by B. J Daniels
“I’m here,” she cried through the hole they had made. She could feel cold air rushing in and breathed deeply, amazed she was alive. She was soaked to the skin, wedged against the headliner by part of the steering wheel.
She’d tried to move when she’d first come to, but when she had the car had shifted, and she’d frozen in place. There hadn’t been anywhere to go anyway. Any exit was blocked by boulders.
Now, though, she was able to shimmy out from under the steering wheel toward the hole the girls had made.
“You look awful,” the tall one named Penny said.
“Can you crawl out?” Jennifer asked. She was short and blonde and perky.
Kitzie realized that she’d underestimated Jennifer and now felt badly about it as the girl helped her squeeze through the hole.
She cried out and realized that several of her ribs were either cracked or broken. Her slacks were torn, her right leg cut and bleeding, and she hurt all over. On the whole, she just felt lucky to be alive.
“Are you all right?” Penny asked.
“I’ve been better. Can you reach my phone?”
“I’ll get it,” Jennifer said and slipped into the smashed car to retrieve it.
Kitzie wished she had paid the girl more. “I thought you two had already left.”
“We had, but Penny forgot her makeup bag in the kitchen. She was hoping someone would still be around to get it for her,” Jennifer said.
“I’ll probably never get it now,” the teen lamented.
Kitzie looked toward Penny’s car. “I’m going to need your car.”
“We can take you to the hospital,” Jennifer offered.
“I’m not going to the hospital. I’m FBI. I have to go after the people who tried to kill me.”
Penny’s eyes widened in shock. “Someone tried to kill you?”
“I’m going to need your car. I’d take you as far as town, but I’m afraid it might be too dangerous. Walk on up the road to the hotel. There are still people up there cleaning. If not, you can break into the hotel and stay there until I send help for you.”
Penny looked like she wanted to cry.
“We’ll be fine,” Jennifer said. “Go get the bad guys.”
Kitzie smiled. “I will.” Her phone had somehow escaped the creek water. She called Pete as she hobbled to the car.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SARAH HAD FELT defeated and helpless after her call to Martin. At times like this, she missed Russell the most. She’d been able to talk to him. He’d known there was darkness in her past. He’d said they would face it together.
She ached at the thought of him not remembering anything they’d shared. So many days she wished she’d married Russell. How much easier her life would have been. The Prophecy would still have tried to use her through her children to get to Buck, but Russell would have helped her deal with it.
What now? Wait and see what happens election night? When she’d voiced concerns about security for election night, Buck had insisted that it was all taken care of, and there was nothing to worry about. She knew that there would be dozens of Secret Service brought in, and Sheriff Curry had told her he would have all his men available plus the agents and the National Guard.
Still, she feared it wouldn’t be enough.
She’d promised Buck when they’d gotten married that she wouldn’t have any further contact with Dr. Ralph Venable, the man who had stolen her memories and kept her away from her family for twenty-two years.
Her fingers were shaking as she keyed in his number. If Buck found out, it would destroy the fragile start of their remarriage. As it was, he didn’t trust her. Who could blame him, given her past? But if she didn’t try to stop The Prophecy, she feared none of them would live past election night anyway.
The phone rang four times before going to an automated voice mail.
“We need to talk,” she said into the phone. “You’re going to help me stop Joe. Call me.”
Her hands were shaking so hard that she almost dropped the phone. Every instinct in her told her that she’d just made a huge mistake. Doc would tell her former lover Joe. Joe would retaliate. Why hadn’t she simply left her name?
Not that it probably mattered. Martin had more than likely called Joe and told him about their conversation. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought, fearing she had set something in motion that she would regret.
She waited for Doc to call her back, wondering if instead he was now on the phone with Joe. Only months ago, Joe had kidnapped her daughter Cassidy. What would he do now, if he thought she was again trying to stop him?
Her cell rang. She jumped and attempted to pull herself together. She didn’t recognize the number. She let it ring a second time before she answered. “Hello?” Someone was breathing on the other end of the line. “Hello? Doc?”
The party on the end disconnected.
Sarah stood holding the phone, suddenly terrified. Had that been Joe? Or Buck? Why had she asked if it was Doc? If it had been Buck and had merely been a bad connection...
She could no longer live with all the lies, all the—
Her phone rang again. She snatched it up but said nothing.
Again she heard breathing. She disconnected. It rang again almost at once. Her nerves were frayed, but from somewhere deep inside came a surge of not just determination, but anger. She’d been Joe’s puppet for too long.
“Hello?” she said into the phone. Her voice broke. She didn’t sound as strong as she told herself she was. She didn’t sound like a woman capable of anything, especially a woman able to take down a terrorist group. She sounded as terrified as she felt.
“I warned you about going against Joe. He knows you tried to get Martin to help you.” Dr. Venable sounded old and tired and scared. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“I have to stop him. If that means getting back the rest of my memory, of being this anarchist Red again, then—” Joe was so sure that once she got her memory back, she would again join him and be the anarchist she’d been all those years ago.
“Oh, you’ll be Red again soon. Sooner than you think. God, help us all.” With that, Dr. Venable hung up.
Her heart was pounding so hard, she couldn’t catch her breath as she disconnected. Like a pebble thrown into a still pond, she’d started ripples that were growing wider and wider. Joe knew. The question was, what would he do now?
* * *
“I NEED TO use the bathroom,” Ainsley said when Jason returned to the room. He’d left earlier, promising to come back.
She’d been working at the tape binding her to the bed frame until her skin was chafed and aching. There was no getting loose without him cutting the restraints.
Now, he eyed her suspiciously. “If you’re thinking that I will cut you loose and you’ll overtake me and escape...” He shook his head. “I don’t want to have to cut you, slice that beautiful skin to shreds, but I will. I will leave you in a pool of your own blood so helpless and in pain...”
She couldn’t imagine being any more helpless than she was now. “I won’t try to get away,” she said, sounding as helpless as she was. It was a lie. She would do whatever she had to.
He studied her for a moment. “Okay, but if you’re naughty, you know what happens.”
She’d already been naughty, according to him, and needed to be punished. He just hadn’t told her yet what that meant. But from what he’d said about his mother and the way he’d smiled when he’d said the word, it made her quake inside.
Jason pulled a knife from the scabbard on his belt. The shine of the deadly looking blade seemed to catch his attention and hold it for too long. He ran his thumb along the sharp edge of the blade. A trickle of blood appeared. He sucked the blood into his mouth, his attention finally coming back to her.
Ainsley had been watching, sickly mesmerized and equally terrified. Now he moved toward her. She closed her eyes, telling herself that she didn’t want to see this. She felt the blade slice through the tape binding one wrist. She wriggled her fingers to get some life back into her hand.
Opening her eyes, she watched him cut her ankles free, then her wrist.
She had to get away from him, but she had no idea how she was going to do that. He was much larger and stronger than she was, and he knew it. Also, he was armed. Bide your time. Just don’t do anything stupid.
Ainsley watched him, aware of the knife in his hand and the look in his eyes. He wanted her to try to escape. But she refused to give him that pleasure. She rubbed her hands together for a moment, then slowly sat up. “Where is your bathroom?” she asked.
“I’ll show you.” He sheathed the knife and reached for her hand.
Wanting him to believe she was docile, she put her hand into his. Just touching him made her sick to her stomach. But she didn’t recoil. She let him lead her out of the room to a bathroom right outside the door.
“There’s no way to get out,” he noted, but she’d already seen that there was no window, no other door in the small utilitarian bathroom to escape from. “Also, there is nothing in there you can use as a weapon.” That she had suspected, as well. If Jason was anything, he was thorough. He’d probably learned the hard way with the others.
She shuddered as she stepped into the bathroom and closed the door, telling herself not to think about the others. Not to think about what had happened to them.
“There isn’t a lock either,” he called through the door, sounding way too proud of himself.
Ainsley didn’t bother to look for a weapon. He’d even taken the top off the toilet tank as if he thought she might try to hit him with it. She suspected someone had done just that.
She took the opportunity to do what she needed to do. Then washed up as best she could. He’d left her a towel. As she dried, she tried not to panic.
So far, he hadn’t done anything to her. But she knew that once she stepped out that door...
He knocked on the door. “Don’t make me wait too long. It will only force me to punish you much worse.”
She cringed at his words and wondered again how many times he’d heard those same words from his dear mother. She hoped the woman was rotting in her grave right now.
Bracing herself, she opened the door to find him lighting a cigarette. He removed it from his mouth to stare at the red-hot end. “Did I mention that my mother smoked?”
* * *
GUN COULD ALMOST smell the tropical breezes. In a matter of hours, he would turn the commercial over to the editor. After that, he’d only have to hang around for a few days to okay the final cut.
Then he would announce that he was taking a long vacation. He had his passport ready. His bags were packed. The money from the burglaries would be tucked away until he needed it. He was too smart to blow it all.
He feared that the others weren’t that smart, though. LeRoy would shoot his mouth off, sure as hell. But let his uncle Harry Lester deal with that. By then Gun planned to be out of the country and unreachable. He couldn’t wait to toss his cell phone into the ocean, he thought as it rang.
“Gunderson,” he said into the phone.
“Plan B?” It was Clark. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Just a precaution. This will be over soon. Just follow procedure.” If he had a dime for every time he’d said that, he’d be filthy rich.
“Okay,” Clark said, though he didn’t sound happy about it. Gun could hear Hale in the background. That was something else he wasn’t going to miss. With luck, he would never have to see the man again in this lifetime.
“I’ll see you soon,” Gun said and hung up.
Ahead, the old mining city of Butte, Montana, loomed up from the horizon. He could see where the mountain had been gouged out to make the mile-deep famous Berkeley Pit. A few old mining rigs stood higher on the mountain, dark silhouettes against the daylight.
What an appropriate place for this to end, he thought, smiling. He’d always been fond of Butte. It was rough around the edges, and he liked that, just as he liked the old buildings, the sense of history, the kick-your-ass people who lived here.
He drove up Montana, turned, to go by the Copper King Mansion, and thought of the city fathers who had pillaged the state’s treasures for over a hundred years. They were thieves just like him, he told himself as he turned into one of the old brick houses along a side street.
He parked, sitting in the car for a moment. Murph had called earlier to say that she’d taken care of their little Kitzie problem. Everything was going as planned.
A curtain moved on the first floor of the house. He caught a glimpse of red.
“As weird as you are, you’re never going to have a girlfriend,” his stepfather used to tell him. “No woman with any sense would want you.”
The curtain moved again. Molly waved at him from the window as she pulled her long dark unruly hair up into a high ponytail. “Wrong again, Ray.”
* * *
KITZIE GAVE PETE the abbreviated version of what had happened to her. “The bottom line is that I lost Gunderson. Tell me you still have Harry Lester.”
“I’m on his tail right now.”
“Where are you?” she asked. It hurt to talk. Her ribs were killing her. She ached all over, and there was a knot she’d found on the side of her head along with several abrasions that had bled. But she was alive, she had her weapon, and she was almost to Butte.
“Leaving Butte,” Pete said.
Kitzie thought she’d heard wrong. “Leaving Butte?”
“Headed out of town on the road toward Helena. We just topped the hill. Wait a minute. They’re turning.”
Turning? She quickly thought about what was up there. “He’s headed for Our Lady of the Rockies?”
“What?”
“That Madonna-like white statue high on the mountain. That’s Our Lady of the Rockies.” A bunch of miners got together and had it built after one of the men lost his wife. She’d wanted something like it put up there, only she’d envisioned something small. How surprised she would have been to see what her small wish has become. “It’s a tourist site now, but I don’t think they have tours up there this time of the year.”
“You think that’s where he’s heading? They turned off on a road. I’m stopped, but I can see they are headed up the mountain.”
“There are a few cabins on that road, but I’m betting he’ll go clear to the top of the mountain. The problem is that there is a locked gate. How—”
“There’s a gate all right, but it’s standing open. Someone must have opened it for him—and Gunderson...” Pete said. “That must mean that Gunderson isn’t here yet?”
Kitzie’s head ached. “Stay with him. I’m driving a blue VW bug. I’m on my way.”
She disconnected, wondering where Gunderson was right now. Or Murph, for that matter. Kitzie had known that Murph had worked for Gunderson for years, but she’d never thought she was involved in the burglary part of the business. But now she knew.
In the rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of her face. Her left eye was almost swollen shut. A scratch on her chin was bleeding. But all that was minor. Each breath was a labor. She could still fire a gun, she told herself. Turning her attention back to the highway, she concentrated on getting all of them. Now they’d made it personal.
* * *
SAWYER DID HIS best not to speed as he drove to Livingston. Clare Bowman’s house was in an older part of town near the Yellowstone River. Fog moved up from the river to crawl through the neighborhood like searching spirits.
He drove by the house, not surprised to see that there was no car parked out front. The garage
door was down. He couldn’t see through the dirty windows to tell if there was a car parked inside or not.
A block down, he parked and popped the trunk. It was still early in the sleepy, slightly run-down neighborhood. Nothing moved in the fog. He suspected most of the residents were older and that their Christmas tree lights stayed up all year.
Getting out, he moved to the trunk and took off his jacket. From the hidden compartment, he pulled out his Kevlar vest, put it on, then his jacket again. Loading one of the handguns, he stuck it under his jacket, then he closed the trunk.
Would Jason be expecting him? Probably not. In the first place, Jason didn’t know he was a lawman. He didn’t know about the resources Sawyer had at his disposal. Also, he probably didn’t think that Sawyer cared enough about Ainsley to come looking for her. Given what he knew about stalkers, Sawyer was pretty sure that Jason thought he was the hero of this story. Sawyer couldn’t wait to see his face when he realized he was the villain—and the victim.
He just prayed that the man hadn’t hurt Ainsley yet as he moved down the street and then turned up the alley behind the house. Fog moved in wisps past him. The air was colder this close to the river, but he hardly noticed. He knew he wouldn’t have but a few moments to make the decision once Jason saw him. The problem with this kind of psychopath was that you never knew what they were going to do. Sawyer would have preferred a straight-up hardened criminal any day over one of these nutcases.
At the back of the house, he carefully opened the gate. It creaked only a little, the fog muffling the sound as he slipped through and moved toward the back door. He’d just reached it when he heard Ainsley scream.
CHAPTER TWENTY
GUN GOT OUT of his car as Molly came running from the house. She threw herself into his arms. He caught the sweet citrusy scent of her perfume as he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her wild curly head of coal-black hair.