Lone Star Survivor

by Colleen Thompson

  “I know he would never willingly hurt you, but you didn’t see him earlier, in the grips of that flashback. It’s possible he’s confused.”

  “Like he was when Zach first brought him home? You don’t think he’s back in that state, do you? Or, worse yet, violent?”

  “I don’t know what to think. To tell you the truth, I’m grasping at straws to even imagine he’ll come back here. For all I know, I’ve dragged you out tonight, gotten you into more hot water with Zach, and all for nothing.”

  “Don’t you worry about my marriage. I’ll find a way to make things right with Zach—for our sake and our children’s.”

  Andrea froze in place. “Your children’s? You aren’t saying that you’re...”

  Jessie nodded. “Almost three months, but I’ve been afraid he’ll seize on it as an excuse to try to stop me from my work.”

  “You’ll figure it out, the two of you, as long as you keep loving one another.”

  Jessie said nothing for a moment. “Just get inside and make sure everything’s okay.”

  Andrea gave her a spontaneous hug before trotting to a side door, where Cassidy was waiting to let her inside, her red ringlets dampening the shoulders of a sweatshirt that swamped her pint-size body.

  “He’s here,” Cassidy warned, her voice low and her eyes wide. “Julian, I mean. I guess Michael has his Explorer again, but I spotted Julian heading for his office. If you’re looking to avoid him while you check your room, I can keep watch for— Hey, where are you going?”

  “I need to make sure Ian isn’t with him,” said Andrea, her longer strides quickly outpacing the younger woman’s. “Finding him is too important to pussyfoot around.”

  “I’m not so sure Julian’s going to be happy to see you back. The way he was acting earlier when we asked about you—”

  “I’m miles beyond giving a damn what makes Julian Ross happy.”

  Cassidy staggered to a stop, sounding uncertain as she called, “Andrea, please.”

  Andrea broke into a run, her pulse thrumming an urgent warning. But the intuition that had her in its grips came too late, for as Andrea approached the door to Julian’s office, a crack of gunfire broke the evening stillness—the sound of a bullet as it pierced wood, then ripped a white-hot channel across her upper arm before it slammed into the wall behind her.

  * * *

  An SUV pulled into a space, and a smaller man with a short beard climbed out and headed inside. From what Jessie could make out from where she was crouched behind her Prius, the guy looked too young to be Ross, but she checked out the vehicle anyway and found it was a dark gray Explorer.

  Reasoning that Julian must have loaned out his SUV again, Jessie wondered if it was possible that this same vehicle had been used to knock Andrea’s car off the Spur Creek bridge? Walking all the way around it, Jessie used her smartphone’s flashlight to check for any dents or paint damage.

  Finding nothing other than a thin layer of road film, she let out a deep breath just as her phone began to vibrate in her hand. She groaned, heart thumping as a photo featuring Zach’s handsome grin popped up to identify him as the caller.

  “Betcha any money you’re not smiling now,” she murmured, since she’d already ignored several calls from his phone. Bracing herself for the chewing out she knew she deserved, she put her thumb over the green button to answer.

  Instead, she flinched, startled by what sounded like a backfire or a single clap of thunder. Except, she realized, it had come from the direction of the building.

  And her every instinct screamed at her to duck and dial for help.

  * * *

  The blast rang in Ian’s ears. The smell of gunpowder filled his lungs, and from the hallway just outside, a shrill scream had his blood freezing in his veins.

  Had the shot he’d deliberately aimed high found an unintended victim? An innocent woman, whose blood was on his hands?

  Seized with horror, he barely reacted in time to avoid Ross’s leap across the desk toward him, a move that sent the lamp tumbling to the floor. Glass shattered, plunging the room into darkness as Ross shouted, “Drop it, Rayford! Drop the weapon—before somebody gets hurt!”

  Heart pummeling his chest wall, Ian heard the clatter of other desktop items falling to the floor—or was it Ross fumbling to reload his own weapon? Uncertain whether he might be shot at any second, Ian took what little cover he could find behind the filing cabinet, the antique pistol hot as a glowing coal in his hand. Or maybe it was only his guilt as he wondered if some poor woman was bleeding, dying—or maybe even dead already in the hallway.

  “Toss the gun and lie facedown on the floor!” Ross ordered, his voice deep and commanding.

  “I know that voice. I know you.” Though Ian knew he would do better to keep his words from giving away his position, adrenaline tore the memory from his mouth. The memory of a man who’d bargained for his own freedom after being forced to witness Ian’s beatings. Willing to do anything to save himself, his fellow agent, who had looked very different with the darker hair and thick gray beard he’d worn to blend in for his overseas work, had given up information that had cost five Americans their lives. Lives Ian had had on his own conscience, certain that he had been the guilty party. “It’s over now, you traitor. I’m not taking the blame for their deaths anymore.”

  “Put the gun down now,” Ross repeated. “You’re having a psychotic episode.” Raising his voice, he shouted in the direction of the door, “We’ll need restraints! Connor, Michael, anybody! Get Cassidy in here right now with something to calm this man down!”

  Realizing that Ross was going to try using the same tactic he’d attempted to discredit Andrea, Ian crept forward, intent on jumping the man, subduing him until his own memories could be verified. But the door opened, spilling light from the hallway into the dark room.

  Andrea leaned around the door’s edge. “Ian, put the gun down! Before someone else gets hurt!”

  His gaze locked on her blood-soaked upper right sleeve, where she tried to stanch the flow by clamping her left hand over the wound. As the realization that he’d shot her hit Ian like a closed fist, Ross slammed him down backward, sending the antique pistol spinning from Ian’s grasp.

  He landed hard on his back, his breath violently forced from his lungs as Ross came down on top of him. Ian flipped the older man off him but was soon distracted by his own struggle to draw breath. The harder that he fought to fill his lungs, the more painfully they spasmed.

  In his peripheral vision, he caught sight of the old Colt where it had come to rest underneath the desk. But he could no more reach the gun than he could sprout wings, not laid out as he was, unable to do so much as cough.

  For one adrenaline-charged moment, Ian imagined his rib cage crushed by the fall and pictured himself turning blue, then dying where he lay, with Andrea looking on in horror. He heard her screaming, saw her pushing past Ross to get closer to him. As Ian’s gaze connected with hers, his breath returned in a dizzying rush.

  With the sudden flow of oxygen, a roaring noise filled his brain, one quickly drowned out by a jumble of urgent-sounding voices, male and female, Pashto and English. Andrea was pulled away, and the terrorist’s vicious threats dissolved into a nightmare haze, leaving behind a reality that was just as disconcerting.

  He fought to sit up, to get away from several people who surrounded him while Julian Ross yelled, “The shot. Give him the needle,” Ross urged, “before he hurts anyone else.”

  Strong hands held him down, and Ian saw that one of the two men was Connor Timmerman, who had seemed so damned friendly when he’d picked him up along the roadside, who sounded friendly even now, as he said, “Don’t try to get up, buddy. Don’t fight this, and you’ll be safe.”

  But Ian didn’t feel safe, not when he spotted a petite red-haired woman holding a hypodermic needl
e, her gaze flicking uncertainly from Julian Ross to him.

  “What are you waiting for?” Ross demanded. “Give him the damned drugs.”

  “I don’t need meds.” Ian’s gaze sought Andrea’s. “I just need you to listen. Please, Andrea. Tell them how he’s threatened you, how he’s tried to force you to spy on me for him.”

  Her face was white as paper, her bloody arm dripping onto the carpet.

  “I’m so sorry I hurt you,” he said, darkness fizzing through his vision, “but you can’t let them do this. Can’t let Ross get away with—”

  “I know you didn’t mean it,” she said, her face drawn and pale as she shook her head. “I know you’d never intentionally hurt me or anyone.”

  Ian turned to glare at Ross. “You told me it wasn’t loaded, you lying sack of—”

  “You can see, he’s highly agitated.” Ross told the woman with the needle. “A danger to himself and others.”

  Ian bucked against Timmerman’s grasp, fighting to catch Andrea’s eye. “It was him, Andie. He was captured with me and held in that same cell. Only instead of beating him, too, they forced him to watch my torture until he broke down, until he was willing to tell them anything to keep from getting a taste of it himself.”

  Ross surged forward, shaking his head. “The shot now, Cassidy. Don’t you know classic paranoid delusions when you hear them?”

  “Ian,” Andrea said. “Please stop fighting.”

  “It was him. I swear it,” Ian repeated. “Haven’t you ever wondered why he brought you all here, where he could watch and wait once he was tipped off that I’d escaped?”

  Ross swore, his face reddening, but Cassidy ignored him to stare a question in Andrea’s direction. But Andrea was watching Ian, her eyes wide, her mouth slightly open. In shock from pain and blood loss, he thought, or was it uncertainty he read in her face? Did his accusations sound so outrageous, or could she really be buying Ross’s self-serving garbage?

  Ian fought free of Timmerman’s grasp, throwing the counselor into the tiny redhead. With a startled cry, she fell, the needle rolling from her hand.

  “Stay down!” Timmerman shouted at Ian as he and a younger man with a short, dark beard made a grab for Ian’s arms.

  Scrambling to his feet, Ian ignored Andrea, who was helping Cassidy up, to point at Ross. “This man’s name is Davis Parnell, and he’s a traitor to his country! He’s a missing CIA agent, a master manipulator, and he’ll say anything, hurt anyone to save his own—”

  “Give it back! You’re not allowed to do that!” Cassidy told Andrea.

  “Let me. He won’t hurt me,” she said, and it was then Ian realized that Andrea had picked up the fallen hypodermic needle. The needle loaded with enough drugs to ensure that he woke up in a freaking psych ward in restraints.

  At the thought of being tied down, panic pounded through him. He’d die before he let them chain him in that dark hole, where rats crawled through the musty straw...the smell that took him back to a child’s spiraling terror at being bound with ropes and left alone inside a pitch-black feed room, a punishment for some childish transgression.

  As he flung off the bearded man, Ian saw out of the corner of his eye Ross’s hand dipping into the pocket of his jacket. Certain he was going for the gun, Ian opened his mouth to shout a warning, but Andrea stepped in, the hypo in her bloody hand.

  “Time to sleep now, Ian,” she said, those long-lashed hazel eyes he loved shimmering with tears. “Time for you to lie down, where I can keep you safe.”

  Inside of Ian, something fractured, broken beyond repair by her betrayal, but he couldn’t bring himself to shove her away. Couldn’t do anything but stand like a dead man as she ignored Cassidy, who was warning that Andrea could lose her license by dispensing medication, to push the needle toward the inside of his arm.

  Chapter 15

  Andrea’s heart broke at the look in Ian’s eyes, the look that told him he believed she had turned against him. There was more working as well, for she’d recognized the signs of flashback in his glazed look only seconds earlier as the past and present came together in one perfect, deadly storm.

  In this state, he was dangerous, as he’d already proved with the gunshot that had creased the outer layers of her upper arm. Sure, the shallow cut stung like a thousand wasp stings, but it was nothing compared to what he could do if he blindly swung his fists or made a sudden grab for her throat.

  Press the plunger, and he’ll be safe. He’ll go down and sleep, and Julian will take his hand off that gun I know he’s holding, the gun he’ll use if it’s what it takes to end this now.

  A flash of insight raised the fine hairs behind her neck. No wonder he’s been so desperate to make me his eyes and ears at the ranch. All along, he’s been trying to figure out whether he’ll have to kill Ian to protect his own secrets. Now that he knew that nothing short of death would ever keep Ian quiet, Andrea was terrified that Julian would find some excuse to pull the trigger—and silence the threat forever.

  “There you are,” she said, turning her body so the others wouldn’t see that she was only pretending to inject the drugs into Ian’s arm. As the plastic slid harmlessly past his inner elbow, light flickered through his blue eyes, followed by a dawning comprehension. “Rest now, Ian, and you’ll feel so much clearer when you wake up. Everything will make sense, and everyone here will have a chance to calm down.”

  Careful to keep the hypo out of the view of those behind her, she clasped his arm, willing him to understand that this subterfuge was for his safety—and hers as well, considering that Julian must have already tried to kill her at least once, on the bridge.

  Ian pressed his lips into a grim line, nodding his agreement but clearly none too pleased with the idea. “I think— I’m just so tired. Everything’s so mixed up.”

  “Let Michael and Connor help you, then. Let them help you to lie down.”

  Rebellion sparked in his eyes, a quick grimace that told her his mind was fighting the idea of lying prone and helpless.

  “In the chair, then,” she suggested, leading him back toward Julian’s desk. “Just sit and lay your head down.”

  As they moved in that direction, Connor righted the fallen chair and wheeled it back into place.

  “Sorry if I hurt you, man,” Ian told him. “I didn’t want any of you hurt. I just couldn’t—couldn’t let him—”

  Connor helped him into the chair. “I understand. I’ve been there. We’re all on your side here.”

  As Ian slumped forward onto the desk, Andrea’s attention was drawn by movement of the one man who definitely wasn’t in Ian’s corner. “Where exactly are you going?” she asked as she moved between Julian and the office door. In her uninjured left hand, she kept the needle behind her hip, wondering if it was possible... Even if I pull it off, you’ll still have time to put a bullet in me—and possibly everyone else in this room.

  “Someone should check on the clients in the game room,” he said. “They were gathering to watch a movie, but if any of them heard that gunshot...”

  As ploys went it was a good one, Andrea decided, a reminder that Ian wasn’t the only person on the premises whose PTSD might trigger flashbacks. But if Julian escaped this room, she knew there was a good chance he’d head to the parking lot and take off to stay one step ahead of Ian’s accusations.

  “My gosh, Julian,” Cassidy scolded. “Don’t you see her standing there, bleeding like crazy?” Marching toward him, she caught his sleeve. “Here, let me have that jacket. It’s got a big rip in it already, and we need something to wrap up her arm and apply pressure before she passes out.”

  He jerked his arm free of her grasp. “Not my jacket. I’ll be right back with bandages, towels, whatever you need.”

  But as Andrea’s gaze locked with his, they both knew he didn’t give a damn about giving
up a ruined sports jacket. It was the gun inside the pocket he couldn’t afford to part with, the gun and wallet and whatever else he’d need to put distance between himself and the truth.

  As much as she hated the idea, it would be safer to let him go, to turn over the job of capturing this traitorous coward to the authorities instead of risking her own, Ian’s and her friend’s lives in some desperate gambit. But when she opened her mouth to tell this man who’d used her so cruelly, this monster willing to kill to keep from accepting responsibility for his own cowardly actions that he could leave now, the only words that came out were, “So tell me, where’re you really off to in such a hurry...Davis Parnell?”

  * * *

  Even at that point, Ian thought later, things might have still turned out all right. The man calling himself Julian Ross might have simply pushed past Andrea to make a break for it, escaping, maybe, but at least no one would have died.

  Instead, the sound of sirens outside caught everyone’s attention, the flashing of red-and-white lights shining through the window.

  Ian opened his eyes just in time to see Ross grab Andrea by the neck to pull her in front of him, his other hand coming up to point the SIG Sauer at her head.

  As Cassidy screamed, Ian dropped behind the desk, groping desperately for the antique pistol—a pistol that Timmerman must have picked up earlier, for he came up with it, shouting at Ross, “Let go of her, Ross! Let’s talk whatever this is through!”

  Hiding behind Andrea, Ross turned the gun toward Timmerman. A split second later, Ian caught the blur of Andrea’s bloody hand as she jabbed the needle hard into Ross’s thigh. Ross screamed as it stabbed his leg, but jerked away from her so quickly that Ian doubted that she’d managed to get much of the drug into his muscle.

  It wouldn’t have mattered anyway, with adrenaline propelling those next few split seconds. As Andrea tried to jab him again, Ross grabbed her hair and swung the gun back toward her skull.

  Bellowing to distract him, Ian charged, Timmerman right behind him. As Andrea twisted away and out the door, there were two loud cracks, followed by a third as Ross began to crumple, the first geyser of blood already spouting from his chest.