“No police.” Carlos turned a grim face to her. “If we get out of here alive and find a freakin’ tower, I can contact my people.”
No police. My people. That sure as the devil didn’t sound like someone aligned with law enforcement.
She pushed her body back into a wad between the seat and the floorboard, wet, cold, and scared. Mostly scared.
He kept his speed moderate, driving as if he were a model citizen for several miles. She wrenched her wrist around to see the time, clenching her teeth to stop the chattering.
She took advantage of his silence to plot where to find public transportation and which way to head for a new hiding place once she broke free of him. Accessing funds would take time, but she kept money stashed in several remote locations.
Planning for survival beat thinking about how close she’d come to being caught by Baby Face or wondering what Carlos had in mind for her.
Carlos punched numbers in his phone whenever his shifting hand was free. Something must have gone through since he started talking.
“Lee check in?” he asked without even saying hello. Pause. Curse. “Send cleanup to the location. I’ve got the source, but I’m in a traffic jam. I need-” He pulled the phone from his head, stared at the tiny cell phone, and lifted it as if to slam the device against the steering wheel.
But he didn’t, closing the phone with a finger.
Lost call again?
Gabrielle couldn’t see streetlights any longer from her position. Just pitch dark. “We’re not in a traffic jam. We’re in the country.”
“Yep.”
“I’m getting up if no one is chasing us.”
He reached over and used one hand this time to lift her out of the hole. His grip was strong, but he handled her…gently. She would have pulled away when she plopped on the seat, but he released her immediately, his large hands returning to the task of driving.
Gentle hands…capable of killing.
Carlos hadn’t harmed her. Yet. Was he any safer than Baby Face? She shivered, glad not to have gone with that monster.
That had been too close.
She stretched her back muscles and rubbed her cold arms. Her clothes had reached that damp, icky state.
“Now what?” Gabrielle swiveled her head, squinting to make out landmarks. They were on Highway 54 just south of Highway 16. Wide-open pastures and rolling countryside spotted with stately homes.
“Soon as I get another tower, I’ll get us out of here,” Carlos told her. He sounded irritated, and tired.
She shouldn’t care. Maybe he was tired because he’d kidnapped a couple more women tonight already. But he was standing between her and death so she’d help as much as she could until he proved to be a threat.
Confidence had been easy when she hid from the Anguis behind a computer. The keyboard had been her sword and anonymity her shield. But survival now depended on showing her strength in spite of quaking inside.
Escaping this guy would take more skill than she possessed.
Familiarity bred confidence. No matter how many one-word irritating replies he gave her, she had to keep him talking and hope he finally started communicating.
“Any signal yet?”
He shook his head without looking at her.
“Reception is even spottier south of the city.” She regretted sharing that information when his jaw flexed with frustration.
“I can check my phone for a tower,” she offered, reaching where she had it hooked on her pants waist.
“Is it waterproof?”
“No, but-” She pressed the power button since it was dark. Nothing happened. “It’s dead. Is yours waterproof?”
Carlos gave her a look that questioned her IQ level.
“No.” She pitched her phone into the back and sighed. Thank goodness her laptop hadn’t been drenched. She’d run solo for ten years. No help, no real friends, since she’d moved every two years to make tracking her more difficult. With the exception of rare visits to see her family, she’d spent more time with this guy tonight than with anyone else in years.
If Carlos hadn’t come along, she’d have been gone and no one would have known. She fought against the idea of trusting this stranger, but had to admit she didn’t have much choice right now. So far, he’d earned something from her even if she couldn’t call it trust.
That didn’t mean she’d stick with him if she saw a chance to run, but no harm in playing along in the meantime. Her stomach growled loud enough to be heard over the buffeting wind.
She rubbed at her pounding head, then reached between the seats for her backpack, which was now on the rear floorboard.
His hand shot out to stop her. “What are you doing?”
“Getting something for my headache,” she snapped before she could check her tone. Not a bright idea to yell at a man with a gun. Gabrielle sighed. “Getting shot at tends to give me a headache.”
The corners of his eyes narrowed as if in question, then his face turned hard, but he released her then thumbed a button on his phone. He watched every move she made. Once her hand returned with a small travel tube of aspirin, he settled back into his seat, wrists flexing with tight control on the steering wheel.
She lifted the tube to unscrew the cap.
He suddenly stuck his head out the window, looking over his shoulder, then jerked back inside. She paused.
An approaching whomp, whomp, whomp reached her ears.
She stuck her head out her side. Wind swatted hair all around her face. She shoved a handful out of her eyes in time to see the lights of a jet helicopter bearing down on them.
“Get inside!” Carlos stuck the phone into his jeans pocket and downshifted. “Buckle up!”
Dropping the aspirin, she wrenched the belt across her chest and stabbed twice before she clipped the buckle. The minute she did, popping sounds hit the rear of the Jeep.
Gunshots.
He grabbed her around the shoulders as the Jeep took a hard left toward a pasture. When he pulled her toward him, his hand cupped her face protectively just before the Jeep crashed against a wooden gate in their path. Busted wood slapped the windshield and debris pelted her arms, but she didn’t feel a cut. As soon as they were through the fence, he released her and fought the steering across the rutted field.
The helicopter dropped out of nowhere to hover just above the ground at fifty feet, blocking their path to dense woods. Wind lashing off the rotors shook the Jeep.
Gunfire ripped loose, boom, boom, boom. Bullets struck the hood.
Carlos spun the Jeep to the right, lifting up on two wheels, then slammed back down. He gunned the accelerator, but the helicopter roared overhead and dropped down again to land between them and the clearest path to the woods.
Moonlight glinted off three men spilling out of both sides of the helicopter, including the pilot. They ducked under the slowing rotors, and every one of them held serious-looking weapons. Machine guns?
Popping sounds erupted. One bullet ripped through Gabrielle’s side of the Jeep, but missed her.
She would have screamed if she could breathe. They were going to die.
“Tuck down!” Carlos spun the Jeep in a one-eighty, shooting his handgun as he wheeled around.
She obeyed immediately, wishing she could disappear. With her head turned to the side of her lap, she could see beyond the half door that offered no protection.
One of the shooters went down.
The Jeep took a hard left, then plowed ahead full speed into the woods as if Carlos had found a path.
She popped upright. No path.
The older pine and oak trees with thick trunks were at least spaced wider apart than the width of the Jeep, so far. Her heart bounced with the hope of escaping this bunch. Then, God willing, she’d get away from Carlos. He might have been right about the DEA guy being Baby Face, or he could have been lying to her.
All of them could be lying to her.
She twisted around, looking for anyone chasing them.
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“Fuck!” Carlos skidded the Jeep to a stop and slapped the steering wheel.
No translation was needed this time to alert her things had just gone severely downhill. She took one glance at the ravine in front of them flooded by the headlights and agreed with his assessment.
He rammed the shifter into reverse and started backing up wildly. Or at least it would have been wild if she’d been driving, but he seemed just as in control backing through the woods at sixty miles an hour as driving forward on a highway at ninety.
He slammed to a stop and wheeled hard to the right, running along the ravine, snapping saplings with sharp cracks.
A loud explosion boomed right before a smoke screen billowed in front of them with no chance to avoid it. The Jeep ran up on a stump that lifted the two passenger-side wheels off the ground.
Her body tilted toward the driver’s door.
She clamped her teeth against the scream gushing up from her chest and grappled for anything to anchor herself.
Carlos released the wheel and threw his weight toward her, grabbing and turning her body to his. Glowing dash lights lit his face. “I’ve got you.”
In that one fleeting instant, she thanked whatever angel had sent him to her. She didn’t know who he was or whom he worked for, but this man was trying to protect her with his life.
He held her tightly, still shielding her as their Jeep hurtled out of control.
The Jeep slammed a tree on the left, jarring her teeth, then counterbounced to the right, throwing her body back and forth, but he never let her go. The cab hit another tree and knocked it sideways, spraying broken glass everywhere.
His arms and body had covered her, preventing her from being injured.
When they stopped moving, she was clutching him and trying to breathe.
His chest expanded with a couple deep breaths, then settled into a rhythm of control she envied. He released her and tried to gun the engine forward, then in reverse. They were stuck on top of something and didn’t have enough traction to get free. He cut the engine and turned to her; his eyes took her in with one quick sweep.
“You okay?” The concern in his voice might be her imagination, but she needed it right then.
“I think so.” She still clutched him.
He reached across her arms to grasp a triangular glass shard stuck in his forearm and grunted. Blood gushed from his arm the minute he yanked the glass plug loose. He tossed it aside and calmly unclipped her seat belt, then unclenched her fingers so he could release his buckle.
She took a couple deep breaths to calm herself, but all things considered, she wasn’t doing half bad. She was holding herself together, prepared to face whatever came next.
At least, she was until Carlos brushed her hair back out of her eyes with a tenderness that threatened to unleash the hysteria curling up her chest.
Her face must have given her away.
He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t panic. You okay?”
The kiss comforted her almost as much as seeing an army charge to the rescue. “Oui” was all her strained mind could come up with. She had to pull herself together. Now!
“Let’s go.”
“You keep saying that as if it were no big deal and it only gets worse.” She scrunched her nose at the acrid smell left from the smoke screen they had broken through.
“Don’t make any sudden moves.” He lifted his cell phone, listened, sighed, and stuck it in his pants pocket. She had no idea where his weapon came from, but he had a lethal-looking gun in his hand again when he stepped out of the truck.
She’d never been around weapons and couldn’t get used to seeing so many of them.
He kept gazing all around the Jeep while reaching in with one hand to help her out on his side. Hers was crunched. He cut off the headlights.
“Do we still have a chance?” she asked in a whisper.
“Not right now,” Carlos answered just as softly.
Two men stepped into a shaft of moonlight flooding a rise fifty feet away. One carried a rifle he pointed at her and Carlos. The other guy held what she would guess was a grenade launcher-based on what she’d seen in movies-at his shoulder. Now that she thought about it, that was probably what launched the smoke bomb.
“Follow my lead until we get a chance to escape,” Carlos whispered. “You’re just some chick I dated. Got it?”
Just when Gabrielle was ready to admit defeat, the confidence in those words stoked another rush of belief in this man. She nodded, ready to fight as long as he did.
The two men strolled forward until the one with the automatic weapon held on them stopped a few feet away. “Hello, Carlos.”
“Hola, Turga.”
“Toss your weapon and cell phone away.”
Carlos complied. “You have a falling-out with Baby Face?”
Gabrielle hid her surprise at how Carlos and this man talked like old friends.
“No’ really.” Turga would be invisible if not for the whites of his eyes. He was black everywhere, face and hands, clothes, knit cap, boots and weapon. A heavy smell of cigarettes burdened the fresh air not tinged by the smoke bomb. His English came out in a choppy Turkish accent. “Baby Face became unavoidable casualty. Good thing he found her first.”
“What do you want her for?” Carlos made it sound as if Gabrielle’s only value had been supplying him with a vehicle.
“Very funny. You after same thing.”
“After what?” Carlos snorted. “Baby Face had business with me, not her.”
“Really? So you know of his big deal?” Turga eyed him warily, but Carlos had planted a seed of curiosity.
Carlos shrugged. “Didn’t get a chance to hear the whole deal and didn’t really give a shit when I caught him trying to grab my woman.”
Turga snorted as if unconvinced.
“Let her go, Turga. She’s just made the mistake of getting involved with me.”
Gabrielle gave Carlos her solid vote right then. She didn’t know who Baby Face or Turga were, but Carlos was the only one in present company who hadn’t tried to kill her.
“You think I’m stupid?” Turga asked in a tone that rippled across Gabrielle’s skin. “Prove she’s your woman.”
How could he possibly prove that? Not that Gabrielle wasn’t prepared to back him up and agree to anything Carlos said, but doubt took root in her exhausted mind.
Carlos sighed. “Fine.”
He turned to her. She looked up at his face, determined to do her best to convince Turga they were together.
But she wasn’t as prepared as she’d thought when Carlos pulled her into his arms and dipped his head. He covered her mouth with his, kissing her with more passion than any other man she’d ever kissed. He held her safe, protected.
She hadn’t been held or hugged in years.
Her defenses fell without a battle.
Her heart raced along with the frenzy of nerves and wild desire that spiraled up out of nowhere. She curved her hands around his neck, clutching. He drew her closer. The kiss overwhelmed her senses, drowning her in pleasure.
She moaned.
“Okay, enough,” Turga ordered, then scowled when Carlos continued. “Give me a break.”
Carlos slowly lifted his lips from hers, paused, and touched her lips once more briefly, then peeled her off him.
When he moved her to his side, he kept his arm protectively around her shoulders.
She worked to keep her knees from buckling.
Carlos tightened his grasp on her shoulders, which she took as a silent message to hang on and pull herself together.
She reached around his waist and squeezed to let him know she had it together.
One side of his mouth curved up, acknowledging her message. “Let her go,” Carlos repeated. “She won’t say a word.”
Turga stepped close to Carlos and smiled, the white teeth glowing against his dark face. “Don’t think so. You cost me good man. Eye for an eye, and all that.”
Turga’s grin widened. “Very funny. No, but he was better shot than that one.” He tilted his head at the other guy holding the grenade launcher.
“Unavoidable casualty.” Carlos smiled sarcastically.
Turga flipped his rifle quickly and used the stock like a club to ram Carlos in the stomach.
He broke away from Gabrielle, bent double with a pained grunt, then sucked a breath and straightened.
She reached for him and Turga grabbed her.
Carlos snarled and moved so fast Gabrielle had no idea how he’d jerked her away from Turga and pushed her behind him.
Turga flipped the rifle up in just as quick a motion, which ended with the tip of the barrel an inch from Carlos’s nose.
“Should kill you right now, but only a careless man wastes a resource without first bleeding it dry. One wrong move and I wound her. Start walking.” Turga motioned toward the helicopter with his rifle.
She let Carlos take her backpack, but Gabrielle wasn’t handing her laptop over to anyone as long as she had a choice. Carlos walked them both ahead of Turga and kept a snug grip on her arm. When they reached the edge of the woods, an explosion rocked the ground.
She swung around to see flames bloom from where her Jeep had been and the second guy running toward them.
Guess that was a grenade launcher he toted.
Sirens wailed from the highway, growing louder.
Gabrielle stumbled on the rutted ground next to the helicopter, and Carlos caught her at the waist. He lifted her inside the craft, then climbed in, settling next to her on the backseat.
Turga pushed the dead body in at their feet.
She drew back in revulsion.
Carlos leaned close. “Look out the window and breathe through your mouth.”
Turga shoved his rifle out of the way and turned a handgun on them that looked like the one Carlos had carried. Turga’s partner climbed into the pilot’s seat and started the motor.
Two police cruisers and a fire truck raced along the highway, then the lead car skidded into a turn as the helicopter blades hit full spin and caught air.
One cruiser cut through the now open gate, bouncing toward them.
Whispered Lies Page 6