by Fiona Roarke
“Charming enough to keep anyone from recognizing his true identity?” Cam asked.
Gage said, “I didn’t recognize him earlier when I saw the footage.”
“Me, either.”
There was a knock at the door. Diesel shouted, “Enter!”
Bubba Thorne and the pale bounty hunter, Luther Boudreaux, came in and seated themselves at the table.
Diesel nodded at the two. “I asked Bubba and Luther to join us to help hunt down our final prisoner.” He passed Luther, who sat closest to him, the note left on Valene’s door. “It goes without saying that my sister’s abduction changes things. I want to ensure she isn’t caught in any crossfire. We don’t exactly know what Indigo Smith is prepared to do, but I’m certain that he will be very resistant to our plan to capture, shackle and ensure he’s headed for that gulag as soon as possible.”
Bubba asked, “What happened to your sister?”
“Our final prisoner has abducted her and left a note that he wants to meet tonight.”
Luther grimaced as he read the note and handed it to Bubba. Diesel played the video clip from the convenience store on the smart board.
“Does your sister know this man?” Luther asked. “Her body language seems to indicate she’s familiar with him.”
“Not to my knowledge,” Diesel said at the same time Wyatt said, “Of course she doesn’t know him.”
“You’re the boyfriend,” Luther said matter-of-factly.
“Fiancé,” Wyatt corrected.
“Right. Sorry. And you’re certain she’s never met him before?”
“Fairly certain. Yes.”
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
Luther looked around the table. Everyone was staring at him. Wyatt tried not to glare, but it wasn’t easy.
“I’m a bounty hunter by trade and I’ve spent quite a bit of time studying the body language of Alphas, other humanoids and a whole range of creatures while waiting to capture my prey to bring them to justice. Your sister’s body language is classic for not only knowing this man, but trusting him.”
“How can that be?” Wyatt asked, feeling rather surly that Valene was in fact looking at the handsome criminal much like she looked at him. “Even if Indigo Smith met with her as he popped out of his cryo-tube thing, she wouldn’t trust him as far as she could throw him in only a day and a half.”
No one said anything.
Wyatt searched his mind for any possible explanation. “Wait. What if she’s been shackled?”
“What?” Diesel and Cam said at the same time.
“What if Indigo Smith found a way to shackle her? What if she’s only going along with him because she has to? Because she’s been made to. Because her will is not her own. Sort of like Daphne Charlene seemed to be when she was here.”
Every face at the table registered horror as they considered the implications of that scenario.
“Space potatoes.” Cam said the words like a curse and stood up. Wyatt didn’t know what space potatoes were, but assumed the phrase was like alien swearing. The look in Cam’s eyes bordered on panic.
Axel shook his head. “Shackle stickers aren’t available to just anyone.” But Valene’s brother didn’t sound very confident of that.
Bubba and Luther looked at each other as if they’d solved a mystery. Bubba said, “But they are now standard issue on any and all gulag transports, are they not? If there is a dirty Royal Magistrate Guardsman involved, and we don’t know that for certain yet, perhaps it would be prudent to check the prison ship’s inventory.”
“Regardless of why Valene is with him and even if her being shackled makes a lot of sense, we still don’t know what he wants in trade, do we?” Wheeler asked.
Wyatt stood. “Wait. Could it be the new ID Daphne Charlene was going to get her new friend Rowan because his house burned down?”
Diesel snapped his fingers. “That is a distinct possibility. What else could it be? But I’m not sure how he plans to get away even with a fake ID. We’d still all know and be able to look for him, right?”
Cam said, “The truth is we don’t know exactly what Indigo Smith is capable of. He’s managed to escape every single time he’s been captured, including this time. He’s rumored to be a genius across several fields of study. I doubted that, but not anymore.”
“What’s our best plan of action?” Bubba asked.
“We’ll have to get the ID from Daphne Charlene, right?” Wyatt asked the obvious question and everyone nodded. “We have to take the fake ID to the bauxite pit and trade it for Valene.”
“We should also thoroughly search Daphne Charlene’s place, if that’s where Mr. Smith has been hiding all this time right under our noses,” Cam added. “Maybe he left behind a clue as to his next earthly destination.”
Diesel rolled his eyes. “Don’t get your hopes up, but yeah, let’s all of us head over there and take a look.”
“Will she be awake from her memory wipe?” Wyatt asked. He needed to bear up if he had to pretend to like her again. “Also, how much of her memory was zapped?”
“Only to the day before the gulag ship arrived to erase her memories of Rowan a.k.a. Indigo,” Gage answered.
“Did anyone ever find a guard named Rowan registered on the ship?” Cam asked.
Diesel shook his head. “Not yet. I checked. No Rowan or any name even close to it on the gulag manifest for either guards or prisoners. Probably a fake name he came up with.”
“Note to self, Rowan is another alias of Indigo Smith,” Bubba said.
“Great. What are we doing?” Wyatt tried not to sound so impatient, but he was vibrating with the urgency to go find Valene, rescue her and put his fist into Mr. Flirty’s face. “Because if nobody has a good plan beyond wrestling the ID from Daphne Charlene and meeting this infamous prisoner later on his schedule, I’m going to go stake out the bauxite pit’s lovers’ lane until he shows up with Valene and take him out before the trade even takes place.”
“How?”
“I’m going to take my shiny new alien purple goo splatter gun and put a pellet in the center of his white toothy grin.”
“Admirable,” Diesel said. “But only if he doesn’t use our sister as a shield.”
“Of course not.” Wyatt would never aim a gun near Valene.
“You should go to Daphne Charlene’s and get the ID, if it’s there. Maybe you’ll find more information as well,” Nova said. “Wyatt here will be able to get any and all information from her. She adores him.”
Wyatt sighed deeply. “Lucky me.”
Diesel’s phone buzzed again. He ignored it. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Gage, Wheeler, Jack and Nova go see if you can figure out how Mr. Smith escaped the gulag ship and if any of the guards or anyone else helped him. Also check the shackle sticker inventory there. Tear the ship down to the metal plating if you have to.
“Bubba, you and Luther join Cam, Wyatt, Axel and me. We’ll go search Daphne Charlene’s place for the fake ID and any other clues as to what Mr. Smith is planning.” He checked his phone for the time. “We’ll all meet back here in three hours to figure out what we’re going to do at the meeting to trade for Valene.”
Wyatt knew what he was going to do, as long as they allowed him access to that goo splatter gun. Pow! A purple pellet planted right between that criminal’s big stupid front teeth.
Chapter Twelve
<^> <^> <^>
Valene stirred awake slowly after what seemed like a troubled sleep. Her head ached and she couldn’t remember where she was or what time it was or even what day it was.
Am I sick?
“Valene,” a hauntingly familiar voice said.
Her eyes opened and she saw him. He smiled at her. Then she remembered…a little.
<^> <^> <^>
Wyatt’s spine stiffened as he knocked on Daphne Charlene’s door. Don’t forget to be nice. Don’t forget to be nice.
She answered after keeping him waiting for ex
cruciatingly long seconds. She looked like she’d just woken from a long, unexpected nap. The moment she saw him, she perked up. “Wyatt! What are you doing here?” She opened the door wider and motioned him inside. He pulled the screen open, and stepped across her threshold, purposely leaving the front door open.
“I was in the neighborhood and wondered if you were free for lunch.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“What about Valene?”
“Didn’t work out,” he lied again.
Wyatt didn’t know what was going to happen between him and Valene ultimately. He did know it was very difficult to pretend any interest in Daphne Charlene when he was worried sick about Valene.
Was she hurt? Was she afraid? Did she miss him? His blood pressure rose at the mere thought of anything negative with regard to his love, so he tried to settle his mind as another thought occurred. Valene didn’t even know he’d been proven innocent of tattling about aliens living in plain sight or the lie about what happened in his kitchen last night. Yet.
Wyatt looked around the living room, wondering where Daphne Charlene would keep a fake ID for a friend and also how to ask her to reveal it.
Across the room, he spotted a small open rolltop desk with rows of cubbies and little doors. Centered on the open surface was a brown paper-wrapped package. “Is that a package you received or one you’re sending,” he asked, pointing to the parcel. Was it the infamous ID they were supposed to trade tonight?
She turned to see where he pointed and made a face, like the package puzzled her. “I’m not sure.” She walked to the desk as Wyatt followed, motioning with a deft hand behind his back for the others to enter quietly.
Daphne Charlene looked down at the package and frowned. “I’ve never seen this before.”
In the center was the name Rowan. “The return address is yours,” Wyatt said, running his finger over it. “Who is Rowan?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was delivered to me by accident.”
Before he could stop her, she picked it up and shook it like a Christmas present and she was a kid trying to discover the treasure inside.
Wyatt didn’t think that was a very good idea and pulled the box from her, placing it gently back on the desk. “Don’t do that to a strange package.” She shrugged and moved closer to him.
He pulled his trusty pocketknife out and slit the loosely applied paper off one end to slide a shoebox out.
“Wait. That’s my shoebox.”
Wyatt carefully lifted the lid to peek inside. There were no shoes in there.
He felt rather than heard the others approach.
“What’s inside the box?” Diesel asked.
Daphne Charlene shrieked in surprise as she saw five more men had entered her living room. “What are you all doing here?”
Wyatt tilted the open shoebox toward Diesel so he could see the megaphone inside, or rather the alien Defender. Indigo Smith obviously planned to shoot any humans along his getaway path in order to escape. He sure was resourceful to have gotten not only shackle stickers but also a Defender. Perhaps there really was some guard involved.
Daphne Charlene reached inside the shoebox before Wyatt could stop her and grabbed the device. If she pulled the trigger, they’d both be on the ground for an undetermined length of time.
“It’s just a mini megaphone,” she said, and pulled the trigger before Wyatt could stop her.
Wyatt’s eyes slammed shut and he braced himself to fall to the ground like last time in Cam’s office. He heard the thud as something heavy hit the ground, but after a count of three, was surprised to find he remained on his feet.
“That’s odd,” Daphne Charlene said. “Why did they all fall to the ground in a faint?”
His eyes popped open to see Diesel, Cam, Axel and Bubba on the ground like human dominoes, or rather alien. Luther was still on his feet, but had drawn his Defender.
“How are you not on the ground?” Wyatt asked.
“I’m from a different…” His gaze went to Daphne Charlene. “Uhm…country than they are.”
“Did I kill them?” Daphne Charlene’s voice was shrill. “I didn’t mean to kill them,” she said, waving the altered Defender around.
Luther raised his weapon and pointed it at Daphne Charlene.
“Wait.” Wyatt put a hand up to stop Luther. “I’ve got this.”
Wyatt calmed Daphne Charlene and convinced her it would be a good idea to lie down and rest in her bedroom. Once he accompanied her there, he insisted she hadn’t killed anyone as he carefully pried the Defender from her fingers.
By the time he returned to the living room, Luther had dropped to one knee to check that Diesel, Axel, Cam and Bubba were still breathing. He gave Wyatt a thumbs-up.
Wyatt put the obviously altered Defender back in the shoebox and put the lid on it securely. Turning back to the desk, he studied all the little square cubbies until he found the ID.
Yanking a laminated card from the lowest left-hand cubby, Wyatt studied it. It was an Arkansas driver’s license with an Indigo Smith picture, sporting his natural dark hair and blue eyes.
He held the card up and read, “Dane Gareth Asher.”
Luther said, “Well, at least we have what Indigo wants to trade for Valene.”
Wyatt was about to ask what they should do about the four Alphas crumpled on Daphne Charlene’s living room carpet when Bubba coughed and sat up. “What in the space potato farm just happened to me?”
Wyatt lifted the shoebox. “Looks like our celebrity prisoner altered the technology in a stolen Defender and made it work on Alphas.”
“That’s unexpected. And terrible.” Bubba rubbed his temples with both hands. “The abominable headache side effect isn’t very sporting, either.”
Diesel and Cam soon roused with the same aching heads and horrified attitude over what Indigo Smith had apparently accomplished.
Axel was last to wake up. He groaned. “Who hit me in the head with the freight train?” Bubba helped him to his feet, but the big Guardsman and Valene’s brothers all looked like the before picture on a pain relief commercial.
Wyatt held up the ID. “This is the ID Daphne Charlene somehow found for him.” He held up the shoebox. “And this is the altered Defender.”
“Where’s Daphne Charlene?” Diesel asked.
“She was freaking out because she thought she killed you all so I put her in her bedroom to rest. She fell asleep the moment she was horizontal.”
“A symptom of the other mind wipe we did, probably.” Cam sighed. “We’ll have to blast her with the Defender again to cover the time we were here.”
“It won’t hurt her, will it?” Wyatt asked. He didn’t see the need to punish her unduly.
“No. Unlike the reverse-engineered Defender used on us, it doesn’t cause splitting headaches,” Cam assured him. “It will make her sleepy, though.”
Wyatt nodded. “Well, she’s already asleep, so it won’t change anything.”
Bubba had the shoebox with the Defender opened up and was looking at it. “He really is a diabolical genius, isn’t he?”
“I’m afraid to ask, but how long were we out?” Cam asked, adjusting the setting on his Defender.
“Only a couple of minutes.”
“How long have we been here in total?” he asked as he fiddled with the dial on his Defender.
“Eleven minutes,” Bubba said, checking his digital wristwatch.
Cam finished making the adjustments on his Defender, and headed for Daphne Charlene’s bedroom door.
“Now what?” Wyatt asked when they were all back in Diesel’s vehicle, headed to the Big Bang Truck Stop.
“We have just over five hours before the meeting. We should spend our time discussing our plans for later tonight.”
“Plans?” Cam asked.
“Given the wily nature of our escaped celebrity prisoner and his recently discovered abilities, we need more than one plan in place. We not only need a primary pla
n, we need several backup plans, too.”
Nova greeted them at the basement door as they all walked inside.
“Don’t tell me you have more bad news,” Diesel said.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry, bad news is the only thing we’re selling these days.”
“What is it?”
“The head of the United Galactic Gulag has left three messages already. It seems there are some nervous leaders on Alpha-Prime who have tasked him with providing an update ensuring that the gulag ship docked here—with the most infamous criminal ever caught hibernating on board—will leave on time tomorrow morning without incident. Additionally, he’d love to have some sort of proof, like a picture or, better yet, a short video of Indigo Smith sound asleep in his cryo-pod.”
Chapter Thirteen
<^> <^> <^>
Valene opened her eyes and sat up in a strange bed. She searched the elegantly appointed room for a clue as to where she was and why she was here. Everything in the room was of high quality and looked expensive. But nothing was familiar. Perhaps her brain had not caught up to the party just yet. Maybe she needed a coffee or another glass of sweet tea.
She remembered Aunt Dixie cutting her off after ordering the third large Mason jar full of her favorite beverage at the Cosmos Café, insisting she’d be up all night going to the bathroom. Valene chuckled to herself for two seconds until the urge to pee made her stand up and search for a bathroom. She saw three doors on three different walls of the generously sized room. The first choice and closest was the bathroom she gratefully sought.
Back in the bedroom a few minutes later, she checked the second door and found an empty walk-in closet the size of a small bedroom. Nice. The third door on the other side of the room turned out to be locked.
She rattled the handle and pounded on the surface of the door, shouting for someone to let her out.
No such luck.
She wandered around the luxurious room, noting sunlight spilling through the three narrow windows high up on one wall. They looked like the kind of windows sometimes put in basements, but this room didn’t feel like it was in a basement. It was lovely.