by Sharon Dunn
“Amen,” said Jason.
There seemed to be a warmth in his expression, but maybe she was seeing what she wanted to see.
“Let’s get some sleep. I’ll take the couch. You can have the bed.”
Isabel snuggled under the comforter and was asleep within minutes. She was awakened by Jason shaking her shoulder. “Time to get up. Time to go.”
He clicked on the light beside her bed. She winced, still trying to clear her brain of the fog of sleep. “How long was I out?”
“Three hours. It’ll be enough to keep us going.” He held up two shopping bags. “Fred got you some warm clothes. And a phone for me.”
Isabel dressed quickly.
When they stepped outside, it was pitch dark. She could see her breath as she exhaled. Though her cheeks chilled from the cold, she felt snug and warm in the ski jacket Fred had gotten for her.
“The car is in the underground parking lot.”
Jason led her into the dimly lit garage where the car was stored along with ten others that must belong to the people in the apartment complex.
Isabel got into the passenger seat. She breathed in one final prayer and then her gaze rested on Jason as he buckled himself in behind the wheel.
“Let’s do this,” she said even as the fear squeezed tight around her chest.
SEVENTEEN
“Surveillance is actually very boring,” said Jason. They’d stopped for coffee at an all-night kiosk before parking outside the trailer court where Nick’s aunt lived. “A lot of sitting and waiting.”
Isabel took a sip of her steaming beverage and tilted her head toward the ceiling. “I just hope this works.” She tugged on the collar of her shirt.
Her voice was tempered with anxiety. He didn’t blame her. If there was some place he thought he could hide her where she would be safe from all this, he would have taken her there in a heartbeat.
There was only one entrance to the court and they’d spotted Nick’s truck outside the trailer when they’d circled through. If Nick left, it would be easy enough to tail him.
“Sometimes the waiting can be more nerve-racking than the tailing,” Jason said.
“Did you always want to be a detective?”
“I kind of fell into it. My father was in law enforcement. I made it through the academy but hated all the paperwork once they put me on the force.” He took a sip of his coffee. “How about you? You can’t tell me you played property manager with your dolls when you were little.”
She laughed. “No, I did what every little girl did. Put a wedding dress on the doll and pretended she married the boy doll, moved into their town house with the cool plastic furniture and lived happily ever after.”
“I know some people find happily-ever-after. I’ve seen it at church. Looking at them from the outside, anyway.”
“You’re a pessimist about true love?”
“It’s just I saw my father torn to pieces by his belief in happily-ever-after. I saw the way a woman could destroy a good man.”
“It works both ways, Jason. Men shred women too.” Her words were drenched in pain.
“Sorry. I’m sure Nick was no picnic.”
She shook her head. “I was very young and very naive. I thought when a man said he loved you, he didn’t have ulterior motives.” She turned her head and stared out the window and then glanced in his direction.
It felt as though a wall had gone up between them. Like there was something going unsaid. The kiss had meant so much to him, but he wouldn’t risk her life so they could be together. He didn’t want to send her any more mixed messages.
She took another sip of coffee. “I had this big hole in my heart because of my childhood that really only God could fill. But when I was a teenager, I thought having a boyfriend would make it better.”
“You’ve overcome so much, Isabel.” He couldn’t help but admire the woman sitting beside him. The only thing that meant more to him than the kiss was their prayer together.
A soft smile graced her face. Then she turned to watch through the windshield. “I’ve been thinking. That woman who met Nick at the recreation area. I recognize the uniform shirt she wore. It’s for Happy Homes, a maid service. Sun and Ski uses them for cleaning jobs sometimes.”
“Interesting. What do you suppose she was giving him?” Jason said.
“Well, I don’t think it was a sentimental card or a grocery list. They were meeting in an out-of-the-way place.” Isabel continued to stare straight ahead.
“It would have to be something you couldn’t send in a text or you didn’t want a record of. Maybe cash or instructions,” he said. Something about the clandestine meeting place suggested the maid might be connected to Nick’s illegal activities.
They’d been sitting and waiting for over an hour. What if this didn’t work? They could hide out at Fred’s for a few days. But Jason didn’t want to put his friend at risk after he’d been so kind.
Isabel sat up a little straighter. “Headlights.”
He leaned to see better through the glass. The lights were high enough to be a truck. It had to be close to midnight. Whoever was leaving at this time was up to no good.
They were parked off to the side of the trailer-court entrance behind the sign that gave its name. Their headlights were off.
The truck rumbled by without stopping.
“It’s him, all right.” Jason placed his fingers on the key but didn’t turn it.
Nick’s taillights were still visible. The turn signal on the truck blinked. Jason started the car and turned onto the road.
With little to no traffic, and as hypervigilant as Nick was, tailing was going to be tricky.
Jason rolled down the road and turned where Nick had turned. Nick was headed back toward town. That was good. A greater possibility of other cars. Late-night revelers on their way home.
Jason stayed back, grateful that the road into town was straight. One other car got between them before they entered the city limits. Once in town, he was able to take some side streets and still track Nick. The truck stayed on the main street of Silver Strike, went all the way through town and then exited on the other side. They passed a car dealership with dark windows and drove a little way out to the country.
Jason pulled off the road onto a shoulder.
“What are you doing? We’ll lose him.”
“We’re the only car out here. I don’t want him to get suspicious. There are only three or four places he could turn off out this way. Some businesses, a few homes, I think.”
They waited in silence. The snowfall had intensified since they’d left the trailer park. After a few minutes, Jason pulled back out onto the road. They passed a home set back from the road. No black truck was parked by it. They drove by a meat-processing business where no cars were parked.
Isabel wiggled in her seat. “What if we lost him?”
“We’ll go a little farther.” Jason checked his rearview mirror. His real fear was that Nick was onto them and had pulled off the road, waiting to come up behind them.
Isabel lifted off her seat a little and pointed. “There.”
Up the hill was a large warehouse-looking building teeming with activity. Nick’s truck was parked outside, as were several others illuminated by the outdoor lamps. Light glowed in the windows of the building.
Jason turned off the main road. There was a car in front of him headed in the same direction as well as one behind him. Something was going on.
He pulled into the parking lot. Nick was not in his truck or anywhere around the building.
“What is this place?”
Jason shook his head. “We’ve come this far. Let’s have a look around...together.”
She reached over, wrapping her fingers around his forearm. “I feel safe staying close to you.”
He nodded. Her touch warme
d him to the bone.
The two other cars parked and the drivers got out and headed around the side of the building without a backward glance at Jason’s vehicle—which probably indicated that a lot of cars coming into the lot was expected. Something was going on inside that building.
“Okay.” Jason pushed open his door as his heart skipped a beat. “Follow me.”
Snow came down even harder as they hurried through the parking lot, ducking from car to car. Jason pressed against the side of the building with Isabel leaning against his back. They couldn’t just walk in. They had no idea what they were facing.
The door popped open. Jason dived for the trees surrounding the property as a man dressed in a snowsuit headed in the other direction.
He signaled for Isabel to follow him, then skirted through the trees and bushes close to the building. If they could find a window, they might be able to peer inside and figure out what was going on in there. It didn’t seem like the smuggling operation would be so aboveboard as to be operating out of a building.
They ran around to the far side of the building, still not finding any windows.
“Are you up to sneaking inside with me?”
She nodded. The door on the east side of the building was the only one no one had gone into or out of.
He reached for the handle and eased it open. He stared at metal shelving that ran from floor to ceiling containing boxes and what looked like auto parts. “I don’t see anyone. Come on.”
As Isabel placed her hand in his, he prayed he hadn’t made a mistake in letting her come with him.
* * *
Isabel’s heart pounded as they stepped inside what looked like a storage area for an auto-parts store. She could hear voices faint and indiscernible.
Jason held her hand as they rushed around the shelves of parts toward an open doorway. He signaled for her to crouch by the door while he got on the other side and peered out.
The three-story warehouse-like structure was built into the side of the hill, and they had actually stepped into the middle floor. One floor up was a glass wall that looked to be some sort of office. Two people, a man and a woman, were talking. The woman, dressed in a fur coat, threw back her head and laughed. Something about her seemed familiar. The man reached out and gathered the woman into his arms and kissed her. He was a broad-shouldered man with a belly. Judging from the gray hair, he was substantially older than the woman.
Isabel scooted over to where Jason was so she could look down below. If they had gone around to the final wall of the structure, it would have been obvious what they were dealing with. Down below on the ground floor were four huge garage doors and four snowplows. Men, including Nick, were standing around talking. Suited up and ready to get on the snowplows. One of the garage doors opened, and a man headed toward a plow, leaving Nick and two other guys. The rest of the ground floor looked like a repair shop with a scattering of tools and machines and one plow blade.
Jason whispered in her ear. “He’s just going to work?”
“He takes odd jobs. Nothing permanent,” she said. “So I guess this is a dead end.” Disappointment colored her words. She wished she could place the woman in the glass office. Why did she look so familiar?
Nick glanced up in their direction. Her heart skipped a beat. She shrank back against the wall.
“We’d better get out of here.” Jason hurried toward the door and Isabel was right behind him.
Jason pressed along the wall, preparing to ease around the corner if the coast was clear. He put a protective arm on her, letting her know it wasn’t safe to go yet.
Several inches of snow had fallen in the short time they’d been up here. It was coming down fast and heavy.
Jason peered out again, then pressed his back against the metal wall. “They’re starting to get busy. They didn’t seem alarmed by our car. But I don’t want to take a chance that they would know we didn’t work here. I think this is a legit snowplow business but something still feels off to me. We should circle through the trees and then down into the parking lot.”
That would take an extra ten minutes at least. Jason dived behind the bare brush that was part of the landscaping close to the building. Isabel followed as a man came around the corner from the parking lot.
He shone a light in her direction just as she dipped behind the bush. “So it’s you. What are you doing here?” the man shouted.
Her heart beat faster. She’d glimpsed the man’s face. “That’s the guy with the gun from the Wilsons’ house.”
They both sprinted deeper into the trees, knowing that Mr. Gun would probably come after them.
It took only a moment before Isabel heard the footfalls behind her. Following the path Jason chose, staying close on his heels, she glanced over her shoulder at the dark figure pursuing them. The terrain became rockier as they ran past some large boulders. She could see her breath in the cold night air. Her legs pumped hard as they worked their way uphill.
Jason grabbed her and pulled her into a crevice between two boulders. She was so out of breath she was afraid the man would hear her inhaling and exhaling. The rock was hard and cold against her back as she faced Jason.
Were their tracks visible in the snow?
The crunch of footsteps landed on her ears. She took in only a shallow breath, fearing that the pursuer might see her breath.
The man turned a half circle, searching. Both of them slipped deeper into the crevice. She willed herself to be smaller.
Fear settled in around her, heavier than the snow falling from the sky. If Mr. Gun was at that warehouse too, there was something going on with that place other than snowplowing.
Mr. Gun spotted them and lunged in their direction. They slipped through the other side of the crevice and kept running. They were getting farther away from the warehouse. Would it even be safe to go back down to the parking lot? What choice did they have? They had to get out of here.
They ran for several more minutes before Jason glanced over his shoulder and then stopped, surveying the snowy hill below. They’d just come through an open area. “I think he gave up.”
“I doubt it. He probably went back for reinforcements,” she said.
“You’re probably right. The fact that two people connected to a smuggling ring are working there can’t be a coincidence,” he said. “We need to get this information to someone we can trust.”
That was a tall order. The men in the warehouse would probably be watching the parking lot by now. “How far away was that house we passed on the drive here?”
“It didn’t seem that far when we were driving, but on foot—” Jason shook his head “—it could be an hour or more of walking.”
“It’s closer to get back to the parking lot. Maybe we can catch them with their guard down.”
Her heart raced at the thought of plunging into the danger that awaited them. If the kingpin was one of the men in that building, he would be combing the mountain for them soon enough. The man in the glass office kissing the younger woman must be the owner or manager of the place. Was he the kingpin?
They ran along the ridgeline and then dived back down the mountain, passing another rock outcropping and coming out on an unplowed road. Isabel mulled over all they had seen. She slowed her steps. “I know who that woman was.”
“The woman in the office?”
“Yes. I couldn’t place her because she wasn’t wearing the uniform, but it just clicked in my head. She was the maid who handed Nick that envelope. Whatever was in the envelope, he needed it before he got to the warehouse.”
Jason nodded as though he were making sense of the information. “The guy with her was probably in charge of the snowplow business, maybe even the owner.” Jason trudged along the unplowed road.
“They were clearly romantically involved. I don’t know what it all means—maybe he has nothing to do with anyth
ing, but she does.”
“Would maids have access to security codes?” Jason said.
“Yes, they would. And snowplow operators would know when a house was empty.”
Before she could process all the conclusions they had come to, a mechanical roar filled the forest. A snowplow rounded a curve in the road. In the cab of the plow, Isabel could see Nick behind the wheel, barreling toward them.
EIGHTEEN
Jason turned and ran in the opposite direction as the snowplow loomed toward him. With Isabel right beside him, he searched the woods for a place to escape off the road.
The road had been cut into the side of a mountain. One side was sheer cliff and the other a steep rocky drop-off.
The rumble of the plow’s motor was menacing. Isabel skirted toward the edge of the road and then jumped down the incline. Jason followed her down the steep slope.
Above them, the plow stopped. When he glanced up, Nick had gotten out of the cab and was stalking toward the edge of the road, holding a rifle. Jason grabbed Isabel and pulled her behind a boulder. The first shot glanced off the rock just above their heads.
He surveyed the area around them. Nick would probably chase them down the mountain on foot. The incline was steep and treacherous. He pointed to the next rock they needed to make it to for cover. Half crouching and half running, they dived toward the boulder.
He caught a flash of movement in his peripheral vision, the reflective material on Nick’s snowsuit. Nick had not left the road yet. The rifle had substantial range, hundreds of yards.
Jason huddled down behind the rock. Isabel pressed close to him. He couldn’t see anything below him that would shield them. They’d have to move sideways, which meant they were still within rifle range.
“He can’t shoot at both of us at the same time. I’ll go first. Then you run and get behind that outcropping as fast as you can.” He pointed. “I’ll get to you as soon as I can.”
She tore off her glove and pressed a hand to his cheek. Her round brown eyes filled with warmth. “You’re making yourself a target...for me.”