Delta Force Daddy

by Carol Ericson

  He took a quick glance at Paige, twisting her fingers in front of her and peering through the window of the back door every ten seconds. That erection would’ve gone to waste, anyway. Paige’s anxiety had gone through the roof.

  Asher approached her from behind and touched her back. She jumped.

  “He’s not going to make a comeback, Paige. I trust Preston and his pharmaceuticals.”

  “You’re going to contact Linc now, aren’t you?”

  “Sunset is early. The sooner we get him out here, the better. Then we can hit the road. They still don’t know where we are, but when two of their grunts go missing checking out Martha’s mother’s house, they’re gonna come calling.”

  “Go missing?” Paige licked her lips. “What are we going to do with them, Asher? If you kill them...”

  He stroked her back. “I’m not going to kill them, Paige—unless they try to kill us first. Who knows how this group after us could spin the murder of a couple of men? Instead of being accused of going AWOL, I could be accused of murder. I’m not going to chance that.”

  Her shoulders slumped. “Okay. That makes me feel better—not that they deserve our mercy, but I don’t want to be responsible for someone’s death.”

  “Of course not.” He swept her hair from the back of her neck and pressed his lips against the top knot of her spine.

  “Tabitha...”

  “We weren’t responsible for that. She chose to track me down even knowing others were on my trail. She was playing a dangerous game.” He let her heavy hair fall against her back. “I’m going to text Linc.”

  “How are we going to play this?”

  “Peter’s boat is still on the bay. I’ll ask Linc to meet in the boathouse. After all, why would Linc think Peter has access to the house unless he broke in? And I don’t think that was part of their plan.”

  “Okay, so we set up the meeting for the boathouse.” She pivoted from the door and leaned back against it as she crossed her arms. “Then what?”

  “We ambush him. I’ll make sure I check his sleeves for any hidden pills so I have a chance to question him. Then we get some answers, maybe we find the next person up the ladder, someone with some authority, some knowledge.”

  She smoothed her hands across his chest. “When we have enough, we have to take this to someone. Your name has to be cleared.”

  “Major Denver’s name has to be cleared.” He grabbed one of her hands and kissed her wrist.

  He returned to the kitchen with Paige right behind him. He entered the password for Peter’s phone and tapped his messages. Nobody had sent Peter any messages since the one from Linc earlier.

  Asher read his text aloud for Paige as he entered it in the phone. “‘No sign of anyone at house. Meet me here at the boathouse behind the house at five.’”

  They both stared at the phone for several minutes, and then Asher shrugged and tucked it in his pocket. “He’ll respond.”

  “I suppose we should have some lunch.” Paige stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands on her hips. “There’s no telling when we’ll get dinner if Linc shows up at five and we have to deal with him.”

  “We should also plot out our next move—literally. We need to hit the road again after we see Linc, although where we go will probably depend on what he tells us.”

  Standing on her tiptoes, Paige reached into a cupboard and pulled down a can. She turned it toward him. “Soup?”

  “Sounds good. I saw stuff for sandwiches this morning when I was whipping up breakfast. I’ll get to work on those.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they sat down with a plate of sandwiches and two bowls of tomato soup.

  Paige slid one of the cell phones charging on the counter toward her. “I never did find out Tabitha’s password. We also don’t even know if they found her body yet in the cabin. I’m going to check on my computer after we eat.”

  “I’m sure they’ve found a body by now—whether they’ve ID’d Tabitha or not is another matter.” Asher blew on a spoonful of soup and slurped it up, the rich tomatoey taste filling his mouth. “I’m sure the doctors at Hidden Hills have figured it out by now.”

  “I wonder if she left them a note or something. Do you think she was planning to return to work after she had you safely stashed away? I’m beginning to wonder if Tabitha’s the one who injected you with that timed-release drug to control you once she had you at her cabin.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past her, and if she wanted to return to Hidden Hills, she wouldn’t have clued them in that she’d aided and abetted my escape from the center.” He shrugged and took a big bite of his sandwich.

  While he was chewing and Paige was going on about Tabitha, the phone in his pocket vibrated. He held up a finger to get Paige to stop talking. “Peter’s phone.”

  He pulled the phone from his pocket and dropped it on the counter as if it burned his hand.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s a call from Linc, not a text.” He poked at the phone, nudging it away from him.

  “Damn.” Paige covered her mouth with one hand. “What are we going to do?”

  “Well, I’m not going to try to pass myself as Peter, if that’s what you’re thinking. We don’t know how well these guys know each other.” He brushed his hands together and took a gulp of water. “Let it ring. I’ll respond with a text later.”

  While he finished the last sandwich, Paige put her dishes in the sink and retrieved her laptop from the living room.

  “I’m going to look for a story on that cabin.”

  Asher slid off his stool and took the rest of the dishes to the sink to wash them.

  Paige whistled behind him. “Here’s one. Explosion...cabin...gas leak. Yeah, right. Body found.”

  “Did they identify her?” Asher grabbed a dish towel and wiped his hands as he joined Paige and hovered over her shoulder.

  “No. The article says the owners are accounted for and don’t know who could’ve been in their cabin. The authorities are wondering if the person was a trespasser or transient. God, they don’t even know if the person was a man or a woman.” She raised her glassy eyes to his face.

  “That was an intense fire, and there’s no reason for anyone to suspect Tabitha to be in that cabin.”

  “What was Tabitha’s last name?” Paige wiggled her fingers over the laptop’s keyboard.

  “Crane. Tabitha Crane. What are you going to do?”

  “Look her up. See if anyone has connected her to that cabin yet.”

  Paige clicked away on the keyboard while Asher returned to the dishes. “How long should I wait before I text Linc back?”

  “Here she is. I found her on a medical professional’s site. Tabitha Carly Crane, Tabby Crane. She sounds so normal on here.”

  “Did you expect her to list her interests as being a lovesick stalker on a professional website?”

  “Maybe you’re the one who drove her mad for love.” Paige peered at him over the top of the computer. “You had all the girls hot for you at that party...and you wound up with the most unstable one of all.”

  “I didn’t see you that way, Paige. You were hurting. Anyone with half a brain could figure that out.” He clenched his fists in the soapy water. Why did she have to keep dismissing herself?

  She had wanted to keep him in the dark because she didn’t want to relive his reaction to remembering his fiancée had been a drunk he didn’t trust with their baby. She’d kept the truth from him because she knew she’d have to pick up that role again—constantly downgrading herself before he could do it.

  “Lots of people figured out I was hurting, but nobody wanted to deal with it—except my other wild friends who had their own addictions. And we dealt with it in our own way.”

  “And now that part of your life is over and we have a beautiful daughter together. Let’s make sure we both g
et home to her safely.”

  She rubbed one eye and pushed the laptop away from her. “What excuse are you going to give Linc for not picking up the phone?”

  “I’m in the middle of nowhere, camped out in a boathouse on the shore of the bay—the reception is bad.” He dried and stacked the dishes and then dug the phone from his pocket. “I think it’s about time. It’s almost two thirty.”

  Asher straddled the stool, cupping Peter’s phone in one hand. “How does this sound? ‘Missed your call. Reception bad on the bay. Meet at five?’”

  She tipped her chin to her chest. “Go for it.”

  Asher entered the text and this time they didn’t have to wait long. Linc responded almost immediately, as if he were waiting for Peter’s communication.

  “What does it say?” Paige tugged on his sleeve, leaning against his body.

  “‘See you at five.’”

  “Great.” Paige turned and looked at the room. “We should get packed up in case we need to make a quick getaway.”

  “Is there any other kind?”

  They spent the next hour washing and packing their clothes, loading the trunk of the car with nonperishable food and stashing the bag of cash next to the food. They cleaned up the kitchen, stripped the sheets of the bed for the housekeeper and got ready to meet Linc.

  Asher handed Peter’s gun to Paige. “You take this one. I’ll keep the one Martha left.”

  “The syringe?”

  He patted the pocket of his jacket. “Right here, along with Peter’s keys. I can put them back in his pocket. I’m bringing a flashlight this time.”

  “And there’s rope, a knife and tape in the boathouse.”

  “Everything we need to subdue Linc—and get him talking if we have to.”

  Paige’s eye twitched and he squeezed her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. Leave the rough stuff to me. Remember, I’m a soldier, and as far as I’m concerned, this is war.”

  Asher locked up the house and killed all the lights except the lamp in the front room, which was on a timer. He locked the back door behind them, and they made their way to the boat dock, holding hands.

  Paige laced her fingers with his. “It looks like Preston was right. You haven’t had a repeat performance of losing consciousness today. How are you feeling?”

  “Seeing Peter rise from the dead and running out here to subdue him worked out the rest of that antidote. I feel fine—so far. But then I felt fine in the coffeehouse just before I slumped in my seat.”

  “Don’t say that.” She bumped his shoulder with hers. “If something happens to you during this operation...”

  He pressed his finger against her lips. “You’d carry on just fine. I have faith in you to get me out of any scrape.”

  She puckered her lips and kissed the end of his finger. “Let’s do this.”

  Asher unlocked the boathouse and peeked around the corner. “I wanna make sure Peter hasn’t had another resurrection.”

  Paige flicked the beam from her flashlight over Peter, still stretched out on top of the canvas sheet.

  “Keep that light on him.” Asher crouched beside the sleeping man and felt his pulse. “He’s still alive...and still out.”

  “Hopefully, he’ll stay that way.” She aimed the flashlight at the ceiling. “On or off?”

  “Linc isn’t going to know where the boathouse is and he wouldn’t expect Peter to be sitting here in the dark. Leave it on.” He checked Peter’s phone. “T-minus twenty.”

  Asher took up his position on one side of the door and he directed Paige to wait in the back corner. In case this guy came in hot, Asher wanted Paige well away from the door.

  Paige drew her gun first. “I’m ready. If you can’t bring him down on the first try, I’m going to shoot first and worry about it later.”

  “I thought you wanted to avoid any unnecessary violence.”

  “If someone’s attacking my man, that’s very necessary.” She widened her stance like she meant every word.

  He liked her new tough swagger—turned him on.

  They waited in the semidarkness, every breath they took sounding like a whoosh of air in the stillness of the boathouse.

  Asher stole a glance at the phone and then whispered, “Ten minutes.”

  They didn’t have to wait that long. Peter’s phone buzzed and Linc’s text came through. Asher read it to himself. I’m here.

  He flashed the phone at Paige and nodded.

  He texted back, Boathouse on the bay shore.

  Asher’s muscles coiled and his eye twitched. With his foot, he eased open the door, which swung outward.

  As Linc left the grass and hit the gravel, Asher could hear every footstep down to the water’s edge.

  A harsh whisper echoed in the night. “Peter?”

  Asher nudged the door again and it creaked on the rusty hinges. He growled, “Over here.”

  As Linc approached closer...and closer, Asher curled his fingers around the edge of the door. Then he took a deep breath and pushed the door out.

  It met the solid object of Linc’s body, and the man grunted.

  Asher slammed the door against Linc once more before whipping around and driving his shoulder into the man’s midsection.

  Linc rocked for a moment like a bowling pin before toppling over.

  When Linc hit the ground, Asher dropped to his knees beside him and checked his hands and pockets for weapons. He pulled a gun from Linc’s waistband, and a knife from a leg holster. He was collecting quite a stash of weapons. Asher slipped his fingers up Linc’s sleeve in case he was carrying a poison pill like Peter had been, but it looked like he was more cowardly than Peter.

  Asher rose to his feet and pointed his weapon at the prone man’s head. “Don’t move. In case you can’t see it, I have a gun pointed at you, and in case you didn’t feel it, I divested you of all your weapons.”

  Linc groaned and drew his knees to his chest in a fetal position. “Where’s Peter?”

  “Crawl into the boathouse and you’ll see.”

  Linc’s head jerked up.

  “That’s right. He’s dead. Start crawling or that’s gonna be your fate, too.”

  Asher exchanged a quick look with Paige, who’d ventured outside. Might as well instill some fear into the guy from the get-go.

  Linc army-crawled on his belly into the boathouse. His eyes widened when Paige trailed her light across Peter, serenely oblivious to the fact that he was playing possum again.

  Linc rolled to his back, and his eyes got even wider. “You’re Asher Knight.”

  “In the flesh.”

  “You got the jump on Peter? Took his phone?”

  “You’re a genius.” Asher kicked the man’s boot. “Now you’re going to impart all your knowledge to me. Peter over there wasn’t very cooperative.”

  “Peter doesn’t...didn’t know anything to tell.”

  “Too bad for Peter.” Asher hunched his shoulders. “I hope you know more.”

  “Wait, wait.” Linc waved his hands in front of his face. “Who’s the woman? Is that Tabitha Crane?”

  Asher narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about Tabitha?”

  “Nothing, nothing.”

  Paige kept the light away from her face and shrank farther into the corner. If Linc thought she might be the nurse, let him think it.

  “If you think Tabitha is here with me, then you must know something about her. What are they saying at Hidden Hills?”

  “That she helped you escape. That’s how they found you at that cabin. They didn’t trust Tabitha and put a GPS tracker on her car. She led them right to you, but we know now there was just one body in that cabin. They were hoping it was yours.”

  Paige sucked in a breath.

  “But then you have your fiancée with you, too, don’t you? Grang
er and Lewis saw her in that little hick town.” Linc snorted. “Before she slipped out of their grasp and they ended up crashing the van. So, which one of your women is this one?”

  Asher’s jaw tightened. “You seem like you’re in a talkative mood. That’s good. Keep talking. Who’s setting up Major Denver? Who gave the orders to mess with my mind so that I would implicate Denver?”

  “Those are some heavy questions.”

  “I hope you have more answers to them than Peter did.”

  Linc’s eyes rolled sideways to take in his associate. “It’s high up. That’s all I know. Your amnesia was just one piece in the puzzle—the only piece I know about.”

  “C’mon, Linc. You can do better than that.”

  To be more convincing, Asher picked up a pair of pliers and studied them. “You know, even though Delta Force doesn’t use torture methods in our operations, it doesn’t mean we don’t know all about them.”

  Linc scrambled up to a seated position. “No need, man. Peter and I belong to a web of people who have certain services for hire. That’s all. It’s not my fight, not my ideology.”

  “He felt differently.” Paige aimed a toe at Peter.

  “He’s young.” Linc shrugged. “Me, I don’t care as long as my employers don’t think I ratted them out. That’s not tolerated. We’re even ordered to carry a pill on us, one that simulates death, if we’re captured or compromised. Screw that.”

  “Your employers. Who are they?”

  “Wish I could help you with that. I really do, but I take orders from a nameless, faceless text message.” He raised one hand. “What I do know is that the setup of Denver goes high up.”

  “High up where? The military? The government?”

  “Both. I think both.”

  “I need a name, Linc.”

  “I can’t give you a name, but I can give you a hot tip. Can you get the gun out of my face?”

  “Gun stays where it is.” The man was cooperative, but Asher still didn’t trust him. “Let’s hear this hot tip.”

  “The conspiracy against you is laid out in a computer file at Hidden Hills. If you got your hands on that, you could clear your name and come out of hiding.”