“Precisely. You have no idea what’s going on, so you don’t know what might be important and what’s irrelevant. You rely on me and others for visual cues. You know everything about your life, but I know practically nothing. Ergo, I can’t trust you.”
She pouted for a moment, then said, “What about Alice? She saved our lives.”
“For all I know, she’s behind all this. Come on, Tess, did you know your cook was an assassin? Or that your gardener’s a ninja?”
She turned away again. I looked out the window.
“You were the one who said I should save the world,” she said quietly.
“I didn’t know someone would try to kill you. Kill us.”
“So what are we going to do?”
I’m sure my silence answered her question. In avoidance, my mind went somewhere else.
“How about ‘IT team on it’?” I said suddenly.
“Wait. What?”
“The anagram. Morse code?”
Her nose wrinkled. “IT team . . . ? That’s it!”
My mouth opened in amazement. “You’re kidding. I just threw that out there.”
“When I was little and Dad’s company was just getting started, he was the IT department. Whenever something didn’t work right, Dad would say he’d get the IT team right on it. It was his little joke.”
“How does that help us?”
She flounced on the seat. “How should I know? I just think that’s the message, okay?”
“Don’t have a hissy fit. If that’s the message, then seems to me you need to figure out what he’s referring to.”
“What do you mean?”
“What isn’t working right? What device did he have that didn’t work properly? Something with memory.”
She went quiet, and the blood drained from her face.
“What? What is it?”
“His iPod,” she said. She choked back tears.
I didn’t know what memory triggered the sudden sadness. I wanted to put my arm around her, but I couldn’t.
“Do you still have it?” I asked. “Is it still around?”
She nodded. “It’s in the Range Rover. In the garage.”
The one her parents had been killed in. Total wreck.
“Why didn’t you get rid of that car?”
“My uncle Travis wanted to keep it. I don’t know why. He said he’d get it fixed someday. I think it just reminds him of what happened, what he couldn’t prevent.” She shivered. “I’m glad I can’t see it. I’d hate to be reminded every day.”
Tess sucked in a breath and held it, blinking rapidly. “I miss them, Oliver. I can’t believe I’m saying that.”
“Of course you do. They’re your parents.”
We rode in silence for a minute or two.
“I’ll help you find the iPod,” I said.
She kept her face pressed against the window. “Don’t do me any favors.”
“Hey, it might keep you alive. If you have something they want, they won’t kill you unless they find out where it is.”
“That’s comforting.”
I ignored her sarcasm. “We’ll scope the place out. Get in if it looks safe and see if the iPod’s still in the SUV. If everything’s quiet, we’ll check in with Alice and find out what the story is.”
She didn’t say anything for a while. She seemed to have as many moods as a caterpillar has legs, and they changed so fast I felt whiplashed.
A few miles from her house, we changed buses again, this time to a smaller van like the ones rental car companies use at airports. Five minutes later, the bus pulled to a stop a short walk from her drive. I helped her off, took her hand, and started walking. She tried to snatch her hand away, but I held on tight. Better that passersby got the impression we were boyfriend and girlfriend so they didn’t look too closely.
The gate at the head of her drive stopped me cold. I hadn’t thought about how we’d get in.
“Do you have a key card?” I said.
“I’m still not talking to you.”
“Come on, Tess. Give me a break.”
“Key card. Sure. In a purse in my room. Was that your plan? Use my key card to open the gate? Might as well announce our presence to the whole world. Uncle Travis put in video surveillance when he installed the wall and the gate.”
“So you’re mad at me. I’m trying to help here. You want to keep running? Sleep on a different couch every night? Always looking over your shoulder? Figuratively speaking, that is.”
She shuddered. “Okay, okay. I’d rather sleep in my own bed.”
“Any ideas?”
She sighed. “I know another way in. Take my hand.”
She directed me to a neighboring drive—the blind leading the blind—and told me to turn in. We walked alongside a thick, tall hedge. She said there was a break in it, so I kept my eyes peeled. The growth was so dense that fifty yards farther I nearly missed the slight gap between the arbor vitae. I made her stop and wait while I stuck my head and shoulders through to see what lay on the other side. Barely visible under the overgrown brush was a winding path through the trees. I backed out and brushed off a spiderweb.
“Are you sure about this?” I said.
“We used to use it all the time. It leads to the tennis court.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s been used in a while.”
“So? You scared?”
“No. I just thought it might be rough going for you. It’s pretty overgrown.”
“I’ll manage. I’m a big girl.”
“No fence or wall. How come?”
She shrugged. “My dad thought the private drive on this side and the hedge were deterrent enough. He talked Uncle Travis out of spending the money it would have cost.”
I took her hand and pulled her through the hedge. The branches caught in her hair and she nearly lost her footing trying to break free, but she clamped her jaw shut and didn’t make a sound. I beat back the bush and tromped on the weeds as we went, clearing the path. Soon, the tennis court appeared through the trees. I murmured as much to Tess and proceeded more quietly.
“Before you get there,” Tess whispered, “another path splits off down to the guesthouse.”
I followed her directions and we ended up on a more groomed path through the trees toward the not-so-little guesthouse. The path came out at the back of the cottage and led around the side. From there it was a straight shot across the drive to the corner of the big garage on the side of the main house. I held Tess back and surveyed the grounds. There was no sign of life.
“Come on,” I murmured, “but keep quiet.”
I quickly towed her across the open space, aiming for the keypad mounted next to the far garage bay door.
“What’s the code?” I said.
“One-oh-two-eight,” she whispered. “Unless it changed.”
I keyed in the numbers and the door rose, making an alarming amount of racket. I hoped we were far enough from the house not to be heard. We slipped inside, and I pushed the button to roll the door back down. Gloom reclaimed the interior as the descending door shut out the light. The wrecked SUV crouched in front of us, dark and menacing. A wounded beast. I wrenched open a battered door.
“Where is it?” I said.
“It should be on the center console,” she said. “It was plugged in the last time we drove.”
I looked on the center console, in the console compartment, and on the dash—no iPod. I squatted next to the door, leaned in, and peered under the passenger seat. Nothing was visible in the dimness, so I stuck my hand under and felt around, scraping a knuckle on a metal track. My fingers suddenly found the smooth contours of the media player and pulled it out.
“Got it!” I said. I placed it in Tess’s hands.
Before she said a word, four of the doors rolled up. As they rose, men slid in underneath, shouting and pointing assault rifles and semiautomatic pistols at us.
“Stop right there! Don’t move! Hands on your head!”
Both of us froze in fear.
CHAPTER 27
“Status?” Travis barked into his phone as he jumped up from his desk in the den and strode toward the door.
Nearly a year of setbacks on the project over which James died, I gave up my army career, my niece is missing and a potential target, and now this. Maybe it’s not as bad as some of the shit storms I encountered in Afghanistan, but I don’t know how it could get much worse.
“Intruders in the garage,” Marcus’s voice came back to him. “Teams are in position.”
“Close in!” Travis said.
“Roger that. Everyone hear that? Go! Go!”
Travis heard muffled shouts as he raced down the hall, through the kitchen past a startled Alice, and into the garage on the heels of Marcus and Red. Flintstone and Rubble—Fred and Barney—steadily advanced from two open bay doors toward the far end of the garage. Over the tops of the other vehicles, he saw Luis and Kenny spread out from the garden door and head in the same direction. Two pairs of hands poked up in the air, their owners hidden from view. Travis hustled across the floor, squeezing past Marcus and Red. He didn’t bother drawing his weapon. His team had enough firepower to put down a Taliban incursion at four-to-one odds. But this wasn’t Waziristan.
Time to find out who breached security.
Travis rounded the end of Yoshi’s truck and stopped short. His niece and a young man stood next to James’s demolished Range Rover, hands held high, the barely perceptible trembling in their knees the only giveaway to their fear. The passenger door stood open.
Travis took a step forward. “Tess?”
She turned toward the sound of his voice. “Uncle Travis? What’s happening?”
“Where the hell have you been? I’ve been worried sick about you.”
“Alice told us to—”
“I know what Alice told you. But you should have checked in, at least. Let us know you were all right.”
“Well, I’m not all right,” she said, lowering her hands. “I’ve been chased and shot at, pushed around, and I had to sleep in my clothes last night. I’m tired and hungry, and I just want to go to bed.”
She trembled and bit her lower lip to keep her emotions in check. Travis watched as the man—kid, more precisely—next to her shifted and dropped a hand toward her shoulders.
“Hold it right there, butthead!” Fred bellowed. He thrust the barrel of an HK416 assault rifle at him, freezing Oliver in midmotion.
“Who are you?” Travis said to him.
“Oliver Moncrief. I’m—”
“I know,” Travis said, annoyed that he hadn’t put it together more quickly. “What are you doing here?”
“Bringing Tess home, where she belongs.” Oliver flushed. “Instead of berating her, you should be asking her what she needs. Where do you get off giving her a hard time? Where the hell have you been?”
Marcus took a step toward him. “Watch your mouth, son. You wouldn’t want to piss off anyone here. Not with all this weaponry pointed at you.”
Travis waved Marcus aside and saw a sour grimace cross his face. “The kid’s right, Marcus. We weren’t here—I wasn’t here—to protect Tess.”
“Yeah, well, we’re here now,” Red growled in his raspy bass.
“Sure are,” Oliver said. “Seven against two. She’s blind and I’m unarmed. Think you can handle it?”
“Can I pop the punk, boss?” Red said. A corner of his mouth turned up.
“Okay, stand down, everyone,” Travis said. “Now she’s back, we have someone to protect. We need to figure out where the threat came from and anticipate the next one. Marcus, five minutes, in my office. The rest of you, back to your posts. Tess, I’ll see you inside. Oliver, bring her into the kitchen.”
Oliver gave him a mock salute and took Tess by the arm.
The kid has a lot of cheek.
Travis thought he might pop him before any of the men got a chance. The men dispersed, heading out the way they’d come in. Travis turned and strode across the floor, then into the kitchen behind Marcus. Instead of following him down the hall, though, he detoured to Alice’s office. He poked his head through the doorway and rapped a knuckle on the frame. She looked up from her desk and peered at him over half-frame reading glasses. A long-sleeved sweater covered her wounded arm, but a bulge along her forearm outlined the bandage underneath.
“Another deer?” she said.
“Nope. Prodigal niece and the assistant you hired.”
She looked startled and frowned. “Why didn’t they just come to the door? What were they doing in the garage?”
“They were looking for something. I’m about to find out what. Join us, please.”
She rose and followed Travis into the kitchen. Tess sat facing them at the table in the breakfast nook. Oliver stood behind her, his stance relaxed but his eyes wary. Travis’s estimation of him went up another tiny notch—after all, the kid had kept Tess alive the past eighteen hours—but he shrugged it off. It didn’t make any difference now. Travis looked at Tess again. Her mouth puckered as if she’d eaten a lemon and her brows dove toward the center of her pert nose. She was pretty despite her sour mood, and Travis was suddenly struck by how much she’d matured in the past year. She was very nearly a woman.
Tess raised her chin. “Alice? Is that you?”
“Yes, Tess, it’s me.” She paused. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
Travis eased into the chair across from Tess. “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do.”
“Why?” Tess shot back. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“What were you looking for in the Range Rover?”
“I was just showing Oliver—”
“Look, Tess,” Travis interrupted, more gently this time, “Alice told me about the e-mails. And the camera. You clearly got another one that made you think there’s something in the Rover. What was it?”
Tess squirmed in her seat.
Oliver stepped forward. “Sir, I think—”
Travis motioned him to keep quiet. “You stay out of this. Tess?”
Tess dropped her hand under the table and shoved the iPod into her pocket. She extended her other arm across the table and opened her fingers. A thumb drive lay in her palm. Oliver’s eyes widened. He stared at it. Travis plucked it from her hand.
“Thank you.” He rose. “Don’t move, either of you. I’ll be right back. Alice, keep an eye on them, please.”
Travis hurried down the hall to the small den. Marcus twisted in a chair as Travis entered. He started to rise. Travis waved him back into his seat as he rounded the desk and inserted the thumb drive in his laptop’s USB port. He double-clicked on the icon when it appeared. The only files on the drive were a few photos and what looked like some of Tess’s old homework assignments. His brow creased. He yanked the thumb drive out of the computer and tossed it to Marcus.
“Have someone check that,” he said. “See if there’s any deleted data that can be recovered.”
“I’ll get on it,” Marcus said.
Travis rose and headed for the door. “I’ll be back.”
He used the walk back to the kitchen to steady his breathing and slow his pulse. His relationship with Tess would have been strained under the best of circumstances. She’d barely known him before he’d suddenly become a permanent fixture in her life. He was her uncle, not a parent or even a sibling, yet he’d been thrust into the role of caretaker and caregiver all at once. He didn’t know how to be a parent. He’d been a soldier all his adult life, accustomed to the company of men and a solitary existence in the field. He’d been trained to take life, not nurture it, and the transition from soldier to civilian had been difficult. Raising a teenager was next to impossible, but raising a girl who’d been traumatized by the loss of her sight and her parents was something no one was equipped to handle. So he’d left most of the daily duties to Alice. A mistake, he saw now. He knew he would have to tread carefully if he wanted to maintain any sort of rapport with Tess, so he pushed his
anger down beneath the surface.
“There’s nothing on that drive but old junk,” he said as he slid into his chair again.
“That’s not my fault,” Tess said.
“Empty your pockets.”
“What? I gave you what you wanted.”
“You heard me, Tess. Empty your pockets. I want to see all of it. I won’t ask you again.”
“You don’t trust me? I’m not a child. You have no right to treat me this way.” She dug into her jeans while she talked, despite the wounded indignation on her face. A tube of lip gloss and an iPod clattered onto the table. “There! Happy?”
“That’s it? No wallet? No purse?”
“Are you crazy?” Tess yelled.
“We bolted,” Oliver said. “We didn’t have time to grab anything. I have her phone, by the way, which I told her not to use so she couldn’t be traced. That’s why she didn’t check in.”
Travis peered at them both and glanced at Alice. She nodded. He sighed.
“Somebody’s playing a horrible practical joke on me,” Tess said. “It’s someone’s idea of a sick game.”
“This is no game, Tess!” Travis said. “They made an attempt on your life. Alice was attacked and hurt. People are dead, including one of your friends!”
“Carl was not my friend! He was just a big jerk!”
“He’s dead!” Travis roared. “And you could have been killed! This is real life, Tess.”
“This is so not close to real life, Uncle Travis, I can’t begin to tell you,” she said with such fierceness it surprised him. “The people I know don’t have men with machine guns burst into their kitchens. My friends don’t get chased down the street getting shot at. They don’t have to run away from home to keep from getting killed. That may be real life in your world, but not here, not in mine. This had nothing to do with me.”
Tears glistened in her eyes, and she clenched her jaw to hold them back.
“It has everything to do with you,” Travis said. “You’re involved, Tess, whether you like it or not. Someone made sure of that. I’m trying to help here. If you tell me what’s going on, I can run interference, keep you safe.”
“Like you did yesterday? Where were you?”
Blind Rage Page 17