Terror Stash

by Tracy Cooper-Posey

  “But how do you know?”

  “You don’t. All you can do is the best you can with the time you have.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve achieved nothing and Steve is dead. I was better off as a non-person, hiding in my cubicle at the consulate.”

  Caden was silent for long moments. When he spoke, he sounded amazed. “You don’t admire Nicollo because she changed the world. You admire her because she changed her world and didn’t have to confront anyone to do it. You think she did it behind the scenes and didn’t have to risk anything.”

  Montana blinked away the acid tears so she could see him properly. She wanted to tell him he was wrong, but she couldn’t. Even though she hadn’t known this about herself until this moment, she was honest enough to acknowledge the truth.

  Caden shook his head. “You can’t go through life that way. It’s not living, Montana. It’s nothing. It’s avoiding life.”

  “I know. I’m a coward,” she confessed. “I always have been.”

  “No, you’re not. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not a coward.” He said it with complete certainty. “Steve didn’t think you were, either.”

  The mention of his name speared her chest and her vision swam as new tears gathered, stinging.

  Caden’s arms tightened. “Hey,” he said, so softly that she could barely hear him. She looked up, trying to blink away the moisture. His hand cupped her face. “Three days ago, you’d have sooner shoved Bob’s knife in my gullet than let yourself cry in front of me.”

  “Hell, yeah.” It was a croak.

  “You’re not afraid of me anymore.” It was a statement.

  She shook her head slowly, as she explored her own feelings. “No, I’m not.” She smiled a little. “I guess I can change my spots, after all.”

  He kissed her, and it was a warm, caring, soft expression of thanks and a pleasure devoid of sexual meaning. It contained everything he couldn’t or wouldn’t speak of.

  Montana curled her hand around the nape of his neck. “You’re a complex man, Caden Rawn. You keep surprising me.”

  “Good.” It was a rough growl.

  “I thought you liked keeping people afraid of you.”

  He hesitated. “Except you,” he said, at last. Then he looked away.

  His telling movement made her eyes widen. “You mean there is no one else in the world that you trust?”

  “Trust? Sure. I trusted Steve immediately. There’s others. Not many. But enough.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said softly.

  This time, he picked her up and dumped her gently on the driver’s seat. “We need to get going,” he said. “We’ll take care of whoever took care of Steve later, okay?”

  Montana hitched up her hip and picked up the car keys and swiveled to face the steering wheel. Her heart was racing, as if she had come very close to an abyss and only just managed to pull herself back from the brink.

  She wiped her eyes and took Caden’s cue. “They made it look like he’d fallen over the cliffs. Steve couldn’t swim. How many people would know that?”

  “Not many,” Caden said slowly. “But his employers would.”

  “The police are in on this?” She was appalled.

  “Probably not all of them but it would explain how they managed to stay undetected for so long. The police were protecting them, covering up for them.” Caden rested his head against the headrest for a moment.

  She wiped uselessly at her eyes again. “If they know about Steve...”

  “But how?” Caden swiveled in his seat. “No one saw us in the caves or saw us come out of them. We were just three people walking along the beach.”

  “It doesn’t matter for right now,” she said. “They knew about Steve, somehow. We have to assume they know about us, too.” She climbed up into her seat. “We get your gear, we pick a spot on the map that has no connection to either of us and we leave town. We need breathing room, Caden. We need to marshal strength and get information.”

  “Are you okay to drive?” he asked.

  “I’ll manage.” She backed out of the shed, pushing the doors open with the tailgate of the car, then turned it around to face the path to the gate. “Where to?” she asked him.

  He took a deep breath. “You’re going to have to brace yourself for this.” He gave her directions.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “First that boat arrived and took off a handful of them, then there was the shipment from the caves about two weeks ago.” Chris pushed his hand through his hair, low down on the back of his neck, with a heavy hand. “And then suddenly Canada gets hit. I’m not stupid, Borelli. I can put two and two together. I tell you, it’s getting out of hand!”

  Borelli looked up from his computer. “Not stupid, huh? Just what did you think they were doing down there all this time? Playing patty cake?” He pushed the keyboard away from him with a compulsive jerk. “Jesus wept!”

  “Sure I knew about the drugs and stuff. That I could overlook—a few people decide to crisp their brain cells with chemicals? Not my problem.”

  Borelli curled his lip. “You’ve been listening to Steve Scarborough for too long. That sounds like something he would have said.”

  “But this is totally different! They’re blowing up innocent people who haven’t in the least asked for it!”

  Borelli crossed his arms. “How is that different from what you did to Steve?”

  Chris licked his lips, his eyes skittering around the room. “I had to do that,” he muttered. “He would have blown us.”

  Borelli’s smile widened. “Self-interest is a marvelous motivator, isn’t it?”

  “We have no idea where Rawn and the woman are now. No idea what they’re doing, who they’re talking to.”

  “Who the hell is going to believe them, anyway?” Borelli pulled his keyboard back within comfortable reach. “You need to relax. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing will happen as long as you keep your cool.”

  “Maybe...maybe I should leave town.”

  Borelli laid his hands very gently, palms down, on either side of the keyboard, and looked up at Chris. “Sonny, you just got a taste of the true size of this when you heard the news this morning. Wherever you go, it’s going to follow you. This is not something you can outrun. So I strongly suggest you dig in and ride it out.”

  “Dig in how?” His voice lifted sharply.

  “Damage control,” Borelli said flatly. “You minimize the damage, shore up the holes and wait out the storm. That’s all the options you have left.”

  “What if we don’t find all the holes?” Chris wailed. “We’re springing leaks everywhere!”

  “Keep your pantyhose on, will ya? Christ, you scream louder than my wife does!” Borelli straightened up the keyboard again. “There’s only two people left who have any idea about anything. Deal with them and the problem’s solved.”

  * * * * *

  Grunters, south of the Gnarabup headland, was a favorite with surfers looking for an early morning reef break. Today, with the northeast wind, the waves were up around the twelve foot mark and very fast.

  It was a great day for surfing and only a granny would sit it out.

  When the others finally strode out of the water with their wet boards under their arms, Bruce was still sitting on his towel, his arms resting on his knees, fingers threaded tightly together.

  “Christ, you didn’t even take your bloody tee-shirt off, ya girl,” Greg said, flicking water at him.

  “Fuck off,” Bruce murmured, barely looking around.

  Jacko stepped back a few steps to study Bruce as he dropped his board to the sand, slicked his hair back and unzipped his suit.

  “Really gnarly, man,” Greg added. “Sucky, lots of double-ups, just the stuff you say you like.”

  Bruce continued to sit, silent.

  Greg waved his hand at him, annoyed. “Well, your loss, man. Least I didn’t have to put up with you droppin’ in on my waves like you usually do, you little ru
nt bastard. Why I had to haul you out here—”

  Jacko held up his hand. “Wait.” He was staring at Bruce.

  “What the hell do you mean, ‘wait’?”

  “I mean, shut the fuck up for one damned minute, will you?” Jacko snapped back. “Do us all a favor and put your mouth in neutral.”

  Greg blinked, surprise skittering across his face.

  Jacko sank down onto his board, facing Bruce. “You haven’t said anything for the last twenty-four hours. Not that I heard. So what’s up?”

  “Hey, yeah, that’s right,” Greg said, his eyes widening. “And usually we can’t get you to shut up!”

  Jacko glared at him and Greg subsided.

  Bruce licked his lips. “Remember we heard on the way here, on the radio, about that cop they think died, falling off the cliffs, yesterday?” He looked up at Jacko, his face very white.

  “Who gives a shit about a fuckin’ pig?” Greg muttered darkly, but to himself.

  Jacko nodded. “Something Scarborough. He’s the one that patrols the beaches, most often. He was up at the Bommie when Montana hauled Greg out of the soup.”

  Bruce swallowed. “I saw it,” he whispered. “I saw them doin’ it.”

  * * * * *

  Caden watched Montana’s reactions, judging her responses as he directed her through the exclusive streets of The Hill. Tucked in crevasses, or else marching proudly along the ocean-view crests, spaced out to provide the utmost privacy, were some of the most expensive homes in the state.

  “You have a house here?” she asked, sounding wary.

  “A friend does.”

  “This friend is the reason you come back to Margaret River?”

  “Friends are the reason I go anywhere.”

  She absorbed that, the thoughtful look back. He realized with a start that he was beginning to know her expressions well, to anticipate them. But her next statement floored him; “You go anywhere for friends, but none of them are dear enough to you to make you want to stay.”

  That one would require thinking about. He grinned. He liked the way she kept throwing out challenges all the time. It wasn’t intentional, it was just the way her mind worked. Her opinions and the way she looked at things were often surprising and always different.

  He came back at her with the truth. “Sometimes I’d want to stay for a while, but there are other friends elsewhere I’d miss, if I did.”

  It still felt awkward, but this truth-telling thing was growing steadily more comfortable and easy. Almost preferable. He’d always hewn close to the truth when he could, or a slice of the surface truth, anyway. But the deeper stuff—feelings, emotions—they’d never been shared before.

  There was a huge relief knowing that she knew the worst of it and had not run screaming from him. It meant everything was in the open. He didn’t have remember what she knew and what she didn’t, or watch what he was saying. That was a novelty all on its own. Except that he’d shut her down, as they’d left Steve’s place. But that wasn’t from a need to avoid the subject. It was simply that he didn’t know how to answer.

  “I keep wondering...how did you get an education?” She glanced at him. “You read and I assume you write, too. You can hold up your end of an intelligent conversation. You certainly know enough about how the world works to float across any border you feel like and that takes specialized knowledge and expertise—”

  “Not really,” he admitted. “Sometimes it’s so ridiculously easy, it’s too embarrassing to admit. That isn’t a skill that should be admired. I just soaked it up along with insider knowledge of the drug routes through Asia and the major players’ methods and madnesses. Like you soaked up languages.”

  “How did you learn to read and write? I’m assuming they didn’t provide you with teachers and a classroom in the prison.”

  “There was trio of people I called the grandpas and ma, also prisoners—they’d been there for decades. They were older and one of them was a classically trained philosopher who’d passed through Harvard, Cambridge and even had a degree from the University of Beijing—which is where he murdered his first wife. The three of them taught me whenever the guards would let us sit still in the corner. They would draw in the ground, I would copy them.”

  “But even so, there must have been huge gaps in your knowledge.”

  “Once I got out, I read everything I could get my hands on. I’ve been reading ever since. The Internet was the best thing that ever happened for me. You’d be amazed at what you can learn and what you can teach yourself to do, out of a book.”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” she said flatly. Sincerely.

  He remembered her library of books and the eclectic non-fiction he’d scanned. “No, probably not.” He pointed. “Turn right here.”

  They were well into the trees now and the houses were even further apart. She turned into the narrow road and nosed the car forward. There were only three houses on this road. “The one at the end,” he told her. “Pull up at the gate.”

  She stopped so that her window was level with the intercom and reached over to push the call button.

  “Yes?” came back the static-buzzed response.

  He leaned closer to the window. “It’s Caden Rawn. I have a friend with me.”

  Silence for five long seconds. “Drive right down to the house.”

  The iron gates swung open on hinges that squealed and Montana winced. “All this house, and your friend can’t afford to oil his hinges?”

  “If they squeak, you know if someone opens them,” he told her.

  She frowned as she put the car into gear and nudged it forward through the gates. “What sort of a friend needs such high security?”

  “A very private one.”

  “So private he lets someone as infamous as you stay with him?”

  “Ria likes good company.”

  Her mouth opened in a silent ‘ohhhh...’ and her expression became wise. “A lady friend.” She stopped her car in front of the single story, sprawling red brick house and studied it. “It looks like an English country house, picked straight up out of somewhere like Sussex or the Cotswolds and dropped here. Mullioned windows and all.”

  Caden climbed out of the car. Davey emerge from the front door so Caden nodded at him.

  “She’s in the side garden,” Davey told him.

  “Thanks, Davey.” He lifted his hand to indicate to Montana the direction to take.

  She was staring at Davey as he went back into the house. “Black jeans, black tee-shirt...the guy is security, or I’ll give you my next paycheck.”

  “Your check is safe. Do you like roses, Montana?”

  “Not commercial ones.” She walked beside him, her long legs keeping up with him. “So, is she pretty?”

  “Ria is both a lady and a friend, but not the way you mean.”

  They rounded the corner of the house and Montana stopped, her eyes widening. Her mouth rounded into another silent “oh!”, but no sound emerged.

  Caden soaked up her astonishment, enjoying the moment. “The last time Ria counted, she got to three hundred rose bushes, trees and vines before she gave up counting.”

  The ‘side’ of the house was the major section of Ria’s garden and most of the roses were here. They grew everywhere, climbing over the side of the house, in big beds, over the pergola, out of window boxes—all of it contrasting against the backdrop of dark old gum trees on the edge of Ria’s land. “There’s some old English roses here that date back to medieval times,” Caden told Montana, who still had not caught her breath. “Ria can probably give you the history on every single rose.”

  At that moment a dog barked, somewhere ahead and hidden by the blooming garden. And a woman’s voice came, strident and loud; “You stupid mutt, I’ll have your testicles for my supper, I swear! Bad dog! Bad bloody dog!!”

  Montana pursed her lips against sudden laughter and looked at him, her eyes dancing. “A lady, huh?”

  “She has her moments. Come and meet her.” He wen
t through the covered gate and ducked low—he had learned very quickly that the ancient roses Ria favored were full of thorns.

  Caden moved around the first major bed of roses, judging by the sound of the dog and Ria’s muttered curses where they were in the garden. He finally saw them by the pergola and led Montana there.

  The dog, a big, clumsy-looking Irish red setter, sat on its wagging tail, its tongue hanging, looking inordinately cheerful. Ria stood over it, scolding it with her garden trowel high in the air.

  “Ria, you’re never going to teach that dumb dog a thing,” Caden called.

  Ria turned to face them, letting the trowel drop to the ground. She put her gloved hands on her hips and tilted up her chin so that the wide brimmed hat would let her see higher. She was only five foot one. Even Montana towered over her.

  “You’ve brought a guest! How wonderful!” She smiled at them both, her lined face wrinkling even more, then studied Montana frankly. “Are you a good talker, my dear? I do like to have a good chat every now and again. Caden’s one of those terrible guests who think it’s polite to disappear for days at a time and leave me to my pursuits.”

  Montana was trying not to stare, trying to hide this new astonishment. “Perhaps you should ask Caden if I speak well,” she said.

  “She’ll keep you on your toes,” Caden promised.

  Ria smiled again and her faded blue eyes danced. “Very good. Very good indeed!” She took off her glove and offered her hand to Montana. “Let’s not leave it to the man to figure out we need to be introduced, shall we? I’m Ria. What is your name?”

  Montana took her hand gingerly, as if she thought she might break it. But Ria shook it with vigor and Montana adjusted instantly, shaking her hand firmly. “I’m Montana,” she said. “Hello.”

  Caden touched Montana’s shoulder. It was important he have her attention for this next moment. “Ria is lousy at introductions. Let me do it. Montana, this is Arriabata Anderson Finch-Jones. Ria, this is Montana Dela Vega.”

  He watched Montana. He watched for her reaction.

  Montana’s hand went limp, as she stared at Ria.

  Ria smiled again. “It’s such a mouthful, isn’t it? Everyone in Margaret River just calls me Ria Jones. Caden just likes to show off because he can say my full name without tripping over his own tongue.”