“This has Crystal’s name all over it.”
“You called Dylan?”
“He’s well aware of the situation,” Reid confirmed. “The entire situation.”
Kell paused for a long moment, then said, “You know taking her across the border means we’re in more trouble—you were reluctant to do it when I mentioned it, but I guess something changed your mind.”
“She’s all alone in the goddamned world,” Reid said, and if nothing else, both were far too sensitive to that for their own good.
“I told her we’d help her.”
“And then?”
“And then what?” Kell asked impatiently, the pain making him irritatable, despite his earlier relaxation.
“Are you only with her to get your rocks off?” Reid threw that last part out calmly. Baiting him, the same way Dylan had earlier on Skype.
It worked. “What the fuck, Reid? You jealous, wanting some?” Kell asked, all the while knowing that wasn’t the truth at all.
“Jealous? Yeah, I guess I am,” Reid told him. “Not because I want Teddie, but because I want someone to look at me the way she looks at you.”
“She doesn’t look at me like anything. She’s scared of me.”
“Means she’s smart.” Reid paused. “I’m going to throw the marshals off track, lead them back into Mexico. And then I’m going to send Chambers to you and let you have the pleasure of dealing with him.”
Kell stared at his friend, realizing he hadn’t apologized for fighting him earlier. Or thanked him for saving his life. “You’re doing this for her?”
“I’m doing it for both of you,” Reid said. “I can handle Chambers. I can handle the marshals. If Crystal comes at me, I’ll fuck him up too.”
Kell had never seen his friend so worked up.
“If you still want out after we clear Teddie, I won’t give you any more shit about it,” Reid promised.
“We should stay together.”
Reid cocked his head and then told his friend, “I won’t let you lose her.”
Kell didn’t know what to say to that. It was a simple yet poignant statement, and Kell was overwhelmed by it.
Maybe he would be with her after all was said and done. And maybe he’d end up in jail.
It was where he’d always thought he’d be anyway. But he didn’t think Teddie deserved that.
“I have to clear her,” he told Reid. “I don’t know why it’s so damned important, but it is.”
Reid eyed him calmly. “Of course you know.”
“My innate need to help people.”
“You don’t help everyone” was all Reid said, but his words didn’t hold a trace of bitterness. “Maybe it’s time you let someone help you.”
When Kell didn’t say anything, Reid continued. “Something changed you. You’ve always taken the weight of the world on your shoulders while you wait for your bad genes to take over. Hate to tell you, man, but if it hasn’t happened by now …” He trailed off, shrugging.
“What if she really thinks I’m like the men who murdered her family?”
“Then keep proving to her you’re not.”
The road was blocked off. Grier parked her truck and got out, showing her badge to the Mexican police who were surveying the area. “What happened?”
“Looks like a bomb.” The officer rattled off the exact address she was headed toward and Grier got the oddest feeling she was being watched. She fought the urge to pull her gun as she walked up to the property, saw that the gate had been blown off its hinges.
“Where are the people who were staying here?” she asked.
“Gone. Neighbors saw a truck take off down the road,” the policeman told her.
“Who owns the house?”
“Ma’am, you’ll have to take that up with the Department of Records. Looks like a recent sale.” He pointed to the real estate sign, which was now partially blown to bits on the side of the road.
She dialed the number on the sign and got voice mail. Left her message and got interrupted by call waiting, and a number she didn’t recognize.
That happened quite a bit—she gave out her number to informants and criminals alike. Now when she answered with, “Marshal Vanderhall,” the man on the other end said, “They’ve crossed the border. They’re in Texas, practically under the nose of your people back there.”
How did he know she wasn’t in Texas now? She wheeled around to survey the small crowd of people and emergency workers surrounding the house. Some were on their phones, some were taking pictures of the house, but none were the man who’d come into her office the other day. “And you’re giving me this info out of the goodness of your heart?”
“My civic duty.”
She bit off a laugh, although his voice was devoid of sarcasm. It wasn’t often she couldn’t get a read on someone, but with him, all she got was cold. Icy. “Thanks for your help. Got an address in Texas?”
“Marshal, I can’t do all your work for you,” he said before hanging up.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
“And here I thought bringing you coffee would get me on your good side,” Jack told her.
“Not you. That guy called.” She relayed the conversation to Jack. “Could easily be a setup. But I don’t think so.”
“He’s got us running around Mexico,” Jack pointed out.
“Where Teddie was, until very recently,” she mused, surveyed the destruction around them. “Think that guy is capable of this?”
“I think anyone’s capable of damn well anything,” Jack said.
“Call the office. Have them do a search—we’ll stay here and try to get more of a read on our informant.”
“Guy’s gotta have some kind of ulterior motive.”
“Of course. I just have to decide if I care.” Running a check on the men Teddie was with could be a real problem. Going in cold could be as well.
She’d have to chance it. Getting Teddie back would get her team off the chopping block. “Come on. It’s time to catch our girl.”
CHAPTER
10
It was a day later and Kell was up and about, moving as if he hadn’t been nearly blown apart. Aside from the bruises that marred his handsome face, he looked like he had when she first met him.
And he moved with purpose.
“We’re getting out of here.” He dumped a driver’s license onto the table where she was finishing breakfast, having watched Reid pacing the first floor of the house like a caged lion for the past hour. She flipped it toward her, saw her picture and the name Kara Lindsey.
“What about Reid?”
“He’s staying behind to keep the marshals away from you.” Kell’s words confirmed what Reid had promised her. Her stomach tightened at the thought of how much trouble she was really in.
It had been easy to forget, since it appeared that Kell and Reid were in far worse trouble than her.
“When are we going?”
Kell glanced out the window. “Little while. I’ll let you know when it’s time.”
A screech of cars outside made her look out the front windows. A man wearing a U.S. Marshals jacket got out of one of the two cars. It was her handler, Al, and he couldn’t be too happy with her.
The man in the other car was a marshal too—she recognized him as Al’s backup, although she’d only met him a couple of times over the past year.
Al had a megaphone with him, and he began speaking into it, calling her name and telling her to come out of the house.
“Time to go,” Kell said from behind her, handed her bag to her.
“It’s too late.” Her voice trembled a little, but her face was set in firm lines. “Let me go out there and end this.”
“Reid, leave from the back as soon as I’m gone,” Kell said, never taking his eyes off the front window. She turned in time to see Reid nod, then the pair fell silent as if the rest of their plan was already set.
She had no doubt that it was.
Kell took her,
pulled her back against his chest and started to open the front door. Guns trained on her and her hands automatically went into the air as she said, “Don’t shoot. Please.”
Then Kell put his revolver to her temple and she froze.
What was he doing? She actually trembled, and for a split second, she doubted everything she’d come to trust about this man.
Of course, having guns pointed at her didn’t help. She realized she was struggling a little against Kell’s grip, but that only served to make him hold her more tightly, her back snug to his chest.
“Please don’t shoot,” she heard herself say in a weak voice that she didn’t think carried more than an inch from her mouth. She tried to lift her hands into the air but they were trapped.
“Stand down,” her handler, Al, called out when he saw Kell holding her. “Sir, put the gun down and put your hands up. I’m a federal marshal and I need to take Teddie with me.”
God, no. She’d much rather go anywhere with Kell, even at gunpoint.
Kell snorted under his breath at Al’s words, then called out, “She’s coming with me.”
“Let her go,” Al ordered. “You crossed the border with her. You’re both in some trouble, but it’s nothing compared to what will happen if you don’t leave here with me,” he said, his voice sounding so reasonable, and it was all such bullshit.
None of the marshals had any intention of helping her.
“You’re not going to shoot her—we both know that,” Kell told the marshal, his voice an icy calm.
“What do you want with her?” Al asked.
“She’s valuable to me. What do you want with her?” Kell asked.
“She’s wanted for questioning in a shooting death and an attempted kidnapping. But I know we can work something out, and no one needs to get hurt in the process,” Al reasoned.
Kell kept the barrel of the Sig to her temple and she felt the cold press of steel dig into her skin … sweat trickled between her breasts and her heart pounded and she wondered what he was thinking. But she didn’t dare ask.
“I’m taking her out of here,” Kell said.
“We will hunt both of you down, sir,” her handler promised.
“You can try” was his answer as he started to move away from the men in front of the house, taking her along for the ride backward.
She attempted to walk but he was moving too fast and she was basically dragged unceremoniously along the walkway and then through the grass. Kell still held her once they were out of sight, and before she could ask him what he was thinking, the truck they’d driven to Texas in flew by her at top speed, and she heard the marshal yelling orders and their cars screech away after Reid.
She realized that Reid had kept his promise to her, that he was going to help Kell keep her safe, and at great risk to his own life.
She couldn’t speak and so she just stood there and waited for Kell’s direction.
After they could no longer hear the sirens in the distance, Kell peeked around the corner, then left her behind for a few moments. Long moments.
When he returned, he said, “Come on, let’s move,” and tugged her along the back of the house, through the backyard directly behind theirs.
“Are we stealing a car?” she asked.
“I prefer the term borrowing,” he said. “They’re on vacation, won’t report it missing for days.”
“How do you and Reid find these things out?”
“Maybe one day I’ll tell you.” He used some kind of key to open the side door of the garage and motioned her inside. There was an old Tahoe with tinted windows in there, and Kell fiddled with it for a few moments. It started easily and she hopped in, held her breath for something horrible to happen when the garage door opened and the truck eased out.
They seemed to be in the clear, but she couldn’t relax yet. Kell didn’t say anything for a long time either and Teddie let the drive calm her. Kell went off road and she knew he wouldn’t stop for a long time, in order to make sure they truly hadn’t been followed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you how it would go down,” he said after about twenty minutes. “I needed you scared. It was the best way to convince the marshals you were being held against your will.”
“And get yourself in trouble.”
“At this point, Teddie, that’s not an issue. I have bigger and badder on my six.”
“You could’ve walked away, to save your own skin. You wouldn’t be the first person to do that, and I wouldn’t have faulted you.”
“No, you would’ve expected it,” he said, slamming his hand on the wheel. “You’ll let me help you, let me fuck you, and you still think so goddamned little of me.”
“I don’t …” She stopped. “I’m sorry, that’s not true.”
“I helped you because I couldn’t not help you. Why’d you let me help you instead of going back to the marshals? Because I know I scare the hell out of you. Or does the possibility of jail scare you more?”
“Because I couldn’t not.” She echoed his earlier sentiments sincerely, her eyes wide, and everything else was stripped away in that moment.
“At least we have that in common.”
“I have a feeling there’s a lot more than that.” Over a year ago, her life had been so completely different, and yet she’d been around men like Kell for most of her childhood, circling her but not actually getting close. “It’s nice not to be alone in this. For a long time I thought that was the best way. The only way.”
Kell nodded. “I’ve been where you are.”
“That’s why you told me not to seek revenge. You knew what it feels like,” she said quietly.
“It can ruin your life if you let it.” His voice was grim. The dust blew up around the car wheels and she longed for the cover of night. “I don’t want that for you.”
She wanted to reach across the console for his hand, but she didn’t. They’d already shared intimacies, and yet she’d never felt shyer around him. Like nervous butterflies were in her stomach and the something that had broken inside of her so long ago was well on its way to being repaired.
A few hours later, Kell pulled over into a used car lot. Teddie remained in the car and he came back half an hour later with new plates.
“We’ve got a new ride.”
“That was fast.”
“Cam already bought the car,” he explained.
“You guys have quite the network.”
“It’s good to have friends,” he told her, and she realized that it certainly was.
“Have you heard from Reid? Think he’s gotten across the border yet?”
“He texted—he’s back in Mexico.”
She collected her things and he grabbed his own bags and together they walked over to the new SUV, parked in the corner of the lot. She got inside as Kell fixed the license plates and then he leaned into the opened window, saying, “I’m going to grab us some sodas and food,” before heading across the street to the convenience store.
She familiarized herself with the truck, in case she’d be driving, and while doing so she turned on the radio to find out what was going on in the rest of the world.
A hurricane bearing down on Florida seemed to be the only thing the reporters were talking about. It sounded like it was going to be a really rough one—a Cat 3 that they thought would go down to a Cat 2 by the time it hit landfall.
It was supposed to hit within the next thirty hours. Evacuations were rampant.
She shivered. She hated storms like that—hated hearing about them, watching their aftermath on television. She turned the radio off and played with the GPS, wondering if it was some kind of sick joke that it was set to the very area of Florida that was expecting the hurricane.
Kell came back about ten minutes later with a stash of snacks and sandwiches and sodas. “We’ve got to keep stops to a minimum—we’re on a time limit.”
“So where are we going?”
“Florida.”
Her stomach tightened. He’d been
the one to set the GPS. “Have you not heard about the hurricane?”
“Who’d ever think we’d be driving into it? The perfect cover.”
“Or suicide,” she muttered.
“We’ll be hard to chase or find. That’s what matters.”
She tried to keep her tone light when she said, “Did I mention I’m scared of bad storms?”
“Yeah, but you didn’t have me,” Kell murmured, right before his phone rang.
That sentiment—and the knowledge that they were still a day away from their destination—allayed a bit of the impending panic. Besides, she couldn’t say anything else on the subject, because Kell was driving, phone to his ear, and he was doing a lot of listening, interjecting a few words every now and again; when he hung up, he put the radio on.
The music played and the miles passed at a good pace. She was far too keyed-up to sleep, and she let the soft breeze from the open window play on her face and in her hair as she downed sugary sodas.
If she thought really hard about the fact that she was a fugitive from justice, hanging out with a merc and driving into what promised to be at least a Cat 2 hurricane, she would instantly become a babbling mess.
But, for her father’s sake, she couldn’t. She needed to get to the bottom of things—and a little voice inside of her told her she could do it.
Reid was in his element. The truck drove like a dream to begin with, and between OnStar and Sirius he was all set. During the six-hour drive, he caught up on the news, downloaded some new music and spoke with Zane, shooting the shit with the SEAL as he drove, getting lost on purpose for a while.
Because it was time to have some motherfucking fun, even if it killed him. And hell, it just might.
And then it was time to stop playing cat and mouse with the marshals and lose them for good. That was accomplished too easily and he cursed the fact that no one knew how to track anymore. Fucking economy was ruining training.
Still, today it worked in his favor and when he zoomed toward the border, he knew the plan had gone well.
Night Moves: A Shadow Force Novel Page 15