Valley of Shadows and Stranger in the Shadows: Valley of ShadowsStranger in the Shadows

by Shirlee McCoy

  He straightened, crossed the room, his hand brushing over the wig Miranda still wore and coming to rest on the back of her neck, the warmth of it spreading through her and making her feel safer than she had in hours. “It’s been a long few days, but this will all be over soon.”

  “It’s been a long week and I’m not sure it will ever be over.”

  “It’ll be over. What remains to be seen is how it will end.” His hand slipped away and he punched a button on the phone, raised it to his ear, his gaze never leaving Miranda.

  Her cheeks heated, her heart doing a strange dance that had nothing at all to do with fear. She rose, pacing across the room and away from Hawke’s too-intense stare.

  “Something is wrong.” He growled the words and Miranda jumped turning to face him.

  “What?”

  “My brother isn’t answering.”

  “Maybe he’s at work and can’t pick up.”

  “He works for our export company. He can do just about whatever he wants. They’ve got him. I’m sure of it.” He slammed the phone down onto the dresser, muttering under his breath as he yanked out more clothes and thrust them into the backpack.

  “Maybe—”

  “There is no maybe, babe. My brother’s cell phone is always with him and always on. The phone I used is one I keep for emergencies. There’s no way he wouldn’t pick up when he saw the number on his caller ID.”

  “Who would take him? Green is still in the States.”

  “And the people he works with are here. So is the person who set me up. They think that by taking my brother they’ll get me, but all they’ve done is sign their death certificates.”

  Miranda winced at the force of his words, at the violence she saw in his eyes. She’d known he could be a dangerous man, but had pushed the knowledge to the back of her mind, trying her best to convince herself that he was just like her—an innocent person drawn into something he’d never expected and hadn’t asked for.

  But innocence didn’t look like Hawke. Or act like him.

  And right now she’d be willing to believe him capable of almost anything.

  She took a step toward the door, knowing how anger worked. Her father’s rages had spilled out onto anyone in the vicinity. Her high school boyfriend’s anger over lost basketball games, poor grades and parents, had bled into their relationship until it nearly destroyed her. Even Lauren could wound without thought when life didn’t go her way. Yeah, Miranda knew exactly how rage worked and she had no intention of letting Hawke take his frustration out on her.

  She took another step back, cleared her throat. “I’ll just wait in the other room until you’re done.”

  He stilled, his hand pausing over the open backpack as he met her gaze. “I’m scaring you.”

  “No, you’re…” She shrugged. “Not much.”

  “Not much is still too much.” He took a deep breath, released it, his shoulders relaxing, his fisted hands opening, the rage slowly fading from his eyes. “My brother is all the family I have left. The thought of something happening to him makes me see red.”

  “I understand.”

  “Maybe you do. It seems we’ve both suffered loss in our lives.” He crossed the space between them, cupped her cheeks in his hands as he stared down into her eyes. “But that’s not an excuse for scaring you. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? That’s not a word I’ve heard very often from the men in my life.” She meant it as a joke, something to lighten the mood, but the truth of her statement must have been in her tone.

  “Then I guess you haven’t had the right men in your life.”

  “The right men? I didn’t know there were such things.” She pulled away from his touch, her skin burning where his hands had been.

  “There are. My friend Noah is one. His pastor is another.”

  “Them and not you?”

  “No. Not me. But I am the right man to get you out of this mess.” His half smile was self-depreciating. “I’ve got to go.”

  He stepped out of the room and Miranda followed, worry a hard, cold knot in her stomach. She wanted to beg Hawke to stay or take her with him. More than that, she wanted to close her eyes, open them again and find that everything that had happened was nothing but a bad dream. “How long will you be gone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Then how will I know how long to wait?”

  “You’ll wait an eternity if that’s what it takes.”

  “That’s not practical.”

  “I don’t care about practical. I care about your safety. Go wandering around this neighborhood by yourself and anything could happen. Even if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be long before one of the DEA’s informants spotted you. If the DEA finds you, it’s all over.”

  “Right now that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.”

  “It will be, babe. Someone in the DEA’s office has been feeding information to drug dealers in the States. Including my name. He knows I’m here to find him. He can’t afford to let that happen.”

  “But if you don’t come back—”

  “I’ll come back.”

  “But if you don’t—”

  He pressed a finger against her lips, stopping her words. “Stop worrying. It’ll be easy enough for me to stay hidden. Make yourself at home while I’m gone. There are clothes in the dresser. You might be able to find something that works. I wish I had food, but I cleaned everything out before I left. I’ll try to grab something before I come back.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.” She’d rather he come back sooner and skip the food. Besides, she was too nervous to eat.

  “A successful mission is one in which every detail is worried about.” He pulled open the door, stepped out into the hall. “I’ll lock it. Don’t open it for anyone.”

  “I won’t.”

  “If someone knocks, ignore it. Don’t get close to the door, don’t make any noise. Not even a hint there’s someone here.”

  “All right.” The idea of being left behind sounded worse by the minute.

  “Worse-case scenario, someone breaks down the door—”

  “What?!”

  “If that happens, lock the bedroom door and go out the window. There’s a fire escape there.”

  “Hawke, I really don’t like this idea.”

  “It’s the best one we’ve got.” He chucked her under her chin, stepped out into the hall. “You’ll be fine.”

  “What about you?”

  “I’ll be fine, too.” He didn’t give her time to argue further, just closed the door with a firm click.

  Miranda resisted the urge to pull it back open and watch him walk away. It wouldn’t do any good and would only put off the inevitable moment when she’d be truly alone. She turned the lock and paced across the room, glancing at her watch as she did so. It was eleven o’clock in Maryland, but that didn’t tell her what time it was here. What was the time difference? Ten hours? Twelve? Did it matter? She was stuck where she was until Hawke got back.

  If he got back.

  There was a very real possibility he wouldn’t and as much as she didn’t want to think about it, Miranda had to be prepared. She paced back to the door, checking the lock again, pressing her ear against the wood listening for something she hoped not to hear. All she heard was silence. She should have been relieved, but she couldn’t shake the worry and dread that filled her.

  “Pull yourself together and do something!” She muttered the command, forcing herself away from her post by the door. She’d search the bedroom, see what she could find. Maybe there were weapons, maps, tools and information she could use if Hawke didn’t return. If there were, she’d find them.

  Then she’d wait and pray she didn’t have to use them.r />
  Chapter Nine

  Hawke didn’t believe in lying and he hadn’t lied to Miranda. Doing so would have been a betrayal of the strict moral code his parents had raised him with. His mother and father had both been religious people. Though there’d been no church, no Bibles to be read or studied when he was growing up, his parents had believed in God and in a cosmic balance of justice and mercy. To them, the Ten Commandments were not an arbitrary set of rules but a code of conduct to be lived by. Hawke did his best to honor their memory by doing so, though his own personal code had taken precedence more times than he was comfortable admitting.

  Today had been one of those times. While he hadn’t lied to Miranda, he hadn’t told her the truth, either. He had no business to see to in Bangkok. None that the law would approve of anyway. But telling Miranda that he planned to blackmail a man to get the information he needed hadn’t seemed like the wisest thing to do. She was worried enough without him adding more to the mix. Worse, she couldn’t be counted on to stay where he’d left her. Leaving out information was the one way he could think of to keep her in place. The less she knew, the less likely she’d be to follow and intervene.

  It shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did. Much as he wanted to pretend that following the letter of the law made him innocent of wrongdoing, he knew the truth—a lie of omission was as serious a sin as any other. Yet, he’d done it over and over again in the past ten years. And he’d done worse.

  So, why was this one small omission bothering him so much? Maybe because he was beginning to think the events of the last few days were payback. If God really did care about His creation, if He really did have a vested interested in humanity, He might just have decided it was time to balance the scales a little, give Hawke back what he’d been dishing out for the past decade—justice. Or maybe it was because the thought of lying to Miranda, of hurting her in any way, left him feeling cold.

  Both were foolish thoughts, but neither would let him go as he wound his way through back alleys, skirted an upscale neighborhood and made his way to a busy tourist district. Street vendors lined the sidewalk, their stainless-steel carts reflecting watery sunlight and bright colors. The scent of sweet pastry and sticky rice made Hawke’s stomach growl and his mouth water, but he’d left Miranda back at the apartment with no food. He wouldn’t eat until she did.

  Pay phones were easy to find on the busy thoroughfare and Hawke stepped into a booth, leaving the door open and facing the street. He was less conspicuous that way, and less vulnerable. Roaring traffic and a swarming crowd of tourists created a sea of motion that made blending in easy. All Hawke had to do was act like everyone else—and that was something he’d perfected over the years.

  He pulled a baht from his pocket, slid it into the coin slot, knowing he was leaving fingerprints and not caring. The DEA and Royal Thai police already knew he was in Bangkok. Trying to hide the fact was a waste of energy. He dialed Pot o’ Gold Exports first, listening as the phone rang once and a recorded message filled the line. Closed pending DEA investigation. Hawke slammed the phone down as hot, dark anger welled up inside him—the knowledge that the message had been left for him but would be heard by clients filled him with rage. Despite his reputation for skirting the law and pursuing justice with a vengeance, Hawke had made sure the family business remained untainted, its reputation reflecting the ethical dealings of his stepfather. Now it seemed that reputation would fall victim to the same faceless enemy that had tried to have Hawke killed.

  Frustration spurred him on as he picked up the phone again and dialed another number. This time to his house in Mae Hong Son. The line would be tapped, but it didn’t matter. His conversation would add a little excitement to someone’s boring day but would offer anyone listening nothing more than that.

  “Sawatdee khrap.” The greeting came quickly. The soft, masculine voice was one Hawke recognized immediately.

  “Sawatdee khrap, Apirak.”

  “You’re back.” The Thai words sounded almost foreign after so many months of speaking and hearing only English, but they were as much Hawke’s language as the ones he had learned from his stepfather. He slipped into the pattern and rhythm of Thai without conscious thought.

  “Do you know why?”

  “Trouble in the States. Trouble here.” Apirak Koysayodin spit the words out, his normally smooth baritone laced with temper. Hawke’s second in command and the only person besides Noah and Simon that Hawke trusted, Apirak was a master of understatements, not given to panic and loyal to a fault. If he said there was trouble, it had to be big.

  “What kind of trouble is there here?”

  “That hotheaded kid brother of yours got himself in deep with the DEA.”

  “How deep?” Hawke knew his brother could act without thinking, but couldn’t imagine him being foolish enough to mess with a government agency.

  “Deep enough to get carted off to jail. A couple of agents came here to question us. The one who hired you and a couple of other people. They were talking about stolen money and a murdered agent. Simon didn’t take kindly to the accusations they made against you.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “Took a swing at one of them. Gave the guy a bloody nose. He’s lucky he didn’t get himself shot.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Simon.”

  “The agent he took a swing at had just accused the entire family of being in the Wa’s pocket. The implication that your family was murdered because they double-crossed the Wa sent him over the edge.”

  Hawke bit back harsh words and calmed his suddenly ragged breathing. A militia group based in Myanmar, the Wa supported their guerilla efforts through drug trade. When Patrick Morran refused to ship drugs through his export business and went to the authorities with the names of men who were more willing, he, his wife and his daughter were executed by a man who had been a friend for as many years as Patrick had been in business. Hawke had been in the States obtaining an MBA. Simon had been visiting friends. Because of that, they’d lived. “The DEA knows the truth about what happened. They were taunting him for a reason.”

  “And he gave them a good reason to cart him off to jail. With Simon out of the picture, they probably figured you’d be easier to control, maybe even be willing to turn yourself in.”

  Hawke snorted. “If that’s what they hope to accomplish they’ve made an error in judgment. I’m even more determined to stay out of their hands.”

  “It’s more of an error in judgment than you think, Hawke.” Apirak’s voice warned of more bad news.

  “What else?”

  “Simon has disappeared.”

  “Disappeared?” Everything inside Hawke stilled, his nerves so alive he could hear drips of water from gutters above the street, feel the rain moving in over the city, see every speck of light and dark, each ant and roach that wove its way between cracks in the sidewalk.

  “Supposedly he escaped, but I don’t believe it.” Which meant Simon hadn’t gone to his own safe house, hadn’t used the phone he had for emergencies, had made no effort at all to make contact. Apirak didn’t need to say it for Hawke to know it was true. The emergency plans they’d formulated years before were meant for times such as these. If Simon wasn’t using them, it was because he wasn’t able to.

  Hawke’s jaw was tight with worry and anger. He’d lost most of his family. He wouldn’t lose Simon, too. “How long has he been gone?”

  “They brought him in yesterday morning. He disappeared sometime last night.”

  “Any word on the street?”

  “Nothing solid. Our normal informants are very quiet on this one.”

  “Keep listening.”

  “Of course.” There was a second of hesitation, then Apirak spoke again. “Is the woman with you?”

  “She’s in a safe place.” His response was
vague. The less information those listening in on the conversation got, the happier Hawke would be.

  “Hopefully out of sight. There have been news stories here. The tale of a mysterious and wealthy entrepreneur on the run with the sister of an American model is just too good for the press to pass up.”

  “I’d figured it would be.”

  “Just be sure you’re not spotted.”

  “We already have been, but I’m still free.”

  “Make sure you keep it that way.”

  “I’ll be in touch.” Hawke hung up before Apirak could say anymore, his shoulders tight with warning. The DEA had had plenty of time to trace the call. They’d be here soon, and he had no intention of waiting around to greet them.

  * * *

  Hawke had been gone three hours twenty minutes and fifteen seconds. Sixteen. Seventeen.

  “Just keep counting. That’s doing a whole lot of good.” Miranda muttered the words out loud as she raked a hand through damp hair. In the time Hawke had been gone, she’d managed to go through every dresser drawer, the entire contents of the closet—where she found a T-shirt that fell to her thighs and jeans that perched precariously on her hips—take a shower, change clothes and scare herself silly. What she hadn’t done was come up with a plan of action.

  She rubbed at the ache behind her eyes and surveyed the items she’d collected. A pile of weapons lay on the bed—guns, knives and something she was sure was a machete. Wooden clubs attached by a short chain and another long wooden pole of some sort looked like martial arts weapons, though Miranda had no idea what they’d be used for. A box of ammunition was on the floor, deadly looking stuff that made her cringe. Beside it sat a small canister that she did recognize—pepper spray. At least she assumed it was pepper spray. She couldn’t read the label. For all she knew it was something much more toxic. The sad fact was she had enough weapons to hold off an army, but she didn’t know how to use most of them.

  Who was she kidding? Even if she did know how to use them, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to. Just the thought of shooting someone made her light-headed. Stabbing someone was even more appalling—the feel of a blade slicing through human flesh something she refused to even imagine.