Ty hurried off to contact Emmett with the good news and get the guys at Langley hustling.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, breakfast completed and cleared, Keoni herded them into the van for the ride down to the sixty-five-hundred-foot level just outside the park. That was where the downhill bicycling ride would begin. Despite Keoni’s reassurances—twenty-one switchbacks but only two hundred yards of pedaling—Treflee felt like a bag of nerves. Her idea of an ideal bike ride was a pleasant cruise along a nice flat, dedicated bicycling trail. No cars allowed.
She didn’t like downhills, particularly steep downhills. Too easy to get going too fast. Carrie called her a menace with a brake.
The last time she’d been on a ride with Carrie they’d been seventeen. Carrie sped along, leaving Treflee in the figurative dust to get lost in Carrie’s sprawling suburban neighborhood. Nearly an hour later, Uncle Al showed up in the truck, finding Treflee resting in the shade with her bike propped against a tree. Without comment, he loaded the bike in the truck bed and took her home. At least Carrie had sent help.
When Treflee voiced her fears about being left behind, Keoni reassured her. “Not to worry. I’ll be following with the van.”
Yeah, and probably honking for her to get a move on.
“Can’t I just ride in the van?” Treflee asked.
“No, you cannot!” Carrie scowled at her. “You big chicken. You’re over five feet tall, older than twelve, not pregnant, weigh less than two hundred and fifty pounds, and have no health problems. You’re completely qualified and fit for this. And you signed the form!” Carrie used her brook-no-opposition cop voice, sounding completely calm.
“You’re not missing out on the view and adventure by cowering in the stuffy van. You’re going to ride down the mountain with the rest of us if it kills you.” Then she turned back and resumed her conversation with Laci and Faye.
The part about not being pregnant stung.
For the moment, Laci seemed to have decided to ignore Treflee and the close-quarters way she curled next to Ty on the van seat.
Well, all’s fair in love and spy play. Two could dabble in seduction and deceit. A wife scorned had every reason, no, make that right, to use everything in her arsenal to gain the tactical advantage in a divorce war. Treflee was only planning to seize hers in the form of that top secret drop. She smiled at Ty. Which means getting close to you, she thought, hoping her heart could handle it.
Ty put his hand on her knee, his very strong, hot hand. He squeezed and slyly slid his fingers around the side of her leg to stroke the inside of her thigh with his thumb.
Good thing she was wearing loose bike shorts. Too bad they were so thin that they barely dulled his touch.
Damn that man and his knowledge of her erogenous zones! Stroke the inside of her thigh and she’d follow him anywhere. She went weak and tingly in all the wrongly right places.
He knew exactly the pressure and movement to use to turn her on as he pretended to flirt and leaned in to whisper, “You’ll do fine. Piece of cake.”
She retaliated by pressing her legs together and trapping his hand as she rested hers on his athletic-pants-clad knee, then gliding it up his thigh over his pocket.
Empty! Where had he stashed the drop he’d gotten?
He smiled innocently at her, but she got the feeling he knew what she was up to.
Keoni stopped the van in a pull-out area just outside the park boundary. Ty helped him unload the bikes. The Chinese bicycle tour van pulled up next to them.
Keoni issued everyone helmets, bikes, and lightweight windbreakers. He gave them a set of safety instructions. “If you get going too fast, brake with your right hand. It controls the rear wheel. Brake too hard and too fast with your left, which controls the front wheel, and you’ll go flying over the handlebars.
“Ignore honkers. Don’t let them rattle you. Most people in cars are polite, but a few are impatient jerks. Give them wide berth.
“I’ll be behind you in the van. Pull over at the third scenic viewpoint for a photo op. We’ll have a few of them. We’ll be stopping for lunch at a protea flower farm. I think you ladies will like that.”
Carrie and crew adjusted their seats like pros, all looking as if they were riders in the Tour de France, dressed in stylish, tight-fitting black spandex bike shorts with reflective stripes, the bike tour jackets, curve-accentuating, moisture-wicking bike shirts, and bike cleats. In her borrowed baggy traffic-cone orange shorts and yellow jacket, all Treflee needed to pose as a piece of candy corn was a white helmet. No such luck. Hers was black.
Treflee wasn’t playing dumb as she fiddled with her seat. She was simply inept. However, her ineptness provided another body-search opportunity as Ty came over to help.
She let him put his arms around her as he showed her how to lower the seat. She pressed up against him, hoping to get a feel of that drop in a front shirt pocket. Or maybe he’d strung it around his neck. Hopefully he hadn’t passed it off to someone else already. He had to have it on him.
He seized the opportunity for an “accidental” breast brush and whispered in her ear in a breathy way that made her shiver with pleasure as he issued instructions.
Anyone watching them might have told them to get a room. Or so Treflee imagined from the sidelong daggers Laci sent her. Treflee desperately wished they could get a room—so she could search his clothes and body for her ticket to move on with her life.
The low clouds from the top of the mountain had settled into a patchy fog at 6,500 feet. Keoni warned them about visibility issues. “Just take it slow. The clouds will break another thousand feet down or so. Then you’ll have trouble keeping your eyes off the view and on the road.”
Despite being a larger group, the Chinese wedding party got on their bikes and moved out first. They were already out of sight in the fog past the first switchback bend before Treflee’s group took off single file down the road.
Treflee didn’t have to insist on bringing up the rear. She settled in naturally and took a perverse pleasure from imagining how hard poor Keoni was working to keep that van going so slow. Is there a gear below first?
Ty rode directly in front of her. Even in the on-again, off-again fog, the view was nothing short of spectacular. Ty had a very nice butt and well-muscled calves that mesmerized her as he pumped. Treflee was way too nervous to dare to peek out at anything other than the road and the view directly before her. The last thing she wanted was to go missing in the mist over the edge of a switchback.
Three successful switchback negotiations later, she began to relax and sneak a look or two out over the gray horizon. A handful of cars respectfully and cautiously passed the group without incident. A couple honked their irritation, but gave the cyclists wide berth.
Despite Keoni’s admonition to stick together, their group had spread out. Well, that’s to say Carrie, Laci, Carla, Faye, Brandy, and even Ty had pulled significantly ahead of Treflee. She could no longer see them through the fog. Only poor Keoni, who was being paid to do so, stayed with her, headlights on, illuminating her billowing orange shorts and making her butt look big, she was sure. She just hoped he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel from traveling at such a drowsy pace. She rode with the right handbrake squeezed tight.
You know, there really wasn’t so much to this adventure stuff after all. You just had to have a little confidence and take things easy. Wait until she got home and told everyone at the office about her experiences. They’d never believe she’d actually surfed and biked down a volcano.
Treflee was concentrating on the road and busy plotting exactly how she was going to get Ty out of his clothes so she could search them for the drop. It took her a second to recognize the distinctive whir and whiz of bike spokes and speed approaching behind her. She moved farther to the right, expecting the newcomer to call out, “On your left!,” and buzz past her.
She didn’t bother to look into her mirror until it was almost too late. A lone biker, medium height an
d slender, dressed head to toe in black gear and wearing mirrored shades that obscured the face, pulled up next to her. She waved him on, urging him to go around her.
He closed in on her, crowding her toward the guardrail.
Idiot! Maniac!
She gestured more frantically and screamed at him. “Go around!”
That’s when she spotted the gun in the newcomer’s hand.
Her mouth went dry. Ty had never taught her what to do in a situation like this. Her pulse leaped past target-exercise speed right into the dangerous panicked range in a single beat.
The guy bent over, leaned down, and extended the gun toward her front spokes.
What the—
Instinctively, Treflee veered away from him and released her pressure on the right handbrake. Her bike wobbled. She nearly overcorrected and lost her balance as she surged forward in front of the bastard. She shifted into high gear.
Where the heck was Keoni? Why wasn’t he slamming this maniac into the mountainside with two thousand pounds of touring van? He could hardly mistake the two of them. She was the one in the flapping orange pumpkin shorts!
Treflee looked under her arm at the cyclist. He was gaining on her already. Her pursuer hunched over his handlebars, pumping as he flew toward her. And the bastard had muscled thighs with the power to crack a walnut.
Pumping! The guy was certifiable!
He obviously outweighed and outmuscled her. He’d be on her in a flash. If he got close enough to pull the trigger …
She stared at the road ahead, furiously ticking off her options: forced off the road over the guardrail, shot, or missed a hairpin turn and crashed into oblivion? Pick your poison, girl.
The fog had thickened. She had no idea how fast the next hairpin turn was coming up. The only indication of the road at all was a pair of headlights aiming at her on the uphill side of the road.
The Mad Biker pulled up beside her and extended the gun again.
She veered in front of the oncoming headlights. A horn blared. The car swerved just in time, allowing her enough room on the narrow uphill shoulder to squeeze by and emerge unscathed. Behind her she heard the squeal of brakes and Keoni laying on his horn.
She peeked behind her. Mad, Bad Biker was still on her tail.
She refused to be forced off the road and over the guardrail into central Maui and certain death, a sacrifice to Pele, the volcano goddess.
The fog cleared just enough for Treflee to see the hairpin turn approaching. She leaned into the corner and began pumping with all her might as she hunched forward, trying to make herself aerodynamic. The only drag on her was her silly, wide, baggy-hipped bike shorts that blew and puffed in the wind like panniers.
Her bike computer speedometer registered thirty miles an hour. Then forty. Her heart pounded as though she were going sixty. One tiny rock in the road, one bump, and she was history.
Down the straightaway, the bad dude cyclist nearly caught her.
Treflee prayed for bad aim. She glanced at the gun. A long, scary needle stuck out from it. She frowned.
That’s no gun. That was a bike tire pump!
The bastard meant to stick it in her spokes, strip them from the hub, and send her tumbling headfirst to her death. Death by bicycle pump—no, thank you!
She put on a burst of speed and broke out of the fog and into the sunshine.
Below her, the girls took the next corner with Ty following them. She was gaining on them. And gaining way too much speed to control.
She considered throwing on the brakes and letting her assailant sail by. But she was afraid at the speed she was going she’d lock up and be thrown headfirst over the handlebars. She didn’t have enough faith in either her tour-company-issued windbreaker or brain bucket for that maneuver. Instead, she leaned into the corner again and prayed.
She lost sight of Keoni. She wished for the first time that Ty was behind the wheel.
Ty would force that bastard off the road without causing a scratch to her. But she had no faith in Keoni. She’d signed a waiver holding the tour company blameless in the unlikely event of an accident. But waivers weren’t ironclad legal vehicles. Wanting to avoid a lawsuit and any blame, especially if she died, were probably enough to keep Keoni in check and well back out of the action.
The bicycle-tire-pump-wielding bad dude was flying up beside her with pump in hand, looking like he’d club her with it if it came to that. In just a matter of seconds he’d pull even and stab it through her spokes.
At that moment, the hairpin turn closed in too fast. She reacted too late, missing the turn and sailing off the road through a gap in the guardrail.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Ty heard honking and squealing tires for the second time in minutes. He looked back up the mountain just in time to see Treflee pop out of the fog and down the straightaway above him toward the switchback turn. You couldn’t miss her in those orange shorts.
The woman was flying down the mountain. Totally unlike her. He frowned. Something was wrong.
An instant later, his heart plummeted into his stomach as another cyclist appeared from the mist, hot on her tail, obviously in pursuit.
Was that a bicycle pump the other guy was wielding?
Oh, shit! The guy has to be either RIOT or Fuk Ching!
Ty applied his brakes and spun his bike around to face back up the mountain. He shifted into hill-climbing gear, stood on the pedals and pounded forward. Balancing the bike with one hand, he pulled a camera from his pocket and snapped a picture of the guy. He replaced the phone and pulled out a small, accurate pistol, ready to take action.
He watched Tref with growing horror. No way he’d get to her in time. She was going too fast. The one time in her life she’d turned speed demon on him.
It didn’t take Lance Armstrong to realize she’d never make the corner. Yelling a warning at her was futile. Ty didn’t waste the energy. He had to draw the attacker away from her. From here.
He pulled the bike over next to the guardrail, ducked behind the cycle, holding it up and using it as a shield. To the casual observer, he could have been just another biker worried about a tire or a loose chain as he squatted in the dirt. He rested his arm on the bike frame, steadied himself, and took careful aim, waiting for his moment.
The pump-wielding bad dude was just behind Tref. One or two good pedal turns and he’d pull even. No way Tref could outpedal him. She had beautiful, shapely thighs, thighs he thoroughly loved to caress. But strength and speedwise, she’d never be hell on bicycle wheels.
Ty expected her attacker to pull even with her and jam the pump through her front spokes. That would cause the spokes to shear from the hub, and would be for all intents and purposes like riding a bike without a front wheel. The front of the bike would sag and send Tref flying headfirst over the handlebars. At the speed she was cruising, she’d be lucky not to snap her neck and end up dead.
As the guy’s front tire pulled even with her back tire, he leaned down, reaching to stick the pump in her spokes.
Not as effective, but that would work, too. Acting on instinct, Ty fired.
The guy flinched and pulled his arm back just as Tref took the turn too wide and sailed through a gap in the guardrail, airborne like a prize dirt biker at a BMX event.
The attacker was obviously a more experienced biker. Even favoring his right arm, he managed to pull inside and negotiate the switchback turn. He cruised down the road toward Ty, looking around for the source of the shot, going too fast for Ty to chance another. Ty had just grazed his arm. He could see the trickle of blood staining the guy’s sleeve.
Ty waited for the guy to return fire. Nothing. He had to be unarmed.
Ty’s gaze bounced between the assailant and where Tref had disappeared out of sight over the hill. He had a choice—go after the lady or the tiger?
Tref could be lying on the hill dead or dying. He felt sick.
On the other hand, he needed to bring this bastard in, especially if he’d killed her. And
the guy might still go after her to make sure he’d finished the job.
Lady. No contest. If there’s even the ghost of a chance that I can save her. His heart pounded. I can’t lose her.
Dressed in the bright yellow windbreaker, Ty looked like a rubber ducky and practically had a target on his back. He pulled it off and tossed it over the bike to create a blind as he escaped and went to Tref.
A car engine revved to life at a scenic pullout just up from him. A getaway van.
He’d been so focused on Tref, he hadn’t paid it any particular attention. Every scenic spot was full of cars of tourists snapping pictures.
He swore beneath his breath. No way he could turn his back on that. Could be full of assassins and guys who’d just as soon shoot you in the back as look at you.
He leaned the bike against the guardrail and jumped the rail. A bike wasn’t a great shield. A bike and a guardrail combined were only marginally better. Peeking past his coat, he positioned himself to take a shot at the van as it drove past him.
Tref was always messing with his concentration.
Tref’s attacker rode toward the getaway van. He caught sight of Ty’s position and pointed and gestured toward him to someone in the van. A van window rolled down. A pistol barrel appeared and pointed itself in Ty’s direction. A pistol with a high-powered sight.
* * *
For one fantastic, exhilarating second, Treflee was airborne. The next, the bike hit solid ground in a cloud of dust. Hard. The shock jolted through her, rattling everything from her teeth to her toes.
Hooray for mountain bike shocks!
She almost lost her balance and toppled off. Only her white-knuckled death grip on the brakes kept her in place.
Fighting gravity and the bike, she leaned to the left to keep from toppling over. She overcorrected to the right. She fell over, bike on top of her, and went into a slide for life down the slope. It would have been a pretty neat trick if she’d meant to do it. Or had any control.
The Spy Who Left Me Page 15