Crossfire Christmas

by Julie Miller

  Shaking off the fogginess in his head, he pulled off the next exit ramp and drove through some cookie-cutter neighborhood mecca. The front yards were dotted with wire reindeer and giant inflatable lawn ornaments. The snow and suburbia were as foreign to him as the need to find an ally who could help him.

  He blinked away the frost forming on his eyelashes as his brain skipped from one random thought to the next. It was freaking cold here in Missouri; he had no driver’s-side window to roll up and he’d lost his hat. He loved that hat. It was a sentimental homage to the boys ranch where he’d lived and worked and gone to school after his parents’ deaths at the hands of a pair of drugged-up teenagers who’d invaded their home. Nash had grown up and taken a job with the DEA to combat the flow of drugs into Texas and other parts of the U.S., to stop another tragedy like his parents’ murders, to help troubled kids like he’d been find a healthier way to deal with the crap life threw at them.

  He usually oversaw or handled undercover operations where an agent infiltrated a gang or cartel or independent meth lab to gather information to stop the drugs being made, trafficked or sold. But two of his agents had been exposed as cops and killed. So he’d gone undercover himself to find out how and why and who and had ended up with too many suspects and too little concrete evidence.

  Somehow, Berto Graciela had found out he was a cop, too.

  He was driving in circles.

  Tommy Delvecchio was dead.

  “Ah, hell.” A moment of painful clarity put the brakes on Nash’s rambling thoughts.

  He’d come to Kansas City with one desperate plan in mind. Without knowing who’d betrayed him in Houston, he’d gone elsewhere to find a sanctuary where he could lie low long enough to safely figure out his next move.

  He reconsidered calling Jake Lonergan, who’d left the DEA due to a nearly fatal head injury that had robbed him of his memory. Jake probably didn’t want any part of the violence chasing Nash to enter his happily-ever-after life. But, sitting in a pool of his own blood and panting for nearly every breath, Nash knew his luck was running out. It might cost him a friendship, but Jake was all he had left.

  Taking his hand off the reloaded gun at his side, Nash brushed the snow off his lap at the next stoplight and reached inside the bag Tommy had brought him to pull out the untraceable phone. Even that subtle shift in his seat renewed the pain like a stab in the back. Thug One had winged him in the leg, creating a discomfort he could simply throw a bandage over. But Thug Three had got him good. He still couldn’t tell if the bullet had gone through or if it was lodged inside him somewhere. All he knew was that he was hurt. He was bleeding. And he wasn’t going to get any better on his own.

  The light changed. A horn honked behind him before Nash stepped on the accelerator and moved along with the traffic past a busy shopping mall and a modern hospital. He debated whether or not to turn off into the hospital’s E.R. But if the men after him were smart—and clearly they were or they wouldn’t have tracked him to K.C.—they’d be checking E.R.s across the city looking for him. Besides, a gunshot victim showing up in a hospital was an automatic call to the local police and a subsequent alert to the DEA office in Houston. That was the kind of publicity he didn’t need. Until he knew who had set him up, trusting anyone, even a cop, wasn’t a good idea.

  When he reached the next crossroads, Nash spotted a narrow two-lane road leading away from the suburbs and turned. He needed to get someplace without all these cars and people—someplace where he could put the first-aid kit in his bag to good use without anyone trying to help him or ask any questions. He needed a place where he could pull off and make sense of the dancing letters and numerals on his phone as he tried to recall Jake Lonergan’s number, which had been programmed into the phone he didn’t want to reactivate.

  The truck wheels spun on a patch of snow-packed road and he dropped his phone to grab the wheel and keep the big Ford from skidding across the asphalt. Coming from Houston, he wasn’t used to driving in weather like this. Of course, if the world outside his cracked windshield hadn’t been such a blur, and he hadn’t been shivering from the icy wind blowing in through his busted window, he might have been able to handle the treacherous stretch of winding road he’d pulled off onto.

  But he was hurt. He was bleeding. He was cold.

  When he crested the hill and hit the next patch of black ice, Mother Nature finally did what a half dozen thugs in two different cities hadn’t been able to do.

  She took him out.

  Nash’s truck sailed off the shoulder of the road and plowed into the ditch. It careened up the other side and slammed into a tree. A wave of snow flew over the truck as he banged his head against something hard and blacked out.

  * * *

  TERESA DRUMMED HER gloved fingers against the steering wheel and hummed along with the Christmas music on the radio while she waited at the stoplight.

  She tilted her gaze up to the big flakes of snow drifting from the charcoal sky into the light from the streetlamps. “See, Emilia?” She taunted the invisible big sister she felt arching a warning eyebrow over her shoulder. “Shopping’s done. Traffic’s fine and I’m on my way home with nary a problem whatsoever. And I did it all by my little lonesome.”

  Not like a couple hours of defiant refusal to heed Emilia’s warning and go straight home in the nasty weather could really quell the nagging, indulgent voices of her siblings in her head.

  You’re so good with children, but if you want any of your own, you’ll have to get serious about a man first. I’d already had Olivia and Maria by the time I was your age. A girl can’t wait forever.

  But she could wait for the right one.

  My husband has a friend I want to introduce you to. He has a good job at the college business office and he’s stable.

  Dullsville. Sounded like another overprotective trap in the making.

  You should move closer to us. They’re building new condos across the street. And it’s a better neighborhood.

  She liked her apartment—had it decorated just the way she wanted. The neighborhood might not be prime real estate, but there were some good people living in her building. Besides, big brother AJ had taught each of his sisters, wife and nieces the basics of self-defense and personal safety. She could take care of herself.

  I don’t want you driving without an emergency kit in your car, especially in winter. Flashlight? Jumper cables? Kitty litter? Make an appointment to get the tires rotated, too.

  Done, done and done. Even before AJ, Emilia, Luisa or Ana had all mentioned reminders about winter driving safety to her.

  Just because she longed for her family’s respect for her choices and a little bit of independence in her life, didn’t mean she was a naive fool. An optimist, yes. A resourceful go-getter. A hopeless holiday lover. But not a fool.

  “Why can’t they see that?”

  The light turned green, and Teresa cranked up the radio, turning her thoughts to something more pleasant. Like sugar cookies. And wrapping gifts.

  She drove through the intersection after the cars ahead of her turned off toward the highway, and she continued on to the back-road shortcut to her neighborhood. The busy roads and businesses open late for holiday shopping gave way to country homes on hilly acreages. Then civilization thinned out to a recycling center and a shooting range. Finally, she was winding through woods and farmland. She’d pass through about two miles of bare trees reaching up like dark, gnarled fingers in the foggy twilight and pretty hillsides of undisturbed snow.

  Although the twisting road was more dangerous than the straight lanes of bypasses and city streets, she loved this drive, especially in the winter. When the stars were out and the moon was full, it could be as bright as all the holiday lights on the Plaza. And on cold, damp evenings like this, with big flakes of snow swirling in and out of the shadows, it conjured up images of gothic ro
mance, with mysterious heroes, hidden castles and storm-swept moors.

  Teresa was imagining a castle hidden behind the frosted branches of the trees when she crested the hill and saw the tire tracks cutting through the snow at the side of the road. Automatically, she pumped her brakes and slowed, peering over the edge of the blacktop.

  “Oh, my God.”

  A silent alarm tightened her grip around the steering wheel. She braked again and pulled onto the shoulder for a closer look, angling her headlights toward the trees.

  The tracks ran down into the ditch and up the next incline, leading to a black pickup truck that had finally been stopped short by the trunk of an old pine.

  The truck’s lights were on. The plume of exhaust making a black spot in the churned-up snow meant the engine was still running. The accident was recent. Or else the driver wasn’t able to turn off the motor....

  Gamberro is your middle name. Despite her sister’s teasing, Teresa didn’t believe she caused that much difficulty or misfortune. But she wasn’t about to walk away from trouble like this when there was something she could do to help.

  Teresa clicked on her hazard lights and pulled her cell phone from her pocket. She glanced ahead at the dark road. She checked the pavement behind her in her mirrors—equally dark. A curtain of falling snow seemed to mask her and the accident below from the rest of the world.

  Had the driver called for help yet? Was he or she even able to call?

  Taking a deep breath, Teresa pulled the hood of her parka up over her dark hair and unbuckled her seat belt. She pulled out the flashlight AJ had insisted she keep in her glove compartment and braced herself for the blast of winter outside. Deciding to leave the engine and heater running in case the driver was able to move and needed a warm place to sit and wait for a tow truck, she climbed out and circled to the front of her car.

  Dots of blowing snow melted on her cheeks and nose and obscured her vision as she huddled inside her coat.

  “Hello?” Her shout was swallowed up by the cold, damp air. Her flashlight was too small to pierce the gloom at this distance. “Is anyone in the truck?”

  Her sigh formed a puffy cloud in the air. The snow was knee-deep for a woman who was only five-three. And even though she’d changed from her work clogs to wool-lined ankle boots, she knew they wouldn’t be tall enough to get her past that first drift where the road crew had piled snow when they’d scraped the road.

  “What’s a little wet and cold, anyway?” she dared herself, tightening her scarf against the biting wind.

  She punched in 911, put the phone to her ear and plunged into the shallowest part of the drift. By the third step, she was sinking in up to her thighs, and the snow quickly chilled her through the scrubs and long underwear she wore. When she lifted each foot, she scooped the icy crystals into her boots, where they melted, wetting her socks and freezing her skin.

  The dispatch operator answered. “This is 911. What is the nature of your emergency?”

  “I need to report a vehicle off in the ditch by... Oh, heck.” Teresa glanced back up the hill. Since she’d been daydreaming, she had no idea how far she’d come or how close she was to reaching the nearest subdivision. “I’m somewhere along old Lee’s Summit Road—between the medical center and 40 Highway. On the east side.”

  “Are you in the vehicle?”

  “No, I just drove up on the accident.” She broke through the snow at the bottom of the ditch and stepped into ankle-deep slush that soaked her to the skin in icy water. Her teeth chattered through the dispatcher’s next question. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Is there anyone inside the truck?”

  Teresa’s wet feet left her shivering as she climbed out of the ditch. “Just a minute. Let me check.”

  She tilted her flashlight up to inspect the damaged vehicle. The driver’s-side window was down—no, it was missing. It must have shattered with the impact of the crash, leaving tiny blunt shards along its bottom edge. Still, with the coming night and no light on inside the cab, she couldn’t make out any driver or passenger. Not for the first time in her life, she silently cursed her diminutive height. When she reached the door of the jacked-up truck, she was too short to see in.

  “Hello?” she called again. She reached up and tried the handle, but it was locked. She knocked on the door panel. “Is anyone in there?”

  No response.

  “Just a sec,” she warned the dispatcher. Finding a safe spot to grasp the edge of the open window, she tucked the flashlight into her pocket, stepped onto the running board and pulled herself up. “Madre de Dios.”

  There was a man inside, slumped over the steering wheel. His dark blond hair was frosty with moisture. There was blood oozing from a knot on his forehead, and his skin was far too pale.

  “Sir?” The ice cubes of her toes and the woman on the phone were forgotten as alarm, compassion and her years of training kicked in. “Sir?” She stuck the tip of her wool glove into her mouth and pulled it off with her teeth. She slipped two fingers beneath the collar of his padded leather jacket and pressed them to the side of his neck. Even with the thick jacket and the heater running, his skin was cold to the touch. But she could feel a pulse. It was faint and erratic, but it was there. “You’re alive.” She spat out the glove and raised her voice for the dispatcher to hear. “He’s alive.”

  Pushing up onto her frozen toes, she gently leaned him back against the seat. With a groan, his head lolled toward his shoulder. A quick glance across the cab revealed a heavy nylon duffel bag but no other passenger to worry about.

  “One victim,” she reported. Hooking her arm inside the door to free her hands, she reached across his lap to turn off the ignition and saw more blood staining the front of his coat and the left leg of his jeans. “How fast were you going?” she mused out loud, wondering at the extent of his injuries. The wreck hadn’t looked that bad from the road. Plus, he was still wearing his seat belt.

  An answering moan silenced the random thoughts, and she moved her chilled fingers to his face, willing him to open his eyes. “Sir? Hey. I’m a nurse. I’m here to help.” She pushed aside the damp spikes of straw-colored hair on his forehead to inspect the gash there. It might need a bandage, but no way could it account for all this blood. She pushed open one eyelid, then the other. Honey-brown irises looked back at her, trying to focus. She smiled. Good. Probably no concussion, then. “I need you to talk to me. I’m Teresa. What’s your name?”

  His pale lips drew together. “Don’t need a candy striper, kid. Run along.”

  His speech was slurred. But it could be from the cold.

  Kid? A little defensive fire crept into her veins before common sense reminded her to ignore the dig. The man was in trouble and needed her assistance. “I’m a registered nurse, and you’re badly hurt. You want me to hike back to the road to get my hospital ID or do you want me to help?”

  “Bossy little thing,” he muttered. His eyes blinked open again, long enough to assess her face. “You’re...nurse?”

  “What’s your name?” she repeated.

  He inhaled a quick breath, gritted his teeth, then squeezed the words out. “Charles. I’m Charles.”

  “Like Charlie? Or Mr. Charles? No, don’t close your eyes.” She cupped her palm against the sandy beard stubble on his jaw. “Keep looking at me. Can you tell me where you’re hurt?”

  He pulled his left hand from his lap and grabbed the steering wheel. By sheer will, his vision seemed to sharpen and his gaze dropped to the phone tucked to her ear. “Is that 911?”

  “Yes.” When he reached for it, she handed it over. “Good idea. You can tell them exactly what hap— What are you doing? Give me my—”

  “No cops.” He disconnected the call and tossed her phone onto the dashboard. With a jerky shift of his broad shoulders, he pulled his right hand from beneath the duffel bag.


  “¡Oh, mi Dios!”

  He had a gun.

  Teresa instinctively recoiled, but before she could jump off the running board, a big gloved hand anchored her arm to the door with surprising strength. “Let go!”

  His fingers tightened around her wrist, trapping her beside him as he pounded her phone with the butt of the wicked-looking pistol, smashing it into pieces.

  “Hey!”

  And then he turned the barrel of the gun on her. Bleeding Charles tilted his eyes up to the shoulder of the road. His voice was raspy, deep. “That your car, kid?”

  Teresa’s answer was a frozen gasp in the cold air. “Yes.”

  The gun barely wavered as he pushed open the door, forcing her into the snow. She landed on her butt and slid down the hill a few inches, but her bare hand, numb toes and panic slowed her efforts to scramble back onto her feet. He swung one long leg out, then the other, his black cowboy boots sinking into the snow, his breath hitching when his feet hit solid ground. Leaning against the cab for support, he pulled the duffel bag across the seat and tossed it at her. It hit her square in the stomach, knocking her onto her bottom again.

  Judging by its weight and rattle, whatever was inside was heavy and metal and... “Son of a...” More guns.

  Teresa shoved the bag away and climbed onto her knees, letting gravity pull her down into the ditch, farther away from the bleeding man, until she could find solid ground and bolt away.

  She’d come to the aid of some drug dealer or gunrunner or mass murderer.

  She was the one in trouble.

  “I’d stop if I were you.”

  The ominous double click of a bullet sliding into the chamber of his automatic weapon rang clear in the crisp, frigid air, spurring her to her feet.

  “I said stop!”

  The deafening report of a gunshot froze her in her tracks. Teresa pushed her hood away from her face and turned her head, lifting her gaze to the tall, pale man with the narrowed eyes and bloody coat.