Now he’d decided to call her by her nickname? Maybe he had before, she couldn’t remember. She tried to sit up.
“Easy.”
Allyson blinked and saw his face close to hers. She squeezed her fingers together and felt the material of his shirt.
“You okay?”
“I think so.” What had happened? She spotted the dead man on the grass behind him and shivered. “He’s dead?”
Vanessa raced past her. She stepped on the side of Allyson’s shoe, stumbled, and nearly went down. She collapsed beside his body, crying full out now.
“Peter!” She wailed his name as though, if loud enough, she might call him back from the dead.
Why would she react like this?
“Can you stand?” Sal grasped her arms.
“Thanks.” Her legs shook, but she managed to get upright with his help.
“Okay?”
Enough for him to let go? She wasn’t sure she wanted that, whether her legs would hold her or not. Allyson looked up at his face then, and they stared at each other while Vanessa cried and exclaimed over and over the name of this man who’d kept her captive.
“Uh…Vanessa.” She stared at her friend grieving over a dead man who had hurt her…okay, wait, what had he actually done to her? Had he hurt her? Was this reaction an indication there had been a relationship, or was Vanessa just going through some kind of mental breakdown? “Come away from there. We need to go, okay?”
She glanced at Sal and saw him frown. “Is she…”
“I have no idea.”
Sal squeezed her elbow. “I’ll call in reinforcements. Get us a ride out of here, and protection.”
Allyson nodded, then made her way to her friend. She touched Vanessa’s shoulder. Her friend’s muscles tightened under her hand. She twisted around, launching up as she moved.
Before Allyson even realized what was happening, Vanessa tackled her.
Caught off guard, they fell back onto the grass. Allyson landed on her back, a rock at her left side. She hissed out a breath.
Vanessa grasped for her.
Allyson batted away her hands. “Are you trying to strangle me?”
Her friend whimpered as they struggled, forcing her to fight. Allyson had no desire to restrain her, but Vanessa was intent on causing damage. She had to defend herself, and that meant she would need to subdue her.
Allyson pushed off the ground, grunted and rolled. She flipped Vanessa onto her back. Before she could recover from the surprise, Allyson subdued her like a suspect. “Calm down.” She exhaled. “I’m sorry, but you need to calm down, or I’m not going to let you up.”
Sal stood three feet away, gun still drawn, on the phone.
Vanessa hissed at him. “You killed him!” She screamed the words.
Allyson had to yell just so Vanessa could hear her repeated orders to calm down,
Vanessa pushed out a breath. Allyson held onto her, but allowed her to clamber to her feet.
“Talk to me,” Allyson pleaded. “Tell me why you’re so upset.”
Vanessa’s shoulders sagged, and she whimpered again.
“This man hurt you. He would have killed you, or one of us, if Sal hadn’t eliminated the threat.” If she wasn’t so tired, Allyson probably would have been able to word it better. But in a pinch she figured she did okay. “This man hurt you.” And yet, Vanessa obviously had strong feelings for him. Whether they were true, or simply twisted, she didn’t know.
“Peter loved me!” She screamed the words in Allyson’s face. “And I loved him!”
“Vaness—”
Her friend lifted both hands and shoved her. “Don’t talk to me. I knew this wasn’t going to work, but I didn’t know you’d kill him.”
Everything in her sank. It was a wonder Allyson didn’t just collapse again on the ground. No strength. No will to carry on. “What are you—”
“I told him you would be the one who screwed it up. Guess I was wrong about that, since it was the lone gunslinger over there.” Vanessa’s gaze shot daggers at Sal. She stomped around in a rage, barely containing her fury. Like it might spill out at any moment.
Sal watched. Phone put away. Gun still aimed, loose in front of him. Ready to be used at any second if Vanessa did something he didn’t like.
Allyson spoke very carefully, her fatigue making her thoughts coalesce slower than she’d have liked. “You’ve been working with him all along, haven’t you?”
Vanessa glanced over. As though Allyson was an ant…with half a brain. About to get squished.
“Is there even a flash drive?” Except there was. The second she said it, Allyson remembered Vanessa had pulled it from her pants pocket. “Does it have any evidence on it?”
“You were right about it being the tracker.” Vanessa smirked. “About the only thing you were right on.”
“What about your coworker? Did you kill him?”
“Does it matter? That’s hardly the point here.” Vanessa waved one arm around, unaware of Sal moving to face her. She might have forgotten he was here. “Even if you bring charges against me, Kennowich will still get what he wants. I’m just one cog in a giant machine. We are all both dispensable and vital in our own right.”
Useful and disposable at the same time?
Allyson wanted to consider everything. Too bad her brain seemed to have gotten stuck on the fact she’d been played. And to this extent. The sting of betrayal cut her like she’d been stuck with a hundred needles at once. She tried to swallow down the idea but it got stuck in her throat, and her eyes filled with tears.
She’d trusted this woman.
Allyson had put her reputation and well-being on the line to protect her. And now it turned out that everything Vanessa had said or done had been a lie.
And boy had Allyson fallen for it.
The Northwest Counter-Terrorism Task Force could come in from here. They were determined to solve their case, and with the way she felt right now, they could have it. They would blame her for this too and probably shut her out.
Fine by me. She just wanted to get out of here.
“Put your hands in the air, Vanessa.” Sal’s voice was calm. Steady.
She was so glad he was here.
“I’m walking out of here.”
Allyson shook her head. “No, you aren’t. You’re going to come with us to an interrogation room, where you’ll answer every question we have.” They needed to know why Vanessa was back now. Why she had drawn Ally into this and strung them all along?
Was it all just a huge diversion tactic so Kennowich could do something else under their noses?
Vanessa reached behind her back.
“Don’t!”
They both reacted, knowing what was coming. She’d gotten Peter’s gun after he was killed. Before Sal could shoot her, Allyson rushed toward her former friend. She bypassed her hand, which was stretched out, holding the gun, and tackled Vanessa the way her former friend had tackled her only moments earlier.
If they killed her too, they would lose all their intel. That thought was what energized her as she fought for possession of Peter Tines’s gun.
Sal yelled something she couldn’t understand. He’d called her Ally again, though. She heard that.
Vanessa rolled her. Allyson twisted. Pain flared in her back and she rolled again, finally grasping the gun tight.
Her head hit a rock. The gun fell from her fingers.
Lights sparked across her vision, and then everything went black.
. . .
Sal winced at the dull thud. She’d struck a rock. Now Allyson was completely unconscious. He didn’t hesitate.
Sal grabbed Vanessa’s arm and pulled her off Allyson. She swiped up the gun and moved to aim it at him.
“Enough!” He yelled the word loudly in her face and then hauled her a few steps away from Allyson, one hand wrapped around her wrist of the hand holding the gun.
He gritted his teeth. He had no cuffs and backup wasn’t here yet. Should he use Peter’s belt to
secure her? A belt had worked once already today.
She shifted the gun around, trying to twist free from his grip. He said, “Don’t. That won’t go anywhere good for you, so drop the gun!”
She cried out in frustration but let go of the weapon.
Sal needed to get to Ally and make sure she was all right. He also needed to call Talia and get a medical chopper, or at least EMTs up here with a stretcher. That could take hours. In the meantime, Allyson could bleed into her brain and die.
He wanted to shake Vanessa.
“I’m not going to tell either of you anything.” Her body shook as she tried to wriggle out of his grasp. “I have nothing to say.” She paused, then said, “Not without a witness protection deal.”
“No way.” That was what he wanted her to get—nothing. Whether he would get his wish was a different story entirely.
He still couldn’t believe he and Allyson had both been so thoroughly duped. He’d felt like something was off, but never would he have guessed this. And on top of it all, Vanessa had been in love with a man who had kidnapped her. Used her, just as they were using Allyson.
How twisted up did she have to be for that?
It turned his stomach. This was no friend of Allyson’s, not now and maybe not even years ago. He was sad for Allyson, knowing she had to have also come to that realization. She’d genuinely been hurt over the loss of her friend, and then was so glad when Vanessa showed back up again.
Now it was all wrong.
He looked at her, lying on the ground. The steady rise and fall of her breath.
“Kennowich got to you, didn’t he?”
Maybe Vanessa had been a victim at one time, but she wasn’t one now. She’d walked the road that brought her here, and it hadn’t been as someone who wanted to get out. She was here as an emissary. Kennowich’s hands and feet.
And what a horrible thought that was.
In love with one of his men. Sent to lure Allyson, and maybe the task force to her as well, so that they were running in circles trying to figure out the truth. They’d probably planned every minute of this to keep everyone confused.
Which meant Kennowich could very well be enacting whatever plan he had in the works at this very moment.
Shooting up the office.
Keeping them all distracted.
At the end of the day, everyone had to choose who they represented. He tried to represent good. His Savior and his earthly father. Justice. Rightness. Some people only represented themselves or, like Vanessa, they did everything for someone else. Kennowich, or Peter Tines. Or both. All in league with each other, or she played them against each other.
Sal tried to have faith for today and hope for tomorrow.
Faith. That was what his dad had said he carried with him. Allyson would need her own faith to navigate the fallout of this. Could he be there to help her? He’d never done that with another woman, but she was definitely different.
One of a kind.
“On your left!”
He spun around, still holding on to Vanessa.
Dakota and Josh emerged from between two trees, Josh’s dog padding along behind them.
Sal nearly sagged with relief. “Take her. Get cuffs on her.” There was no time to explain. As soon as they had a hold of Vanessa, he raced to Allyson.
Please don’t be dead.
They already needed to process one body and get a coroner here. He didn’t want to have to do that with Allyson as well.
He sank to his knees and touched her face. Felt for the pulse in her neck. Weak, but it was there.
“She okay?”
“No, she got knocked out.” Why would Dakota ask such a dumb question? Allyson wouldn’t be on the ground unconscious if she was okay.
“Geez, you don’t gotta be mad.”
He glanced at her. “Call for Life Flight.”
Josh lowered his phone. “Already done. Talia will get them on their way. She’s also sending the coroner and the local sheriff.”
Sal nodded, grateful for the other man’s help, then turned back to Allyson. “Hey.” He patted her cheek. “You probably don’t want to wake up right now, but I’m thinking it’s a good idea.”
She didn’t rouse, but he wasn’t surprised. The woman was exhausted. He’d seen it when she’d fought Vanessa. Fatigued. Running on fumes, as it were. Plus, on top of that, there was the emotional upheaval of realizing her friend had lied to her. She’d been kidnapped. Had hiked all the way up here.
She was out of energy, had hit her head, and now her body had shut down. Preserving the strength it would take to heal.
Sal didn’t envy what she was going to wake up to. He gathered her in his arms and stood. When he turned, he saw a look pass between Josh and his fiancé.
Dakota still held onto Vanessa. “Are you going to carry her two miles back down to the house?”
He nodded and started walking, then remembered to ask Josh, “Did you guys detain the man in the house, or the one tied to a tree behind the house?”
“There was no one there when we got to it.” Josh shot him a look. “In, or behind.”
Dakota said, “You need to wait for a stretcher.”
“She can’t wait that long.” He motioned to Vanessa with a tip of his head. “Who’s going to interrogate her?”
“The task force, obviously.”
“She knows what Kennowich is doing. What he’s up to.” And Sal was going to trust his teammates to find out what that was.
Vanessa smirked. “You think I’m going to tell you all my secrets?”
Allyson stirred then. He set her down and saw her eyes flutter open.
“Hey.”
“So sweet,” Vanessa drawled.
Sal glanced at her and Dakota. “Get her to the office and start the debrief.”
“Copy that.” Dakota’s voice had a tone he ignored.
Allyson’s eyes filled with tears. He imagined she wanted her former friend out of her sight. She probably couldn’t even look at Vanessa right now.
“You’ll wait for the coroner?”
Josh nodded, a curious look on his face.
“Can you walk?”
Allyson stood, only swaying a little. “I want to get out of here.”
“Take it easy. That’s a nasty bump on the back of your head.”
“Okay.” She didn’t nod, just kept her head still. She also held onto his arm with both of her hands, leaning some of her weight on him as they slowly descended the mountain.
He wanted to talk with her about Vanessa, but her head probably hurt too much to take on such a heavy conversation. He knew she could have peace and hope with Jesus, even in this. But how did he say that and have it not sound like a total cliché?
He knew what the answer was. And he was working on how to put it into practice in his own life. He’d been kind of dissatisfied lately, but maybe a little of that was all right. It forced you to grow.
Down the mountain, a gunshot rang out.
A moment later the dog ran past them. Then Josh, sprinting full out.
Chapter 15
“Go.” Sal ignored her. He kept going, moving faster now. She said it again, “Go.”
“What are you—”
“Dakota is down there, right?” He barely nodded before she said, “So go, Sal. I’m okay.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself, Ally.”
“I’ll walk down slowly. You need to go help Josh.”
“If there’s danger, I need to make sure you’re safe.”
“What about Dakota?”
“She has Josh.”
It was like he didn’t even know what she was talking about. “Probably wouldn’t hurt to have you help her as well.”
“I already responded to that.”
Josh and Dakota might be engaged, but that didn’t mean they didn’t need additional support. He was going to stay with her, like a stubborn, pigheaded man while Dakota could be hurt somewhere out here?
Sal’s eyeb
rows rose. “Pigheaded?”
Uh, she’d said that out loud?
The expression that crossed his face was unreadable. A multitude of emotions that moved too fast for her to register all at once. “I’d tell you to stay here, but I doubt you’d listen.”
He touched her cheeks, leaned in and kissed her forehead.
He let go and turned away.
Allyson swayed.
Sal raced down the hill ahead of her. Her head thumped while she tried to figure out what had just happened. He’d kissed her. That was “what.” Obviously. She wanted to smack the side of her head, jog her thoughts back to running at regular speed.
That wouldn’t be good at all.
She started walking. Deep breaths. Focused on the ground. One foot in front of the other and all that. She needed to get down the mountain to the house.
He’d seemed pretty intense about protecting her. Did that mean he was interested in protecting her the same way he thought Josh protected Dakota? Those two were engaged. That didn’t mean she and Sal were going to plan a marriage.
Sure, she’d been crushing on him pretty badly since they’d met. So pretty much for years now. Had too much happened since then for them to have a relationship?
She’d always thought part of him agreed with his team’s assessment of her actions. Did he not?
Another gunshot rang throughout the hillside.
Sal. She glanced in all directions to make sure she wasn’t about to get caught off guard. That wouldn’t be good. She was unarmed and injured. Who was firing, and at whom? She prayed quickly that Dakota was all right, and that everyone else there would be as well.
Vanessa had betrayed her. Attacked her. And she’d been in love with Peter Tines.
She closed her eyes for a second, listening to the world around her while she just took a moment for her thoughts and reactions to catch up with what was happening.
When Allyson set off again, toward the house, she had to swipe a tear from her cheek. She glanced up at the sky. I don’t know how to do this. Sal was with her, though—at least, he would be as soon as she got to where she was going. Is that why you brought us together?
She didn’t want to get into a big mental debate about timing, but she also didn’t believe in coincidences either. That meant the timing here counted for something. Not nothing.
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