Shutting off any sympathy because she couldn’t afford it, Tara jumped out of the car, rudely grabbed her friend’s bound wrists and used all of her strength to pull Greta to her feet. By the time she turned back to their car Nick was out of the SUV he’d commandeered, sprinting in a beeline right behind her. He leaped past the stumbling women to their car and opened the door. Tara forced her broken, numb friend into the back seat, then turned back to Nick.
It was then that she saw the driver of the SUV slumped forward in his seat and and realized Nick must have been driving from the back. The man was either unconscious or dead. Knowing Nick, Tara could not even hazard a guess.
Then she heard the too-loud ‘pop’ of gunfire almost right next to her and saw Nick was using the SUV as cover while he shot at the approaching car.
“Get us out of here!” he bellowed, not sparing her a glance. Tara rushed back over the driver’s side and climbed in. She backed out and straightened. In the side view mirror she saw Nick continuing to fire, then heard the sound of shattered glass as the windows of the SUV were shot out. In a dark flash Nick disappeared from her line of sight and a hair’s breadth later was climbing up into the passenger side door.
“Go! Go! Go !”
Rubber screamed and in moments Tara was plummeting them down dark deserted streets of her home town, while Hamilton, Lilly, the big man and a driver were trapped behind the road block of the other SUV with a busted windshield.
Tara kept a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel for several blocks, knowing she should turn but too engulfed in fear to figure out how.
“You are…absolutely…amazing.” Nick said, his voice calm rising out of the dark.
And in the dark he put a hand on her knee.
Tara relaxed. Took a turn, then another. After only a few minutes she was able to take her foot off the gas, realizing that though her sleepy little town, which now seemed far too small, did not have a huge police force, there was no doubt reports of gunfire had been called in and the police would be swarming the area.
“Sorry you won’t be going home tonight, Tara,” Nick said, squeezing her knee.
She looked over at him, then in the back seat where Greta, possibly unconscious, lay.
“I’ve got my home with me right now, Nick. Let’s keep it safe. What next?”
“We drive,” the mercenary said, settling back. He buckled his seat-belt and with a nod of his head urged her to do the same. “For right now, just anywhere you haven’t been before. Then….”
Tara heard the drop in his voice, not one of an incomplete thought but something else.
“...then we go to New York City. We go home.”
Tara had never heard the word ‘home’ sound so deadly hollow.
They continued on into the night.
CHAPTER 33
Greta could barely hold the cup of black coffee that Tara handed her as she sat on the foot of the bed. Even though they’d cut the bonds on her wrists, exposing the ugly welts of long term captivity, Greta seemed almost unable to free herself of the position. She took the paper cup with both hands and sipped.
“You’re safe now,” Tara said, crouched down in front of her. She cast a quick glance at Nick who stood at the filmy window of the ground floor hotel room.
Greta’s eyes stayed focused on the filthy outdated carpet, her gaze dull.
“And pretty soon we’ll get you a real cup of coffee. I know how you snobs are.”
To her surprise her attempt at levity had the opposite effect Tara was going for.
Greta broke out crying.
Starting to cry herself, Tara took the cup from her friend’s hands and began hugging her. At first the woman didn’t respond, then the crying became horrible wracking sobs and she melted into Tara, her mumbling indecipherable through her sobs and sniffles for several minutes.
Nick stood guard at the window the entire time.
Tara said nothing, just patted her friend’s head and waited for her to cry herself out.
Eventually she did and Tara gently took her by the shoulders and pushed her away so she could look her in the eyes. The early morning light lit up Greta’s face in unkind stark relief. Tara felt a smoldering sense of vengeance on whoever had dampened the lovely, lively spirit of a woman that was closer to her than a sister.
“You’re safe. We got you. We have a plan,” Tara said, the exaggeration merging well into the territory of an outright lie.
Greta, pale, face drawn, eyes sunken, looked down at her friend for a moment, her lip trembling.
Then she broke into tears again.
“Tare, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I let you down. I was so scared. I didn’t know what they wanted. I didn’t know what they would do. I was so scared. Oh god, I’m so sorry.” Greta burst into uncontrollable sobbing again and, again, Tara gathered her up in her arms. She looked over at Nick. His stalwart stance at the window, a gun in each hand-- his own and one he took from the driver-- gave her some hope.
As if he sensed her watching he looked back at the two women.
“She’s more broken up at letting you down than being kidnapped, starved and tortured,” he said simply. “That means something.”
Tara processed the words and hugged her friend even tighter.
“It’s bad coffee, and a filthy bed, and they don’t have HBO, but you’re safe. No one knows we’re here. Hell, I’m not even sure we know where we are.”
The comment earned Tara a little laugh.
“The worst is over,” she said, not knowing if she was lying or not. “We’ll all rest. It’ll get better from here on out”
The most damning light of the morning had passed by the time Greta, exhausted, cried herself to sleep in Tara’s arms. Without the need for words the couple gently put her to bed.
CHAPTER 34
“I think that woman is the only one he trusts or respects, but I’m not sure she feels the same way about him.”
Sitting across from Greta, face hidden by hair, beard and a cup of coffee, Nick nodded as though the information was pivotal.
Tara wanted to urge Greta to answer the question Nick had posed to her directly, but a look from the ex-merc kept her quiet.
“I…I think she was nicer than him. I mean, she was nasty.” Greta touched her cheek where a soft bruise was already fading. “She would hit me, but not as hard as she could have. And she would bring me water when he wasn’t looking. Everyone else just did exactly what he said, nothing more or less.”
“We have to get going soon. This Cirq organization seems to have almost unlimited resources, but until now they didn’t use all of them because they had you, and I was a wild-card. Now they know I’m not going to leave Tara and they don’t have any bargaining chips. They are going to throw everything they have at us. We need to fortify.”
Greta shivered, looked down at her coffee, black with a lot of sugar. Then began answering Nick’s question.
“No, no, they, ah, didn’t molest me. They didn’t do anything like that, not really.” She took a breath and held it, then let it out. “A little. The woman, she would grab me, uh, squeeze stuff until I…she liked to make me yell out. It made the others laugh. I think she only did it to make the others laugh.”
Tara was afraid Greta was going to break into tears again, but instead she took a deep gulp of coffee. She stared down into the mug for a long time, then looked up at Nick.
“You look familiar,” she finally said.
The ex-mercenary quirked his mouth and tossed the last of his coffee back. He threw a twenty on the table and pushed out from the booth, moving a bit awkwardly to conceal the guns stuffed in the pockets of his pants and jacket.
“Hit the head if you need to. We move out in five minutes.”
The women looked at each other. Coming from any other man the macho talk would have been ridiculous.
They were on the road in seven minutes.
CHAPTER 35
“Honestly, up until we picked you up, we were living the
highlife on the run. Best hotels, nice clothes. Good food.”
Greta didn’t seem to care as she rifled through the truck stop clothing racks looking for shirts and pants that fit her.
“Then why...” Greta looked around. They were surrounded by rednecks. Upstate New York was as wild and wooly as any western state.
“He says they might have figured out where we have been. Maybe found our hotel from the other night after I told you what town we were headed to”
Tara immediately regretted her words as Greta seemed to shrink down in self-loathing again.
“So we have to change tactics,” she continued. “Did I tell you that we spent a few days camping? Except for him being hurt and not able to do much, it was nice. Like a break from the harsh reality.”
“Not able to do much?” Greta held a Dolly Parton T-shirt up to her chest. The singer had more in the upper area than Greta, but there was some competition. “Does that mean…”
Tara shushed her a little to loudly, getting looks from truckers.
“No we didn’t. He said he could, but it was better to let the energy build up, whatever that means.”
“But you LOVE camping sex. It’s not much of a kink but It’s, like, your thing.”
Tara turned away from Greta to look at tennis shoes which were conveniently located next to feminine products, which were reasonably placed next to designer beer bottle openers.
“He is something special,” she said, loud enough for only Greta to hear. In moments her best friend was beside her, carefully examining bottle openers.
“I’m sorry, I didn't mean to imply…but I mean, you know, a guy saves your life...you get some great sex….”
Tara nodded and shivered thinking of the great sex and how she was ready for more.
“I know; it might be nothing. Just circumstance, but isn’t everything circumstance? I could never get over that damn beard of his anyway.”
Greta chuckled, then was quiet.
“I wasn’t kidding though. He looks familiar.”
“I think if you knew any bearded mountain men, you’d remember pretty easy.”
“How long did he say he’d been up there?”
“He didn't; he won’t. There’s a lot he won’t talk about. Almost everything really.”
“Red Flag,” Greta half-sang.
Tara sighed and picked up a pair of shoes, grabbed the camouflage pants she’d picked out and a Madonna sweatshirt and headed to the register.
Greta caught up to her and bumped her playfully from behind.
“You know, even if it’s not, you know, a long term thing, if he’s hooking your fish, you should enjoy it while you can.”
Tara smiled in spite of herself, then looked her friend up and down.
“That’s more your speed. It's never been that easy for me.”
“Well, you need to loosen up. I keep telling you that.”
“And I keep telling you you’re right.”
“And you keep not doing it.”
“It doesn't matter. We can’t even think about that kind of stuff, not any of us, until this is settled once and for all. I don’t’ know how we are going to do it.”
They paid for their gear, then headed back to the showers. While she didn’t much like the idea of using a pubic shower Tara was sure they were cleaner than the bathroom at the hotel where they’d spent the night.
“Do you have any idea what his plan is?”
“No, he said get to New York, ditch the car and then ‘fortify’. Whatever the hell that means.”
“Whatever the hell does that mean?” Greta echoed.
Tara looked at her.
They headed into the showers in silence. Tara made a point of surreptitiously looking at her friend’s body as she undressed, looking for any signs the vivacious busty blond had been more than mentally and emotionally tortured. There were slight bruises on her arms, back and wrists but that was it. She realized it had been a long long time since she’d seen Greta naked. She was relieved to see she was taking care of herself.
CHAPTER 36
Times Square. They were actually walking around Time Square.
If the previous week hadn’t happened, Tara would have felt they were walking around in their own private reality TV show. Nick had even gotten into character so much that he had bought a cheap camera and was snapping pictures right and left, while Greta, being Greta, was completely immersed in the glittery tawdry awe of some of the most famous real estate on earth.
Tara did her best to try to keep up the act, looking around, pointing, commenting, but in truth she wanted nothing more than to put her feet up and her head back in any old flea bag hotel they could find. She shuddered at the thought, but knew if she didn’t get some rest she was going to make some stupid mistake soon.
Nick, as always, seemed unaffected.
Looking the part of gawking Mid-Westerners in his boots, jeans, flannel shirt and denim jacket, Nick broke character by hailing a cab with the shrill whistle only a seasoned New Yorker could manage. Baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, Nick rattled off an address to the driver and they started off, to Tara’s great relief, out of the area.
To her shock, Nick argued with the cabbie about tip and fare when they were finally delivered to their destination 20 minutes later. She knew he had at least a thousand dollars cash, why he wanted to be cheap this late in their adventure was mind boggling.
The neighborhood they were dropped off in could not have been further from the noise and dirt of Time Square. It was blocks and blocks of stately old brownstone apartments. Quiet, somber, respectable. A different New York.
“Does he know how to break into houses? “ Greta whispered, leaning in close to Tara as the two walked side by side behind the cowboy-man.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what he can do.”
“You know some of what he can do.” Greta’s whisper ended in a giggle. “I could walk behind that butt all day.”
Tara giggled back, but also felt a slight pang of jealousy. Nick did fill out the jeans very well--his high, tight round ass mouth-wateringly tempting. She thought of the wild life the man led and realized he was actually a better match for her adventurous friend than she was. They would make a very attractive couple.
“He could be a jeans model,” she finally said, doing her best to give up her darker feelings.
“Or under….” Greta’s giggle-comment stopped mid-sentence and the woman herself missed a step.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh, nothing, but, I don’t think he’s going to be breaking into one of these places.”
Before Tara had time to process the statement, Nick was quickly popping up a set of steps to the front door of one of the townhouses. Like her studio it was locked by a key pad. It was an ugly incongruous addition to the old world charm of the place and moments later the trio was ensconced in the musty muffled quiet of the stately building’s vestibule. Nick put his camera down on a black lacquer table beside the door, sniffed the air like a dog and began turning in a slow circle on the marble floor.
The Heart's Dangerous Trek Page 14