by Diana Palmer
“Not on pavement,” he returned.
“He drives a red Cobra,” he pointed out. “Not the easiest ride to conceal. And this is a small community.”
“I’ll have a look around.”
“I’d go with you, but I can’t leave.” He hesitated. “Don’t try to sneak up on him,” he advised tersely, lowering his voice. “He’s a minister now, but you don’t ever lose survival instincts.”
“What do you know that I don’t?” Carson asked.
“Things I can’t tell. Go find him.”
“I’ll do my best.” He glanced past Cash at the other law enforcement people. “Why aren’t they looking?”
“Forensics first, then action,” Cash explained. His face hardened. “I know. I never really got the hang of it, either.” His dark eyes met Carson’s. “Her father knows where she is, I’m sure of it. Find him, you find her. Try to keep them both alive.”
Carson nodded. He turned and went out the door.
* * *
JAKE SLOWED AS he neared the turnoff that led, eventually, to Cy Parks’s ranch. Carlie, if the map was accurate, was being held at an old cattle ranch. The ranch house was long since burned down and deserted, but there was a barn still standing. He got around to the back of the building without being detected and observed two men standing guard in front of the door.
They were obviously armed, judging from the bulges under their cheap jackets. Apparently whoever hired them didn’t pay much.
Jake had spent years perfecting his craft as a mercenary. He could move in shadow, in light, in snow or sleet, without leaving a trace of himself. He was going to have to take down two men at once. He would also have to do it with exquisite care, so as not to alert what might be a third man inside the structure holding Carlie.
It would seem impossible to survive a frontal assault against armed men. He only smiled.
He was able to get very close before he moved out into the open with both arms up. He approached the men who belatedly drew their weapons and pointed them at him. The element of surprise had confused them just enough, he hoped.
“Stop there,” one of them said.
He kept walking until he was close to them.
“I said stop!” the other threatened.
“Here?” Jake asked, looking down at his feet. “Next to this snake?”
They looked down at his feet immediately. Big mistake. He ducked under them, hit one in the diaphragm to momentarily paralyze him while he put pressure to the carotid artery of the other man and watched him go down, unconscious. The second one, with his gun drawn, bent over, was easy to knock out with the .45.
Very quiet. Very precise. Not a sound came after. And he hadn’t had to kill them. He drew out two lengths of rawhide from his bomber jacket and got busy trussing up the gunmen.
He knew he’d have to work fast. If someone had Carlie at gunpoint inside, they might have heard the men ordering him to stop. It was a long shot, though. He wasn’t that close to the barn.
He secured them by their thumbs, on their bellies with their hands behind them, and moved quickly toward the shed.
On the way, he had company, quite suddenly, but not from ambush. The man, moving quickly, seemed to deliberately make a sound. He’d been warned, Jake thought and smiled. He turned to the newcomer with the knife still in his hand. When he recognized the man, he slid it quickly into its sheath.
The action wasn’t lost on Carson, who was remembering what Cash had told him about this enigmatic man.
“Good thing you came with a little noise,” the minister said softly. His glittering blue eyes were those of a different person altogether. “I wouldn’t have hesitated, under the circumstances.”
Carson stared at him with open curiosity. “I’ve never seen an action carried out more efficiently.”
“Son, you haven’t seen anything yet,” Jake told him. “You get behind me. And you don’t move unless I tell you to. Got it?”
Carson just nodded.
They got to the door. Jake pulled a device out of his pocket and pressed it to the old wood. His jaw tautened.
He drew back and kicked the door in, an action that is much easier in movies with balsa wood props than in real life with real wood. It flung back on its hinges. Jake had the automatic leveled before it even moved, and he walked in professionally, checking corners and dark places on his way to an inner room.
Carlie was, fortunately, on her feet about a yard away from the door her father had just broken down. She cried out through the gag as she saw him.
“Dear God,” Jake whispered, holstering the gun as he ran to her. “Honey, are you okay?”
“Dad!” she managed through the gag. She hugged him with her cuffed hands around his neck, sobbing. She was breathing roughly.
Carson dug an inhaler out of his pocket and handed it to her while he took off the gag. “Two puffs, separated,” he instructed. He touched her hair. “What did they do to you?” he asked angrily.
“Nothing,” she choked. “I mean, he brought me in here and tied me up, but he promised he wouldn’t hurt me and he didn’t. Except for keeping me tied up all night, I mean,” she stammered between puffs of the inhaler. “Thanks,” she told Carson. “I forgot mine.”
“And your damned phone,” Carson muttered, digging it out of his jacket pocket. He handed it to her.
“They had armed men at the door,” she exclaimed, gaping at her father. “He said the idea of taking me was to lure you here. He wasn’t going to hurt you. But he said the two men, they were going to do it! They were supposed to kill you...!”
He shrugged. “They’re not a threat anymore, pumpkin.” He pulled a tool from his pocket and very efficiently unlocked her cuffs, touching only the chain. He turned to Carson. “You wouldn’t happen to have an evidence bag on you?” he mused.
Carson pursed his lips, produced one from his jacket pocket and handed it to Jake. “I had a feeling,” he replied.
Carlie watched her father slide the cuffs, gently and still without touching the parts that had locked her wrists, into the evidence bag. He laid them on the table and took a quick shot with his smartphone’s camera. “Just in case,” he told them.
“Someday, you have to tell me about your past,” Carlie said.
“I don’t, pumpkin. There are things that should never be spoken of.” He smoothed over her hair. “Let’s get out of here.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” she said.
Carson took her arm. “Can you walk?” he asked softly, his eyes darker with concern.
“Sure,” she said, moving a little stiffly. “I’m fine. Honest.” It delighted her that he’d come with her father to rescue her. She hadn’t expected it. She imagined his girlfriend was livid.
Her father led the way out. He had the automatic in his hand and he didn’t apologize or explain why.
Carson let him lead, Carlie moving stiffly at his side.
The two previously armed men were still lying on the ground where Jake had left them. “Did one of these guys kidnap you?” her father asked.
She was staring almost openmouthed at them. Two automatic weapons lay in the dirt near them. They weren’t moving. But they were certainly vocal.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t see these ones. Just the man who tied me up.”
“You’ll pay for this!” one of the captives raged.
“Damned straight!” the other one agreed. “The boss will get you!”
“Well, not if he’s as efficient as you two,” Jake replied blithely. “And I expect you’re going to have a little trouble with the feds. Kidnapping is a felony.”
“Hey, we didn’t kidnap nobody! We was just guarding her!” the small man protested.
“Yeah. Just guarding her. So she didn’t get hurt or nothing,” the other
man agreed.
As he spoke, several cars came into view along the road. Two of them had flashing blue lights.
Jake turned to Carson with a sigh. They’d figured out the map and now he was going to be in the soup for jumping the gun and leaving them out of the loop. He just shook his head. “You can bring Carlie to visit me in the local jail tonight. I hope they have somebody who can cook.”
For the first time, Carson grinned.
* * *
BUT JAKE WASN’T ARRESTED. Cash Grier had already briefed his brother, who was in charge of the operation. A man with Jake’s background couldn’t convincingly be excluded from a mission that involved saving his child from kidnappers. So no charges were pressed. It would have been unlikely anyway, since Jake knew one of the top men at the agency and several government cabinet members, as well. Carlie hadn’t known that, until she overheard her dad talking to Garon Grier.
“How did you get past the men with guns?” Carlie asked Carson while she was being checked out at the emergency room. Her father had insisted that Carson take her there, just in case, while he tried to explain his part in her liberation.
“I didn’t,” he mused. “Your father took them down.” He shook his head. “I never saw it coming, and I was watching.”
She signed herself out, smiled at the clerk and followed Carson out the front door. “My father is a mystery.”
“He’s very accomplished,” he remarked.
“I noticed.”
He stopped at his car and turned to her on the passenger side. “Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
“Don’t you start,” she muttered. “I’m fine. Just a little bruised.”
He caught her face in his big, warm hands and tilted it up to his eyes. “I thought they might kill you,” he said with involuntary concern.
“And you’d miss killing me in battlegrounds online?” she asked, trying to lighten the tension, which was growing exponentially.
“Yes. I’d miss that. And other...things,” he whispered as he bent and kissed her with a tenderness that was overwhelming. Then, just as suddenly, he whipped her body completely against his and kissed her with almost bruising intensity. He jerked his mouth away before she could even respond. “Next time, if there is a next time, don’t open the door to anybody you don’t know!”
“He said Daddy was in a wreck,” she faltered. The kiss had shaken her.
“Next time, call Daddy and see if he answers,” he retorted.
She searched his angry eyes. “Okay,” she whispered softly.
“And for the last time, keep that damned cell phone with you!”
She nodded. “Okay,” she said again, without an argument.
The tenderness in her face, the soft, involuntary hunger, the unexpected obedience almost brought him to his knees.
He’d been out of his mind when he’d heard she’d been taken; he couldn’t rest until he’d got to her. After Cash had called him, he’d gone crazy on the way down from San Antonio as his mind haunted him with all the things that could have happened to her. The thought of a world without Carlie was frightening to him. He was only just beginning to realize what an impact she had on him. He didn’t like it, either.
He fought for self-control. People were walking around nearby, going to and from cars. He let her go and moved away. He felt as if he were vibrating with feeling. “I need to get you home,” he said stiffly.
“Okay,” she said.
He helped her inside the car, started it and drove her home. He didn’t say a word the whole way.
When he let her out at the front door, she ran to her father and hugged him tightly.
“I’m okay,” she promised.
He smoothed her hair, looking over her head at Carson. “Thanks.”
Carson shrugged. “No problem. Lock her in a closet and lose the key, will you?” he added, not completely facetiously.
Jake chuckled. “She’d just bang on the door until I let her out,” he said, giving her an affectionate smile.
“Where’s local law enforcement?” Carson asked.
“Packed up all the vital clues and left. They were just a little late backtracking the kidnapper to a lonely barn over near your boss’s house,” Jake said with biting criticism.
“You did that quite neatly yourself,” Carson replied. “I’m reliably informed that local law enforcement followed you there after being tipped off.”
“Did you tip them off?” Jake asked with a knowing smile.
Carson sighed. “Yes. I didn’t want to have to bury both of you.”
Jake became less hostile. “Carson,” he said softly, “I wasn’t always a minister. I can handle myself.”
“And now I know that.” Carson managed a smile, glanced at Carlie with painfully mixed feelings and left.
* * *
LATER, IN THE corner table at the local café, Carson cornered Rourke. “Okay, let’s have it,” he demanded.
“Have what?” Rourke asked with a smile.
“That mild-mannered minister—” he meant Jake Blair “—took down two armed men with a speed I’ve never seen in my life. I didn’t even hear him walk toward them, and I was out of my car and heading that way at the time.”
“Oh, Jake was always something special,” Rourke replied with a smile of remembrance. “He could move so silently that the enemy never knew he was around. They called him “Snake,” because he could get in and out of places that an army couldn’t. He had a rare talent with a knife. Sort of like you,” he added, indicating the big bowie knife that Carson was never without. “He’d go in, do every fourth man in a camp, get out without even being heard. The next morning, when the enemy awoke, there would be pandemonium.” He hesitated. “Don’t you ever tell her,” he added coldly, “or you’ll find out a few more things about the reverend Blair.”
“I never would,” Carson assured. “There are things in my past just as unsavory.”
Rourke nodded. “His specialty was covert assassination, but he didn’t work with a spotter or use a sniper kit. He went in alone, with just a knife, at night.” He shook his head. “We tried one night to hear him leave. None of us, not even those with sensitive hearing, could ever spot him. The government begged him to come back when he left for the seminary. He told them he was through with the old life and he was never doing it again. Carlie’s his life, now. Her, and his church.” He glanced at Carson. “He says she’s the only reason he didn’t commit suicide after her mother died. You know, I don’t really understand religion, but I guess it has its place.”
“I guess it does,” Carson replied thoughtfully.
“How was your date?” Rourke asked.
Carson made a face. “Tedious.”
“She’s a looker.”
Carson stared at him with cool, cynical eyes. “They all look alike, smell alike, sound alike,” he said. “And they don’t last long. I don’t like possession.”
Rourke toyed with his coffee cup. “I don’t, either,” he said slowly, thinking of Tat. The last he’d heard, she went into a small, war-torn African nation, named Ngawa in Swahili, for a species of civet cat found there, to cover the agony of the survivors. She wouldn’t answer his phone calls. She wouldn’t return his messages. She might as well have vanished off the face of the earth. He had...feelings for her, that he could never, ever express. He, like Carson, had placated the ache with other women. Nothing did much good.
Carson finished his coffee. “I have to get back up to San Antonio. I may have an offer soon.”
Rourke studied him. “Tired of working for Cy?”
Carson’s lips made a thin line. “Tired of aching for something I can never have.”
“Boy, do I understand that feeling,” Rourke said tersely.
Carson laughed, but it had a hollow sou
nd.
He was supposed to take Lanette dancing tonight. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but he’d given his word, so he’d go. The job offer would involve travel to some South American nation for a covert op with some ex-military people, on the QT. They needed a field medic, and Carson’s reputation had gotten around.
It was a good job, paid well, and it would get him away from Carlie. Suddenly that had become of earthshaking importance. He didn’t want to pursue that line of thought, so he called Lanette before he left Jacobsville and told her he’d pick her up at six.
10
CARLIE DESCRIBED THE kidnapper to Zack the next day, with her boss and the FBI special agent in charge, Garon Grier, listening in Cash’s office.
“He sounded just like one of those gangsters in the old black-and-white movies,” she said. “He was big as a house and a little clumsy. He was kind to me. He didn’t say a thing out of the way or even threaten me.”
“Except by kidnapping you,” Garon Grier mused.
“Well, yes, there was that,” she agreed. “But he didn’t hurt me. He said he was supposed to take me out there to lure my dad to come get me. I suppose that meant they wanted to get him out of town to someplace deserted. I was so scared,” she recalled. “I managed to get to my feet, to the door. I listened really hard, so if I heard Dad’s voice, I might have time to warn him.”
“You weren’t afraid for yourself?” Cash asked.
“Not really. He didn’t want to hurt me. I was just afraid for Dad. He’s absentminded and he forgets things, like his house keys,” she said with a smile. Then the smile faded. “But he took down these two huge guys. They had guns, too.” She frowned worriedly. “I don’t know how he did it. He even kicked in the door! I only just managed to get out of the way in time! And Dad had a gun...”
“He didn’t use it,” Cash reminded her.
“No. Of course not.” She rubbed her wrists. “The kidnapper apologized for the handcuffs. He knew how to loosen them. He said he was a cop once. He knocked a man down a staircase for roughing up a child and they fired him.” She looked up. They were all staring at her.