“Police! Open up!”
Kane uttered a word I’d never heard him use before as he yanked his jacket over his concealed holster and paced rapidly to the door. “I’m a police officer. I’m going to open the door now,” he called.
Arnie and I froze, watching.
Kane swung the door open. “What-”
His body collapsed to the floor.
Chapter 17
Dave stood in the doorway. His face flushed scarlet when he took in our explicit position.
Hellhound snatched his hand from under my shirt and rolled off the bed, looking horrified as he tried to reach Kane without yanking both our arms out of their sockets.
“John!” He threw a wild glare at Dave. “What the fuck did ya do?”
“Stun gun. Sorry,” Dave muttered. “Thought you needed help…”
“We do!”
Dave brightened at my response, and he stepped in and swung the door shut behind him.
“Make sure he’s breathing,” Hellhound urged.
Dave knelt stiffly beside Kane’s crumpled body. “He’s fine.”
“What the hell d’ya think you’re doin’?” Hellhound demanded. “Ya just assaulted a fuckin’ police officer!”
Dave snorted. “He’s no cop. Didn’t follow proper procedure.”
He started to rifle through Kane’s pockets. I suppressed a shudder when the bad memories replayed, and I watched Kane’s chest rise and fall for reassurance. Not dead. God, would I ever forget that awful day?
“Here.” Dave dragged himself upright, grimacing, and limped to the bed holding a key.
Hellhound was still growling. “This ain’t the fuckin’ movies, and you ain’t Bruce Fuckin’ Willis. We’re in deep shit now, thanks to you.”
Dave shot him a scowl and plied the key. “Like you weren’t in deep shit before. Uh, I mean, deep trouble. Sorry, Aydan.”
Seconds later, we were free. Arnie and I knelt beside Kane, eyeing each other uncertainly.
“Maybe we should put him on the bed,” I suggested.
Dave shrugged. “What do you care? He was going to kill you.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Hurry up. Take his gun and let’s go.” Dave shifted from foot to foot, glancing apprehensively at the door.
“We have to leave him his gun. Let’s just put him on the bed.”
Dave took a step back. “You’re nuts. And you’re on your own. My back’s shot.”
“You take his feet,” Hellhound directed. He grabbed Kane’s shoulders and together we lugged him across the room and manhandled his limp body onto the bed.
We both fussed guiltily, straightening out his arms and legs. I raised his head, and Hellhound stuffed a pillow under it.
“Come on, already,” Dave urged. “He’s gonna wake up any minute and start shooting.”
He was probably right. Kane had been livid before. Now? Yeah, he’d probably shoot us all. Well, Dave and me, for sure.
I turned to Hellhound. “Quick, Dave and I have to get out of here. Do you have any idea where James might be hiding? He’s kidnapped Nichele and he’ll kill her-”
“What the hell, darlin’?” he interrupted. “Call the cops. Trust me, ya don’t wanna go lookin’ for him.”
“Arnie, I can’t, he said he’d kill her if the police got involved. Just tell me where to start looking.” I shot an uneasy glance at Kane. “Hurry up, I have to get out of here.”
“No fuckin’ way. What the hell’s goin’ on? Kane killed your husband, an’ he thinks you’ve gone rogue?”
“Arnie, please! I have to go! Just tell me where-”
He grasped my shoulders, his grip gentle despite his obvious agitation. “Aydan, I don’t want ya lookin’ for Jim, it’s too dangerous.”
“Forget it, Aydan, come on,” Dave said. He shot a contemptuous glare at Hellhound. “I told you he’d be useless. I’ll help you. Let’s just go.”
Hellhound stiffened and glowered at Dave. “Ya dumb shit, all you’re gonna do is get her killed,” he growled.
Kane groaned and I pulled away from Hellhound, my heart pounding. “Arnie, I have to go before he wakes up. Just give me a neighbourhood to start in,” I pleaded.
“No. Aydan, promise me ya won’t go lookin’ for Jim,” Hellhound demanded.
I turned away. “Let’s go, Dave.”
“Wait.” Hellhound’s hand shot out to capture mine, and he stepped in front of me to gaze down into my eyes. “Tell me the truth, Aydan. Are ya still on the same side as Kane?”
“Yes! He’s got it all wrong, it’s just a misunderstanding…”
“Come on!” Dave burst out. He grabbed my wrist and tugged me in the direction of the door.
Hellhound scowled at Dave, who returned a defiant glare. Hellhound blew out a breath between his teeth and glanced unhappily at Kane before turning back to me. “I’ll come with ya, then.”
“Arnie, no…” I began.
“Let’s go,” he interrupted, and I gave up the argument temporarily, my nerves fraying when Kane groaned again. I retrieved my gun from the table where Kane had left it and we hastened for the door, leaving Kane laid out on the bed like a Viking warrior on his pyre.
I was pretty sure he was going to be okay. When I glanced back, he was already starting to twitch and mumble profanities I was almost certain he’d learned from me. My steps slowed, my conscience nagging me. It just felt wrong to leave him there helpless, despite how much he’d pissed me off. Oh, yeah, and threatened to kill me. There was that.
“Aydan!” Dave hissed. “Hurry up!”
I quickened my pace and we followed Dave out the back door of the hotel to clamber into the idling truck. I strapped into the passenger seat while Hellhound stood in the alcove of the sleeper, bracing his outstretched arms against the cabinets. I couldn’t make out his expression in the dim light, but tension rolled off him in waves.
Dave glanced over as he pulled onto Crowchild Trail and ran rapidly up through the gears. “Where to?”
“We need to hide,” I blurted out, then gave myself a mental slap upside the head for stating the obvious.
“Christ, ya gotta know fuckin’ stun guns are illegal in Canada. What the hell were ya thinkin’?” Hellhound burst out. “You’re gonna be in a shitload a’ trouble.”
“Doubt it,” Dave grunted. “He doesn’t know who I am.”
“He woulda seen ya when ya dropped Aydan off. He never misses anythin’, an’ ya got big motherfuckin’ signs on the sides a’ the truck.”
Dave shrugged. “Oh, well.”
Hellhound snorted. “Ya got no fuckin’ idea what a world a’ hurt ya just walked into. Head for the Forest Lawn Industrial Park. I know a guy there with a big bay, owes me a favour or two.”
“Got a better idea,” Dave said. “Think he got the tag?”
Hellhound considered for a few seconds. “Probl’y not. Ya parked out front, an’ he was right by the hotel. He couldn’ta seen your plates.”
“Good.” Dave steered the truck down a side street.
I couldn’t contain myself any longer. “How did you find us? What happened?”
Dave grinned. “Circled around back and parked for a few minutes. Saw you walking through the lobby. The big guy looked mad, and you looked scared. Followed and watched what room you went into. Looked like he had a gun, so it took me a few minutes to come up with a plan. Lucky I sneaked that stun gun over the line the last time I was down to the States.”
I didn’t know whether to kiss him or kick him. I really wasn’t sure whether Kane would have killed me or not. A few days ago, I would have put my life in his hands without a qualm. Now I wasn’t so sure. Dave might have just saved my life. Or he might have just sentenced me to certain death.
Shit.
Dave stopped in the shadows next to a small park and rose painfully to shoulder past Hellhound into the sleeper. He withdrew two large rolls from a tall narrow cabinet.
“Give me a hand,” he said, and we followed
him out of the truck.
The rolls proved to be self-adhesive decals that completely covered the ‘Dave’s Trucking’ logos on the doors. Hellhound shot a suspicious glare at Dave while we applied ‘Rosie’s Custom Transport’.
Dave shrugged. “It ain’t what it looks like. I do a regular hitch for Rosie, couple times a month. She likes having her logo on the truck when I do, so she got me these removable signs.”
“This still won’t help, though,” I argued. “If Kane saw your truck earlier, he’ll track you down through Dave’s Trucking.”
“Worry about that when the time comes.” Dave winced his way back into the cab, and we followed suit.
“Arnie, you should go now,” I said. “I don’t want you to get involved.”
We peered at each other in the semi-darkness. “Involved with what? What the fuckin’ hell’s goin’ on?” Hellhound demanded.
“Arnie, never mind. Just go, okay? I want you to stay safe.”
“Fuck that, Aydan, I wasn’t gonna leave ya with a fuckin’ gun in your back, an’ I ain’t gonna leave ya knowin’ you’re plannin’ on lookin’ for that fuckin’ asshole Jim! Tell me what the fuckin’ hell’s happenin’! Now!”
I gave in, taken aback by his uncharacteristic harshness. “First things first. Have either you got a cell phone?”
“Yeah,” they agreed in ragged unison, groping in pockets.
“Turn them off, and then we need to get out of here. They can track those.”
“Fuck!” Hellhound flung his phone at the floor with a violent sweep of his arm, and I flinched as pieces ricocheted around the cab.
“That’s one way to do it,” Dave observed. He continued to excavate his pockets, stepping up the pace as he went. At last, he threw up his hands. “Must have lost it at the hotel when I jumped out of the truck. Shi… Crap. Well, guess it’s no problem, then.”
He put the truck into gear and pulled away.
“Sonuvabitch!” Hellhound grabbed at the tiny counter for balance as the truck swayed, and kicked savagely at the cracked phone case. “This is so fucked up!” He wedged himself into the tiny bench seat and scrubbed his fist roughly against his beard.
I turned sideways in the passenger seat, trying to make out his expression in the fluctuating illumination as we passed under streetlights.
“Are you okay?” I asked, concern gnawing at me. I’d seen him sleep-deprived, in agony and facing death, but I’d never seen him lose his cool like that.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “Sorry, darlin’. It’s just this thing with Jim’s buggin’ the shit outta me, an’ now Kane’s got some wild hair up his ass. I never thought he’d ever…” He bit off the sentence. “What the fuck’s goin’ on?”
I sighed and tried to formulate a reply that would explain enough about the situation with Kane without giving away classified information. “You knew my husband died about two and a half years ago.”
“Yeah. Heart attack, ya said.” Hellhound leaned forward to study my face in the dimness. “Ya were in bed with him. So how the hell could Kane have killed him?”
“He slipped Robert a drug that caused a massive heart attack as soon as he exerted himself. It was just my bad luck that he decided to come home to me instead of going to the gym as usual.”
“That’s crazy. How d’ya know that?”
“Kane told me.”
“Fuck.” Arnie reached for my hand and held it gently. “Sorry, Aydan. That’s gotta be tough. But why would he kill your husband?”
“It seems Robert was in the same line of work as Kane,” I said carefully.
“What?” He jerked upright. “What the hell…”
“And…” I swallowed. “I think… Robert might not have been the only member of my family who didn’t die a natural death.”
He stared at me. “Ya mean…”
“They might have killed my parents, too. And maybe my uncle. That’s why I was flying under the radar. I needed to talk to my aunt in Victoria. She’s the only one left.”
Hellhound sat in silence, and I knew the wheels were turning in his keen mind. “But there’s more to it than that, ain’t there, darlin’?” he asked finally. “Back at the hotel, ya said he’d been lyin’ to ya for months, fuckin’ with your mind.”
“Yeah.” I knew I shouldn’t say any more, but the anger and betrayal burst out of me anyway. “My mind wasn’t all he fucked with. That asshole.”
“What… Oh. Shit! No wonder he was so pissed when we were gettin’ it on. Sorry, darlin’, I didn’t know the two a’ ya were…”
“We aren’t. And I don’t think that was why he was mad. He didn’t do me because he wanted to. He had orders.”
Arnie gaped at me. “What the… That’s the sickest fuckin’ thing I ever heard. Why the hell would he have orders to bang ya? No offense, darlin’, I know how good ya are, but it just ain’t that important in the big picture.”
“No, you’re right. It was part of a bigger plan. He was supposed to fake being in love with me so he could manipulate me to keep working for them. So he said all this mushy shit, and I turned him down because you know I don’t want to get attached…”
My throat was tightening, and I took a deep breath to hold my voice steady. “…And I felt so bad because I liked him and I thought he was hurt, but he’s just a lying scumbag and he’s been playing mind games the whole time and I can’t believe I wasted any sympathy on that asshole, and then he has the fucking nerve to say I betrayed his trust…”
My tirade was muffled by Hellhound’s shoulder as he knelt on the swaying floor of the truck beside my seat and pulled me into a hug. “Shh, darlin’, it’s gonna be okay. He really cares about ya, I know he does.”
I pulled away. “No, you don’t get it. I don’t want that from him, or from anybody. It’s a relief to know I don’t have to deal with it. But he didn’t have to pull that shit on me. He could’ve just told me the truth. I would’ve done whatever they needed anyway. I can’t believe he didn’t trust me enough to know that.”
Hellhound sat back on his heels, frowning. “Yeah, I can see where that’d hurt. He tranked me, for fucksakes. What the fuck was that?”
“I don’t know. Do you think he’s got something else going on that we don’t know about?”
“Hell, yeah. That’s gotta be it.”
We eyed each other uneasily for a few moments. “Are we just bullshitting ourselves?” I asked finally.
He blew out a long breath. “I dunno, darlin’. D’ya think he really woulda shot ya?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know him at all anymore. Shit, who am I kidding? I never knew him.”
“I do. ‘Least I thought I did.”
“Do you think he would have shot me tonight?”
Arnie rocked to his feet without meeting my eyes and reseated himself on the bench in the sleeper. “Tell me what’s goin’ on with Jim an’ Nichele.”
I made fists in my hair and tugged. “I warned Nichele that James was bad news, but she wouldn’t listen. She took him home, and he hacked her laptop and stole her clients’ money.” I paused as a new thought occurred to me. “Shit, my money, too.”
I sighed. “Now he’s forcing her into a money-laundering scheme. He beat her and threatened to kill her if she told. He’s making it look like she’s the one doing it all, so it’s her ass on the line either way.”
“Fuck! That asshole! I knew things were gonna get ugly as soon as he showed up. Fucker’s just like the ol’ man. Waste a’ fuckin’ skin. I kept hopin’ somebody’d slit his fuckin’ throat while he was in jail.”
“Arnie… he’s your brother.”
His clenched fist jerked as though he would punch the cabinet next to him, but he controlled the motion. Even in the dim glow from the dashboard, I could see his shoulders bunched with suppressed anger.
“No, he ain’t,” he said quietly, and the edge in his gravelly voice made me shiver. “I only got one brother. An’ he just knocked me out an’ handcuffed me.”
&nbs
p; Chapter 18
I stared at Arnie helplessly, getting angrier at Kane by the minute. He’d had orders to screw me over, literally, and I could probably forgive him for that if he let me live. He’d only been doing his job. But betraying Arnie was above and beyond the call of duty.
“We need a plan,” Arnie said, his voice controlled.
Dave spoke for the first time since putting the truck in motion. “Got one.”
Hellhound and I both stared at him in the dim light. I’d been so absorbed in our conversation I’d forgotten Dave was listening, and I did a quick mental review to make sure I hadn’t said anything he shouldn’t have heard.
I shook my head and tried to focus. God, I was so tired, I couldn’t even remember what had been said. I’d have to ask Hellhound later. Not for the first time, I wished I had his photographic memory.
“What’s your plan?” Hellhound inquired sarcastically. “Ya wanna cram in a few more criminal offenses tonight while you’re on a roll?”
“Got your sorry a… butt out of there, didn’t I?” Dave retorted.
“Guys!” I shot a warning glare at Hellhound, and he slouched back on the bench, arms crossed. “What’s your plan, Dave?” I asked.
For the first time, I registered our surroundings. Total blackness around us, with the highway unrolling ahead and fading away at the limit of the headlights. “And where the hell are we?” I added.
“TransCanada Highway, westbound. Plan is, we get some rest. Can’t keep running on empty, something’s gotta give. I’ll pull in at the truck stop. Good place to blend in.”
“But, Dave, we have to figure out a plan.”
“Yeah, we will. First we sleep. I’ve been driving since seven this morning. Way past my legal limit.” He flicked a glance toward Hellhound. “Think we all need to cool down anyway.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but Hellhound spoke first. “He’s right, darlin’. Sorry, Dave, I was outta line.”
“No problem.”
The lights of the truck stop glowed ahead, and I suddenly realized what a bad idea this was.
“Shit!”
Dave jerked in his seat. “What?”
“Go north here!”
Tell Me No Spies Page 14