“Thank God it’s you. Let’s do this. I want to get out of here, man.”
The officer smiled at the man, then risked a glance at Rachel. “You two get all cozy in the trunk there, pal?”
“You better cuff me now, dude, or I’ll go all Jackie Chan on your ass.”
Rachel was momentarily stunned. She couldn’t figure out the two players, where they sat on the law-enforcement chain link fence. The man in riot gear produced a cable tie, securing the other man’s wrists with it. She might have imagined it, but she thought he smiled as he cinched the cable tie just a smidge too tight.
Mr. Hoodie jerked away in protest. “Hey, watch it, pal. You don’t have to break my wrists, you know?”
“Just keeping it real, man. Let’s go.”
They walked for a bit, Mr. Hoodie at the end of the officer’s gun, Rachel bringing up the rear. She listened intently for any tiny sound that might come from behind them. For the first fifty feet, she was convinced that the bad guys were going to come up behind them and shoot her in the back before she could make it onto the beach. But then she saw the light at the end of the tunnel, figuratively and literally. She fought the urge to bolt, to run into that clean white sand and keep running all the way home.
No one had come out of the cave for fifteen minutes. There was some chatter on the headsets, but even that had died down to the occasional pronouncement or joke. Inside, Rick’s stomach was churning and he fought the burning desire to simply bolt away from the officer in charge, counting on his good nature not to shoot him in the back.
“Last one,” boomed the voice from just inside the cave.
Rick’s head swung around in that direction and his hands pressed him several inches away from the rocks. He became peripherally aware of Logan’s hand on his shoulder, of the weapon pointed at his chest.
First came the guy in the hoodie, his hands bound behind his back. Right behind him was an officer in tactical gear, his weapon drawn, his face sour.
Rick drew in a breath and held it.
“Get moving, jerk.” The officer gave Mr. Hoodie a sound shove in the back, making him stumble forward.
“Keep your hands off me, man. You do that again and…”
“Just get in the truck, idiot.” Once more, he shoved the guy, laughing as he stumbled against the unopened door, then climbed up onto the bumper. “We’ve got a nice ten-by waiting for you. Welcome to Hotel Fed.” And he slammed the door shut half a second after Mr. Hoodie pulled his foot inside.
At the same moment, someone stepped clear of the cave mouth. Rick, his breath still in his lungs, squinted to try and make out who it was. For long seconds, he couldn’t even tell whether it was man or woman. Then he spotted the cut of the jeans, the way she stepped carefully on the sand.
“Rachel,” he muttered with that held breath. “That’s Rachel. It’s my wife. Please?” His face was pathetic and pleading and the officer must have felt a tug at his heartstrings.
“Go ahead.” He dropped his weapon to his side and waved Logan on as well.
“Rachel!” Rick called out, feet pounding the sand as he ran.
She spotted him then, the tears coming at once. “Oh my God! Rick!”
And then she was running, her breath only tiny gasps of useless air as she went. She skipped the last three feet, throwing herself across the space and into his arms.
And he caught her, grabbing on tight and letting the momentum carry her to his chest, swinging her around, clutching her, crushing her face against him and shaking hard.
When he set her down, his eyes were brimming, his heart pounding. His voice was a memory as he pushed her back to look her over, then crushed her to him again.
“Thank God you’re all right,” he sighed, stroking her hair.
“I was so scared,” she said and her voice was half sob, half scream. Then softer, “I was so scared.”
“I know, baby. I know.” He kept stroking her hair, as if she weren’t real, as if she would poof away at any moment.
Behind her, someone cleared his throat. The man in charge was there, staring at them. “I know this is a wonderful reunion and all, but I need just a few words with your wife. Then you can take her home.”
Rick looked into Rachel’s wide eyes, then nodded. “Make it fast.”
He pulled Rachel aside and removed his headset, tucking it into a pocket. He still hadn’t smiled. Rachel doubted he knew how.
“I want to caution you not to say anything about what happened in there tonight, do you understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“We’ve been months building this case and there are certain parties involved that could be put in danger if you spoke about it. It would end their career and possibly their life.”
“I get that, believe me.” She nodded rapidly, drawing in a shaky breath. “As far as I’m concerned, I fell through a hole. There were bad men in there and the police saved me.”
“Good then. Do you need medical attention?”
“No. I think I’m fine.”
“Very well. Have a good night, ma’am.” He turned on his heel and walked away.
Rachel watched him go for a moment, trying to make sense of everything she had just been through. Then Rick’s hand came to rest on her shoulder and she put her own hand on top of his.
“Take me home, please.”
Chapter 13
The diner opened late the next day; for lunch rather than breakfast. Rachel, Rick and Logan had been tired from the ordeal of the previous night and had mutually agreed that missing one breakfast shift wouldn’t kill any of them.
Rachel and Rick had gone straight home and taken hot showers. They spoke of nothing in particular, just chit-chat about the cats and the diner. Then they had crawled into bed and, no matter how badly Rachel wanted to figure things out in her head, she dropped off almost immediately.
Refreshed and with a much better outlook on life, they appeared at the diner promptly at ten and made ready for a late opening. Macy and Diane were already there, with Logan still in absentia. At the sight of them, Macy flew across the diner and grabbed Rachel into a tight hug.
“Oh, thank God you’re in one piece,” she moaned. “I told you that one day all this cloak and dagger stuff would do you in. Do you have any idea how scared I was for you?”
Rachel laughed. “Everything’s okay now. Let’s just let it go.” She pushed past Macy and headed for the counter, ready to fulfill her duties as waitress.
Diane eyed her as she passed, most of her attention captured by the filling of the salt shaker in her hand.
“Let it go? Are you kidding me?” Clearly, Macy took offense at that and was not going to let it go at all. “They were building tunnels under the town. You got captured by drug lords and lived to tell about it. How can I let that go?”
Rachel rolled her eyes in Macy’s direction and laughed. “They were hardly drug lords. Just thugs. And they weren’t building tunnels under the town. They just used what was already there.”
“Still, you’ve got to tell us about it.”
“She can’t tell you about it,” Rick said, more to remind Rachel than to explain to Macy.
“Yea,” Rachel sighed. “I can’t.”
Macy let her hands drop to her sides, her face falling and her eyes darkening. “Never?”
“Not for a long time,” Rachel said with a shrug.
“Well…darn.” Macy dropped onto a stool and glared at the back of Rachel’s head.
“The important thing is that everyone is okay,” Diane offered. She smiled good-naturedly but Macy wasn’t buying it.
The bell on the door rang out just then and Logan stepped in from the sunshine. “Good morning, fellow hostages. And how are we this fine day?”
They all turned to stare at him in unison. No one spoke.
Finally, it was Rick who said, “We’re all fine, Logan. And looking forward to getting back to normal. Aren’t we girls?”
There was a pause, then they all added the
ir assent.
Rick managed to keep them on task through the lunch rush, which was even more of a rush than usual. It wasn’t that anyone knew about the previous night’s doings because certainly there had been no news in the media and even the grapevine had seemed to fail. But the diner being opened late was a cause for concern for everyone in town and there was no stopping the good citizens from coming in to find out the reason.
Rachel went on break at the tail-end of the rush. There were about twenty people still in the diner when she slipped into the office to take some aspirin and brush her hair. She had a soda with her and she took ten minutes to sit down and put her feet up on the desk. It had been oddly comforting to drop right back into the normal swing of things, but she had begun to feel tired and her head hurt a little.
Then she went back into the diner, apron in place, ready to finish her shift. That’s when she spotted the dark figure huddle in the back booth. She stared at the back of his head for a minute, knowing who he was, why he kept his hoodie up. To anyone else, the whole situation would spell a robbery. But Rachel knew why he was there.
She fidgeted and fussed, anxious for the rest of the customers to leave the diner so she could speak to the man. And when the last of the lunch customers ambled out the door, she flipped the sign to CLOSED.
“Rachel, what the heck are you doing?” Rick said, his face slightly reddened from the heat of the grill and the rush of confusion.
“Trust me,” she said with a wink, and started toward the back booth. She slid easily into the seat opposite him, folded her hands on the table in front of her, and smiled. “We meet again.”
He looked up, questioning her with his eyes, not yet cracking a smile. “I was really hoping to see Diane.”
Rachel cocked her head to one side. “She’s right over there. Don’t worry. I put out the CLOSED sign. We’re safe.”
He tossed back the hoodie, revealing a face that was not quite how she remembered it. Gone were the heavily lidded eyes, mustache and beard. The hair was cropped shorter too. Then he unzipped the hoodie and took it off. In those two swift movements, Mr. Hoodie became all-American boy-next-door. Rachel smiled.
“I think I like you better this way. Hey, Diane, there’s somebody over here who wants to see you.” She spared a wink for him.
Diane spun on her stool, her eyes widening and her mouth falling into a little “O” as she took in the scene. Then she was crossing the diner, her face lit from within and her eyes bright. “Mike!”
He took the hug awkwardly, chuckling a bit as he did so. “Yep, it’s me. In the flesh.”
Diane took possession of his hand, kept it as she slid into the booth and pulled him in after her. “I can’t believe you’re here. It’s really you.” She reached out and stroked his face, teared up a bit, but didn’t fight it.
“I figured I owed you an explanation.”
“I showed her the note you gave me,” Rachel interrupted. “I wasn’t sure what it meant at the time, but I knew she deserved to see it.”
Mike nodded jerkily and hung his head. “I couldn’t let any of you know the truth. Heck, I still can’t tell you the whole truth. But I can tell you most of it.”
The nearby booths had filled up with Rick, Macy and Logan. They sat on the edge of their seats, listening, waiting…
“I knew you weren’t a bad person,” Diane said softly. “You couldn’t be.”
“And that’s why I bothered sticking around. You know I was working undercover, right? I was always working undercover.” Mike checked her face, searching for hope.
“I did hope. But when we saw you on the security camera, the day the bank was robbed, I almost gave up hope.”
Mike sat back suddenly, driving the air from the seat cushion and chewing on his lip. “I guess I better start at the beginning. But it’s a long story.”
“We’ve got time,” Rick said, drawing a look of surprise from Rachel.
Mike studied his hands as he spoke, sparing a fast glance for Diane every now and again, checking her responses.
“I work for the DEA. But you probably knew that. They sent me here to infiltrate this group. They’ve been after this meth cook for a long time, but he’s been really smart so far. They gave me a cover ID and set me up with the apartment and the so-called day trading job. And then they told me to go out and find a girlfriend, to make myself more established and credible. That’s where you came in, Diane.”
For a moment, Diane looked like she was going to cry. Out of instinct, Rachel reached out and squeezed her hand.
“I chose you, Diane, because you were pretty and smart and seemed like the kind of girl who a guy like me – meaning my cover identity – might actually fall for. And then I did the dumbest thing I could possibly do: I fell for you. I almost got out of it right then and there, but command talked me into sticking it out. They made certain promises, which I can’t talk about. And I made certain demands, which I won’t talk about.”
Diane nodded slowly, watching his face, the side of his head, whatever he offered of himself as he spoke.
“Once I got deeper into things, I realized that it wasn’t at all like we thought it was. The cook, the guy in charge, he was being handled by someone else. Someone from a cartel, we thought, but it turned out not to be that way. And it turned out that the plan they had in place was a lot more intricate, so I knew I was in for the long haul.
“The bank robbery was set up to fund the operation. It was also to test my loyalty, I’m sure. And by then I knew exactly what I was getting into and I had a pretty good idea that meant danger for Diane. So, I did the only thing I could. I broke up with her. I acted as much like a heel as I could to make sure she stayed away. But I couldn’t just leave her high and dry. She’d changed her whole life for me. I couldn’t leave her homeless and alone.”
“So, you dropped her on the sidewalk outside our diner,” Rachel offered through tight lips.
“Yea. I’d been in here a few times and you seemed like good people. Actually, you all seemed like suckers for a sob story.” He looked embarrassed at that, tried to shrug it off.
“But how could you possibly know that she would come in here? Or that she would stay long enough for you to run by after the robbery?”
“Working undercover makes you a darn good judge of character. Heck, I could be a profiler in another life. I knew that Diane wouldn’t make any rash decisions. She would need to go somewhere and calm down, get herself together. And that place was here. She had about twenty bucks in her purse when I left her. Not even enough for a motel room. I figured the chances were good that she’d come in, stay as long as possible. And then when you all finally figured out that she wasn’t leaving, you’d offer to keep her around.”
“That was a heck of a gamble, Mike,” Rick said. “What if you’d been wrong?”
“Then, I guess she would have had to call her parents and go back home. But, things worked out and you all took her in. You kept her safe and I’m in your debt for that. And since I’d seen the security camera before, I knew I could leave a sort of message for Diane. You guys are ex-cops and military, so I knew you’d eventually look at that video and maybe take it to the police.”
“But you didn’t count on me chasing you down, huh?” Rick laughed.
“No, and if I hadn’t been all-state track in school, you’d have caught me. Thank God you didn’t because I don’t know what I would have done.” It was Mike’s turn to laugh now. It was a nice laugh, full of warmth and gentleness.
“Oh, if I’d have caught you, I’d have hauled you off to jail. You can count on that.” Rick’s face was almost menacing. He obvious felt very certain of his skills.
“Then Rachel got involved.” Mike looked at her head-on, a quirky smile on his face.
“Oh, Rachel always gets involved,” Logan added and received a punch on the arm from Rachel for his trouble.
“Thus the warning and the note. I wanted you out of it, Rachel, before you got hurt. And I wanted to expl
ain to Diane, but I just couldn’t. So, I let you know that I’d be back for her. That I wasn’t just some jerk who had some fun with her and dumped her.”
“You scared the heck out of me with that warning, I want to tell you…” Rachel began.
“And still it didn’t keep you away.” Mike shook his head and leaned forward again. “And then you fell through the big intake at the farm and dropped right into the middle of the bust. It was scheduled for that night, but it wasn’t supposed to happen for another couple of hours. After I left you with the lab guys, I managed to get out a text for my guys to come earlier. I let them know we had a civilian in danger and that I couldn’t help you without getting us both killed.”
“And thank God they came!” Rachel laughed.
“They almost didn’t. They almost hung us both out to dry.” Mike shook his head once more, his eyes closing for a second.
“And when they did get there and all the commotion started, that’s when Mike shoved us into that big metal trunk and kept us safe until it was all over.” Rachel beamed at that. It had been a terrifying moment, to be sure, but it was also the most exciting moment of her life.
“The trunk was there for just that purpose. I was to hide in it in the event that shooting started or something. We’re just lucky that we’re both small and it had room for two.”
“So, when did you know that Sheriff Dooley was involved?” Logan asked.
Mike’s head snapped up and pivoted in Logan’s direction. “Say again?”
“Dooley was right smack dab in the middle of it all. We called him last night when Rachel went missing. He showed up…alone…and pulled a gun on us. Apparently, he’s been funding his retirement account with drug money.”
All eyes were on Logan now, though Rachel spared a quick look of surprise for Rick.
Mike sat up straight and cleared his throat. “You say he pulled a gun on you. How did you get away from him?”
“We overpowered him.” Rick shrugged. “Left him bound ankle to wrist in the …Oh my God! Dooley might still be tied up in the woods.” Now Rick looked like he might be sick. “I forgot all about him after the mess down at the beach.”
Deep-Fried Homicide (The Laurel Falls Mysteries Book 1) Page 20