“I don’t know, kid.” He was desperate to leave the claustrophobic cabin. If he stayed any longer, he would end up throwing himself at Jilly’s feet—an embarrassing scene that would be too little, too late.
“Please, Luke? You said it’s just a quick ride. Lemme go, too! I can help.”
“Should be safe,” Murphy pointed out.
“All right, Jimmy.” At this point, it was easier to cave in than to stand around arguing. “Go brush your teeth and then we’ll get outta here.”
They’d been gone for ages when Jillian remembered the other suitcase. She left her spot at the window and flopped on the end of the bed. There was no use feeling sorry for herself. With any luck, the whole sorry affair would be over today. She and the children would finally be free to go. She would make a beeline for New Hampshire. The sooner they were settled and busy with other things, the sooner the children would establish a routine and the sooner she could start repairing the damage to her heart.
Despite Luke’s reaction, she was still glad she’d been honest with him. She took a deep breath and let it out. It had been a small step toward independence. She’d seen something she’d wanted desperately and she’d gone after it. Of course the failure part was pretty hard to swallow. In this particular instance, the failure felt quite devastating. She’d seen the fear in his eyes when she’d told him she loved him…seen the disbelief. And she’d seen regret. She wasn’t sure if it was because he’d said no or because she’d told him in the first place. And at this point, what difference did it make?
She loved him enough to let him go. She absently rubbed the tender spot over her heart. It was a dull ache now, compared to the stabbing pain she’d felt only an hour earlier when he’d rejected her offer. Even in a disaster, she told herself, the human heart recovered. It was deflated, but still pumping. Truth be told, it hurt to breathe. Her heart felt as though it had been stepped on. But she was a Moseby. They had never been the type to plead or to beg or to negotiate. If Luke didn’t want her, she would get along without him. The ordeal he’d been through with Linda had obviously left him too emotionally scarred to try again. It was either that or he simply didn’t want her enough to make the effort. Jillian wished desperately that it was the first reason.
“Danny, didn’t Luke want to take a look at that other suitcase in the boot? I can show you which one it is. That way, when your lieutenant or major or whatever-he-is gets here, you might have something more to show him.”
Murphy sat back in his chair by the window, stretching his long legs. “I don’t see why not. It’s quiet as a tomb out there.” He rose to his feet, stretched again and double checked his holster before heading for the door.
“Yeah, let’s do it.” He checked the porch and scanned the deserted road leading back to the motel office before he let Jilly pass. “What about the little ones? They gonna be okay for a minute?”
Jillian checked on Sarah. She was still napping in the ancient cradle. She sat on the bed near Samuel where he was busy playing with his cars. “Samuel? I want you to be a very good boy. Stay on this bed and don’t move until I come back in with Mr. Murphy. I’ll only be a moment.”
She stood then and went swiftly to the bathroom where she closed the door tight. He wouldn’t be able to turn the handle by himself. Then she rechecked Murphy’s shotgun. Even with a chair, he couldn’t climb up to reach it.
Murphy caught her perusal and chuckled. “That’s right. You’re thinkin’ like a mom now. No matter how well you check, it’s pretty much guaranteed that he’ll find something you didn’t think about.”
“Perhaps I should stay.”
“Tell ya what. You run down there with me real fast. Point out the suitcase and then run right back up here. You’ll be gone maybe a minute or two. That’s about as safe as it’s gonna get. Otherwise, we can wait for G to come back.”
She bit her lip, torn by the desire to be in two places at one time. “No,” she finally decided. “I want to look myself. I haven’t had a moment to even think about my sister. What if she left me a letter? I’d like to be the one who sees it first, if you don’t mind.”
“I can understand that, but Jilly if we find a letter we’re gonna have to take it as evidence, especially if it says anything about Sloan,” he warned.
“I know, Danny. Perhaps I could have a copy of it? That is, if we even find anything.”
He smiled at her persistence. “Yeah, I think I can arrange somethin’ like that. Remember though there will be no touching until I give you the all-clear. I’ll have to preserve any fingerprints.”
“It’s a deal.”
“You see anything yet?” Luke was impatient to get back. His gut was strumming again with an edgy uneasiness that grew stronger with each passing minute. Despite his earlier eagerness to gain some distance from Jilly, he was distinctly uncomfortable with the separation. There was safety in numbers.
He glanced in the rearview mirror at Jimmy as he bounced from one side of the car to the other, a pair of high-powered binoculars in his hands. Watching him go from window to window for the past half hour was giving him a case of whiplash.
“Where is he? Shouldn’t the man be here by now? I wanna see the helicopter.”
Luke checked his watch and frowned. Fifteen minutes overdue and still no sign of the chopper. It wasn’t like the anal Duncan to be late for anything. In fact, the opposite usually held true. His boss had an annoying habit of showing up early for meetings and then criticizing everyone for keeping him waiting.
He’d had trouble finding the isolated airstrip and he’d half expected Duncan to be waiting when he finally pulled up with Jimmy. “Strip” was the operative word. The runway consisted of two dirt tracks down the middle of a long field of wavering grass. Anything smaller than a chopper might have had trouble with the rutted tracks and the rough terrain. The regional airport had been a mere fifteen minutes away—in the opposite direction from the cabin. Why the hell hadn’t Duncan chosen to land there? He wondered about the sudden secrecy.
“Hang on there, bud. He’ll be here all too soon.” He shook his head ruefully. As if the day wasn’t progressing poorly enough already. He still had a butt-chewing waiting with his name on it. His head still ached from his run-in with Jilly and just thinking about her now made his gut tighten like a vise.
He was grateful it would end today. Grateful even, that Duncan was coming down to take charge. That meant she’d be off his hands—permanently. The ASAC would move her to a safe house and he could stop worrying about her. He could head back down to Charleston for cleanup duty—a duty that would include finding Sloan and taking him out for good. It was the only way he knew of to guarantee Jilly’s and the kids’ safety. The last thing he wanted was her feeling she had to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life. And he realized that he didn’t much care what the duty would entail. If it meant dying, then so be it.
For a long time after Linda died, he hadn’t really cared if he died in the line of duty. He’d felt in some convoluted way that it would be suitable punishment for failing to help her, for failing to care enough. Only now did he realize what a waste it would have been. Luke smiled for the first time in a long while. Finally, he’d found something that really was worth dying for.
And if he lived, then just as soon as he’d accomplished his mission, he could post out to an assignment that would take him as far away from the east coast as he could get.
Through the crack in the window, Luke heard the distant whine of an approaching aircraft. “Here it comes, Jimbo. Look around. You see it yet?”
“Nope. Wait! I see it,” he cried. “It’s a tiny little speck and it’s getting bigger.” He continued to squint through the binoculars for another minute as the chopper came closer. “Hey, there’s a couple guys in there.”
“Well, yeah. Did you think my boss was gonna fly it all by himself?”
“I mean in the back seats. There’s two— No, there’s three guys sittin’ in the back seat.
He felt the wind howl against the car, heard sand skitter against the windshield as the helicopter set down across the field, a few hundred yards away.
“Now do you see why I didn’t want you playing outside when the chopper flew in?” He had to shout to Jimmy over the screaming noise of the engine. He strained to see through the clouds of dust and made out two figures as they alighted from the chopper.
“Uh-oh. Luke, this is bad.”
Luke took his gaze off the helicopter and glanced in the rearview mirror. Jimmy was perched in his spot, his binoculars trained on the men who were still a football field away. “What’s up, pal? Can you see the color of their neckties yet?” The damn suits.
Jimmy dropped the field glasses from his eyes and glanced up to meet his gaze in the mirror. The terror he found there made his blood run cold. His gut tightened instinctively and he whirled around to face the little boy. “What? What is it, Jimmy? What did you see?”
James shuddered once and then brought the binoculars back up to his eyes for confirmation.
“Dammit, what the hell do you see?” He snatched the binoculars away from James and quickly adjusted the sights. Duncan walked toward him, his trenchcoat blowing in the wind from the chopper. He was just wondering why his boss would be wearing a trenchcoat this late in the season when he shifted his gaze to the other man. And his heart dropped like a stone.
Sloan.
Duncan was walking toward the car with Sloan. A drumbeat of warning pounding in his ears, Luke gunned the engine and jerked the wheel to the left as he saw the ASAC raise his arm and reach inside his coat.
“Get down, Jimmy. On the floor right now. And don’t come up unless I say so.” He lost precious seconds keeping his eyes trained on the back seat to make sure the kid followed orders and then jerked the wheel as a shotgun blast took out the windshield. Wincing as shards of glass rained down upon him, panic blinded him for an instant and then he reacted, accelerating as fast as the car would go. He bounced down the main road, praying that his erratic driving would keep them out of range.
“Jimmy,” he barked. “You okay back there?”
“Yup. You okay?”
“Stay down on the floor.” He took several deep breaths as he concentrated on the rutted one-lane road. He should slow down. If they blew a tire, they’d be in big trouble. And Lord help them if anyone was heading toward them on the narrow pass. At this speed the crash alone would probably kill them. “And hold on tight.”
Chunks of tree bark flew at him from the left side of the road, from a shot that had gone wide and missed the car. Duncan was still firing at them. Luke wondered if he’d inadvertently entered a trap. Would Petrie be positioned up around the next bend? It’s what he would have done if he’d been setting up an ambush.
“Jimmy, listen up. Anything happens to me, if we have to pull over, I want you to run. Take the cell phone—” he groped around on the seat and found it with his hand “—and run into the woods. You’ll have to hide for at least an hour or two. They don’t know you’re with me. You can call the police and get help for Jilly and the kids.”
“No, Luke! I wanna stay with you,” his muffled voice protested from the floor.
“I know, pal. I want that, too.” He jerked the wheel to the left to avoid a fallen tree and felt the car shimmy in protest.
“Are we gonna die?”
“Not if I can help it, Jimbo. But just in case…” His brain fired rapidly now, knowing that he had very little time before Duncan returned to the chopper and came after him. He knew Duncan had been too far away to have seen Jimmy. Hadn’t he? Sweet Jesus. They would hunt Jimmy down until they found him. The kid would be as good as dead.
Jesus— Duncan. Duncan was the leak. Or worse, Duncan was Castillo? Duncan was the drug dealer, the king of heroin on the east coast. Everything made sense now. The safe house blowing, the failed bust on Tuesday. Duncan had pulled the strings on all of it. He’d watched and waited for the right moment to kill them all. No wonder he wanted the operation shut down. No wonder he wanted Luke dead. They were getting too close to Sloan’s source. Way too close for comfort. Way too close to Duncan.
He fumbled with the phone and managed to hit the speed dial as the car lurched over another pothole. He had to warn Murphy. His partner would be no match for a surprise attack—especially one from the most unlikely source possible—from the person who was supposed to be helping them.
He brought the phone to his ear and held his breath while it connected. It was taking forever. Please, God. Don’t let them be in a dead spot. “C’mon, ring!”
He exhaled as the call finally went through. “Now pick it up,” he ordered.
“Did ya see him, Luke? Did ya see him? He’s the one who shot my mom,” Jimmy cried. “I saw him from my hiding place, but he didn’t see me.”
“What do you mean, you saw him?”
“The day he shot my mom. I was hiding behind the big chair and I heard them fightin’ about money.”
Luke’s heart began beating wildly. They’d been going about it all wrong. When it came to his drug empire, Sloan had been nothing short of Teflon. Throughout the investigation, he hadn’t been able to make so much as a parking ticket stick. But now…
Forget the drugs. With an eyewitness, maybe they could get Sloan on a murder charge instead. Trouble was, the witness would be Jimmy. The thought of him in the same courtroom with Sloan, of knowing how ruthless the drug dealer could be, of the violence he was all too capable of committing. He shook his head. He didn’t want Jimmy within a thousand miles of Sloan. The kid would need twenty-four-hour protection. For their own safety, Jilly and the kids would have to all but go into hiding. And what about after he testified? Sloan could still have them taken out, even from behind bars, assuming they got lucky enough to finally nail him. Impatiently he dragged the phone away from his mouth. Where the hell was Murphy?
“Let me get this straight. You saw Sloan shoot your mom?”
“No, not Slow. The other guy. Slow’s friend.”
Chapter 12
The breeze lifted the collar of her jacket and whipped Jillian’s hair around her face. With all the excitement, she’d forgotten to pull it back in a ponytail this morning. She dragged the cool mountain air into her lungs and immediately felt her head begin to clear. She’d been stuck indoors for far too long.
Not a soul was in sight as she skipped down the porch steps with Murphy by her side. There were other cabins visible in the distance, but all of them appeared to be vacant. The stillness was almost eerie in its serenity. Sunlight filtered through the tall Southern pine trees creating patches of light on the mossy carpet that seemed to sway and move with the wind. It felt as though they were the only two people for miles around. Jilly smiled at the foolish thought. Why, not a mile down the road a restaurant claimed in rather glaring neon that it was the biscuit capital of the southeast.
“Lord, Danny. It’s really beautiful here. It was dark as a pocket when we arrived last night.”
“Seems kinda isolated if you ask me. It’s too quiet.”
“Are you one of those men who can only relax when you’re near a major sports park? Your poor wife.”
“Nah. I’m one of those guys who likes to plop down at the beach and watch all the women in bikinis walk by. And when I get bored with that, then I go fishing.”
She raised an eyebrow at his confession. “How long did you say you’ve been married?”
He laughed at her outraged look. “I’m just kiddin’.
It’s Lucy’s fault. She likes to check out all the guys. She thinks it’s good for me to feel a little threatened. Says it keeps me in line.”
She turned slowly around to admire the mountainous terrain and realized their cabin was perched on the side of a hill. Murphy had taken a step toward the car when she took a quick detour around the back of the cabin and discovered the hill was actually a mountain. They were at the edge of a small clearing that quickly went straight up. Just past the treeline behind the cabin, she could see the rock formations that rose above.
“Hey, get back here.” Murphy caught up with her a moment later. “Just because we’re out in the middle of nowhere doesn’t mean you can walk around whenever you feel like it.”
“But it’s over, isn’t it? Sort of?”
He snorted in response. “Honey, nothin’s over until we bust up Sloan’s operation. We still gotta catch him and Petrie and whoever else is involved. Are you forgetting Luke got shot again last night?”
“Of course I haven’t forgotten. I assumed with your boss coming and everything…” She trailed off, aware of how that probably sounded to Murphy. “What I meant was, with all these new clues, doesn’t that mean you’ve wrapped it up?”
“No. It means that we’re one step closer, that’s all. It doesn’t give you license to be out here wandering around.” He jerked his head in the direction of his car. “Now, come on. Let’s get movin’.”
They’d nearly reached the car when Murphy jerked her by the arm and shoved her to the ground.
“Get down.” Before she’d had the chance to speak, he rolled over her and withdrew his gun. She could barely breathe under his crushing weight.
“Danny?” She stopped when she heard a rustling sound in the woods beyond the car and then watched as a large chunk of earth exploded out of the ground about ten feet to their right.
“Stay down.” He hissed in her ear, “Someone’s shootin’ at us.”
“Ohmigod. Samuel.” Instinct made her clamber to her feet before Murphy slammed her back down to the mossy ground.
For Her Protection Page 21