Secret Hideout

by Paula Graves

  “Leamon might have somethin’ to say about that,” she said, leading him carefully.

  “Leamon’s an idiot,” he spat. “He ain’t no obstacle.”

  Opal hid a secret smile. J.T. was a dangerous man in many ways, but he wasn’t unpredictable, at least not to his mother.

  “What if your friends tell you Mark Shipley ain’t a fed? You still gonna keep an eye on him?”

  “I’ll keep an eye on anyone who ain’t family.”

  Like you’re keeping an eye on the McCoys? Wild-eyed Davy and too-big-for-her-britches Dahlia were trouble. Even Opal, though staying on the edges of the family business for now, could see the McCoys would be a problem for the Swains, sooner or later.

  The key was to figure out now how to make the coming storm work to her own advantage.

  * * *

  “WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO HERE?” Scanlon asked Davy quietly, as they worked their way toward the tent. He noticed the other three weren’t trying to be stealthy at all, which either meant they weren’t going to try to ambush the people inside or they didn’t give a damn if the people knew they were coming, because they were about to unleash a bullet-flying hell on earth that nobody could live through.

  Two men came out of the tent and stood at the entrance, giving them long, wary stares as they approached to within five yards. The taller of the two was a dark-haired man in his late thirties. Broad shoulders, a muscular build and sharp gray eyes suggested he wouldn’t be a pushover. Something about him seemed strangely familiar, though Scanlon didn’t think he’d ever met the man before.

  The shorter man was no slouch, either, making up for his lesser size with a powerful build and a jaw that jutted out like a hunk of granite, as if daring them to try anything. He had sandy blond hair that glimmered in the light from the Coleman lantern he held out in front of him to get a better look at the newcomers.

  Neither man appeared to be carrying firearms, but they could easily have holsters tucked behind their backs.

  “Hello,” Davy called out, his voice disarmingly friendly.

  “Hello,” the dark-haired man said carefully. Definitely not a local; his accent pegged him as a Midwesterner. His companion just nodded at Scanlon and his companions.

  “Y’all doing some fishing?” Leamon asked, grinning like a kid. Scanlon couldn’t blame the sandy-haired man for shooting a look of alarm at Leamon. He was probably already hearing “Dueling Banjos” in his head and wondering how soon someone would tell him to squeal like a pig.

  “Yes,” the dark-haired man answered. “You?”

  “Coyote hunting,” Davy answered. “They’re all up in these hills, bothering the livestock.”

  Scanlon noticed both of the men were looking at him. He met their gazes without flinching, but he was now more convinced than ever that Davy and the other two men had brought him out here to this tent on purpose. It was definitely a test.

  But he no longer thought shooting these two men played into the scenario. On the contrary, if Scanlon’s instincts were right, these two men were in on the plan. Davy, Leamon and Dillon wanted these two men to see Scanlon for some reason.

  Did they already suspect he might be a fed?

  Scanlon looked more closely at the two men, while trying to seem mostly uninterested. The blond-haired man was completely unfamiliar to him, but the dark-haired guy had set off a low-level alarm the second he’d laid eyes on him. He’d seen him before. In town? Back in D.C.?

  He pushed back a lock of his own hair, which had been growing long for six months now. He’d deliberately cut back on his shaving these days, as well, letting his beard grow for days at a time before giving it a trim. He was dressed in ratty camouflage he’d picked up at a thrift store over in Guntersville when he’d learned that the Swains liked to go hunting. Even if this man had seen him before, back when he was Mr. Clean-cut FBI Agent, it wouldn’t be easy to recognize him, especially in the low light.

  “You fellows eaten anything?” the sandy-haired man asked. His accent was a broad Louisiana drawl. Scanlon wouldn’t be surprised to learn he wrestled alligators for fun.

  “Nothin’ but a few crackers before I came out,” Davy answered. “You offerin’?”

  “Sure. We caught us a nice mess of bluegills out of the river earlier today. Fried ’em up over the fire and we’re just about to start eating.” The blond grinned at them. “You want some? There’s plenty—don’t want to have to throw it away.”

  “Sure would,” Leamon said eagerly. Too eagerly. Now Scanlon was sure they were up to something.

  So it was a test, he thought, as he followed the other three men into the spacious tent. Inside, two sleeping bags took up about half the space. The bags were high-end products, of a brand serious wilderness campers would use. Two expensive rifles leaned against the side of the tent near the sleeping bags. Across from there, a large plastic cooler sat in the corner, acting as a table. A plastic plate piled high with fried fish sat atop the cooler.

  “I’m Norman Bayliss,” the dark-haired man said. He nodded to his smaller friend. “This is Jeff Munroe.”

  “I’m Leamon Tolliver,” Leamon said, “and this here’s my cousin Dillon Creavey. That’s Davy McCoy and the quiet fellow over there is Mark Shipley.”

  Scanlon nodded in greeting. “Where’re y’all from?” he asked, pleased with how nonchalant he sounded.

  “I’m from Slidell, Louisiana,” the one named Jeff answered.

  “Mark here’s from Houston,” Davy said. “That ain’t far from Louisiana, is it?”

  “It’s a little ways,” Scanlon answered.

  “I’m from Marion, Illinois, originally,” Norman Bayliss said. “But we’ve both been living in Atlanta for the last few years. We both work at a construction company there.”

  Scanlon didn’t buy that story for a second. He let his gaze linger on Norman Bayliss’s face for a moment, then looked back at his companions. He found them all watching him rather than the two strangers.

  He made a little face at them to let them know he found their stares odd. They all looked away quickly.

  Good. Now he had them on the defensive.

  He didn’t look back at Bayliss again, instead turning his gaze around the large tent. “This is some fancy setup. Bet it cost you an arm and a leg.”

  “Got it at a military surplus store for next to nothing,” Munroe said with a laugh. “You like to camp, Mr. Shipley?”

  “Don’t get much chance to,” he answered lightly, letting his gaze move from Munroe to Bayliss. Bayliss’s stance was oddly martial, almost as if he were standing at attention.

  Almost as soon as he went into that stance, Bayliss relaxed it, but it was too late. Scanlon had seen it.

  Suddenly he saw, with dazzling clarity, what this entire hunting trip was really all about.

  These men were soldiers. The unconventional kind. That was why the dark-haired man seemed familiar to Scanlon—his face had been plastered on a list passed around to the FBI a couple of years ago when the MacLear Security scandal had first broken. His name wasn’t Norman Bayliss. It was Nolan Alvarez, and he’d been one of the persons of interest the FBI had wanted to locate for questioning about the MacLear SSU.

  No doubt Jeff Munroe was also a former SSU agent. And the Swain boys knew it. This silly coyote hunting trip had been aimed at bagging an entirely different prey.

  He’d been trying to ease his way into the family’s trust for months now. Before this invitation to go hunting, about the only thing he’d ever been invited to do with any of the Swains was watch the store for Addie this coming Saturday while she and the family held their barbecue.

  Was this one final test before letting him do that favor for the Swains? Bring him here and parade him in front of the big, bad soldiers of fortune?

  It wasn’t a bad plan, really, which made Scanlon wonder whose idea it had really been. Davy, Leamon and Dillon weren’t the brightest bulbs on a family tree that didn’t boast many bright bulbs at all. Someone else had pro
bably come up with the notion—Addie, maybe. Or perhaps the SSU guys themselves. Either option would suggest a connection between the Swains and the rogue SSU operatives that he hadn’t realized existed before.

  Maybe it tied in, somehow, to the mysterious J. T. Swain?

  Whoever had come up with the plan was smart enough to know that the MacLear SSU agents were uniquely suited to spot a fed. So much of the training, the mind-set and the habits of the MacLear agents would almost certainly echo that of the FBI, since most of MacLear’s training personnel had been either former FBI Academy instructors or former military trainers.

  They’d be able to spot the training tells better than just about anyone else.

  Scanlon managed to school his features to a slack-jawed lack of interest in anything but the stack of tiny bluegill fillets that Jeff Munroe started passing around to the rest of them. Too bad for these guys that Scanlon wasn’t a typical fed. Isabel’s Academy training was as plain as the nose on her face, but Scanlon was damned near hopeless at tactical skills.

  And now that he knew what these guys were looking for, he could make sure not to give the game away.

  Davy pulled a couple of plastic bottles from his backpack. “Hooch,” he said flatly, passing it to the guy calling himself Bayliss. “You might want to mix it with a little water. It’s strong stuff if you’re not used to it.”

  Scanlon took two crispy pieces of fish from the plate Leamon Tolliver passed to him. His stomach was in a knot, but he forced himself to eat the fish, and by the second bite, his hunger began to overcome his tension. He waved off the plastic cup of moonshine Bayliss offered and pulled his own plastic bottle from the pocket of his hip pack. It was diluted tea, which looked enough like homebrewed beer to pass. No way in hell would he risk getting liquored up with this bunch.

  They stayed awhile longer. Davy, Leamon and Dillon had gone past buzzed and were headlong into blitzed by the time they took their leave and left the campsite.

  “Reckon we’re too pissed to hunt now,” Davy said with a drunken laugh.

  “Reckon so,” Scanlon agreed. He felt the gazes of the two SSU agents on his back, but he didn’t let himself stiffen up or turn around to see if they were still watching.

  Apparently he’d passed the test, or they’d never have let him out of the tent alive.

  * * *

  ISABEL CHECKED THE SMALL ALARM CLOCK sitting beside Scanlon’s bed. It was after ten—how long would Scanlon and the Swain boys hunt, anyway? All night? The silence in the house was becoming downright oppressive.

  A few minutes later, the silence was shattered by a loud noise from the front of the house, a couple of thuds that seemed to come from just outside, then silence again.

  She reached behind her back, where her Beretta sat heavily in its holster. She slipped the weapon out and checked the clip as quietly as she could.

  She listened for further sounds but heard nothing for almost a minute.

  Slipping off the bed, she stepped out of the slippers she’d put on her feet to ward off the mild chill that had descended with nightfall. The hardwood floor beneath her feet felt gritty and cold, but she pushed herself forward, pausing just outside the entrance to the front room, her back flattened against the wall.

  She listened for more sounds, her body tense to the point of snapping.

  Suddenly, a flurry of bangs hit the front door. Frantic and hard.

  “Anybody in there! I need help!”

  Isabel’s heart seemed to settle somewhere in the middle of her throat, thumping wildly. She eased around the doorjamb into the front room, the dim gloom eased by only a small light Scanlon had left on over the stove.

  Crouching low to stay out of the line of fire through the door or windows, she moved closer to the door.

  “I need help!” The voice outside was male. Frantic. Not a local—the Southern accent was light and urbanized. Maybe someone from Birmingham or Atlanta, where city life had sharpened edges to their fluid drawls.

  “My son’s hurt! I think he might be bleeding out!” If the man outside was trying to trick her into showing herself, he was doing a damned good job of sounding convincing. Raw fear suffused the gravelly voice. “My phone’s not getting a signal—I need your help. Please!”

  She eased over to the window and darted a quick look through the tiny space in the curtains. She could just make out the edge of the front porch. There was a dark form lying there in a heap, and she could hear a soft, whimpering noise now. A hint of moonlight revealed something dark and wet trickling across the wooden slats of the porch.

  Someone was hurt. Bleeding.

  If she didn’t do something to help these people, that person could die. But what if it were a trick?

  After a long pause, she knew there was no other choice. She had to take the chance.

  Keeping the Beretta in hand, she turned the latch and opened the front door.

  Chapter Nine

  The walk back to Canyon Rock, where Scanlon had met his companions earlier that evening, seemed to take forever. The hike was a series of drunken zigzags, Davy and the Swain clansmen alternating between singing profane versions of old country songs and scuffling until Scanlon was afraid they were going to shoot each other dead in the woods, leaving him to explain to Addie Tolliver how he’d let her boys kill each other.

  Canyon Rock finally loomed into sight, and Scanlon sighed with relief. What happened once they parted ways was their problem. “Sorry we didn’t find any coyotes to shoot,” he said, edging away. “At least we got a fish fry out of it.”

  “Nice guys, those fellows.” Davy was a happy drunk, grinning at Scanlon as if he’d just told Davy he’d won the lottery. “I didn’t ’spect them to be such nice guys.”

  “Shut up, Davy!” Leamon caught Davy in a headlock and dragged him away. Leamon was not a happy drunk.

  Dillon, the youngest, followed them off like a clumsy puppy, running circles around them as he tried to keep his cousin from getting too rough with their friend.

  Scanlon was glad to see the back of them.

  He started to head back toward the cabin, but curiosity began to nag the back of his mind. Those MacLear guys—had they really come here at the Swains’ request just to give Scanlon the once-over? Or were they already in the area for another reason?

  The hike back down to the river would take fifteen minutes, tops, without Davy and the others to hold him back. He knew how to be a lot quieter than the Swain boys had been, too. He was pretty sure he could get within a few yards of the tent without being seen or heard, since the last six months in Bolen Bluff had helped him recover some of the backwoods skills his father had taught him when he was a young boy.

  He’d sure like to get a better idea what those mercs were doing in Halloran County and what their connection to the Swain family might be. Because whatever had brought the two groups together, it couldn’t be good.

  * * *

  “DID HE LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS?” Isabel winced when she unwrapped the bandanna from the young boy’s head and saw the bloody skin flap hanging from the side of the child’s scalp. His name was Tommy, his father had told her. He’d fallen while they were hiking back to their camp that evening and he’d hit a rocky outcropping, tearing a wound in the side of his head.

  “No, but he’s not good with blood—makes him woozy.” His father, Pete, looked a little green himself. Isabel had coaxed him into one of the kitchen chairs.

  “Then you’ll just have to close your eyes, Tommy,” she said to the little boy, as she examined the bleeding wound. It looked superficial, actually, as if the rock he’d hit had merely sliced a flap of skin away from his head. “How old are you?”

  “Eight,” he said in a hitching voice.

  “Oh, you’re a big boy, then.” She cleaned the area, wincing at Tommy’s whimper, then used the tips of her gloved fingers to gently place the skin flap back into position. She carefully examined the condition of the skull beneath the wound to see if there were any signs of fracture.
Tommy moaned a little more, but the bone felt firm under her touch.

  “I think it looks a lot worse than it is,” Isabel told Pete, flashing a quick smile. “I can bandage it up here to keep him from bleeding so much, but you’ll need to get him to a doctor to make sure. Definitely going to have to have that stitched up, if nothing else.”

  “Thank you,” Pete said, giving her a sheepish look. “I feel like an idiot for falling apart that way—”

  “He’s your son. Of course it freaked you out. Do you have a way to get back to your vehicle?” she asked, securing the bandage around Tommy’s wound.

  “It’s not that far,” he admitted. “I just panicked when he started bleeding all over the place.”

  “Of course.” Isabel crouched in front of Tommy. “Tommy, you’re going to be okay. But your daddy’s looking a little woozy himself, so he’s going to need you to help him get back to the car without keeling over. You think you can do that?”

  Tommy looked at her uncertainly.

  “I bet you can,” she said, looking him straight in his big brown eyes. “Because you’re a hero. I can tell. Only a hero would have sat here and let me check him over this way without crying like a baby.”

  Tommy blinked at her, his lips curving a little in the middle of his blood-smeared face. “I didn’t cry like a baby,” he admitted.

  “I sure could use your help, big guy,” Pete said, catching on to Isabel’s plan. He held out his hand to his son.

  Tommy slid off the chair and crossed to take his father’s hand. “Come on, Daddy. We better get you to the car.”

  Isabel walked them to the door. “I’m not sure where the nearest hospital is—”

  “There’s a clinic in town. I think they keep pretty late hours.” Pete smiled at her. “I don’t know what we’d have done without your help.”

  “I’m just glad I was here,” she answered.

  She didn’t linger at the door, which she knew Pete might find rude. But she’d already taken enough chances tonight as it was. She stripped off her gloves and locked up behind her, pausing at the table to clean up the mess Tommy’s bloody head wound had made.