the internet but failed to get any hits. Legitimate companies usually had websites.

  Pushing the laptop back underneath the table, she decided it was time to beard the lion in his lair. She snickered. Speaking of ugly beards. Her humor evaporated when she opened the door and slipped into the cockpit. A sleek little laptop, similar to the one she had just been working on, sat on the console between the pilot and copilot’s seat. The screen was turned toward the door revealing the address she had just visited on the other computer. Avoiding eye contact, she slipped into the copilot’s seat.

  “Snooping again, Miss Ramsey?” he asked after eyeing her sweater with something akin to horror.

  A streak of anger shot through her system, along with a bit of embarrassment at getting caught red-handed, but then she shrugged. She was a reporter, after all. It was her job to snoop.

  “You only call me Miss Ramsey when you’re aggravated. The name’s Mary Grace.”

  She slipped him a glance. He had a smile on his face and it disarmed her. No! No way was she allowing herself to be attracted to no-last-name Ned—a man with the word secret emblazoned on his chest.

  Back to business. “I assume there’s a sat phone onboard?”

  He reached down, opened a hidden compartment and handed her the plane’s phone. She gave him a sharp look, but grabbed it out of his hand. “I thought I’d try my brother again. I doubt I’ll get an answer, but it’s worth a try.”

  He gave a slight nod. “Just don’t reveal our destination.”

  She nodded and punched in the number from memory, counting four rings before the voice mail recording came on. “Bobby, please, if you get this message, call me. I located Mountain Man.” She wanted to say more, tell Bobby that even though she wanted to kill him, she loved him more than anything, but since Ned was listening to every word, she ended the call.

  Lost in thought and worried sick about her brother, Mary Grace stared out the front window of the plane. She prayed Bobby was holed up at the swamp shack. When they were kids, they’d trekked through the woods to the abandoned cabin hidden a little ways into the Okefenokee Swamp. As far as she knew, no one was aware of the place. In all the years they went there, nothing indicated anyone else hanging around. Anyone visiting the swamp tended to take the offered tours and stay within the strict, designated pedestrian areas. In the past, people had disappeared in the 438,000 acres of wetland.

  Lost in her tho
ughts, it took a moment for Ned’s question to penetrate her brain.

  “What?”

  “If he’s on the run, do you really expect Bobby to answer his phone? If we’re right, I’m sure there are people trying to track him.”

  A picture of her blue-eyed, fair-haired brother formed in her mind and she shuddered at the thought of him on his own, trying to outrun a bunch of killers. “He is in cyber intelligence. I was hoping he could figure out a way for me to get in touch with him.”

  “I know a thing or two about technology and I don’t think your brother would take a chance by using his phone. That’s the first thing he would have ditched.”

  Mary Grace slumped in her seat. If Bobby wasn’t at the old cabin, she didn’t know where else to look. They would have to wait for him to contact her. That didn’t sit well because she was used to plowing forward and making things happen.

  “You know I’m a reporter.” It wasn’t a question.

  “An unfortunate circumstance, but yes, you shared that nice little tidbit of information with me earlier.”

  She cut him a sharp look. “My job is not a crime and there’s no need to be sarcastic.”

  “I apologize. Now, why did you bring up that disturbing information again?”

  A small twinkle in his eye revealed that he was baiting her. She refused to give him the satisfaction.

  “My point is that I’m very good at what I do, and I have quite a few contacts in Washington. If you’d tell me what you think Bobby has done to you and your friend, Finn, maybe I can help. You know, dig up some information.”

  The twinkle disappeared and his green eyes took on the unyielding substance of emeralds. “If the situation turns out to be explosive, will you write a story and tell the world what is happening, even if it disrupts and maybe even places people’s lives in danger?”

  “You go too far, Mountain Man. I would never knowingly place someone in danger.”