by Jenna Ryan
Scrap gave them a bottle of elderberry juice for the road, then returned to his cigarette and solitude. The light in the tent went out behind them.
Amber glanced over her shoulder as they made their way along the path. “He’s certainly different.”
“Yeah,” Gage agreed. “He is. Tell me more about your relationship with Gareth. You’ve never really gone into it.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because that was a bad interlude in my life, and it makes me uncomfortable to go back over it. Why don’t we talk about you instead? Why did you stop being a cop?”
“I got tired of the life.”
“Bullshit. Something happened. It pissed you off or made you sad or freaked you out, but you didn’t get tired of it. Getting tired of things is for people like my sister.”
“Who should be your priority,” Gage pointed out. “My reasons for turning in my badge aren’t open for discussion, with you or anyone. And don’t give me that look. Guilt doesn’t work on me.”
“I’m not trying to make you feel guilty. Difficult as it might be for you to believe, I respect people’s privacy quite highly. Bear in mind that you started this question and answer session, not me. I’m fine talking baseball, politics, or how to placate a cranky conventioneer.”
“Fair enough.” The pricks of guilt laced with self-directed irritation subsided. He was starting to give a rat’s ass, and that bothered the hell out of him. He needed to erase the taste of her from his head before it took root there and screwed him up all the way.
He spotted Krista walking out of the house with Knute in tow and found his irritation relaxing into amusement. “Now there’s a picture I never get tired of seeing. Knute looking well and truly chastised.”
Amber squinted into the mist. “While you were gone last night, Krista told me a little bit about the relationship between you and Knute when you were younger. From what she said, I think Knute’s jealous of you, always has been. The question is, is he jealous enough to talk to the police out there about us?”
“Yes, but he won’t.”
“And you know that because?”
“His friends are thieves, and helping them matters more to him than screwing me around. Plus, he hasn’t seen you, so he doesn’t realize what it is I’ve got, metaphorically speaking, that he should want.”
Amber shook her head. “I must be incredibly tired. That almost made sense. Are we going to say good-bye to Krista, tell her what it is I’m sure you’re planning to do?”
“She’ll only hit me with her spoon and insist we stay on as planned. Better to leave, no good-byes, and let her deal with Knute.”
Amber regarded the mud and stone house that was Krista’s home. “I want to thank her for helping me unlock things I didn’t realize I knew.”
“You can thank her later, when this is over.” Gage took a firm grip on her hand. “The sooner we leave, the less chance of anything unpleasant splashing the people here.” He produced a comm link from his jacket pocket.
“Scrap’s?” Amber asked.
“Nope. Knute’s.”
“He’s going to hate you, Gage.”
“He already does.” He raised the device, spoke to Robin’s replacement. “Frank? Gage. Let me know when the cop passes by heading south. Give him a good lead, then have the guys open the gate.” Dark humor rose inside. “I’m in the mood to have some fun.”
…
Amber suspected more things were unfolding than Gage had admitted to her. He’d planned for them to stay at the commune. That hadn’t worked out. Because of the local police? Somehow, she doubted that. Maybe the cops figured into it, but Amber sensed there was something else at play there.
“You’re driving differently now,” she remarked as he maneuvered the truck along an overgrown track barely wide enough to be called a road. “And when we stopped for gas twenty minutes ago, you wouldn’t let me come into the station. I wanted a candy bar, Gage.”
“I bought you a candy bar.”
“Exactly. You bought it.” Amber eyed him in annoyed suspicion. “What’s going on that you’re not telling me? And for God’s sake, don’t say ‘nothing’. It’s my life that’s in danger here. Well, okay, yours too, but I don’t like being out of the loop.”
He fixed his gaze on the narrow road ahead. “I’m trying to make sure any tail we might have picked up can’t follow us. If you want to help, we’re coming up on a town large enough to support decent cell phone reception. Use my phone. Text Bear and ask him to send us a list of RC-owned motels located close to any train tracks. Tell him to focus on central and southern Mississippi, in some kind of a line between Black Creek and New Orleans.”
The moment she had reception, she began the required text.
“You have an idea, don’t you, about the person or people who are after us?”
“I think we’ve had distant company for quite a while. I’m not sure where or when it started. At first, I was fine with it. I had an idea to use it, draw the bastards in and see what was what. Then I talked to Robin and I realized we’d been followed to the last place I’d ever want trouble to appear.” He slid her a level look. “A vehicle other than that police car passed by the commune gate.”
Amber’s thumbs paused over the keypad. “Are you saying you tried to lose a tail, but you couldn’t? And I’m going on the assumption that losing tails is something you’re really, really good at.”
“It’s one of my better skills. Finish the text, Amber, and watch for traffic behind us.”
She fumbled over the spelling of Mississippi, made a second attempt, and finally thought to hell with it. Let Bear figure it out. “If you’re deliberately attempting to lose Fixx’s men, and you think it isn’t happening, you must have some idea about when and why. Should I be going back to the idea that something I have is bugged?”
“It’s possible, but no.” His gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. “Shit, I saw something.”
Amber’s insides turned to liquid, but she kept texting. “I only have my pack and a box of Krista’s herbal tea. We borrowed the truck from Abel, stopped and saw Bear, then went on to the commune.” Dammit, why couldn’t she spell New Orleans properly? “Do you know when we picked up this tail, and are you absolutely sure the vehicle you saw behind us isn’t a local farmer? I mean, people other than us use back roads.”
“I’m only at the idea stage right now. But money’s a big motivator, and you heard Bear. There’s a fat reward out on you.”
“Which is why I can’t buy myself a candy bar. Okay, text’s done and sent.” She swiveled to face him. “What do we do now? Just keep driving aimlessly and watch for anything that might or might not be hostile?”
“We’re not driving aimlessly. We’re heading for the border. But first.” He took his phone from her, checked the GPS. “We’re going to trade this old gray mare in for another set of wheels.”
“Trade it,” Amber repeated. “In the middle of nowhere. How many friends do you have in remote places, Gage?”
His grin in profile told her nothing. But what else was new? The man was a magical mystery tour unto himself.
“It’s not who I know.” He eased them across a shallow creek and up a hill that slanted at least fifteen degrees to the left. “It’s who McCabe can contact in the vicinity.”
“Jesus.” Exasperation made her want to tear her hair out. “This nightmare’s getting stranger by the minute. I saw a flash. Might be metal or a light.”
“Yep. It’s a few miles back, but whoever’s behind it is definitely following us. And that leaves only one option.”
“We hide and ambush them?”
“No.” He sized up the terrain outside. “Bundle up, Snowbird, and gather your things. We’re walking from here.”
“What? No. That’s crazy.” But she caught the pack he tossed at her. “They’ll find the truck. They’ll know we’re on foot. Vulnerable.”
“They won’t find the truck.”
; She opened her mouth to argue, suddenly realized what lay in front of them, and grabbed his arm in alarm. “Gage, you are not going to ditch Abel’s truck in a lake.”
“It’s not a lake, it’s a pond. A deep one, full of mud and slime and possibly a little quicksand.”
“Are you serious?”
“All part of the adventure, Amber. Have you got everything?”
“Everything except my sanity.” Shoving the door open, she climbed out. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“Me, too,” he said. Reaching inside, he set the truck in gear. It rolled through sludge, over rocks and branches to the edge of the pond. Slowly, slowly, it tipped into the muddy water. Then, with a series of sick glugs, it disappeared from sight.
…
Gage knew he was taking a risk. But that flash of light hadn’t been more than a few miles behind them, and he only had one more ace up his sleeve. McCabe might have had a few more if that last one of his didn’t work. Unfortunately, communication was becoming difficult, and he wasn’t entirely sure his ace wouldn’t turn out to be a dud.
“Give me a hint, Gage.” She sounded out of sorts, but thankfully not out of breath. “What’s our destination? An underground cave, an old riverboat owned by a friend of yours that might or might not be seaworthy?
“Whose seaworthiness are you questioning, my friend’s or the riverboat’s?”
She shot him a look that cut through the light mist. “Take your pick.”
“No boats, no caves. Scrap has an ancient but functional Winnebago. He stores it far enough away from Hidden Valley that Krista won’t find it. Every once in a while, he hikes out of the valley and thumbs a ride to Whisper. It’s a town on the Mississippi-Tennessee border. A friend of his stores it for him in a hollow on his property. Scrap gave me the keys to the storage shed and the Winnebago.”
She glanced at a clump of huckleberry bushes straight ahead. “We’re going to try and outrun Fixx’s men in a Winnebago. I think I’d feel better in an old riverboat.”
Gage hitched his pack higher. “It’s inconspicuous.”
She gave a half-hearted laugh. “That’s not even remotely possible—not unless it’s wearing a cloak of invisibility.”
An old-fashioned road map told Gage to head south. He nudged her through a break in the dense bushes. “Tell me this,” he said. “Put yourself in the position of Fixx’s men. Would you be looking for yourself in an ancient-as-hell RV with peace signs painted on the sides?”
“The Mystery Machine?” She halted to stare. “That’s our getaway vehicle? A Scooby-Doo replica that probably tops out at thirty miles an hour?” She reached into his jacket pocket, removed his phone, and held it out to him. “Contact your boss. Maybe he’ll have a fresh idea for us.”
Gage took the phone and hid his amusement. “Does this mean you’re losing faith in me?”
“The Wizard of Oz had a better plan to return home.”
“You’re mixing your metaphors, Snowbird. Stick with Oz, and imagine we’re on the Yellow Brick Road. Fixx is holding your sister in the Wicked Witch’s fortress, and our mission is to break her out.”
“I don’t think throwing a bucket of water at Owen Fixx or his henchmen is going to do it here. And, frankly, I’m still working on the whole Winnebago idea. How are you going to explain to Abel that you ditched his truck in a pond? Or is that your way of saying you think he’s working for Owen, that he bugged the truck before he loaned it to us? Damn.” She paused, plucked a sprig of huckleberry from her ponytail. “He could have bugged it, couldn’t he? Fat reward, connections within the law enforcement community. The only plus is, he knew my mother.”
“Abel wasn’t alone at the lodge. Wanda was there, and Mandy.”
“But they’re not in law enforcement. Are they?” When he didn’t answer right away, she sighed. “Great. One or both of them?”
“Wanda did encryption work in Biloxi. She quit the job a year ago. I don’t know why or under what circumstances. Mandy’s the X factor. No idea what her deal is or was.”
“What about Bear? Do you trust him or not?”
“He helped us get away.”
“So did Abel, and you seem to be doubting him.”
“I’m not doubting anyone. All I’m doing is throwing out possibilities. The only head space I’m in is my own. Talk to me more about Fixx.”
Amber skidded down a muddy hill. When the ground leveled off, she sighed. “It would never have occurred to him that I’d do what I did. That anyone would. He’s a ruthless man, and as I’ve already told you, arrogant as hell. But his employees are very well paid. There are benefits, even for the most menial positions at the hotel. I had a great job, with phenomenal benefits. I can’t remember one time when I approached him with an idea that he didn’t tell me to go ahead and do it, and don’t give the expense a second thought. So there’s that side of him—the conscientious employer—and then the other, the one with no or very selective compassion. He strikes me as a person who’s incapable of loving anyone but himself. From the research I did, I’m convinced he had his first three wives killed.”
“You must love your sister a lot to worry that she’d have ended up like her predecessors.”
The annoyed sound Amber made caused Gage’s lips to twitch. “Just testing, Snowbird. At the risk of sounding cynical, I don’t get the strong impression Rachel would do for you what you’re doing for her.”
Amber pulled another sprig of huckleberry from her hair. “She wouldn’t. That’s not the point. I love Rachel because she’s my sister, but that’s where it ends. I don’t actually like her at all. We’re not friends. We were once when we were young, but not anymore. Maybe it makes me as selfish as her that I realize I’m mostly doing this because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t. I also have no idea why I just told you that. I must be really tired. Are we anywhere near Whisper and Scrap’s Winnebago?”
“Another few miles,” Gage told her. Something inside him softened slightly. Giving in to it, he took her hand. “How about I talk for a while. I’ll tell you about the time Abel and I chased a murder suspect into a mother of a brush fire. We lost the suspect and our bearings and wound up hanging from a helicopter cable as it hauled us up over the fire.”
“And then?” she prompted when he stopped.
“And then.” He lifted his eyes to the cloudy sky. And then, draping an arm over her shoulder, he kissed the top of her head. “The cable snapped.”
…
Amber couldn’t see how the storage shed housing the Winnebago managed to stand given the rotten state of the foundation. But she thanked God and the universe for the fact that there were mineral hot springs less than half a mile away. She was treated to a tiny slice of heaven on what felt like the road through hell.
Her skin was clean and tingling, her hair damp, and her clothes clean. The Winnebago was a horror, but the engine ran and there were hookups for shower, toilet, and sundry appliances.
Gage only cared that none of the warning gauges lit up and the gas tank was half full. Men, Amber concluded, possessed extremely low expectations.
They’d be heading into Mississippi, but not until the sun set and he heard from Bear. He decided to hike in for takeout Chinese food supplied by a store/restaurant on the edge of town. He told her to shoot anyone who came near the shed while he was gone. So Amber sat in a patch of grass near the falling down door, and let the breeze dry her hair and her mind drift while she drank a cup of what she called Krista’s memory tea. The tea and her mind took her back to the time prior to her relocation to Black Creek.
“I don’t want to divorce him.” The tantrum Rachel had thrown back when the whole identity change thing had happened burst vividly into Amber’s head. “I hate you, Alexa. Why couldn’t you leave things alone. Owen’s not a monster. He loves me. You’re just being a bitch because it didn’t work out for you and Gareth.”
Alexa who still hadn’t quite thought of herself as Amber, had tried to calm her sister
down. “Owen Fixx has been widowed three times. Every one of his wives’ deaths was deemed accidental. The only lawsuit launched against him by any of the families never made it to court. He bought them off, Georgia.”
“Rachel,” the WPP officer in attendance had corrected her. “Use the names you’ve been given.”
“I want to go home,” Rachel said through clenched teeth. “Why can’t you get that into your robotic head? And don’t give me that big sister look, Alex— Okay, fine, Amber. I want to talk to someone who understands feelings, not some replicant refugee from Blade Runner.”
“You’d want to talk to me, then.” The door to the stuffy little office had opened, and Tom Vigor had entered. He was a big, strapping man with a voice as commanding as his appearance. His hair and mustache were both white and shaggy, and he walked with a slight limp.
“Gout,” he said when Rachel mutely glared. “Got my knee shot out, too, a while back. Healing’s a slow and painful process.”
Rachel had spun away. “Just what I need. A hillbilly hick—no offense—a robot, and a divorce I don’t want.” Flouncing around, she plopped down in a chair, arms folded. “I’m not happy.”
Unruffled, Tom laughed. “I sensed that from the other side of the door, Rachel, and I’m sorry as I can be about what’s happened. But truth be told, your sister did both you and the FBI a big old favor where Owen Fixx is concerned. It’s not her fault the information she gathered went astray.” He glanced at his thin-lipped man across from him. “You can go now, Sidney.”
“With pleasure, sir,” the suited young man replied. He summoned a quick, false smile. “Good luck to both of you. I hope your new lives work out well.”
The door clicked closed. Rachel stuck her tongue out at it. “Have a nice day, Mr. Roboto.”
Tom laughed again, and the sound of it coming straight from his belly settled Amber’s turbulent thoughts. “Don’t you mind our Sidney now,” Tom soothed. “He’s going through a nasty divorce at the moment, probably isn’t feeling as friendly toward females as he otherwise might.”