by Cherry Adair
Before he packed her off to the airport, she was going up to the plant where Oliver had worked. Her last hurrah.
She knew he wasn't there. But perhaps he'd left something behind. No, that wasn't Oliver. He never even said goodbye when he disconnected a phone call. One moment he was talking, sure, in monosyllables, but still, talking; then next, there'd be dead air.
River wanted to see where he'd worked, where he'd spent the past mysterious five years. Hell, she just wanted to know she'd tried every which way to get answers before she got on that plane. When she got home, she was going to hire the best P.I. Oliver's money could buy.
As she reached the entry hall, she heard faint sounds from the kitchen, but didn't see anyone as she went through the front door, and down the curved front steps framed by massive stone columns. She'd walk up the damn mountain if she had to, but she'd much rather have wheels. There was a slight hope the rental car actually had four tires on it by now.
If not, she'd borrow a car from someone. If not that, hell, she'd steal a car. Oliver had taught her how to a hotwire a car on her thirteenth birthday as a lark. River hoped it wouldn't come to that.
The sky was just tinged with color, and the dawn air smelled fresh and invigorating as she headed to Jorge's house through the empty streets. The town was so quiet it was almost like walking onto the set of some apocalyptic movie. She pulled on the lime green windbreaker, as if it would stop a zombie attack.
Jorge was in his garage when River walked up to his house.
"Good morning, señorita." He waved a steaming coffee cup in the direction of the car, where a fat speckled hen perched on the steering wheel. "She is ready for you, and as good as new."
As new as it had been twenty years ago anyway, but at least the little convertible would make it back to the airport. The chicken gave River a disinterested look, then tucked her beak under her wing. "That's terrific news, Jorge, thank you."
She always carried her passport and money on her when she traveled, but now River considered, for a moment, going back to the hacienda to pick up her suitcase. She had the car. She could drive up to the plant, heading directly after to the airport. But no matter how creepy her host was, he'd been gracious enough to allow her to stay. She owed him a thank you, at least.
River knew damned well it wasn't Franco Xavier she wanted to see one last time. To be absolutely honest, she wanted one more chance to see the surly, but oh so tempting Bishop Ash Daklin to give him a last look at the temptation he was allowing to walk away.
So, up the mountain, back to say adios, and she'd be on her way home.
Reaching into the pack clipped to her waistband, River took out her wallet. "How much do I owe you?"
"No, no." He waved a gnarled hand. "The bishop he come. His Excellency. He pay."
“Seriously? When was that?”
"Yesterday afternoon. Before the fiesta. He is a good man, yes?"
"That was very...kind of him, yes." Wow. So, he'd wanted her gone long before last night. Then why had he almost kissed her? Why give her those hungry looks? River paused her mental musings. Was it precisely because he was tempted that he wanted to get rid of her? Of course it was. It was cruel of her to flex her femme fatale muscles on a man who, whether he wanted her or not, couldn't have her.
It was a good thing she was leaving. She'd remove temptation for both of them.
Walking over to a pegboard holding hundreds of bunches of dusty keys and two, very much alive, green lizards, Jorge took down the key with the rental tag on it and shuffled over to her, dropping it in River's hand. "My wife's third brother's son, Ramse, come help me last night. He's a good boy. You know him? He work for el Jefe."
She vaguely remembered the tall, swarthy, serious-looking guy from when she arrived. "He's Franco's bodyguard, right?"
Yes, he was. Jorge was delighted to talk about his nephew for as long as she was willing to stand there. Ram had been a doctor. Very rich. Something bad had happened, and now he was home for a while. Glad for the job as bodyguard to el Jefe.
The guy didn’t look like a doctor, but that was none of her business. She was sure he was a lovely man who was happy to have a job.
River zipped the windbreaker against the morning chill, sticking her hands in her pockets as he talked. After a few minutes and having waited for a pause, she thanked him profusely, asked him politely to remove his chicken from the car, waited as he apologetically cleaned the chicken shit off the white, genuine, artificial imitation leather seat, then finally got behind the wheel.
"You go to Santa de Porres today, yes?"
"A little later, yes." She started the car. It smelled a little like a chicken coop, and sounded asthmatic, but at least it started. "Would you like to go with me?"
He ducked his head. "I would ask that you take my youngest sister's girl, Juanita, with you. She has a married sister who lives there."
"I'd be happy to take her. Can you let her know I'll be leaving at about ten? Where does she live? I can pick her up when I'm on my way."
The old man's eyes met hers as he said carefully in English, "She lives at the hacienda, señorita. I will tell her to be ready at ten."
Juanita, the pregnant maid who River suspected had taken her lingerie and who'd participated in Franco's sick game in that kink room? River might, briefly, have wondered if the young woman had participated willingly, but hearing the urgency in Jorge's voice, she realized there'd been nothing willing about it. She felt sick to her stomach when she realized some of the things her brother had told her about Franco's proclivities were true.
River hadn't believed him at the time, but after last night, she did.
She thanked Jorge again, and with a wave, was on her way out of town. Thank God she was leaving. She couldn't have spent another night in that house.
"Ugh." She shuddered. She was glad for the windbreaker. The convertible's top couldn't go up, and the early morning air was chilly. As soon as the sun crested the mountain, the temperature would soar, but for now, she enjoyed the cool wind blowing in her face.
"Where is everybody?" Surely, people were going to work, or returning from work? There wasn't a single soul outside. River drove through the square, and around the splashing fountain, then headed north out of town. Straight ahead was the winding road back to the towns along the route to the capital city, Santa de Porres, and the airport.
She presumed there was a road nearby that would take her up to the plant, and then almost passed it. There was no sign, but she saw it just in time and made a hard right onto a much narrower road. Jungle vegetation crowded the path on either side, forming a dim green tunnel. The air smelled fresh. Rain from earlier dripped off the tees overhead and sheened the road.
On either side of the narrow road, giant trees and tall palms blocked most of the light, and River turned on her high beams, even though it would be light soon enough. Her hair whipped across her face as she reached out to turn on the radio. She fiddled with the buttons. Nada. Not even a crackle. That wasn’t unexpected, though. She was in between folds of the mountain.
The digital clock had displayed 1:14 since she'd picked the car up at the airport.
She didn't care what time it was. She'd take whatever flight she made. She started to sing Waterloo. She wasn't Abba, but she could hold a tune, and it reminded her of her mom and seemed appropriate for the moment.
Singing while driving along a winding mountain road, the wind in her hair, was almost as good as singing in the shower. She sang at full volume.
Her fate had nothing to do with Bishop Ash Daklin, and she knew it. The road was twisty, and the elevation so steep the little car labored instead of zipping.
Glancing at the speedometer, it read forty, she stopped singing mid-phrase. "Want me to push you, little car? We'd go a damn sight faster." At least the return trip would be downhill all the way. She resumed tapping her foot in time with the tune. Slowing as she came to a water-covered bridge spanning a swiftly moving river, she cast a wary eye at the r
ippling water reflecting the pale whitish blue of the sky. The reflection made it hard to see the edge and there were no railings. Oh man, this was a little terrifying.
“Oliver, if you had to drive this commute every day, I see why you never went into town. This is freaking nerve-wracking.”
Going at a snail's pace down the center, she concentrated so hard her eyes burned from not blinking the whole way. On the other side of the bridge, she huffed out a big breath, resuming her singing. Her singing abruptly stopped and changed to a scream as the blurred, dark shape of a man appeared out of nowhere beside the car.
He vaulted over the door to land in the passenger seat with a thump and a curse. River automatically slammed her foot down on the brake. The car slowed to a stop, nose-deep in a dense clump of ferns on the side of the road. A cloud of tiny green butterflies drifted off a shrub and floated in the air like smoke.
Twisting in her seat she punched Bishop Daklin in the chest. "You scared the shit out of me! What are you doing up here?”
He scowled. “What are you doing here?”
"I asked first." He wore the same clothes as earlier. Black on black on black, though now with the added sartorial accessory of semi-dried mud all over his clothes and face. It looked as though he'd rolled in the dirt after a bank heist. Is that what he'd done since leaving her unfulfilled five hours ago? Gone mud wrestling?
He stared at her without responding. She waited. He remained silent. After a few more seconds, River huffed out a sigh. Exasperating man. "I want to see where my brother worked."
She returned his scowl as she eased her foot off the brake and angled back on the road. She needed more distance time-wise than the few hours since she'd seen him last. In fact, since she hadn't expected to see him at all, having him drop into the car unexpectedly rattled her.
She shot him a sideways glance, distracted by a teeny, jade colored butterfly on his dark hair. She resisted the urge to brush it away, giving her a reason to touch him in the process. She resisted harder. After a moment, it fluttered off on its own.
"Did you walk all the way up here to play in the mud, Pigpen?"
"The plant has top-notch, armed guards." Adjusting the seat, he angled his long legs in the small foot-well to find more, nonexistent, space. The deep red-brown mud on his face didn't seem to bother him, but the way the dark dirt accentuated his piercing blue eyes bothered her. A lot. It annoyed the hell out of her that even as annoyed as she was, there was still something so compelling about him. Her heart raced, and her skin felt overly sensitized. Crazy. Foolish.
"They won't let you in." His voice was curt to the point of rudeness. “This place isn’t a lingerie factory, River. We’re not talking sewing machines and swatches of silk.”
"I know," Yeah, she really did, and once again he'd adroitly managed to not answer a question. No wonder he was crankier than usual. She noticed how hard he was gripping his left thigh with his fingers. The man was in pain. What on earth induced him to walk all the way up the mountainside? Then catapult into the car?
"Your brother isn't there. Turn around, and head back."
His words, phrased as an order, mitigated some of River's sympathy. "You're welcome to hop back out of the car right here if you like. Flag down a ride from those guys." She indicated a beat-up gray pickup truck traveling in the opposite direction. "I'm on a mission."
"A mission impossible, Miss Sullivan. We both know you're wasting your time. Go back to Portland and your life. Your brother's an adult. If he's alive, he'll eventually contact you. If not. Not."
She stared at him. "Wow. Is that what they teach you about empathy at the seminary, Bishop?"
His eyes glinted and his lips might've twitched. It was hard to tell on his dirt-covered face, and the mottled light shining through the trees surrounding them. "Want me to lie? That's a sin you know."
Good thing he couldn't read her mind then.
As they rounded a sharp bend into the pale rose-gold rays of early morning, the thick vegetation abruptly stopped. It was as though a giant's razor had scraped the ground leaving nothing but dirt and mud behind.
River didn't need the distraction of him up close and personal. Even smeared with mud, he was...too. Too big. Too sexy. Too rude. Too damned well here. "All I want you to do is drive, and enjoy the scenery. And respectfully? Shut the hell up unless you have something positive and affirming to say."
He made a choking sound, but when she shot him a fulminating glance, he was looking straight ahead, his expression somber.
"I don't know why I think my brother would leave a clue behind. I know that's not at all who Oliver is." She didn't know why she felt the need to talk to him since he was clearly unsympathetic, and impatient to get back to the hacienda. Well, too damn bad.
"Because you need a way to make sense of his disappearance." His tone softened slightly. But the sympathy was short-lived. "You're wasting your time. Trust me on this."
He was right about the security at the plant. The low building, surrounded by a high fence complete with two tall guard towers, was backed by the dark bulk of the mountain. "It's my time to waste," she added, slowing as she approached the front gate and a parking lot-sized area of gravel. It crackled and crunched like breakfast cereal under the tires.
"I'll never come back here, so this is my last shot, and armed guards, or not, I'm going to see Oliver's la—"
"Turn around, River." Tone implacable, he wrapped strong, muddy fingers over hers and took control of the steering wheel. With his other hand, he withdrew a large black gun from the small of his back. "Now!"
Holy crap. Was he going to shoot her?
Just as she yelled an indignant, "Hey!" something slammed into the dash, splintering the clock. It took a second or two to compute what had just happened as she stared with incomprehension at the small black hole where the numbers had been frozen at 1:14. "What the hell?"
Then it clicked. Someone was shooting at them. Her heart raced and her palms grew sweaty as she tried to twist around to see who was taking pot shots.
"Don't look. Drive." Aiming the gun over her head, Bishop Daklin fired off half a dozen shots. River's ears rang as her brain tried to catch up with what the hell was happening.
"Let go, damn it." A surge of adrenaline had her heart catapulted into her throat. Ineffectually, she slapped at his hand. "Do you want to kill us both?"
Fighting him for control of the steering wheel, she yelped as the side mirror, inches from her propped elbow, exploded, showering her with shards of glass.
Eleven
"Holy shit!" Her voice went high with shock as the mirror, inches from her arm, shattered. Daklin wrenched the wheel hard left. Twisting in the passenger seat, he squeezed off several shots of his own.
Fuck!
The piece of crap car skittered on the gravel as he spun the wheel away from the gunfire and pointed back the way they’d come. The small car slewed across the road three hundred yards in front of the gate, spewing hail-like pea gravel. The men in the twin guard towers fired again.
For fucksake, did they really think a blonde in an ancient red sports car was going to break in? Clearly Xavier's men didn't recognize him as the Bishop with his face covered in mud, and his non-traditional clothing. Xavier would have their asses if his bishop died before his apparition was authenticated.
These guys hadn't had anyone to shoot at for weeks. Daklin already knew from his men that they were itching for some action. River had sure as shit just given it to them.
He gave her credit for not freezing as she stomped on the gas, propelling them forward as he squeezed off several more shots. This time, the bullets came fast and dangerously close. M4, rotating bolt, five hundred and fifty yard range, muzzle velocity three thousand feet, gas-operating assault rifles were spitting out close to a thousand rounds a minute.
It was fucking divine providence they weren't already filled with holes. The M4 had the capability to mount the M203 grenade launcher, but he doubted they'd bring out the
big guns without ascertaining a credible threat. But what the fuck did he know? Maybe any threat was credible to them.
The scare tactics were effective, but if that didn't work, Daklin knew the order was to kill. They were in a fatal funnel. No fucking cover for three miles. He was eager as hell to get the fuck out of range before that happened.
Gravel jumped and pinged against the sides and undercarriage of the car as they gathered speed going downhill.
"You hurt?" Cutting her a quick glance, he checked for any signs of blood.
"That's the freaking least of my problems right now!" River flinched as a bullet ripped through the headrest on the back seat in a burst of foam and faux leather. Thwap. Daklin felt the zap as it pierced the floorboard behind the passenger seat, inches from his ass.
"Never mind," she shouted, brow furrowed in concentration, as she focused on where they were headed, not where they'd been.
Another slug ricocheted off the passenger door with a high-pitched screech. She flinched reflexively. No screaming, no theatrics.
"Floor it," he ordered, tightening his fingers over hers as she slowed instinctively to avoid something small and fury scurrying across the narrow road.
River flinched again as something hit her cheek-—a bit of upholstery, he deduced, since it left a red mark but no blood. "You can't—-"
"Fucking punch it, River. These guys aren't dicking around. They're using us as target practice." His Glock was now out of range, their M4's were not. Xavier's security guys would stop dicking around trying to miss them soon. Then all bets were off.
He spoke into his comm. "Taking fire. What the hell's going on?"
Having just passed them going the opposite way, they weren't out of comm range yet. Gibbs responded immediately. "Turley and I are halfway back. Want us to—-"