At Risk

by Inc. Thriller Writers

  It had cost Phin the better part of his cop pension to get his hands on the plans he’d needed.

  He slid a makeshift plywood door aside and held quiet a moment, patient. Listening. He’d connected two passages over the past couple of months from two very old tunnels, both left off the later plans LaCroix had used and had based his own renovations on.

  LaCroix screamed obscenities at someone three floors up, and then a slap echoed and everything went dead silent. Phin tensed, waiting for noise to cover his movements. There were more girls above; some locked in rooms, some shuttled out in the night. He’d tipped off the police, and they claimed their hands were tied without hard evidence, and no one had any intention of getting any, from what he could see. LaCroix had paid off someone fairly powerful to keep the warrants at bay. It was how he’d kept the police at a distance in San Francisco when Abby was murdered.

  Phin pinched the bridge of his nose to ward away the memories, and there was more yelling again above him. Chairs shuffled about, then a crashing sound, like a vase hitting a wall. Someone had pissed LaCroix off. He listened, praying Sadie had heeded him, when Abby hadn’t.

  It took him nearly an hour to move through the vaults and tunnels below the house, to make his way through ancient rooms, cobwebbed over, slick with mold, and up into dingy crawl spaces and finally easing into the dark kitchen, quiet for the night, the cook having been sent home every day at 10:00 p.m. He exited the hidden passage into the pantry, and he had to let his eyes adjust before moving forward, making sure he made not a single sound to betray him.

  “So this is why you wanted me to stay away,” Sadie whispered in the dark and his heartbeat ratcheted to the sky as panic flooded him with adrenaline. When he got his bearings, he realized she was sitting on the floor of the big pantry, dressed in black, her red hair hidden beneath a black cap. She had night vision goggles. And a gun. How the hell?

  “You’re not here because you work for LaCroix, Phin,” she said, quietly, deadly. “You’re here to kill him, too.”

  * * *

  This was the Phin she remembered: clean-shaven, cropped hair, murderous expression that she was somewhere she wasn’t supposed to be. He held out his hand and Sadie gripped it, letting him help her stand, holstering the FN pistol.

  “I nearly killed you, just now,” she seethed, the shock of that still sending tremors through her as she stepped so close, she could feel the heat radiating off his body. “You should have told me earlier.”

  “For the love of God, Sadie.” His fury pulsed through the small room. He paused to crack the door and keep a view of the kitchen. “Get the hell out of here before it’s too late.”

  “It’s already too late. We’re working this together.”

  A crash sounded above them, in the main salon; LaCroix, unhapy with an answer some male voice had just given him, too muffled for Sadie to hear.

  “So what? Now you trust me?”

  “I made calls today, Phin. You cashed out your pension. You filed a will. A will. Left me everything else. You ass. You came here to die.”

  There was a long silence as he stared at her and she stared right back. He was killing her, here.

  “No,” he answered finally. “I came to finish the job. I can’t get close to him without him recognizing me. I tried getting him away from his men—never works. The odds aren’t good.” He grabbed her shoulders, squeezed. “I’ll finish it, Sadie. I can’t handle it if you’re here, in danger.”

  “Those odds are better now.” She grinned, and he arched an eyebrow and she pointed up at the ongoing tantrum. “LaCroix thinks all of his victims have escaped—he thinks someone on the other end of the tunnel he usually smuggles them out of left a door open. He’s going ballistic because he can’t find them.”

  “His men are looking?”

  “Yep. And everyone he can call on for favors. Which means they’re spread out throughout the Quarter, right now, chasing ghosts.”

  He stared at her a moment, soaking it in. Then he grinned, that slow, sexy grin, the one where his eyes danced at the possibilities.

  “Which means he’s down to what? One or two bodyguards?”

  “Two, from what I can tell.”

  “Good. Now, you can get out that way,” he said then, angling his head toward the door.

  “No. You don’t get a choice about this, Phin.”

  He went completely still. “You either trust me, Sadie, or you can shoot me now.”

  “This is my fight, Phin. I lost everything when he killed Abby.”

  “So did I,” he said, but he closed his eyes, his face a blank mask.

  “I’ll just follow you in, anyway. You can’t stop me.”

  He glared at her. “It’s extremely dangerous. You were never a good shot.”

  “I’ve been practicing,” she said, and then sobered. “This is for Abby and all those other girls, Phin. I’m not going to miss.”

  * * *

  She had missed.

  That was the fuzzy thought running through her mind as she came to, swimming her way out of a blackness so deep, so complete, it felt like death. She couldn’t move, could barely breathe. Something bright shone in her eyes, and something—ammonia—filled her nostrils and she tried to jerk away.

  Except that she could not move.

  The last thing she remembered was Phin trying to stop her from stepping out of their hidden spot that moment she saw LaCroix and realized: Now. I have a shot now.

  She’d missed. And now, a hardback chair held her hostage, with her hands tied behind it, her feet to its legs. Blood trickled down her forehead and pain radiated from the back of her head where someone had clubbed her just as she’d aimed at LaCroix.

  LaCroix, who now sat across from her, one of her knives in his hand as he slapped it against his thigh, a terrifyingly patient rhythm.

  “Good,” he said, leaning forward to inspect her. “You’re the substitute cook. I almost didn’t recognize you. Nicely done.”

  She glared at him, his perfectly chiseled face that seemed practically made for magazine covers, his expensive Armani suit, tailored to perfection across broad shoulders.

  She spat on him and he studied the spittle on his suit; his hazel eyes went feral and he held the knife to her cheek. Stupid stupid stupid rattled in her head. She tried to blink away the memory of what a knife had done to Abby.

  “Hello, Sadie.” When she blanched, surprised, he laughed. “Yes, I remember you, now that you’re not in disguise. We’re going to get to know each other very very well, soon, but first, where are my girls?”

  “I don’t know where they are,” she answered, frantically worried about Phin. “They were running, the last time I saw them. They’re probably all over the Quarter, by now.”

  “No, they’re not.” He put the knife back up to her cheek and started slicing…lightly, but it burned from the pain.

  Where’s Phin?

  “Did you know your sister begged me to take her back? She especially loved the coke.”

  She stared at him and realized he wasn’t lying. Abby had been acting strangely. Manic…erratic, almost, but Sadie had put it down to the stress.

  LaCroix kept taunting, twitching the knife at her cheek. “She’d do anything for the coke. Went a little too deep undercover, that Abby. Told me all about the investigation. You wouldn’t believe what she would do for the coke.” His lascivious gaze raked over her and she tried to pull back. “Oh, but you will. When I’m done, you’ll be begging, too.”

  Men shouted from the other room, “Got him, got him!” and semiautomatic fire startled her, and then a man screamed, screamed—and then another shot and…silence.

  “Ah,” he said, smiling into her wide eyes, the tang of fear, metallic in her mouth, her heartbeat pounding in her head, “that must’ve been your partner.
” He leaned closer. “Nobody’s coming for you, Sadie.” He tsked tsked her. “You didn’t think I’d run a business this successful to be stopped by a couple of amateurs, did you? I’ll show you his mutilated body in a few minutes. Now, answer the damned question, or I start on your breasts.”

  He put the tip of the knife at her right breast and she knew he would do it. Blood oozed down her cheek, Phin was dead, and she had not avenged Abby. But there were six girls free right now, in a car on their way to Baton Rouge, and he’d never get his hands on them again. Maybe that counted for something.

  Then it really hit her: Phin was dead. He hadn’t told anyone about Abby turning. He’d tried to protect her. Them. And Sadie hadn’t trusted him. She’d accused him and walked away, destroying everything.

  Her heart shattered; the blade cut into the thin shirt she wore, slicing into her right breast, but she wept for Phin. The pain was almost welcome. Nothing mattered. Phin was gone.

  She barely heard the gunshots through the agony of the blade, her entire being focused on that point of pain. Someone slumped just to her right.

  LaCroix looked up, past her, and then a red dot bloomed on his forehead and he jerked away from her, the knife still impaled in her breast where he’d begun carving. The look of surprise on his face, frozen in that moment, had been worth it.

  * * *

  Phin watched her open her eyes in the morning light that filtered in through gauzy curtains. He had the doors open to the balcony of his apartment. She was stitched and bandaged and confused when she finally focused on him. He had not known what to expect: recriminations, for allowing her to get hurt. Hate, for the scars she would have. Disgust…

  Instead, her face shone with relief.

  “Come here,” she said, holding out a hand, and Phin moved from the chair at the foot of the bed to sit by her side. She squeezed his hand hard, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You’re real.”

  “I’m real.”

  “He said he killed you.”

  “They thought they had. They actually shot one of their own guards who’d been looking for the girls—he’d found the passageway you’d used and was following it back into the house.”

  He felt his own tears now, and he didn’t try to stop them. “I’m sorry, Sadie. I should have gotten there faster.”

  “I botched your job.”

  “No. Without you, I doubt very seriously I would have gotten out alive. Or that I’d have bothered trying.” He looked away, staring out the window onto the rooftop of the building next door. “You’d been in the house before? As the cook?” That one had surprised him when LaCroix had said it.

  “Just a few times. Elana told him I was her niece, and could be trusted.”

  She’d planned it well, even if she’d guessed the number of guards wrong. If she’d not frozen in that moment of face-to-face with LaCroix, she might have succeeded.

  She reached up toward the bandages, seeming to just now remember, and she flinched.

  “Are you in pain?”

  She shook her head. “Just grateful. You got me out of there. In one piece.”

  “Mostly,” he said, bitter with regret. “I’m sorry. I got a doctor in here—a guy I know, does amazing work. But there’ll be scars, unless you go in for plastic surgery later. There’s a lot they can do.”

  “Does it matter?”

  He whipped his gaze back to her, to understand what she meant, and saw the fear that he would somehow be repulsed.

  “God, no,” he answered. “Everything you do, everything you are, is beautiful to me, Sadie. It would take a lifetime to show you, though, but I’d like to. If you’d let me.”

  She got a faraway expression, contemplative, and his heart stuttered, scared as witless as he’d been when LaCroix held that knife to her.

  “We can’t go back to being those people we were before,” she said, and his heart broke. He started to step away from the bed, and she tightened her grip on his hand. “I don’t ever want to lose you, Phin, and I’ll go and do whatever you want. But I can’t—” She turned away, her eyes closed, and whispered, “I can’t let the LaCroixs of the world get away.”

  “Neither can I.” Her gaze snapped back to him, and he saw her understand. “If I have you, we can do anything.”

  She smiled, and he could breathe again.

  “I will believe in you,” she promised. “I will honor you. I will trust you.”

  “I will believe in you,” he whispered, kissing her hand, then clutching it tightly. “I will honor you. I will trust you.”

  * * *

  Marjorie was ten the summer her family went back to New Orleans, and they strolled through the crowded French Quarter, weaving their way through hordes of people meandering in Jackson Square. It felt huge, with the green park in the center surrounded by wrought-iron fences, with shops ringing that area all putting out goods on their sidewalks. Her mom paused briefly at the tap dancers, but Marjorie tugged her hard. She had to know if her friend was here again this year.

  “Phin!” she screeched, from halfway across the square and her mamma laughed, letting her go hug the blind vet. “You’re here!”

  “I am, indeed,” he answered, and she guided his hand so he could pat her on the head. “And you remember my wife, Sadie.”

  Marjorie waved and smiled at the way Phin squeezed Sadie’s hand as she painted children right beside him.

  “We went to Austin last summer—not nearly as fun. And they don’t have vigilantics!”

  “Vigilantes?” he asked, as a man dropped a piece of paper in Phin’s hat and Marjorie could have sworn—almost could have sworn—that blind Phin saw it and nodded at the man. But that wasn’t possible.

  “Yeah, vigilantes. I’m hoping we see them. They’re in all the papers. Mama said they’re cleaning out the riffraff but good!”

  Phin laughed. “Well, there was a lot of riffraff here to clean up, I suspect. If you see them, tell ’em I said good luck!”

  “I will! Can I come back tomorrow and you’ll play me a special song?”

  “Sure,” Phin said, and smiled when Marjorie hugged him.

  She ran off, and when she looked back, she could have sworn he was watching her go, grinning.

  * * * * *

  HOLDING MERCY

  Lori Armstrong

  You gotta love a heroine who wears black patent cowgirl boots. And that’s the least daring thing she does!~SB

  The bad thing about wearing a tight, sexy little black dress?

  No place to put my gun.

  Granted, I was supposed to be on a date, and probably didn’t need a firearm, or handcuffs, but being armed was a habit ingrained during my twenty-year stint in the army and now as a newly minted G-woman. Legally, I could carry everywhere and I took advantage of that perk without apology. But my belt and holster looked clunky strapped over the clingy black dress. Stowing my weapon in my compact beaded purse didn’t feel right, neither did slipping the small handgun in the pocket of my leather trench coat, so I compromised and shoved my Kahr Arms P380 inside my right cowgirl boot. Then I placed my handcuffs between the “Mercy Gunderson, Special Agent, FBI” badge in my purse and my cell phone. All set for my date.

  Still seemed ridiculous that Dawson referred to our dinner out as a “date” because we were living together. But I’d recently returned from a four-and-a-half-month training stint at Quantico, so we were trying to carve out couple time between his duties as Eagle River County Sheriff and my new job with the FBI. Plus, he’d been stuck working the night shift, and I worked the day shift, so he was rolling into bed as I was rolling out, which left us little time to roll around in the sheets together.

  Our last attempt at an official date ended before it began due to me being covered in blood and vomit after a routine questioning had turned ugly. The wo
man had raced out the back door of her house after I showed her my badge. When I caught her, she accidentally smacked her face into her knee and blood poured from her nose. Seeing blood turned her hysterical and she hurled all over me. By the time I’d showered and changed clothes at home, neither Dawson nor I had been in the mood to go out.

  I hoped tonight would play out differently. Not being much of a girlie-girl, a fact my man Dawson was well aware of, I’d decided to shock him by taking extra time with my appearance for our romantic rendezvous. Hence the sexy dress, the waves in my normally straight hair, the curled eyelashes, the berry-colored stain on my lips. However, I refused to wear high heels—couldn’t run in them—and opted for a dressier pair of black patent leather cowgirl boots. I hadn’t taken my fashion inspiration of pairing fancy shit-kickers with a dress from ingenue Taylor Swift, but the grand dame of the West, Dale Evans. She’d worn boots with everything. If it was good enough for Roy Rogers, it was good enough for Dawson.

  Day morphed into night as I drove from my ranch to the edge of the Eagle River Indian Reservation. The period between autumn and full-out winter on the high plains of Western South Dakota was the most visually depressing time of the year. The rolling hills, previously lush, boasting a dozen different shades of green, were stuck in monochromatic bleakness. Dead grass, naked trees, dry creek beds, lackluster sky. Even the soil, ranging from brick red to cocoa brown, reflected in dull tones. I secretly wished for snow. At least a blanket of white would hide the ugliness until spring arrived.

  As I stood at the front entrance to the Eagle River Casino, I revisited my plan to circumvent a security check so I could keep my gun hidden. The reservation was one place where normal—in my case federal—rules don’t apply.