“She don’t look like much but she gets the job done.” Maddox slapped the pickup’s dull green hood and grinned. “How’d the winter treat you?”
“We’re still here,” Michael said, his eyes scanning the cliffs that towered over them. “Speaking of here … what can I do for you, Senator?”
Maddox chuckled. “I forgot how much you love small talk,” he said. “May I?” He tilted his hat toward the cab of his truck.
“Sure.” Michael’s tone was easy but between them she heard the distinct click of him flipping the safety off on the firearm he held.
The senator must’ve recognized how thin his welcome was being worn because he reached a slow hand into the cab of his truck, pulling out something bulky and black. A satellite phone. Wedged in between the phone and Maddox’s fingers was a large manila envelope. Holding both out, he reached up with his free hand, peeling off his sunglasses to reveal a pair of dark eyes, razor sharp and aimed straight at her.
“Little lady, you have a phone call.”
Four
“I still don’t understand, Senator Maddox. Why would you drive over two hundred miles to play secretary? We’ve never even met.” She could hear Michael in the kitchen, sweeping up the broken plate and smashed sandwiches off the floor. The kids were upstairs in the loft playing checkers. Avasa slept at her feet, relaxing in the afternoon sun. Everything was back to normal—and nothing would ever be the same again.
The satellite phone sat on the table between them, a living, breathing thing. Something that could hurt them. Something that could destroy everything they’d built over the last year. Beneath it was the folder, its flap secured shut by a bright red string wound around a circular tab. She didn’t want to know what was inside. Sabrina refused to even look at it. Instead she focused on the old man on the other side of the table.
“First off, it’s just Leon now. My civil servant days are behind me. I’m back to being what I was before I put on a suit and went to Washington.” Maddox smiled at her, trying to reassure her everything was going to be okay. That his being here didn’t mean everything had gone sideways.
“And what is that, exactly?” she said, allowing herself to be distracted from why he was here, even if it was for just a few moments.
“Cattle rancher, same as you,” he said, his smile deepening into a grin. “Although, I’ll admit, my operation is a tad bigger than yours.” At less than five hundred head of cattle, she would hardly consider their motley household a ranch.
“So after nearly twenty years in the senate you just quit?” Sabrina could hear the skeptical edge in her tone but did nothing to temper it.
Maddox stopped grinning. “I’ve had my fill of politicking—left it to my son, not long after …” He didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. He’d announced his retirement the day after his grandson had been returned home, naming his son, Jon, as his successor to finish out his term. Retirement had been the easiest way to dodge the top-secret appointment he’d been about to receive. The one that would’ve had him heading a committee designated to decide how the country’s $85 billion “black budget” would be spent. Which was the entire reason his grandson had been kidnapped in the first place.
Now he turned his gaze toward the yard, taking in the river. The towering cliffs in the distance. “As for why … well …” He looked at her again. “It took Leo a long time to talk about what happened. The kidnapping—he claims he doesn’t remember much of it. Said he felt sleepy a lot.”
She remembered dull green eyes watching her from across the dinner table. The way he plodded along beside the guard who moved him from room to room. “Reyes kept him drugged most of the time,” she said quietly, not sure how the old man would react to information about how his grandson had been treated in captivity.
Maddox nodded, his mouth stretched thin and tight across his face. “Yeah. That’s what I figured.” He knocked his hat back on his head, lifting the shadow it cast across his eyes so she could see them when he looked at her. “One thing he remembers clear as day is you. You telling him you were there to rescue him. That you and your friend Michael would take him out of there.” He swallowed hard, looking away from her. “And you did. The two of you saved him from …” He nodded once, a hard jerk of his neck, meant to rein in his emotions. “So, no—we’ve never met, Ms. Vaughn, but I know you.” He smiled at her. “And after what you did for me and mine, the least I can do is play secretary.”
Sabrina sat quietly for a moment, unsure of what to say. “Senator Maddox—”
He didn’t let her finish. Obliviously, the subject of his grandson’s abduction was closed. “You and that young man in there have made a nice home here. You deserve it—both of you. The last thing I want to do is disrupt that.”
“Then why are you?” Her voice was small, edged in fear. From the corner of her eye she could see the thin red string. It blurred against the bright yellow of the envelope. The longer she looked, the more it looked like blood.
“He said you’d ask that.” He chuckled softly. “He also said you’d want the opportunity to hear the facts and choose for yourself what happens next.”
Ben. She didn’t even have to ask. Benjamin Shaw was big on choices. The freedom to make them. A year ago he’d said as much to her before he’d told her she had to decide what she wanted more—her old life or a new one with Michael.
“I made my choice, sir.” She pushed the words through clenched teeth. Ben had been smart to send the senator instead of coming himself. She’d been raised to respect her elders. If it’d been Ben sitting across from her, he’d have gotten a fat lip for his trouble. “I got on the plane that brought me here and I haven’t looked back.” Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. She’d looked back plenty. Missed and longed for her old life. Her family.
In a perfect world, she would’ve been allowed to have both. She would have been able to find a way to be with Michael and still have Riley and Jason. Val and Nickels. Her old partner, Strickland. But the world wasn’t perfect and she’d had to choose. She chose Michael and even though she missed them all, she’d never regretted her choice. Not ever.
“I’m here because I owe a debt. To both of you … and to Benjamin,” Maddox said, cocking his head toward the kitchen. The sweeping sounds had stopped but Michael was still in the kitchen. Probably listening. “By paying on one, I have a feeling I’m adding to another, but I agreed to deliver a message—not you. Once I’ve said my piece, I’ll be on my way. What you do with this is up to you.”
Sabrina finally let her gaze fall to the phone and the envelope, sitting on the table between them. “It won’t work here, you know,” she said. “Even if you could turn it on, which you can’t, you wouldn’t be able to get a signal. The canyon won’t allow it.”
“I know,” Maddox sat back in his chair, watching her carefully. “I’m the one who suggested this place when Benjamin was looking for somewhere to stash the two of you.” He looked around again, taking in the dull, dark gray of the canyon’s walls. “This place seemed just as good as any”—his eyes sparkled with something that looked like mischief—“and better than most.” The canyon walls were made almost entirely of iron, so densely packed with metals and minerals that drilling into them proved nearly impossible. They’d been abandoned over a century ago by miners for their impregnability. Sold to the government for pennies on the dollar and preserved as national forest under President Theodore Roosevelt. During the late nineties, a house had been built—one nearly as impregnable as the canyon that surrounded it—so that the president at the time, who’d fancied himself a frontiersman, could play homesteader in peace.
It was the Camp David no one knew about, abandoned as soon as the presidential frontiersman left office. Forgotten until Leon—who, as representative of the state that housed it, had been one of its only frequent visitors—remembered it and mentioned it and its unique properties to Ben.
Brokering the sale of a few hundred acres of inaccessible national forest on the US/Canadian border to an equally private buyer had hardly garnered notice. Requesting the sale of this land had been one of Leon Maddox’s last acts as a US senator, and it’d gone off without a hitch.
“The message …” she said, her gaze drifting downward again. She let it settle on the envelope. “Is it about Val? Jason or Riley? Are they—” She couldn’t even bring herself to think it, let alone say it.
The old man leaned across the table and took her hand. “Far as I know, everyone is okay.” He gave it a squeeze. He understood where she was. He’d been there. Not knowing. Wondering if something you’d done or said had caused the hurt of someone you care for. He let go of her hand and sat back in his chair. “The message—he said it was for your ears only.” Maddox raised his gaze to the back door that was cracked open behind her. The sound of the broom being dragged across the plank floor resumed.
A message from Ben. One that, for whatever reason, he didn’t want Michael to hear. At least not right away.
“Well, Leon,” she said as she stood, “let’s take a walk by the river so you can give me this message and then you can be on your way. You’ve got a long drive home.”
Five
Michael could hear them talking quietly on the porch, their voices barely above a whisper, but he didn’t need to listen. He discerned everything he needed to know the moment he recognized Leon Maddox through that sun-beaten windshield.
Sabrina was leaving.
He’d known it would happen—that she’d leave him eventually. He’d known, even if she hadn’t. He’d called them all orphans, but that was a lie. She had a family. People who loved and needed her. A life—a real life. One he never had a place in. One he couldn’t compete with. He knew that. Understood it. Accepted it, even. But accepting it didn’t make it any easier right at this moment.
He dragged the broom across the wood, carefully catching shards of glass and bits of congealed cheese sandwich in its bristles. He extended the handle, reaching underneath the converted larder to make sure he picked up everything he’d broke. Inside the cabinet, loose bullets rattled and rolled across its bottom. He’d have to reorganize it after the kids went to bed. He didn’t like them to watch him handle guns unless it was absolutely necessary.
The creak of the porch steps brought his head up and he watched as Maddox and Sabrina stepped down into the yard, heading for the river. Most men would’ve fixed that step to stop its creaking by now, but not him. The back step leading to his home creaked on purpose. So he’d be able to hear someone approaching the back door. Someone who meant to kill them. It would give away their position so he could kill them first.
That’s the kind of life he had to offer her.
He stooped, carefully sweeping the pile of debris on the floor into the waiting dustpan before dumping it in the trash. He stood there longer than he should’ve watching Sabrina and the old man stroll along the water. For a moment, he was able to convince himself the message he’d brought was a good one. That Val and her cop husband had had another baby. That Sabrina’s old partner, Strickland, had gotten married. That her old Homicide captain, the one who hated her, had been hit by a bus.
“She’s leaving us, isn’t she?”
He turned to see Christina standing in the doorway. She looked the same way he felt. Powerless. Resigned.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He moved toward the pantry to store the broom and dustpan. “I hope not,” he said, looking at her for a moment.
“You’re lying.” She cast her glance farther out the window to where Sabrina stood talking with Maddox near the hood of his truck.
“Have I ever lied to you?” he said, hanging the broom and dustpan from their respective hooks before closing the pantry door. Come to think of it, Christina was the only person in his life he hadn’t lied to at some point or another.
“No,” she said, her tone hard and quiet. “But there’s a first time for everything.”
“I promised you a long time ago that I would never lie to you. I don’t plan on starting now.” He closed the closet door and turned toward her. “How do you feel about pancakes for dinner?”
Instead of answering she rushed him, throwing her arms around his waist to bury her face in his shirt. “I don’t want her to leave, Michael.” She looked up at him, her chin digging into his sternum. “Don’t let her.”
He passed a hand over her dark hair and shook his head. She’d lost so much because of him. Her mother. Her father. And now this. Another loss he was powerless to stop.
He wanted to lie to her. Tell her he’d do as she asked. Make her believe he had the power to make Sabrina stay. Instead, he smoothed his palms over her shoulders, gripping them before setting her away.
“What if her family needs her?” he said, hunkering down to look her in the eye. It was his worst nightmare—that Sabrina’s association with him could bring her family to harm. “Maybe her brother or her sister is in trouble. Maybe she’s the only one who can help them.”
“I don’t care. She chose us.” Christina set her jaw and glared up at him. “She doesn’t get to take it back.”
“I wish it were that easy … but if we love her—really love her—then we should want her to do the right thing, even if that thing hurts us.” He dropped his hands away from her shoulders and straightened his stance to look down at her. “That’s who she is. She’s the person who does the right thing, no matter what. It’s one of the reasons we love her so much.”
Behind him, he could hear the engine in Maddox’s truck turn over and catch, rumbling to life under its worn hood. The porch step creaked a moment before the screen door wheezed on its hinges. “Go play with Alex,” he said to Christina, his tone telling her there was no room for argument.
“I want chocolate chips in my pancakes,” she said, a small act of defiance before she turned and stomped from the room, each footfall so heavy the dishes in the larder’s matching hutch rattled with every step. Sabrina was a purist. She hated chocolate chips in her pancakes.
“I’m not going.”
He turned to find Sabrina standing just inside the kitchen, her back pressed against the doorframe. The manila envelope was in her hand, unopened.
Behind her he could see Maddox’s tailgate bumping across the bridge. He had the insane urge to blow it up. To kill the old man for what he’d done. For taking her away from him.
She took a step toward him, moving to the side so she could shut the door, blocking his view of the truck’s retreat. Like she could read his mind. Like she could see murder on his face. She tossed the envelope onto the counter like it didn’t matter.
“Did you hear me? I said I’m not—”
“Christina wants chocolate chips in her pancakes.” He moved toward the refrigerator, pulling it open to retrieve eggs and butter. It was still too early to make dinner, but he needed to move. Needed to do something so he didn’t grab her and lock her away to make her stay. “Any objections?”
Her mouth closed and she shook her head. “No. Chocolate chips are fine.” She dug her hands into the front pockets of her cargos—a sure sign he was making her nervous. That she had more to say but was keeping it to herself because she knew he didn’t want to hear it. Not yet anyway.
He watched her hands for a moment, the way they twisted in her pockets, before turning away from her. It’s funny how people who love each other pick up one another’s habits. He wondered how long it would take her to break his after she was gone.
Six
As promised, Michael made pancakes for dinner.
The kids set the table, Christina plunking each plate down with a resounding thud while Alex followed her around the table with knives and forks. Neither of them would look at her. For Alex that was normal—he never looked at her—but Christina’s unwillingness to acknowledge her spoke volumes.
Somehow, she knew what was going on. Judging from her sullen glares and stubborn silence, Christina had already made up her mind Sabrina was leaving and she hated her for it.
Sabrina’s gaze strayed from her plate, over Michael’s shoulder to the manila envelope sitting on the counter by the back door. Maddox had handed it to her before he left. “I’m supposed to give these to you,” he’d said grudgingly, slapping the thick packet into her hand. “For what it’s worth, you and him”—he jerked his head toward the porch—“you earned the right to be selfish. You earned the right to want something for yourselves—a life, here, together.”
She’d closed her hand around the envelope and pulled it from his grip. “Are you telling me not to open it?”
Sharp brown eyes peered at her from the shadow cast by the wide brim of his hat. “I’m telling you that if you took that envelope and tossed it into your fireplace the second I left,” Maddox said before climbing into his truck and turning it over, “I’d be a happy man.”
She hadn’t tossed it in the fireplace. Hadn’t opened it either. She had an idea of what was in it and didn’t particularly want to see it, but she couldn’t force herself to walk away from it either.
“May I be excused?”
Christina’s stiff request—a throwback to her nightly formal dinners with her sociopathic, drug lord father—brought Sabrina back to the present. Michael nodded, wiping his mouth on his napkin, gaze locked onto her face. He knew her better than anyone. Sometimes it made her uncomfortable, the way he could read her. She dropped her gaze and focused on her pancakes.
“Yes,” he said. Before she could even blink, Christina bolted, Alex on her heels. They finished their dinner in silence, Michael chewing each bite like he had a mouthful of nails. Her trying to find a way to convince him he was wrong. That she wasn’t going anywhere. Finally finished, he lifted his plate from the table and carried it to the sink. He hadn’t said a word to her the entire meal.
Blood of Saints Page 3