by Diane Capri
“We didn’t mean to kill anyone that day,” Laura said, looking at Sally with a beseeching expression. “We were kids. We were living in that hellhole out on Clovis Ranch with a sick baby we couldn’t take care of. Those people were disgusting. They lived like pigs. Always high on something. So filthy. No running water or indoor plumbing. John David had already run out on us. We didn’t know what else to do. We just wanted to get away.”
Sally bowed her head. She reached across and squeezed her mother’s hand.
“We knew Mildred had money in that store. She made her bank deposits on Monday. We went in late Sunday night, when only Oscar would be inside. We didn’t know about Oscar and that woman. She was on her knees behind the counter and he was startled when we went in. He pulled a gun and started firing. Leo shot back. Oscar kept shooting. The woman stood up. I fired, too.” Laura’s face was open. She stared into the distance. Her tone seemed to come from a far-away time. “When it was over, I was the only one still conscious. I’d been hit, but I wasn’t bleeding too much. We’d left the baby behind the store.”
She stopped talking for a few moments, as if she was reliving everything in her head. “I grabbed the money bag. I ran to get the baby. We didn’t have a car, but there was an old junker in the back. I hotwired it. The thing barely ran. I made it a few miles before it quit. I got out and hoofed it as well as I could with my wound and the baby and the money and the gun.” She paused again. Softly, she said, “Until I collapsed.”
“Were you at Bette Maxwell’s place by then?” Flint asked gently.
She shook her head. “No. A couple of her kids were out on the road. I don’t know why. But they found me and helped me back to Bette’s place. I told her I was trying to get away from Clovis Ranch. I didn’t tell her what had happened at Mildred’s. My wound had stopped bleeding by then, and I’d covered up with one of Leo’s big shirts and she didn’t seem to notice. She hooked me up with that truck driver. He took me all the way to Denver. Fed me a couple of times. Helped me get food for my baby.”
“What happened when you got to Denver?” Sally wanted to know. She was still crying softly and her nose was running, but something like horror and fascination and admiration mixed together shone in her face.
“It took a few days, but I hitched all the way to Canada. I had some cash, so we hid out for a while. I’d patched myself up, but you needed a doctor. I was just a kid myself. I didn’t know what else to do. So I went to Aunt Melanie and begged her.”
“You made up a story for her, never told her what really happened?” It was a guess, but Flint figured Aunt Melanie wouldn’t have helped Laura run forever if she’d known the truth. She might have tried to sort things out somehow.
Laura shook her head. “I meant to tell her at first. And later, it all seemed to fade. It was almost like all of that happened to another girl. Not to me.”
“You can’t go back there, Mom. We don’t need the money. We’re doing fine the way we are.” Sally’s plea was refreshing, in a way. She wanted her mother instead of the money. Flint was surprised. Usually, the people he found wanted the money more than anything else.
Would Laura give up her own life for the money that would provide everything her daughter could ever need or want? Tough spot to be in. But Sally needed a lot of expensive medical care, and fifty million dollars was a lot of money to forfeit.
He wanted more details from Oakwood, but he could get them later. “What are you going to do, Laura?” Flint’s tone was easy, but the question was urgent.
She thought about things a bit more and finally opened her mouth to respond, but before she had a chance, the front door burst open and slammed loud and hard against the foyer wall. A rush of cold air whipped through the hallway and chilled the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Two men rushed inside. Pounding footsteps headed toward the kitchen.
“Laura Oakwood! Put your hands up!”
Laura picked up her gun and pointed toward the noise rolling in like a tsunami of danger.
The next few movements happened quickly, but Flint seemed to experience them as if he were watching a video one frame at a time.
Flint turned. He peered behind him toward the front door. He saw two men rushing forward. Guns held steady, as everyone learns in tactical training.
They each carried a 9mm Glock 19 fitted with a suppressor.
Both were dressed in black from head to toe. Both wore ski masks and gloves. Both were well muscled, fit, compact.
These were not amateur killers.
Flint dove for Sally, scooped her up, and shoved her into the dining room.
He heard the deafening blast of the first gunshots. Which had to mean that Laura Oakwood fired first. The suppressors on the Glocks would have produced quieter explosions.
“Get down! Get down!” Flint pushed Sally behind the sofa, pulled his weapon, and searched for a clear sight line to the shooters.
Several rounds of rapid gunfire, suppressed and not, exploded.
He could see Laura in the kitchen but not the two men in the foyer.
Laura was hit. She’d fallen backward. Landed legs out, braced against the kitchen range. Facing the direction of the incoming firepower.
Bullets continued to fly with deafening constancy, but Flint couldn’t see the two shooters clearly enough to hit them.
He ran through the living room to get behind the men in the foyer.
The house was small and the distance short. Even so, he reached the front foyer as the last gunshots stopped, before he’d fired a single round.
After the repetitive explosions of gunfire, the immediate silence was eerily foreboding. Time returned to its normal pace.
Flint moved cautiously from the foyer straight ahead toward the kitchen and stopped at the open doorway.
He tasted the metallic flavor of blood on the back of his tongue.
The intruders were on the floor lying in gooey red pools. Blood had flowed freely from gunshot wounds on both men while it was forced out by solid heartbeats. But the flow had already stopped and the blood had begun to thicken.
Flint checked pulses. Four glassy eyes stared from two masked faces. Two hearts had stopped pumping. Blood no longer spurted from the holes in their corded necks.
Nothing could be done for either of them.
He stepped over the bodies, avoiding the pools of blood, and moved into the kitchen.
Laura was breathing, ragged inhales and gurgled exhales. Blood was flowing from several wounds in her belly and one in her neck.
“Call 911!” Flint yelled out. “Call 911!”
Sally rushed into the kitchen. She saw her mother on the floor. She ran over to Laura and held her, crying, rocking them both. “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy.”
Flint picked up the house phone and called in the emergency, knowing three things all too well from long experience.
First responders would arrive too late to save Laura Oakwood.
When they arrived, he couldn’t be standing there to take the blame.
And whether he stayed or not would make no difference to the dead men or to Laura Oakwood.
When the 911 operator answered, he reported gunfire and injuries and gave the address, then hung up.
“Sally.” He touched her shoulder gently. She looked up into his face, her eyes and nose streaming, sobs overwhelming her, shaking her entire body. “Emergency paramedics are on the way. We have to go.”
Her brain might have registered his words, but her heart did not. She continued to hold and rock her mother, crying, sobbing, and heartbroken. In an instant she never saw coming, her world had changed forever. She’d lived her entire life in the peaceful cocoon of her mother’s love. But unlike her mother, she’d had no prior experience with violent death.
Flint heard the sirens in the distance, coming closer.
When Sally bowed her head and gathered her mother closer, he saw that Laura Oakwood had stopped breathing.
He pulled out his phone and quick
ly snapped several time- and date-stamped photos of the scene.
Two intruders. Dead where Laura had dropped them with two bullets each. Shots placed to kill even as both men wore body armor. Marksmanship any sniper would be proud to claim.
Sally might not have seen this moment coming, but her mother had. Laura Oakwood had been an inexperienced teenager when she participated in the Mildred’s Corner robbery all those years ago. But somewhere along the line, she’d learned and mastered her deadly aim, preparing for this day.
He pulled up the face masks. He didn’t know these men. He snapped quick photos of them and replaced the masks. He patted them down, one at a time. They carried no identification.
He found a burner phone on the first guy and flipped to the call log. Several calls had been made over the past two days to a single phone number. On the second guy, he found another burner with more calls to the same number. He snapped a quick photo of the call logs and replaced the phones.
He photographed Laura, back against the range, gun still in her hand. And Sally, holding her mother, still sobbing.
Flint noted the time. Laura had died before signing Shaw’s contract. The option that would have expired tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. Central Standard Time was effectively over now. Which meant Crane would be the only winner here. He’d bested Shaw, finally and forever more.
Flint left Sally on the floor with Laura and moved around the bodies to the living room, past the front door, and took the stairs two at a time. He grabbed Sally’s oversize purse off her bed and found her medications and medical supplies and swept them into her purse. He hustled downstairs and back to the kitchen.
Sally hadn’t moved. Flint reached down and grabbed her arm and lifted her slowly from the floor until she seemed steady on her feet. “Come on. We have to go.”
Sally processed his words through her shock, or maybe she simply didn’t care, because she didn’t resist. She allowed Flint to lead her from the kitchen. She looked back at her mother as Flint, stepping over the two bodies, guided her through the dining room and living room until they reached the foyer. He grabbed Laura Oakwood’s big parka from the coat tree and held it for Sally to slide into.
Flint hurried through the front door and pulled Sally along with him, headed out into the miserably cold night.
The blast of cold air when they stumbled down the front steps and into the heavy snow seemed to wake her up. She hung back at first but picked up speed as she realized he wasn’t slowing down.
He heard a car door slam closed on the other side of the street. Another black-clad man ran full out toward them. Flint released Sally’s arm. He turned and ran toward the man to create momentum and get the confrontation clear of Sally.
He balled his fist and slammed all his weight behind the punch to the guy’s gut. The man’s momentum carried him forward. He bent at the waist and his head battered into Flint’s shoulder, knocking Flint back. But Flint’s gut punch had been harder. The guy fell forward into the snow. Flint gave him a hard kick and knocked him onto his back.
The guy tugged off his ski mask, which had shifted to cover his eyes, and raised his gun, another Glock 19 fitted with a suppressor. Flint kicked his elbow hard and heard a sickening crack near the man’s shoulder. The man wailed like a wounded animal as he raised the gun to shoot.
Flint kicked his arm again just as he pulled the trigger and redirected the gun barrel.
The gunshot entered the man’s head below the chin. The side of his skull splattered across the white snow like strange red, gray, and beige pop art. His lifeless arm flopped onto his chest, the Glock still gripped in his gloved hand.
Flint glanced around the neighborhood but saw no one running out toward the noise. The suppressor, and the close proximity of the gun to the guy’s body when it fired, muffled the shot, but it hadn’t been quiet enough to go unnoticed.
He quickly patted the guy down and found his burner phone. No time to look at it now. He shoved the phone into his pocket. He snapped a couple of quick photos of the guy, even though less than half of his face would be recognizable to anyone now.
He heard sirens in the distance. He took four steps toward Sally, grabbed her arm, and pulled her away.
They ran to the corner and back through the residential streets until they reached the stolen SUV. Flint opened the passenger door and pushed Sally inside. He hopped into the driver’s seat, started the engine, swiped at the frosty windshield with his palm to clear a small field of vision, and pulled away from the curb.
He saw the red-and-blue flashing lights behind them in the rearview mirror, but he kept his foot on the gas and the SUV pointed toward the Pilatus.
Flint had removed Paxton and Trevor from play back in Charlestown. But Crane was sure to have been tethered to them in some way. He must have sent the second team to finish the job his first stringers failed to complete. Or maybe these three had been following behind Paxton and Trevor all along.
The timing was crucial. If Laura Oakwood had signed that consent before she died, Crane’s claim to the Juan Garcia Field would have been lost. The matter would have been settled in Shaw’s favor, not Crane’s.
But Laura hadn’t had time to sign. And the question in Flint’s mind right now was whether or not Crane knew that. Flint’s quick assessment of the dead operatives hadn’t located body cams. But they might have had exterior surveillance trained on the house giving them audio, or even video, of the events inside.
Maybe they saw and heard Flint’s discussion with Laura and her daughter, and that’s why they burst into the house when they did. Because they knew Laura hadn’t executed the documents yet and they wanted to make sure she didn’t. That set of facts tracked and made sense.
With Laura Oakwood out of the way, Crane would win Juan Garcia Field. If he knew she was dead, he’d be feeling complacent and pleased, to say the least. But if he knew about Laura’s daughter, the situation would become a lot more complicated.
Either way, leaving Sally Owen in that house was not an option. At the very least, she’d have been able to answer questions from Canadian authorities about Flint that he didn’t want answered. Bringing her along was the only choice he could make.
He drove the reverse route to the airfield, where Drake waited with the Pilatus fueled up and ready for takeoff. Sally sat still and quiet in the passenger seat. Almost catatonic. She’d shrugged out of the parka and her clothes were caked with her mother’s blood. She had to be cold, even though Flint ran the heat in the 4Runner at full blast.
He parked the SUV in the corner of the lot where he’d found it. He got out, ran around to the other side, opened the passenger door, and pulled Sally outside. The cold wind blasted her body and seemed to revive her. He grabbed the parka and the purse containing her medical supplies.
She shouted to be heard over the jet’s engines. “Where are we going?”
“I’m not sure yet.” He led her to the Pilatus and pushed her ahead of him as they both climbed aboard. He pulled up the flight steps and closed and locked the exit door. Drake was ready in the cockpit. “Let’s get out of here while we still can.”
“Roger that.” Drake completed the preflight check as Flint took the copilot’s seat. “Where to?”
“Montana. I’ll get coordinates, but let’s head in that direction.” Flint turned to Sally. “Buckle up, okay? We’ll be airborne in a few minutes and then we can talk.”
She nodded, and her fumbling, blood-covered fingers followed his direction.
Flint fished the third guy’s burner phone out of his pocket and punched up the call log. Four calls. All the same number. Two outgoing, two incoming. The last one was an hour before the three gunmen broke into the Saint Leo house. It was the same number he’d seen on the others.
Three gunmen. Three phones. All contact directed to a single phone number.
Flint pressed the redial. He heard the phone ring three times at the other end.
“Is it done?” It was a man’s voice. One Flint recognized.
“Yes.”
“She’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” He disconnected.
Flint looked down at the phone for a moment. He pressed the button to end the call. He dropped the phone into his pocket.
Drake glanced toward the back of the plane at Sally. “Laura Oakwood?”
“Sally Owen.” Flint put his headset on and fastened his harness. “I’ll explain later. VFR. No transponder. And let’s hustle, okay?”
“Moving as fast as I can here,” Drake said, but Flint, scanning for red-and-blue flashing lights and sirens coming toward the Pilatus, barely heard him.
CHAPTER FORTY
Scarlett had said that Shaw and Crane were meeting at The Peak Club in Montana. Flint had been there before. It was the kind of secret hideaway he avoided whenever possible because exclusive places peopled by the astonishingly rich were usually pretentious and boring.
He was from Texas, where money ebbed and flowed with the oil business, and which meant he was completely comfortable among the merely wealthy. Triple-digit millionaires had hired him to hunt one person or another for various reasons, and he preferred to work for them. The stakes were higher, the challenges greater, and the rewards more substantial.
But The Peak Club was in a totally different league. A private ski resort so exclusive that most people, even the ridiculously wealthy ones, had never heard of it.
It was the perfect spot for Shaw and Crane to conclude their final affair away from prying eyes of the merely curious and in front of everyone who might actually care whether one of them bested the other.
The Peak, as it was affectionately called by those few who owned it, was a place where the beyond-imagination rich could ski and mingle with their own kind amid two things they couldn’t find anywhere else. Complete security without the constant presence of bodyguards. Which also guaranteed total privacy without paparazzi.
Security for winter sports on the private powder was provided by former Secret Service agents, as was security for all aspects of the private casino, nightclubs, lodges, and residences. Every security agent had been vetted by the best security analysts in the world. The rich loved nothing more than their secrets and would go to great lengths to protect them, as Flint knew only too well.