Stuart smelled the sweat. The sand and urine. Heat rolled over him in waves, sending sweat streaming down his face. Do it. Kill me. They’d sat in that cell talking for days. Weeks, even. Until they’d lost track of time. Lost their minds through all the torture. Innocents paraded through the cell. Beheaded in front of them.
We were sold out.
And now Brad had done the same? No. Stuart couldn’t believe it.
Kaylee cried out.
Stuart stood. They were in the hall. He raced after them, realizing that he’d lost valuable time by being stuck in his head and the trauma that still lived there. Maybe only a minute, but it could have cost Kaylee her life. Whether Brad had sold her out, or not, didn’t matter when she was in their clutches. He couldn’t let them take her. The things they’d put him through were so much like special forces training in the military—but without the boundaries.
Kaylee wasn’t going to be an asset for their use. Not in any way, shape, or form. Most of which threatened to send him back into his mind. Sucked down by his trauma, and so many things he’d seen. No, he wouldn’t allow it.
She would never survive it if he did.
Stuart raced to the hall and saw their group exit. If he was Basuto, the ambush would happen outside, where they would be surrounded. He’d give them no chance for Edmond to take hostages. Or barricade himself inside.
Edmond shoved Kaylee into Ted’s office. “Get the flash drive.”
Trina shifted. She looked at the sniper who’d shot Conroy. The whole group was a motley crew of people who didn’t trust each other. They’d probably start shooting each other at the first sign of dissension.
Stuart stayed out of sight.
“I found it,” Kaylee called out. She stepped back into the hall and held it out. Just before Edmond could grab it, she pulled her hand back. “You don’t need me. You can turn this over to your boss and tell them I’m dead. That Stuart is dead.”
“Doesn’t work that way.”
“But it can,” she pleaded. “You don’t have to take me with you.”
“If I don’t, someone will come back to check that you’re dead. My career will be over. The next operation my team goes on will be a suicide mission. After that, you think you’ll be left alone? They’ll never stop coming for you. For Stuart. No one but me knows the deal Brad made, so he’ll be dead too.” Edmond paused. “Is that what you want?”
He snatched the flash drive from her hand and shoved it into his pocket, then moved her to the door. “Go.”
Stuart had no idea if the flash drive he had was the right one or if the one she’d given Edmond was. Maybe both. Had Ted made multiple copies? Was Kaylee only stringing him along, hoping she had the right thing, and making it so Edmond took her and they left town?
Surely, he’d try and take Stuart with him. He’d find out those men of his failed and come again.
Never stop coming.
Stuart fought the pull of his mind. That long tunnel led to madness. He focused on their figures in front of him. Reality. Truth. Real time events, not memories he could barely trust.
Trina glanced at the sniper. “I go out next. You’re the last one.”
Stuart figured that was a bad choice, unless she’d prefer to be shot in the back by a man who didn’t know her and probably considered her dead weight.
The sniper shrugged. “Whatever.”
All of them had weapons, Trina and the sniper had handguns, and Edmond his semi-automatic. Kaylee moved out. Then Edmond and Trina. When the last man took a step, Stuart let out a low whistle.
The man spun, gun raised.
Stuart shot him in the chest.
Trina screamed. Or Kaylee. Or both of them. A commotion erupted outside. “Police! Put your weapon down! Put it down! Drop your gun!”
The answering gunfire was deafening. A steady rat-tat of bullets spent from multiple magazines. Not just Edmond and Trina. This was a bigger group. The cops had opened fire? Or someone else?
Stuart raced to the door. He peered out. A bullet sang past his face, and he ducked back inside. It was chaos out there.
He crouched and looked again. Another round smacked the door frame where he’d been standing. Stuart looked for Kaylee in the sea of people.
Cops in full gear.
Zander and his men.
Edmond’s guys. Team members Stuart hadn’t even seen yet. They were like ants. Or rabbits that just kept multiplying.
There.
Stuart raced toward her. Basuto did the same, and they nearly collided as they chased after Edmond and Kaylee. Trina’s lifeless body fell in front of him.
Stuart hurdled over it.
“Kaylee!”
Edmond spun, gun up and already firing. Kaylee shoved him. The shot went wide and Basuto cried out, stumbled, then went down.
Kaylee screamed.
Edmond fired again. This time it was Stuart who stumbled. Beyond them, another helicopter—or the same one—landed on a grassy clearing.
Pain shot through his torso. Stuart’s legs gave out, and he fell to the ground.
Kaylee screamed.
Everything went black.
Thirty-two
Edmond grabbed her around the waist, his arm banding across her stomach. He dragged her back to the waiting helicopter while the gunfight continued around them. Cops versus bad guys versus Zander and his team guys.
Tears streamed down, leaving muddy tracks on her face. Kaylee wanted to scream again, but he was compressing her diaphragm and cutting off her air.
Stuart didn’t get up. Sergeant Basuto rolled on the ground, moaning.
All she heard was her breath and a rush of air in her ears. Not any more gunshots, even though they kept going off.
Tate lifted and fired a shot at Trina that had her yelping and stumbling. No one helped her back up, though she managed to get back on her feet and keep up with them.
Kaylee’s world darkened. She tried to get air.
He jerked her against him, adjusting her grip. She sucked in a lungful and screamed. She went limp. If she could be dead weight in his hold, then surely he would drop her. But there was just too much fight in her. So Kaylee screamed, kicked, and fought against his hold. Determined to make as much noise as possible. Cause him as much hassle as possible. Get him to drop her.
Leave her here.
But his grip around her waist only tightened. And then she was tossed in the helicopter. Kaylee’s hip slammed onto the floor of the aircraft, and her foot jammed against the open door as others climbed in. She cried out as her ankle was bent unnaturally.
“Shut up!” Trina slapped her across the face.
Kaylee’s injured nose flashed with a pain that made everything swim. She felt the helicopter lift off the ground and screamed again.
“Someone shut her up.”
She focused on Trina’s face. Why did her friend sound like she had any authority here? They’d found Trina in the holding cells. The sniper who shot Conroy—the one Trina had killed—had said she made a deal. How would that hold up now, now that the guy was dead?
A ping hit the chopper, and it lost a few feet in altitude. Warning alarms screeched. Kaylee held her breath, along with everyone else. Would they be shot down?
But the pilots got it back under control. The screaming alarms shut off, and they kept climbing up as the engines roared, taking Kaylee farther and farther away from her home. Her friends. The family she had made.
Just days ago, she’d been riding her bike through town. Doing her brother a favor, keeping that flash drive safe. Now she was in a helicopter. Kidnapped, again.
“Can this thing go any faster?”
Edmond pointed a gun at Trina. “Shut your mouth. Your place here isn’t secure, and you have yet to prove your worth.”
Trina’s hand whipped up. Nope, it was both hands, moving at a pace so fast they looked like just one hand. In a split second, Trina had managed to confiscate Edmond’s gun and was now holding it in her hands.
&n
bsp; He slammed a knife into her thigh.
Trina screamed.
He took his gun back. “Like I said. Not secure.” He sat back in his seat.
“Yet.” She gasped, pressing both hands into her leg.
“You killed one of my men. That’s going to cost me. So, you’d better provide restitution for that.” Edmond pulled a gauze packet out of the First Aid kit one of the other men was using and tossed it at her.
Kaylee sat up. She tore the gauze pad open and gave it to Trina, shooting Edmond a look. “You’re all insane. This whole situation is insane.”
She couldn’t believe what was happening. After everything that had happened already she was in a helicopter? All because her brother sent her that package. These people had been watching her, trying to get their information back. Why take her too? They didn’t need her. And why had they left Stuart?
Because they hadn’t been able to grab him in the confusion of the gunfight? Did that mean they would return later to get him? Any surprise they’d relied on before would now be gone. Stuart would be expecting them. Looking over his shoulder all the time. Waiting for Edmond to jump out and attack.
Or Stuart would gear up and mount an offensive.
You’ve read too many crazy stories. She’d suffered some kind of mental breakdown. Maybe years ago. This probably wasn’t even real and she was actually in a mental institution, on medication, having a delusion that felt so real she was convinced it was real life. Would she wake up? Kaylee didn’t know which she would prefer.
At least if this wasn’t her life, then she was in a place where she was protected, under supervised professional care. There were medical professionals, psychologists, and doctors who cared. Their work was more than a job, it was a mission. People like Dean who believed in what they did. Kaylee wanted to see one of those. They would be able to help her break free of this crazy scenario where gunmen kidnapped her, Trina betrayed her to become one of them, and she was riding in a helicopter. Because there was no way this was really happening. Right?
“I’m exactly who they made me to be. If that means I’m crazy?” Edmond shrugged.
They had to shout to hear each other in the helicopter, but it was satisfying to yell. Kaylee said, “I’m on a rollercoaster I never signed up for, and I want to get off.”
He flashed his teeth and she was pretty sure he was laughing at her, but she couldn’t hear it.
“Where are we going?”
Trina was the one who answered. Through gritted teeth, she said, “To their base, or whatever. For training.”
Kaylee moved closer to her former friend. “You really want to be one of them?”
Wait—what did she just say—raining? What did that even mean? She didn’t want anything to do with this place, even though her former friend seemed to be jumping at the chance to sign on.
Who even were these people?
She’d thought Stuart was some kind of CIA agent, but they seemed more like off-book people with no fingerprints and no names. The kind who did anything just for money.
Like her brother.
Or Stuart.
No. She knew the kind of men they were, and it was in no way this.
And Trina? Never mind who her father had been. A bank manager who was a criminal hiding in plain sight, someone who used others for his entertainment and destroyed lives in some relentless search for satisfaction. That kind of thing was as powerful as a drug. The high of controlling someone who had no choice but to do what he said.
Kaylee’s whole body shuddered. She could see that now. He’d bred that need in Trina, taught her to take charge and go for control in any situation. She suddenly recalled even the way Trina had to be the one to decide which restaurant they would eat at every time the two of them went out. And Kaylee hadn’t even noticed. Or maybe she just hadn’t cared enough to object when Trina’s personality was the more dominant one. Kaylee just wanted to spend time with her friend instead of arguing about where they would go.
“Uh…yeah, I want to join.” Trina shook her head, like that should’ve been obvious. “I’ve been training for this my whole life. An opportunity like this? I’m not going to pass up the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”
“You’re insane. All of this is insane.” She tried to lean back, but there was nowhere to go that wasn’t occupied by a sweaty, grimy body smelling like gunpowder. “I’m in a nightmare, and I can’t wake up.”
Trina laughed. Out the window, mountains passed. Edmond had taken her and Trina and the flash drive she’d given him, and now they were just leaving? To where?
“This is a nightmare.” Yes, she was repeating herself. “I’m crazy,” she muttered. “I may as well start acting like it.”
Maybe they would decide she wasn’t worth it, and they’d leave her here. Somewhere. Anywhere. Drop her off and abandon her.
Why do they want me anyway? She could make no sense of it in her brain.
She watched him pull out the flash drive then, turning it over and over in his hand. Please let there be nothing on it worth anything. That would be satisfying.
She prayed for Stuart while tears rolled down her face. Her nose was stuffed up, which made her face hurt even worse. Kaylee wanted to collapse to the floor of the helicopter and dissolve into a puddle of emotion.
This whole thing had been the worst experience of her life. If being locked up in a facility for people who needed psychological treatment sounded more pleasant than her present circumstances, then that was saying something. Trapped. No control. Kaylee desperately missed the everyday freedoms she now knew she’d taken for granted. Riding her bike, the wind in her hair. Reading a book in the sunshine.
These weren’t going to happen again anytime soon.
Maybe even never again.
The helicopter began to descend, landing on the driveway—a private runway, perhaps—of what looked like a huge ranch house. An airplane was at the end, closest to the house. When they neared it, Kaylee realized the engines were already running. The heat wafted toward the buildings and a small red crop duster that was parked to the side, leaving scorch marks on everything.
Her hair ruffled across her face as she glanced back, looking at Trina. Still unable to process that this person sitting across from her was a completely different person than she had thought she was. Trina looked nervous but, in a twisted way, also excited. Her dad was dead. Did she even know that? She appeared to be satisfied, as if she was holding everything she had ever wanted and bargained for in her hands,
Kaylee wanted to be sick.
Aside from that, her only goals were to stay alive and get away from these people. But at what cost? Would they shoot her? Did she have the courage to find a way to kill herself before they could load her on that plane? Would Stuart jump out from behind cover half a second after her last breath? That would be devastating to be robbed of a proper goodbye.
Kaylee didn’t think she should risk it when she was sure that Stuart would come through and try to rescue her.
Unless he was dead.
She let out a sob. Edmond shoved her forward. “Why are you doing this? I’m nothing to you, or the people you work for.” She gasped for breath. “What do they want with me when you left Brad back in the hospital? And why not Stuart? Why am I the one you’re taking?”
Surely there was a reason. There just had to be, or none of this made any sense—and that would be a waste of time and resources. No one with any intelligence ran a business like that.
“Just get on the plane.”
“No. Tell me why you’re taking me when you can’t be sure that drive doesn’t contain a leak.” She wanted to wipe her cheeks, but that would be a bad idea. The pain in her nose was still hard to deal with. “Stuart and Brad are still out there. You’ve hardly done your due diligence, and I’ll tell everyone you work for that you left loose ends.”
“Stuart is dead.” He shoved her toward the airplane steps. “There can be any number of copies of this flash drive out th
ere, but now that we have one, we can scrub the others from existence as soon as they show up on any network.” Shove. “Anywhere.” Shove.
She stumbled, spun around, and screamed, “Stop pushing me!”
“I knew your mother’s fire was in there somewhere.”
She choked on her gasp.
“Stuart needed to believe this was all about him. If he’s not dead already, he’s destroyed knowing you’re in our hands now. He’ll never find you. And he can never stop what’s about to happen.” He led her up the steps and onto the plane. “This is the best result the boss could’ve hoped for and I have plenty to show for it. That will cover my losses. The main thing is that the mess your family made is now set right.”
“My family?” She whispered the words.
“Y’all were always trouble for us. But that’s done now.” He clapped his hands together and brushed them off. “Problem solved.”
Thirty-three
Stuart took the piece of surgical tape from Zander and pressed it on the bandage to hold the edges down. “Thanks.” He hissed the word out between clenched teeth.
“You nearly died.”
And yet, Zander didn’t have a scratch on him.
“Talk to me.”
The big man folded his arms. “Alex is in the hospital.”
He blinked. “Who?”
“Sergeant Basuto.” Zander continued, “Mia left Conroy’s bedside to take charge at the police station. Detective Wilcox is at the murder scene working Silas Nigelson’s death, and his life—at least what we can ascertain from the evidence found inside the building.”
Stuart winced. “Not a job I’d want. There’s probably a whole lot of DNA evidence all over that place.”
“Yeah.” Zander sighed. “Anyway, Ted is with Wilcox, processing everything, running down all the details. Making sure the prostitution operation either died with him or they can ID those involved. But he’s certain now that Silas Nigelson was in that photo they have of the soldiers. The one from Vietnam, you know?”
Stuart nodded, since he’d heard about it from Dean and Ellie.
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