by Becky McGraw
Trace got to his feet and pried the shovel out of her hands. "Good job, Red," he said with a laugh. Trace heard faint sirens and knew he had to get out of there, or he was going to end up in jail. He grabbed Ronnie's shoulders. "I've gotta run," he said as he leaned in to give her a quick kiss. When he pulled back her eyes were wide.
"I'm going with you," she said stubbornly, folding her arms over her chest.
"Well, I sure as hell am not staying here for the fireworks by myself!" Conner added.
Trace rolled his eyes. "I don't even know where the hell I'm going."
"Follow me," Conner said as he stepped over Carl's legs to walk to the front door. "Vee give me my keys," he said as he stepped off the porch. The sound of the nickname rolling off of Conner's lips, the intimate way he said it set Trace's teeth on edge. Yeah there was definitely something going on between Ronnie and this guy.
Trace saw the ranch truck parked at the curb. He thought about taking it, but that meant he’d have to search all three men for the keys. He figured the best thing they could do was get while the getting was good. Before the cops got there and arrested him. Besides, his bike was fast and easier to hide.
Ronnie dug into the pocket of her shorts and tossed Pretty Boy his car keys. The sirens got a little louder, and Trace jumped off the porch to jog around the house to his bike. He saw Conner Lucas head toward a slick black Mercedes parked a few doors down at the curb. If the man thought Trace was following him, he had another think coming. Trace had other plans. He would make sure Ronnie was going to be safe, then he was heading out on his own. His odds of untangling this mess he was in would be better that way. If he couldn’t untangle it, he would just disappear. He was not going back to jail.
Trace cranked his bike and revved it. When he started forward though, Veronica walked in front of the bike. Without a word, she came to his side, swung her long leg over the seat behind him, then wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
"You're not leaving me," she grated loudly by his ear.
Trace didn't have time to argue that she would be better off riding with her boyfriend. He rolled the throttle and the bike shot forward. Ronnie had a death grip on his waist, and he could feel her arms trembling as he leaned into the first curve. Maybe it was better that she was passed out on the ride here. As stiff as she was, he probably would have wound up in a ditch somewhere. But he didn't slow down, or lose his focus on the road. His eyes latched onto the tail lights of the Mercedes and he followed Conner Lucas.
Seth was probably going to beat the crap out of him when he saw the condition that they'd left Sarah's house in. Trace felt damned bad about it, and would offer to pay to have things fixed, but he couldn't stop to pick up. The cops would probably be there any minute. He figured one of the neighbors in the quiet neighborhood had heard the shots and commotion and called them.
His friend would just have to understand and clean up the mess for him. Not an unusual situation for Seth to be in. Seth had been his wingman for years. He and Sean and Seth had always had each other's backs. Now, Trace just had to figure out who called Ray Brown. He hoped it wasn't the redhead on the back of his motorcycle or her boyfriend, because Ray would find him again. If the cops didn’t find him. He knew he was out cold, but he would bet that before the cops arrived, he would get out of there.
That bastard was too mean to die, and like Leland, too slick to be arrested.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Trace was ready to get off of his bike. Having Ronnie suctioned to his back like plastic wrap for two hours was akin to torture. Now, she had her face resting between his shoulder blades, and he had felt her kiss him there several times in the last hour. It was just too weird. The longer they rode, the lower her arms drifted on his body. Her hands were almost laying on top of his fly now. He didn't know if it was because she'd finally relaxed, or if she was messing with him.
Whatever the reason, he couldn't take much more of it.
Nothing had ever looked better to him than when he saw the Mercedes in front of him brake on the long country road they had been traveling on for an hour. He hoped this would be the last turn on what had turned out to be a very long trip.
It was dark now, and with the trees around them the temperature had dropped at least twenty degrees. In those shorts Ronnie had to be freezing back there. She wasn't used to riding a bike either, especially on a road trip, so her ass was probably hurting too. Trace knew his was, and he was used to riding his Harley.
Wherever Conner Lucas was taking them was well hidden. That could be good or bad. The jury was still out until he figured out just which side the man was on. Yeah, he had basically saved Trace's life at that house. Ronnie had done the same. But he still didn't trust either of them.
Trace really didn't have anywhere else to go though, or anyone else to help him, so he was giving them the benefit of the doubt. For now. But he was keeping his eyes open too. He would be back on his bike and out of here if he got that hinky feeling at the back of his neck that cops got. Trace wasn't a cop anymore, but he still got those feelings. And he trusted his gut. At that house, his gut told him they were on his side. That is the only reason he decided to go with them. To follow Conner Lucas, even though he said he wasn’t going to do that.
But if they hadn’t alerted Ray Brown to his location, he wondered how the hell Ray and his men had found him. And so fast. It had only been a matter of hours after he left that ranch when they pulled up to Sarah's house like he had called and told them to come for a visit. They couldn't have had anyone following him. Trace would have seen them.
His phone was a throwaway, so they couldn't track him through that either. Ronnie didn’t have her cell phone. It was in her car back at the ranch. Unless they had a tracking device on him, they couldn't have found him that quickly. Trace squeezed the brake on the bike and the back wheel fishtailed, as he pulled to the shoulder of the road and stopped.
Holy shit. They had put a tracking device on his bike. That had to be it.
That meant they knew about his trip with Leigh Ann Baker when her car broke down. They probably had a device on the truck too, he kind of guessed that, which is why he drove around like he had before he handed her off to the feds. Trace never thought to check his bike. Totally stupid. And if he didn't find that device right now, they would be on his doorstep again. Here in the middle of nowhere.
"What's wrong?" Ronnie asked groggily behind him. God, Trace hoped she hadn't fallen asleep back there, because if she had he was damned lucky she hadn't slipped off.
"Were you sleeping?" he asked angrily, as he swung his leg over the seat of the bike and stood.
"I just nodded off for a second," she said.
"Don't nod off!" he shouted, then stood back. "Get off the bike."
"What?" she asked with a shake of her head, as if trying to clear it.
"I figured out how Ray found us," Trace growled, as he reached into the saddle bag behind the seat and pulled out a flashlight.
"How?" Ronnie asked as she threw her leg over the bike to stand beside him.
"They put a tracking device on my bike." Trace knelt and ran the beam of the flashlight over the frame of the bike. From Leland’s backing and all of their illegal activities, those guys had enough money to get the best, so Trace knew it was probably small and not easily detected. After he finished the first pass, he started another. This time he looked at the motor, and wheels. Finally, his light hit on a small, round piece of black metal that was stuck under the alternator. The magnet on the device was strong, so it took a few tries to pry it loose.
Headlights came over the rise in the bridge then lit them up like a spotlight. Trace shot to his feet and grabbed Ronnie's arm at the same time he pulled his pistol out of his boot. He almost jerked her off of her feet as he headed for the ditch at the side of the road. The car slowed as they hunched down in the ditch. It pulled to a stop in front of the bike and idled. Trace shaded his eyes and realized it was only Conner. With a relieved sigh, he stood
.
"It's only Conner," Ronnie said sounding equally relieved as she got to her feet.
"He's lucky I'm not trigger happy. That's twice today."
"Did you find the tracker?" she asked.
"Yeah," Trace replied. "But I dropped it when he pulled up." Maybe he could put that thing to good use, he thought. "I need to find it."
He didn't want to lose his bike, but the only way those guys would leave him alone is if they thought he was dead. If they thought he was dead, maybe the feds would too. That would buy them some time to figure this mess out. He could breathe for a little while, maybe get evidence to help take down Leland. Or at least plan his exit strategy so he could hit the road to keep himself out of prison.
"I have an idea," Trace said with a glance at them.
"What's that?" Ronnie asked, slapping her arm where a big mosquito was drinking his fill. She slapped her leg next, because another one chomped there too. "To stay here all night and provide a buffet for these damned bugs?" she asked with frustration.
"I need to die," Trace announced like he was saying he needed to eat supper.
Ronnie's heart kicked up a notch, as her eyes darted to the gun in his hand. "Trace, if you're suicidal we can get you some help. If you kill yourself, your daddy wins," she reasoned with fear forming a knot in her throat. Instead of putting the gun to his head though, Trace bent and shoved the pistol into his boot, then laughed as he knelt beside the bike. “I’m not going to off myself. I’m going to fake my death,” he clarified, as he ran his flashlight beam over the ground. He stopped the beam beside the front wheel and leaned forward to pick up what to Ronnie looked to be a small rock. Scooting backward, he reached inside the engine then smiled up at her.
"Now, we have to trash the bike, and make it look believable. It's been raining a good bit lately, so that water should be pretty high in the creek over there."
Ronnie groaned. "You're going to trash the bike?"
She kind of liked his bad ass motorcycle. It fit his new, after-prison bad ass persona perfectly. Ronnie had never been on a bike before, but she could now fully appreciate why women liked riding on the back of them behind strong, sexy men. Between the vibration of the engine, and the intimacy of the riding conditions, even as sore as she was from the experience, Ronnie was more turned on than she'd ever been in her life.
"I need to make them think I'm dead, or they'll keep looking for me. This will at least buy me some time."
"So what do you have in mind?" Conner asked.
"I need to break a section of that rail over there or at least damage it and throw my bike over the bridge. The rushing water could explain things when they don't find my body."
"Um, you might kill yourself trying to make it look like you were killed," Conner said and Ronnie agreed. "Wouldn't you have to be on the bike when it hit the rail?"
"Nah, you're going to do it in your car. Black paint is black paint," he said and Ronnie saw Conner flinch. She knew he loved that car. He’d had it since his graduation from law school. But Ronnie was also sure he had insurance.
"Do it," she said with an elbow to his arm.
"It's not your car, Vee," he protested with a sharp look.
If it was, she probably wouldn't do it. But she wasn't telling him that. "You pay insurance for a reason, Conner. Just do what he says. I think it's a good idea."
Conner sighed like a deflating balloon and dropped his chin. "You would. What do you have in mind?"
"Just clip the end of the railing over there," Trace said pointing in that direction. "I'm going to stick the throttle and send the bike over the hill. The trip down should bang it up enough to make it believable." Trace dug into the saddle bag again and pulled out a screwdriver. "The stuck throttle should explain it," he said, as he straddled the bike and went to work on the handlebar.
"You want me to do it now?" Conner asked, his voice sounding a little sick.
Trace glanced up at him. "Sounds better than next week," he replied sarcastically.
"Never sounds better to me," Conner grumbled as he walked back to his car and got inside. Ronnie heard the gears grind as he shot back down the road the way they came.
"He loves that car," Ronnie said with a laugh.
"Bet he loves his life more," Trace said flatly, leaning closer to the handlebars.
"That's a close call." Conner had it washed and polished every week, and did it himself in between those times. The oil was changed at least three thousand miles in advance of the due date, and he had an attached garage built on his lake house, just so his baby had a place to sleep when he went there, according to him.
"Well I love my life more than his car," Trace said glancing over at her. "And we need time."
"When we get where we’re going, I’ll call Dave Logan to let him know I’m okay, and ask him to help us.” Dave was a very smart man and he could help them gather the evidence they needed to prove Trace’s innocence and get his prior conviction overturned. He could also help them get more evidence against Leland to help them bring him down.
"Who the hell is Dave Logan?" Trace asked stopping his work on the throttle.
"A private investigator. A friend. He told me not to go out to that ranch when I called him to find out who Carlos Ramos was."
"How did you know about Carlos?"
Ronnie laughed at Trace's stunned expression. "You called him from my phone," she replied. "You're slipping Detective Rooks."
Suddenly she heard the roar of an engine, a flash of headlights blinded her then she heard metal-on-metal scraping as Conner ran the passenger side of his Mercedes into the bridge railing. She flinched and gritted her teeth, and imagined Conner was doing the same. The car bounced off of the railing and headed for the other rail. Tires squealed and she held her breath until Conner stopped his car just inches shy of the other side of the bridge.
Trace must've been holding his breath too, because they exhaled together when it finally sat idling near the opposite rail. "I would have done that for him," Trace said.
"I think if his car went over, he would have wanted to be with her." Ronnie said with a snort.
"Well, he did a damned good job," Trace replied shining his light at the twisted end of the rail. He made one final twist to the screw on the handlebars, then pushed the bike over to the railing. Lining up the bike with the twisted rail, he cranked it and gave it a hard shove. He threw up his hands as it sailed over the edge. Every time the bike bounced off the side of the steep hill, Ronnie flinched. Suddenly there was an explosion, before the ravine lit up in an orange glow.
Trace leaned over the rail to look down into the creek. "Fuck, I didn't think it would blow up," he said in a sick voice with a shake of his head. The tension in his shoulders told Ronnie he was just as attached to that bike as Conner was to his car.
"I'm sorry about your bike," she said walking up beside him to peer over the rail. The bike was still smoldering and sat half in and half out of the rushing water. Trace's face was lit by the eerie orange glow as he leaned further over the railing. His clenched jaw made the deep creases around his mouth and the scar on his cheek stand out starkly. With a sigh, Trace turned away to lean on the rail and pull off his boots.
Walking to the center of the bridge, he tossed one boot over. The other he reared back and threw toward the bank. He pulled his shirt over his head then ripped it in several places, before he tossed it into the swirling water below too.
"That should do it," he said and grabbed her hand. "Let's go."
Trace stopped at the car and inspected the front fender. It didn’t look too bad. Nothing that a good body shop couldn’t fix, he thought as he opened the car door. He stepped back and stopped short. When he trashed his bike, he hadn’t considered that this car was a two-seater and there were three of them.
He stuffed himself into the front seat and his knees were almost under his chin. He fumbled with the release and slid the seat as far back as it would go, then patted his lap. It took ten minutes or so for the
m to get settled. Ronnie had to sit on his lap with her legs across Conner Lucas’s lap, and it was a close call on getting the door shut.
They managed, but Trace felt like what he imagined those clowns felt like in the clown car at a circus. The attorney wasn't a small man either. He couldn’t figure out why a guy his size would pick such a small car.
After two hours of driving through Hill Country, Ronnie squirmed on his lap again, and Trace growled, "Are we almost there?" A few miles back, Conner had made a left turn onto a narrow road with a steep incline. Now, Ronnie was plastered against him, and he was plastered against the seat.
Surely they had to reach the top of the hill soon, he thought. Trace was tired. He needed something to eat and some sleep. But what he needed most of all was to get away from Ronnie Winters for a few minutes. She hadn't said a word, done a damned thing, but every nerve ending in Trace's body was tuned into her frequency.
The car crested the hill a few minutes later, and Trace breathed a sigh of relief. Conner turned right then stopped his car in front of a massive lodge-type cabin. No lights were on inside, but what the moonlight revealed was pretty damned impressive. "Where the hell are we?" he asked looking at the two-story structure, which was constructed of rough logs, or what was made to look like that.
"Family hunting lodge," Conner replied as he opened his door.
"A hunting cabin?" Was this guy a Rockefeller or something? Shit, it looked more like a hotel to Trace. Evidently this family liked to rough it in style.
"His family has money," Ronnie whispered as she held onto the dash and steering wheel to lift herself off of his lap.
"No shit?" Trace replied sarcastically, sliding out from under her to stretch his cramped legs out the door.
"Yeah, Leland has nothing on these folks. I told you Conner's family is connected and can help us."
"The only problem with that is they can't know I’m alive, or where you are. How the hell can they help us?" Trace growled as he stood. His muscles felt like rubber bands under his skin. He needed to stretch, and wished like hell they had a workout room and sauna inside that lodge. He was exhausted, but so wound up and stiff he needed some activity.