True to You

by Jennifer Ryan

  She came to the front, ducked under the camouflage netting, and stared at the wood door with just a single padlock. She found a large jagged rock, hefted it up with both hands, and slammed the sharp edge down on the lock. The cumbersome weight threw her first attempt off target, but her second try hit the mark. The lock popped as the heavy rock thumped on the dirt at her feet, barely missing her big toe.

  She put her hand on the doorknob and turned, but hesitated a split second before she pushed the door open. It seemed too easy. With all her uncle’s defenses and protections at his cabin, she couldn’t imagine he’d left his secret hideaway this easy to penetrate once found.

  She stepped to the side of the door, pressed her back against the earthen wall, put her hand back on the knob, turned, and pushed the door open, turning herself away from the opening. The sharp, loud explosion hurt her ears and made them ring. The shotgun blast mostly went through the camo netting, but it added several new holes in the material.

  Her heart pounded in her chest. If she’d stood in front of that door and opened it, she’d be dead right now.

  “Shit.”

  She leaned forward and planted her hands on her knees and tried to catch her sawing breath. She couldn’t believe her uncle would booby-trap this place, but if he was doing what she thought he was doing, she didn’t doubt he meant to keep his secrets and take down anyone who came looking for him here.

  She needed to stop him. But first she needed to know what he had planned.

  With her heart in her throat and barely enough courage to face her uncle’s secrets, she turned and stared through the door into the barrel of the shotgun and the dark cinder-block interior of the room he’d built into the hill. The work and stealth it had taken him to do this astounded her.

  How long had it been here? Why do this at all?

  What else didn’t she know about him and how he spent his days?

  She sidestepped the shotgun mounted on some contraption he’d welded together with scrap metal. She found the battery-operated lantern hanging in the center of the room and turned it on. She stared at the wire attached to the door and shotgun trigger, the workbenches along two walls, the wood crates stacked under them, and the electronics and soldering equipment. One of the crates sat on a stool, open and empty except for the straw-like packing material. Hesitant to look in the others, she sucked in a deep breath, grabbed the handles on one of the crates, and muscled it out from under the workbench. She found a screwdriver, jammed the flat end between the lid and crate, and pushed down on the handle to pop the lid. She pulled the lid off with a few more pries with the screwdriver. She brushed away the compressed packing material and stared at the dark green bricks marked C-4 lying side by side and stacked several deep based on the depth of the box.

  Her gaze shifted to the other three, four, five boxes and her heart skidded to an abrupt stop, then ratcheted up into high gear.

  “Oh God.”

  Where the hell did he get all this? If he can get C-4, why the hell do I have to get his cookies?

  She put the lid back on the box and slammed both her hands on top to seal it. Her head spun as she stood and tried to think what to do next. She stared blankly at the array of wires, components, and tools on the tabletop. Her gaze slid past, then came back and landed on the notebook with the pencil sandwiched between the pages.

  She didn’t want to touch anything else, but poked her pinky inside the space left by the pencil and flipped the top pages over, laying the book open on the table, her uncle’s scrawled words filling the pages.

  Just like the note he left her—no capitalization, no punctuation, no start or finish from one thought to the next. And every word she read sent her down a rabbit hole and into her uncle’s darkest thoughts.

  Corruption. Conspiracy. Lies. Betrayals.

  Iceman is working with the government imprisoning citizens by feeding their habits and suppressing their will to rise up against those in power he needs to be stopped the link in that chain broken drones gun laws legalization of drugs all an attempt for the government to control and manipulate the public they have the power and want to keep others from taking it back they make the people sick and weak blind lambs led to the slaughter I have to save Cara Chris Hickman is not who he says he is why follow everyone why look for the drugs why doesn’t he approach Iceman directly if he wants to work for him he doesn’t he sits in shadows he’s with her she smiles at him that’s good but it will end bad he’s up to something what does he want is he using her she can’t get hurt again he better not hurt her I have to save Cara only she matters they know but not everything they’ll find out she’ll see he’s not who he says he is she can’t go through that again there’s a new pretender I have to save Cara she’ll see no one is who they say they are everyone is in on it I have to save Cara before they destroy my precious girl I have to save Cara I have to save Cara

  On and on for two pages he wrote the same thing over and over again. The other ramblings filled two-thirds of the book and there were others stacked on the shelf. Cara’s stomach dropped and soured. Her heart broke for her poor, disturbed uncle. His love for her came through, but it was tainted by his suspicions.

  What did it all mean?

  She glanced around the room, taking in all the supplies and the C-4.

  What did he have planned?

  Whatever it was, she needed to stop him before it was too late. Before he did something and hurt himself and others.

  She ran from the room and the devastating truth within and straight out into the dark night. She’d been in there longer than she thought, caught up in what she found and what it meant and the disbelief she had to shake before she let it immobilize her and allowed her uncle to do whatever he had planned. Because it had to be something. The urgency swirling in her gut pushed her to scramble past the camouflage netting, up the berm, past the overturned tree, and run flat out toward her uncle’s cabin.

  Nearly there, she tripped over a wire and fell forward, sliding in the dirt and leaves, scratching her forearms and elbows. She cracked her knee and chin on some rocks. She raised her head and shook it to clear her vision after she rattled her brain. A trickle of blood ran down her neck from the cut on her chin. Her knee throbbed.

  “Cara.” The relief in her uncle’s voice didn’t settle her any.

  She scrambled back onto her knees and sat on her heels staring up a man who’d taken care of her, loved her in his way, and looked out for her when her own father turned his back on her. She wanted to see all the good in him, but the deep frown on his face and intensity in his eyes showed her only his darkest thoughts.

  For the first time in her life, she feared the man she’d taken care of, who’d taken care of her.

  I have to save Cara.

  Those words scrawled over and over in his journal didn’t give her comfort. She didn’t want to think about why he thought she needed to be saved, how he wanted to save her, or what he’d do to rescue her from whatever danger he perceived her to be in.

  “Uncle Otis, what have you done?”

  “What is necessary.” He bent, reached for her hand, and pulled her up to stand in front of him. He didn’t let her go. His firm grip held her in place and his intense stare sent her heart racing. “You don’t see it, but the past is coming back.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I warned him to stay away from you. He’s no good. But you don’t see it. You love him and all he wants to do is hurt you.”

  “Who? Iceman?”

  Uncle Otis shook his head. “You suspected him but you let it go because he deceived you. He made you believe in him. Just like Iceman. Just like Manny. The whole lot of them are only out for themselves. I know a liar when I see one.”

  She didn’t want to believe it, but deep down she knew Flash had been hiding something from her. “What did you find out about Flash?”

  “He’s with them.”

  This time she shook her head. “No.”

  The sad
you’re-wrong frown infuriated her.

  Her uncle pulled her along after him toward his truck. “I’ll show you.”

  She went because she wanted answers. Her head spun with nothing but one bad thought after another. Iceman. Tandy. Flash. All of them working together and against her. She didn’t want to believe it. Flash swore he wanted nothing to do with her father and only wanted to help her take him and Tandy down before they jeopardized her life and business. Flash wouldn’t lie to her. He’d sworn that everything he’d said to her was the truth.

  She didn’t know what he held back, but it wasn’t that he was part of the drug world anymore. He promised.

  Her uncle held the truck door open for her. “Get in.”

  She slid into the truck and settled on the worn seat, her hands gripped to the edges; cracked leather scraped against her palms. Her uncle climbed in and started up the truck. Before he backed down the barely there lane, she asked, “Where are the bombs?”

  Her uncle let the truck slowly come to a halt and glanced over at her. “I didn’t want it to end this way, but I know now there is no alternative that will ensure you are safe and happy. Once you see, you’ll understand.”

  He slowly pulled the truck forward and headed into town like any other drive. She didn’t know what he wanted to show her, but she knew it wouldn’t explain things to her in a way that would ever make her understand what her uncle was thinking in his warped mind.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Flash listened to the other agents check in over the com one of them dropped off to him right after he texted Cara. Antsy for something to happen, he shifted in his seat, glanced at the nearly full truck stop parking lot, then back at Tandy’s quiet apartment over the coffee shop. His cell phone buzzed on the seat beside him, interrupting his wondering about why Cara’s uncle had been there earlier. It nagged at him, making him nervous.

  “Flash.”

  “Bennett.”

  Flash expected his boss’s sharp reply. He got that way on the job. “Hey, man. Everything ready on your end?”

  “As you can hear over the com, we’re all in place, but that’s not why I’m calling. I just got the information back on the notes you received.”

  “About time.”

  “The second note had the same prints as the first note. Nothing in the system on the prints, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “ATF sent over a request for information and to compare our note to others they and the FBI have from an explosion at a farm and threats made against the governor and other state representatives.”

  Flash sat up straighter, alert; his mind worked through the facts and put pieces together. “The explosion at the farm, is it a property owned by Manny Castillo, or at least some shell corporation under the Castillo cartel? DEA confiscated the property after a drug raid.”

  “Yes. How do you know that?”

  “Because Cara and Manny were supposed to live there together, but after she discovered he’d lied to her and she tried to leave him, he chopped off her finger. She managed to escape, but he went after her again.”

  “You told me, but none of those details are in your reports.”

  Because she’d told him in confidence. She’d shared the details and her pain with him, and he didn’t want to share it with anyone else.

  “What is in my reports is that I believed Iceman tipped off the DEA about that meeting between him and Castillo in order to get us, me, to take Manny out for him, so that he could hold on to the truce between the cartels and blame Manny’s death on us.”

  “Do you have proof of that now?”

  “Cara’s story about what happened to her confirmed it for me. Her father wanted revenge, plain and simple, and he used me to get it.”

  “Then he blew up the farm?”

  Flash shook his head, trying to put the pieces in place in his mind without knowing for sure if he had the players right. “We know Iceman didn’t write the notes. Not his fingerprints, or his style. Her uncle. Iceman’s brother. Cara made an offhand comment about him spouting off in front of city hall about government intrusion in people’s lives. I didn’t think much of it, except that the old guy who lived in the woods behind her house was an eccentric old coot.”

  “More like Unabomber in the making if he’s our guy.”

  “He’s got a still on the property where he’s making moonshine. Once this thing with Iceman ended, I planned to shut him down. Now I’m wondering if all his secrecy, homemade alarm systems, and living off the grid means he’s hiding something a lot more dangerous than high-proof hooch.”

  “Judging by the number of threats he’s issued over the years and the escalation to bombing the farm after the DEA seized the property, I’d say we need to consider him armed and dangerous.”

  “Damn.”

  “What?”

  “I followed Cara out to his place. He answered the door with a shotgun pointed right in her face to be sure she came alone.”

  “Damn. I’ll send a team out to pick him up.”

  “No. Not yet.” His heart jumped into his throat. “Cara’s out there with him tonight. You send a team, he’s liable to take her hostage.” No way he’d survive a hostage situation with Cara in harm’s way. “Let’s finish this with Iceman and Tandy tonight. Once we’ve got them in custody, we’ll make sure Cara is safe, then go in and get her uncle. Right now, all we have is speculation that he’s behind the notes.”

  “It makes sense if he wants to keep her away from you, her father, and safe.”

  “Then we want the same thing for her, and I want to do this right. So far all he’s done is threaten people and blow up some empty buildings. I don’t want to push him to do something desperate, especially if Cara is with him.”

  Flash held his breath waiting for Agent Bennett’s response.

  “Agreed.”

  Flash let out a heavy sigh and his heart slowed to a normal beat. No sooner did he relax than Tandy walked out of her apartment and locked up behind her. “Tandy’s on the move.”

  “I’ll alert the team. We’ll make plans for Cara’s uncle later.”

  Flash hung up and focused on what he came here to do: put Tandy and Iceman out of business and behind bars. He’d take care of her uncle tomorrow. Her father, uncle, and best friend. Betrayed by all the people she cared about most.

  He pushed thoughts of what he couldn’t change to the back of his mind, knowing he’d spend countless future sleepless nights analyzing his choices and purpose and wondering if doing the right thing was worth hurting and losing the woman he loved. One answer came to mind: he’d do anything to give Cara a happy life.

  Even if that meant a life without him.

  He grabbed the black mask off the seat beside him, pulled it over his head, leaving the top bunched on his forehead, and slipped out of the truck to follow Tandy across the street. It didn’t take her long to walk right up to a truck, stick out her ass, dip her chest forward for the driver to get a good look at her tits, exchange small talk, drugs and money, and move on to her next customer.

  He stayed in the shadows as she made her way from the front of the truck stop to the back parking lot and the many big rigs parked out there. One of them was her target for tonight.

  He’d missed the real action last night when he took Cara home, but didn’t intend to let Tandy and Iceman’s crew get away with another night of nefarious activities.

  Tandy wound her way past one big rig, around another, and down toward the back of the lot to the rig he’d seen her climb into last night. He hung back in the shadows and watched her ass swing as she sashayed right up to her mark and climbed into the rig like she didn’t have a care or suspicion in the world. She had no idea he and ten other agents watched her every move.

  Just like last night, Tandy exchanged drugs for money with the driver she’d met last night, too. The bills he handed her went right into her bra. The guy’s eyes never left the swell of her breasts pushed up and nearly spilling out her black-a
nd-white rhinestone-speckled top. She lingered to chat and flirt. The easy smiles and laughter showed a level of comfort and friendship between them. Tandy said something and brushed her fingers down her throat and over her chest. The guy hooked his fingers in Tandy’s shirt, yanked it down; one bare breast popped out, and the guy leaned in and took her nipple in his mouth. Tandy’s head fell back as her hands went to his head, knocking off his baseball cap and running her fingers through his greasy hair.

  “Truck’s coming,” one of the other agents whispered over the com.

  Flash ducked between the rig and trailer as the truck the agent spoke of rolled in behind the big rig where Tandy and the truck driver were going at it in the front seat. Tandy managed to pull the guy’s face away from her breasts long enough to scoot off her seat and pull him back into the sleeper part of the rig. They disappeared from sight just as four guys jumped out of the extended cab truck. One guy opened the trailer. The others began pulling crates off the back of the truck and loading them into the tractor-trailer.

  He didn’t think the guy up front with Tandy even knew what the hell was going on.

  “Ready on three.”

  Shit. They meant to take the guys down and confiscate the drugs. “Abort,” he said into his com. “Let it play out.”

  “They’ll get away,” Agent Bennett said.

  “Second truck approaching,” another agent said.

  Flash’s original thought that they’d been using the big rigs to distribute the drugs across the state and country turned into an even more complex operation. “Stay back. They’re not done loading the truck. If I’m right, these are the incoming shipments for Iceman’s crew.”