Vote Then Read: Volume III

by Aleatha Romig

  He said nothing—honestly, he deserved that—and he didn’t protest when she reached over and flipped on the radio. “You’re going to take the 101 to the north,” she said, leaning back and closing her eyes as classic rock poured out in stereo around them. “We’re heading all the way up to San Luis Obispo.”

  For over three hours, The Doors, The Beatles, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Queen blared out of the speakers, and Eliza managed to sleep through it all. Not that he was surprised. He remembered how she slept like the dead, wrapped naked in a sheet as he began his morning. For the first week, he’d tiptoed around the house. He was a naturally early riser and didn’t want to disturb her, especially since he tended to keep her up so very late.

  After a week of that, though, he learned not to bother. In fact, he soon fell into the habit of drinking coffee and listening to the news on the radio in bed, just for the pleasure of feeling her curled up beside him.

  He missed that—hell, he missed her. But he knew damn well he couldn’t have her. Not any more. Not after—

  The sharp, musical chime of his phone yanked him from his increasingly maudlin thoughts, and he glanced automatically toward Eliza who, of course, wouldn’t awaken unless hell was freezing over.

  He punched the button to answer through the onboard system, and grinned as Liam’s deep voice filled the car. The two of them had worked a lot of jobs together, and Quince was glad his friend had signed on with Stark. “Got your text. What’s the story with this ranch?”

  “Eliza tells me that it belonged to her grandfather—a hunting cabin. And he sold it to some land mogul who was buying up ranch land in the area and all around the cabin. He didn’t want to sell, though, so the mogul made a side-deal with him. The family could have free access and use of the cabin for fifty years. But it’s just a handshake deal with a signed agreement locked in the mogul’s safe. Anyone checking the deed records would only see the rancher’s name.”

  “In that case, it sounds like a safe enough place to hole up,” Liam said.

  “Sounds like. But you and I both know how often things that sound fine go south.”

  Liam chuckled, but not with humor. “You got that right.”

  “Speaking of going south, things didn’t go too well for Lassiter today.” The smarmy bastard had been easy pickings for Ryan and Liam, who’d delivered him back to Quince at HQ. “How’s our houseguest feeling this afternoon?”

  Quince had acquired many skills during his time with MI6, but the one that had proved to be the most useful was his interrogation repertoire. In fairness, MI6 had only introduced him to the art. Quince had honed his own techniques, refined his own tools, and mixed his own pharmaceutical aids.

  When he’d first been trained, he’d found some of the methods distasteful and had been somewhat reluctant to put them to use. But he’d been green in those days. As soon as he crawled deep into the underbelly of the criminal world and saw the level of treachery and pure evil, his reservations had evaporated. And after he’d been tied to the victim’s chair himself, he’d realized that he’d go to whatever lengths were necessary to put the scum away and protect the innocent.

  “I’ve said it before and will say it again, you are one scary motherfucker in a room,” Liam said. “Lassiter’s just now realizing how much he told you, and he is beyond pissed at himself.”

  “The man wasn’t even a fair test of my skill. He’s a spineless little worm who doesn’t give a damn about the consequences so long as it makes him a buck.” It had been easy enough to wring information from Lassiter. He knew that his hotel was being used for a private sale, and though he hadn’t been told outright, he suspected that a young girl named Ariana was on the block. After pushing the issue for a solid hour, Quince had been convinced that Lassiter didn’t realize the girl was royalty. “At least we know the princess is really away.”

  She’d been put up in a room and assigned a guard, and all Lassiter knew was that somehow she’d gotten out. Quince and the rest of the team assumed that it was Emma who had managed that feat, but as everyone knew the danger of making assumptions, they were still working to confirm that.

  And since the process of extricating information about the girl had been so damn easy, Quince had taken the time to dig deep into the data buried in Lassiter’s hard drive.

  “Stark’s brought his friend Ollie in for a conversation,” Liam said. “Sounds like the FBI’s going to take a nice long look at Scott Lassiter’s books. Those feds are pretty damn touchy about things like blackmail and money laundering.”

  “That’s what I hear,” Quince said, biting back a grin.

  They ended the call with Quince’s promise to report in once they reached the ranch. Eliza was still asleep, but he needed coffee and the Range Rover needed gas, so he pulled into a petrol station and killed the engine, leaving her to her coma as he went in for sustenance.

  “So you got Lassiter,” she said, as soon as they were underway again.

  He shot her a sideways glance. “You were awake for all that?”

  She yawned and sat up straighter, then noticed the coffee in her cup holder. “Tell me that’s for me and I’ll love you forever.”

  His mouth went dry as her eyes went wide.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean—Fuck. I’m still half-asleep.”

  “Figure of speech. No worries. And yes, it’s yours. I got some biscuits, too,” he said, nodding at the box of shortbread cookies on the console between them.

  She snatched the box and fumbled it open, but whether she really wanted the biscuits or was just covering her faux pas, he didn’t know. “And, yeah,” she said. “Sort of. It was like you were having a conversation in my dream. It was all very surreal. Did I hear that the princess escaped? With Emma?”

  “Escaped, yes. With Emma? That’s unconfirmed, but assumed.”

  “Well, that’s our job, right?” Eliza said. “Yours and mine. To hit the cabin and confirm that my sister has her?”

  “Denny’s on it, too. She’s searching for surveillance video that catches your sister on camera. We won’t really need that if we find Emma herself, but—”

  “We will,” she said firmly, then leaned back and put her bare feet up on the dash again. Her toes, he noticed, were painted pink. They were damn cute toes.

  After a moment, she turned to look at him, her head cocked and her mouth curved down into a frown.

  He glanced her direction. “Problem?”

  “Like I said—surreal.”

  He ran the conversation through his head, but it didn’t translate any better the second time around. “Come again?”

  “You. Me. Here on a road trip. I never expected to see you again, much less be together. Even if we are only together by virtue of proximity.”

  “Ah.” He kept his eyes on the road and drew a breath. Then he turned enough to see her and addressed the very large pink elephant in the room. “I never told you I was sorry.”

  “No, you didn’t. Are you sorry?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Hmm.”

  He frowned. “That’s it? Just hmmm.”

  “I guess … I don’t know. You probably didn’t apologize because it was pointless. You figured you’d never see me again, so why bother.”

  “That wasn’t why,” he said sharply. Her words were like a knife, and he regretted opening the damn door in the first place. Or had she opened it? He wasn’t entirely sure.

  He waited for her to ask what the real reason was, but she stayed silent, and her indifference, marked by the lingering silence, hurt more than he’d believed possible, especially after so much time.

  The miles ticked by. Two. Four. After six, she spoke, her voice unbearably soft. “I called your office, you know. They told me you’d transferred to Taipei. Just had an urge to pull up stakes and settle in Asia, as one does.”

  “I shouldn’t have—”

  “I know you came back to London.” The words were flat, no-nonsense, and entirely lacking emotion.

  �
��What?” He’d heard her perfectly well.

  “I saw you.”

  He sucked in air but had a hell of a time catching his breath. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, at least you can now say that you apologized.”

  “Eliza—”

  “No. It’s fine. It’s more than fine. I mean, I survived, right? For awhile I didn’t think I would. Honestly, Q, I was so in love with you it was overwhelming. Those three months? They felt like three lifetimes, and all I wanted was more. Then it was gone—poof—and I didn’t understand. I was terrified something had happened to you. Then I was angry. Then I thought it was me. There was something wrong with me.”

  “No.” He reached for her, but she flinched away.

  “But it wasn’t me. It was you.” She drew a loud breath. “You’re the one who fucked up, Quincy. We had something great, and you blew it. You.” For a moment, silence lingered. “I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”

  “Yes,” he said. “I know it all too well.”

  16

  “Right there,” I say, pointing to an overgrown dirt road off to the right.

  “You’re sure?”

  I smack my foot against the dashboard in frustration because, no, I’m not sure. I haven’t been here in ages. Probably not since Emma and I brought Marissa camping for her eleventh birthday.

  “It’s been almost a decade since I’ve been here,” I snap. “And I was always a passenger, never a driver. So no, I’m not sure. Do you want to play navigator?”

  He lifts his hands off the steering wheel as if in a gesture of surrender.

  I deflate. “Sorry. I’m worried and I’m frustrated and—wait, that’s not the turn after all. It’s the next cut-off.”

  He glances at me, but says nothing. I see the question in his eyes, though. Can I get us there?

  “Really,” I assure him. “See the red X on the boulder? It’s faded, but you can still make it out? Emma let me spray that. I was eight. Maybe nine. She did it to mark the turn. I’d totally forgotten.”

  Right then, I’m thankful for my sister’s foresight. Because this ranch covers over six hundred acres, and the cabin is tucked in somewhere in the middle. Without landmarks, the odds of finding it are slim. And while that makes it an excellent hiding place, I’m fast-approaching my breaking point; I really, really need to find Emma and assure myself that she’s okay.

  “Still looking familiar?” Quincy asks after we’ve followed the winding road for what seems like forever.

  I hesitate, not wanting to admit that nothing looks the same at all. Why would it? It’s all mostly trees and shrubs and those things are constantly growing. Except—

  Yes.

  “We’re almost there,” I say, pointing to a dead tree split straight down the middle. A victim of lightning, and I guess the owners never thought it was worth ripping the tree’s corpse out of the ground. “We’ll crest a small hill, and then the cabin is in a little valley. There,” I add gleefully, pointing to the dirt road that winds up a mound that barely qualifies as a hill but is sufficient to block the view of what lies beyond.

  I practically vibrate in my seat as we climb the hill. I have fantasies that Emma will be out in front, her hand shading her eyes from the late afternoon sun.

  That’s not what I see.

  Instead of joy, I’m rocked with fear. My stomach clenches, and I hear myself screaming for Quincy to stop the car, because I have to get out before I throw up from the horrible sight in front of me.

  The cabin.

  Except it’s not. Not anymore. Now it’s just the charred, still smoldering remains of a few support beams and pieces of the roof. Around it, the ground is also burned, the vegetation nothing more than ash.

  I have a vague sense of throwing open the door. Of my feet pounding the ground. Of singeing my knees and hands as I fall to the ground, and then of Quincy’s strong arms around me, pulling me back and holding me close as I sob against his chest.

  “She got away,” I whisper as Quincy folds me into his strong arms. “They must have gotten away.”

  Quincy says nothing, and after a moment I look up, then follow the direction of his gaze.

  Her Jeep. Only now it’s nothing more than a burned out shell.

  My knees go out, and I fall to the ground, only Quincy’s continuing grip keeping me from landing with a hard thud.

  He crouches beside me, then pulls me close so that my face is buried in his chest and my tears are soaking his shirt. Gently, he strokes my hair, and I try to catch my breath. Try to think.

  “We’ll find her,” he says, and I pull back, needing to see his face.

  “You think they took them,” I say, as tiny sprigs of hope poke up through the darkness that has filled me.

  “Don’t you?”

  Slowly, I nod. Because of course they would take them. They want the princess—she’s a commodity. And as for Emma … well, she’d be worth a lot if they could manage to sell her. Which I’m quite certain they wouldn’t. At the very least, they’d want to question her. To find out what she knows about the scope of their organization—and who she’s told.

  “Yes.” I nod. “Yes, of course they’d want to take them both alive.” I pull back, away from his embrace. It’s too comforting, and I don’t want to rely on what I can’t have. Besides, it’s hard to think straight in Quincy’s arms.

  I start to stand, then pause. “How did they find them? Even if they intercepted that text, they couldn’t possibly have decoded it. Could they?”

  From his frown, I can tell that the question bothers him, too. “No, I can’t imagine they could. It’s possible they tracked her from the hotel. Or they embedded some sort of tracker in the princess. I don’t know, but it’s definitely disturbing. Right now, though, our problem is the opposite. If we want to recover your sister and the princess, we need to be the ones tracking them.”

  “Right,” I say. “How?”

  He gently kisses the top of my head, the touch simple and casual, and I’m far too aware of it. Then he stands and pulls out his phone. I close my eyes and try to think as I hear him say, “Ryan, it’s me. What’s the chance of calling in a few favors for satellite surveillance?”

  As Quincy plays the role of super-spy, I start to walk the circumference of the burn zone. Something doesn’t feel right, but then again, nothing about this situation feels right. Add to that the destruction of this one place from my childhood that actually has a few happy memories attached, and it’s a wonder I can focus on anything at all.

  Not that the cabin had been a happy retreat when our dad was alive. He’d lock us in the cellar while he went hunting, supposedly so we wouldn’t go wandering around and accidentally get lost or shot, but Emma said it was because he was a controlling bastard who needed to always know just where to find us.

  He made us sleep down there, too, but only when he wanted us that way. That’s when Emma would get the bed and he’d tell me I had to sit on the wooden chair. I had to watch, he’d say. So that I’d know what to expect when it was my turn.

  I tremble with the memory, grateful that the bastard is dead. Grateful that Emma got us the hell away from him.

  And absolutely terrified that something horrible has happened to her. Something even more horrible than our father.

  I jump as Quincy rests a hand on my shoulder, his touch yanking me back to the present. “Are you okay?”

  “My father used to bring us here,” I tell him.

  He says nothing, just moves behind me, then wraps his arms around my waist. “And after that?”

  “After?”

  “You and Emma came by yourselves, didn’t you? You toasted marshmallows under the stars. You walked to the stream. You used that old Canon of yours to take pictures of butterflies. And you brought Marissa here and made it a retreat for your real family. Not a cage built by a monster.”

  I close my eyes, both amazed and grateful that he gets it. “We never toasted marshmallows,” I say, smiling a little. “Emma was
afraid we’d burn the place down if we lit a campfire.” I make an ironic noise in my throat. “Guess she saw that coming.”

  “But you’re right,” I add, as I turn in his arms, then lean back so that I can face him. “We did make it more of a home. Especially that vile cellar. We bought gallons and gallons of white paint, and we did all the walls. We even cleaned out the drainage tunnel so that we could get rid of the mildew smell before—Oh.”

  I step back so quickly I almost fall.

  “El?”

  “The tunnel. Oh, holy crap, I forgot about the tunnel.”

  “What are you—”

  But I’m off and running, Quincy right at my heels.

  Emma called it a drainage tunnel because any water that collected in the cellar after a rain always dribbled off in that direction. But the truth was that we didn’t know what the tunnel’s real purpose was. From what we’d learned, the cabin wasn’t the first structure on that site. We’d found what appeared to be a stone foundation a dozen or so yards away one time when we planted a vegetable garden, and Emma said it was probably a house, and that our tunnel may have been part of it.

  We never tried to figure out the why of the tunnel, but we did follow it once. A horrible, claustrophobic experience that had me in tears by the end because the tunnel narrowed so much, it tore the sleeves of my shirt where my shoulders scraped the wall. I wanted to turn back, but I also didn’t want to crawl backward, and Emma gently urged me on, telling me it would surely get better.

  It did—because we finally came to the end. A small cave in a cliff-face overlooking a fast-moving stream.

  That’s my destination when I take off running, and when I reach the spot on the cliff above the cave, I lie on my belly and lean over. “Emma! Ariana! Are you there?”

  Quincy catches up to me and pulls me to my feet. “What the hell?”

  “The drainage tunnel.” I point down. “That’s where it lets out.”

  I can tell right away he gets it, and a few minutes later he’s on his stomach, watching as I carefully follow the chiseled toeholds that Emma put in place over the course of years. I wiggle inside the small cave, then use my new phone as a flashlight.