by Camy Tang
Naomi shrugged. “He didn’t say, but if you don’t grill him when he gets here, I sure will.”
“Now, he’s only concerned for Rachel’s safety,” Aunt Becca said.
Rachel pounced on Edward when he arrived at the spa a few minutes later. “What’s going on?” she asked, before even saying hello.
“Hello to you, too,” he said with a raised eyebrows and a half smile, but then he sobered. “Uncle Albert is going to help us find somewhere for you to hole up for a while, at least until the police can find these men.”
“Hole up? Like a safe house?” She had visions of a hotel room, nothing to do to keep her worrying mind occupied, and the four walls closing in on her.
He shrugged. “Not sure. Uncle Albert is going to meet us at your house.”
“Where’s Alex? Wasn’t he with you?”
“He drove to your house to pick up Mama and take her home,” Edward said. “She called us—she enjoyed chatting with Augustus all day, but she wants to go to her own house now.”
“Is that wise?” Aunt Becca asked.
Edward sighed. “No. But it’s Mama. We don’t really have a choice. She threatened to drive back out there by herself if we don’t take her home. I’ve asked a few more farmhands to stay with her at the house for some extra protection.”
“Do you think she’s in danger, too?” Naomi asked.
“I hope not, but better safe than sorry. Alex will stay at the house with her.” He caught Rachel’s eyes with his own. “I’ll stay with you.”
She wanted to reach out and grab his hand, to convey how much that meant to her. “When is your uncle meeting us?”
“He said he has a few things to take care of first, so a couple hours.”
“I hate to ask you this, but I forgot some things at your mother’s house.”
“Can you leave it there?”
“I don’t know if it’s that important, but I forgot a flash drive of clinical-trial data on Alex’s computer.” She gave him an apologetic look. “I was so panicked last night as we were leaving that I forgot about it.”
“Did you leave any clothes there?” Naomi asked. “Remember, you were going to ask Alex?”
“That’s right.” She turned to Edward. “We’re not sure how they found out that I was at your mother’s farm. I checked my clothes for tracking devices, but would your brother take a look at my things? I’ll pick up fresh clothes at home.”
“That’s a good idea.” Edward’s cell phone rang, and he glanced at the caller ID before answering. “Hi, Alex.”
“Knock, knock,” her cousin Jane said from the doorway. “Hey, there’s a party in here.”
“Oh, I almost forgot you were coming, Jane.” Naomi fumbled with her keys and unlocked her desk drawer. “Thanks for agreeing to look at my laptop today.”
“Hey, Rach, how are you doing?” Jane touched her hand. “Uncle Aggie told me about last night when I stopped by the house this morning.”
Rachel chatted with Jane until Edward clicked his cell phone shut. “Alex said he’s at your house, but Mama’s not quite ready to leave,” Edward said with a long-suffering look.
Rachel bit back a smile. “He called just to tell you that?”
His expression tensed. “He also said to be careful when we go to Mama’s house because the farmhands are all out working the south field today. There’s no one at the house.”
“Oh, dear,” Aunt Becca said. “Maybe you two should go home and have Alex and your mother drive to the farm with you.”
“We’ll only be at the house a few minutes, and no one knows we’re heading there.” Edward pulled out his truck keys. “But just to be safe, I’ll call Julio and Chase and ask them to meet us at the house.”
The first part of the drive was taken up with Edward calling two of his farmhands, friends of Alex’s from prison, to ask them to meet them by the time they got there. Then he fielded a few calls from someone at the greenhouses—apparently a handful of his clients had tried to get hold of him but couldn’t.
“I’m sorry to be taking you away from your work,” Rachel said as he hung up.
“You’re more important, Rach.” His look toward her reminded her of the molten center of a chocolate lava cake, and she couldn’t help smiling. Then he turned his concentration on the winding dirt roads to the farm.
Edward drew the truck right up next to the front porch.
“I’ll only be a second.” Rachel unbuckled her seat belt. “I know exactly where the flash drive is.” She would hate if that data landed in the hands of whoever had stolen her formulation. It wouldn’t necessarily help their product development, but it would affirm the results of her formulation and perhaps increase their production schedule.
“Julio, Chase,” Edward called as he exited the truck and headed into the house.
Rachel’s cell phone rang. She dug it out of her purse, but she fumbled it in her hand and it started to fall. She bent to snatch it before it hit the ground.
The car window shattered next to her ear.
FIFTEEN
Edward heard the crack of the gun first, then saw the glass from the passenger-side window raining over Rachel’s crouched form.
“Rachel!” He bounded down from the front porch and shielded her with his body.
Another shot whistled past his ear to land thwack! in his truck door.
“Run!” He pulled her around the front bumper.
“Where’s it coming from?” she cried.
There were few trees, no place for a sniper to hide. He peered quickly over the hood of the truck and saw movement near the compost piles several yards away. Another bullet dinged the truck, inches from his head.
Too close for comfort.
He fumbled for his keys. Could he get them both inside the truck without being shot?
More shots hit the vehicle, and the angles changed with each bullet fired.
Whoever shot at them was moving closer.
He grabbed for the door handle.
A series of bullets hit the two outside tires. Edward felt the truck jolt, then start to sag.
Getting away in the truck was out.
He grabbed Rachel’s hand and bolted for the corner of the house. Bullets ricocheted off the paneling, sending fragments flying through the air.
The shotguns were inside the house. He needed to get the shotguns.
They raced toward the back door.
Then it occurred to Edward—with all these shots being fired, where were Julio and Chase? They had said they’d meet them at the house.
He jumped up the back porch steps, ready to kick the door in—except it was already wide open, with only the screen door closed over the entrance.
He twisted midstep and ducked, pushing Rachel’s head down as a second shooter in the house fired at them through the rear screen door.
“Go!” he shouted, and shoved her in the direction of the vineyard in the north field.
As they ran away from the house, a ringing filtered through his frantic thoughts. Rachel’s cell phone ringing again. It sounded faint, as if from the front of the house, maybe near the truck.
“I’ve got to get my phone!”
“Too late.” He pushed her ahead of him even as he reached in his back pocket for his own cell phone.
Bullets flew over their heads, but the vineyard wasn’t far away from the house. They dived to the ground between the rows of grapevines, still clothed with withering brown and gold leaves, but full enough to provide some visual cover. Shots fired, and leaves exploded around them as they crawled.
“This way,” he whispered, and slithered between grapevine plants to cut across the rows. Rachel followed.
The shots petered off. Edward peered through a mass of vines and leaves and saw two men—the same men who had attacked them at the restaurant—headed across the field toward them, guns raised, but obviously unsure where they were among the mass of grapevines.
“Stay low,” he told her.
“We can’
t stay here,” she whispered.
They were trapped. They could crawl through the vineyard for only so long before they were caught. The land was too flat for them to make a run for it.
He dialed Alex on his cell phone. It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
A bullet shattered a woody grapevine a few rows away. Then another.
Trying to flush them out?
His call to Alex went to voice mail.
He had to try calling the other farmhands. But how long would it take them to get here? They were all the way on the other side of the property in the south field.
Would it be too late by the time they got here? Would they arrive just to be gunned down?
He started to dial on his cell phone, but a bullet pinged a grapevine right over their heads, raining leaves and splinters around him. No time to call now—he shoved his cell phone back in his pocket. First he had to get Rachel someplace safer than this vineyard before they were shot. But where?
He tried to visualize the layout of the farm, but his panicked brain couldn’t recall more than the vineyard.
He had to calm down. He was in fight-or-flight mode. His logical processing had shut down. The layout of the farm would come to him if he just calmed down.
Lord, please help us.
Then he had a fleeting thought—the ditch.
It ran along the back of the north field, originally for irrigation. Later, his father had tried raising cows for a brief stint and had used it as a natural barrier to keep the animals from wandering too far afield.
Since then, it had become more shallow from erosion and filled with weeds—perfectly hidden from view at ground level unless a person knew it was there or walked within a couple feet of it.
“Come on.” He tugged at Rachel’s hand to get her to follow him through the grapevines.
They crawled between the largest vines, which were still thick with dying foliage to shield them and also had enough space between the stalks to allow them to slide through without knocking a plant and alerting the men of their position. The shots fired at the plants moved away from them as the men traveled in the opposite direction they were headed. Thank You, God. The ditch bordered an empty field with no cover, so the men must have assumed they wouldn’t head in that direction, where they would be easily seen. And shot.
No. He had to focus on keeping them alive for a few minutes longer.
“Stop!” Rachel hissed, grabbing at his ankle.
He twisted around to look at her. Eyes wide, she pointed to a patch of weeds to their left. “I saw something move. Aren’t there snakes in vineyards?”
At the word snake, his back knotted, but then he remembered the time of year. He squinted around him, felt the nip of the air on his skin despite the warm sunlight, and shook his head. “Too cold for snakes. They’re hibernating.”
“Are you sure?”
As she spoke, the patch of weeds did rustle. He froze.
He’d seen rattlesnakes in this vineyard. But usually in spring or summer, not in October. No rattle meant if it was a rattlesnake, it hadn’t yet been alarmed enough to make a sound.
“Don’t move,” he whispered to her.
But the sound of the two men in the other corner of the vineyard might scare the snake into panicking, especially if they came any closer.
“Back away slowly,” he said, sliding along the dirt.
She followed…and then a mouse darted out of the weeds and ran across her foot.
“Eep!” It escaped her lips even as she clapped a hand over her mouth to muffle the sound.
They both froze.
The two men stopped shooting.
Edward counted his heartbeats, thundering in his ears, fast and hard. He moved carefully to glimpse the men through some gaps in the foliage.
He could see one of them, the man who had tried to break into the key-code doors at the spa. The man looked down, his movements jerky as he did something to his gun.
They were reloading.
“Move!” he whispered to Rachel, and they continued toward the ditch.
It took forever, moving on their bellies through the rows of vines. At one point, one of the men stalked across the end of the row they were cutting through. Edward froze, flattening against the ground.
The man only needed to walk past their row and look down it, and he’d see them.
Edward had to time it right. Please help us, God.
The man passed the row to one side of them. As he took the steps past the grapevines that would take him into view of their row, Edward signaled to Rachel, and they slipped through the vine plants back into the row the man had just passed.
They waited for a shout, for a gunshot.
Nothing.
“Go!” he whispered. He leaped to his feet in a low crouch, and they ran down the row away from the man.
They reached the end of the vineyard and paused. There were several yards of open ground before they could slither down into the ditch, open area where the men might see them making a run for it.
He lifted his head quickly, hoping to catch some movement to show where the men were.
Rachel tugged his arm. “One of them is over there.” She pointed to a far corner.
He saw a flash of metal—perhaps from the man’s gun—on a different side of the vineyard from his partner, but closer to them.
“On three. And move fast. One, two, three!”
They shot out of the vineyard, sprinting as fast as they could while keeping low to the ground. As he reached it, Edward skidded on his hip so he could slide over the edge and into the ditch feet first. He reached up to grab Rachel and pull her in.
The ditch was only four feet deep, so they dropped to their knees among the weeds and grasses and listened.
No shouts. No sounds of movement. No gunshots.
At least, until the men discovered the ditch.
“Go.” He pushed her ahead of him down the length of the ditch. It ran almost all the way to a service road near this end of the property. They might be able to flag a car or, at best, make it to the neighboring farm, which had more trees and bushes for cover.
Rachel kept both hands out on either side of her to balance herself against the sides of the ditch as she leaped over clumps of grass while running at an awkward crouch. Edward’s knees banged the sides of the ditch at narrow points.
They were almost at the end….
Then they heard a shout. Edward instinctively ducked and threw himself on top of Rachel, expecting a bullet to bury itself in his back.
Then he heard a car horn—and the blast from a shotgun.
Edward tried to twist around to peek behind him down the length of the ditch, but it was too narrow. Rachel was trembling under him. He rose to his knees and peeked over the edge of the ditch.
A rusty pickup truck jostled and rattled over the rough ground directly at the two men, who fired a few shots at the truck. The steel frame seemed to shrug aside the bullets as it barreled toward them. A man in the passenger’s seat fired a shotgun at the two intruders—it was one of the farmhands.
The two intruders ran, cutting across the plowed field where the truck would have a harder time following, toward a country road on the other side of the field. They must have a car parked there.
In the distance were two other trucks—Alex’s and that of another farmhand. Alex’s truck had skidded to a halt near the farmhouse back door, and Alex had already gotten the shotguns from inside and was running toward the two men with a gun in hand. A farmhand followed with the other gun.
The other truck followed the steel monster in pursuit of the two men, although both vehicles stopped at the edge of the plowed field. One man jumped out of the truck and raced after the nearer of the two men.
“Edward!” Alex roared. “Rachel!”
“Here!” Edward scrambled out of the ditch. He reached back to pull out Rachel, and Alex had sprinted around the vineyard by the time Edward got her over the edge ont
o the grass. Alex and another farmhand helped Edward pull her out completely, as Edward’s arms felt like jelly.
He sat on the grass on the side of the ditch, his entire body shaking. The aftereffects of the adrenaline.
Alex’s eyes appeared in his vision. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he managed to gasp. “Not shot.”
Rachel turned to Alex. “How did you know?”
“You can thank Jane. She called me.”
“Jane?”
“She was working on Naomi’s computer. She checked some wires under the desk and found a listening device stuck there.”
“What? How did she know what it was?”
“Actually, she sent a photo of it to my cell phone, and I told her it was a bug,” Alex admitted. “It looked exactly like the device we found in Naomi’s music box. Then Jane remembered that you two had just left, but you’d talked about going to Mama’s farm.”
And about being alone at the house. And about how Edward intended to call Julio and Chase to meet them there.
“Jane said Naomi was calling you but not getting an answer,” Alex said.
“We were already being shot at,” Rachel said. “I dropped my phone and we had to leave it.”
“I tried calling you,” Edward told him.
“I was on the phone with Billy, Grant and Jose,” Alex said, nodding to one of them, who stood nearby. “I knew they were in the south field, so I told them to meet me at Mama’s house.”
“Yeah, who were those two guys?” asked Jose.
Edward shook his head. “We still don’t know.”
“Hey! Some help, here!” called a voice, and they turned to see Billy and Grant dragging one of the men toward them. They raced to pin him down, Edward following a little slower. Billy ran back to one of the trucks and returned with some rope. In a few minutes, they had bound him up.
“What about the other man?” Alex asked.
“I saw him get away in a blue car heading down Alpine Drive,” said Billy, referring to the country road behind the property.
Rachel now got a good look at the man’s face and gasped. “You’re the one who tried to kill me!”
“No, I didn’t!” he blurted.