by Jenna Ryan
“Well, duh. I wanted to get away. That was the point, right? You’d be a bad fugitive, Amber. God, I hate slugs.” The quiver returned. “Driver got all winky and crude after a while, so I told him I was fourteen and a preacher’s kid. Running away because my mean bastard uncle who’s a sheriff beat on me when I wouldn’t put out. That did the trick. It was all ‘here’s your hat, what’s your hurry’ once he heard the word ‘sheriff’. Who’re you with, Amber?”
“His name’s Gage. He can help, but you need to stay where you are, at Bitterroot Lake. Are there cabins or homes there?”
“Some cabins. They’re all dark, no cars outside them. What should I do? I’m cold, and it’s starting to rain.”
“Tell her to try and break into one of the cabins,” Gage said. “But only if she’s sure no one’s there.”
“She heard that,” Rachel snapped back. “Tell whoever he is, whatever he is, that she’s—I’m—not an idiot. I’ll make sure the cabin’s empty. Just hurry up and get here before someone figures out where I am and wraps me up in a stinky blanket again.”
The line went dead.
Gage slid Amber a level look. “You’re sure she’s not part of this?”
No. Or, well, yes. Maybe. In the end, Amber sighed. “I’m not sure of anything at this point, but my instincts say she’s as frightened as I am.”
“Guess we’ll have to go with that. Let’s move, Snowbird. We’ve got a long drive ahead of us.”
Amber adjusted her ponytail. “Long,” she agreed, “and probably loaded with pitfalls.”
Chapter Thirteen
The drive was difficult on twisty back roads. Gage let Elvis fill the air while his mind ran a dozen different scenarios.
Beside him, Amber slept and looked annoyingly gorgeous doing it. He was tempted to pull off the band that held her hair back, but that would be pure self-indulgence, and he didn’t have time for it. Or the inclination to venture any deeper into an emotional minefield he should never have set foot in from the start. Stupid, he told himself. He knew better than to let his feelings rule his brain. If nothing else, Lydia had taught him that gut-wrenching lesson.
He braked at a fork in the road. Old highway or interstate? Did it matter?
The throaty truck he’d been hearing behind them continued to maintain its distance. Similar to the way he and Amber had been holding each other at arm’s length. Kissing her hadn’t alleviated a single sexual urge. And if he didn’t find a way to manage those urges, they could both wind up dead. To say nothing of what might happen to Rachel.
He didn’t want to do it, but a fuel gauge with a needle resting on empty forced him to pull into an all-night service station. He filled up on McCabe’s dime, and bought two coffees, a couple of subs, and a large candy bar. He made a point of using a deep Southern accent and telling the cashier he sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to spending the winter aboard an oil rig in the north Atlantic.
The young man sympathized and wished him luck.
Amber woke up when he slammed the door. She blinked, attempted to focus. “Where are we?” She looked around. “Gas station? Is there a restroom?”
“Probably, but you can use the one behind us. There’s plenty of water in the reservoir.”
She made a frustrated sound. “I’d say I hate you if you weren’t helping me.” She regarded his iPod. “Do you have Dolly Parton on there?”
“No.”
She checked her own phone. “I do.”
“And hearing that’s supposed to make me want to keep helping you?”
“Her music’s happy, Gage. I need some happy right now.”
“Elvis did happy music.”
“Only in his movies. If you have ‘Blue Hawaii’, I’ll listen, otherwise, I want Dolly.” She tilted her head at him. “It was a woman, wasn’t it? A female who made you become all reticent and introverted.”
“I’m not an introvert, Amber, I just like my own space.”
“Do you have friends?”
A smile ghosted across his lips. “One or two.”
“Are they cops?”
“Most are. Not all.”
“I assume you met Scrap at the commune. What about Bear?”
“I met him in the Army. We served together for two years. You already know where I met Abel.”
“Your mentor.”
“Teacher. The word ‘mentor’ is too close to the idea of hero worship, and I don’t worship heroes.”
“So, you’re a God-fearing man.”
“God and some men. Drink your coffee, and eat your sub. I’m not about to discuss my fears and philosophies with you.”
“Fine. How far are we from Bitterroot Lake?”
“Twenty-one miles.”
“That’s not far. You just turned onto a highway, right?”
“An old one. Not much traffic. Unfortunately.”
“Why?” She immediately checked her side mirror. “Is someone behind us?”
“A shadow for the moment. Not a major concern. Did you hear something pop a minute ago?”
“No.” Learning forward, she squinted into the blackness behind them. “I don’t see lights, Gage. And I didn’t hear a gun.”
“I said a pop, not a bang. RV’s riding low on my side in the back. We blew a tire. And if you knew Scrap, you’d know he won’t have a usable spare.”
“Uh, I’m not sure that’s going to matter.”
Amber pointed at the road ahead, where no fewer than eight motorcycles were angled crosswise from shoulder to shoulder. The riders, Gage noted, hovered near the ditches. All of them appeared to be brandishing knives.
Reaching for his gun, he muttered, “Just fucking perfect. Somewhere along the line, we traded the Yellow Brick Road for the Highway to Hell. Hold on, Snowbird.”
She shot him a doubtful look, but braced herself. Gage hit the gas, felt the RV leap forward. As long as they were on the road, he might as well knock down the gates of Hell.
Still laying into the gas, he lowered the window, took aim, and fired. The bikers jumped back, the front of the RV struck metal, and the night exploded.
…
Amber had never met a true renegade before. It was weirdly sexy. Terrifying, but a definite turn-on. Which proved more than ever that she was losing her mind.
Pieces of motorcycle flew in every direction. The RV’s windshield cracked, but didn’t shatter. Gage seemed to know exactly where to hit the line, because when she looked in the mirror, the entire row of bikes appeared to be out of commission.
She stared for several moments before offering a relatively calm, “Were they after money?”
“And jewelry. Anything of value. They call themselves the Night Raiders. I live and work in Tennessee. The raiders have been problematic there and in Mississippi for a few years now.”
“Did you wound any of them?”
“Got a leg and a couple of arms. The bikes are more seriously injured than they are. Right rear’s still flat. We can’t drive thirty miles on it. Google an auto wrecking yard in the vicinity of Hamelin, Mississippi.”
“One that’s open after midnight and conveniently run by vampires.” Leaning back, she slid him a quick, sarcastic look. “I can’t imagine how many of those places might exist.”
He smiled. “Google it, Amber.”
Still a bit stoked, she did as he asked and pinpointed two local businesses. “Jack’s Truck Junk and Leon’s Auto Wreckers. Take your pick for what it’s worth. They both closed their doors at five p.m.”
“I like the idea of Truck Junk. How far?”
She regarded the screen, motioned left. “Off the Highway to Hell, maybe a mile east. The yard’s bound to be gated, Gage.”
“Yep.”
“Meaning you know how to pick locks?”
He smiled again. “Keep thinking about your sister.”
“Shouldn’t we check for a spare first? Scrap might surprise you.”
“I checked before we left. There’s a tire, but the tread’s bare,
and it has a two-inch hole in one side.”
“Your friends have the most interesting mindsets. Go left again.”
Another half mile brought them to a wooden gate held shut with a rusty but stout padlock.
Gage wasted no time. He clicked on a silencer and shot out the lock. Then indicated the flat. “We need a tire, the same size as this one, on a rim.”
Amber’s phone beeped while she was wandering through the crowded yard by flashlight.
“I broke a window and climbed into a cabin,” Rachel said without preamble. “It smells like cow dung inside.”
“Don’t turn on any lights,” Amber warned her.
“Don’t worry. Nowhere around here is on any kind of grid. This sucks, Amber. I am so dirty. Are you and whoever almost here?”
“We’re working on it. Has Owen contacted you since you were abducted?”
“No, and they wouldn’t let me call him, either. Maybe I should try from here.”
Amber spotted a tire, kicked it. Then she realized what her sister had just said and she stopped. “Rachel, you need to listen to me. Owen Fixx is an unfeeling bastard who kills without a second thought.”
“No, he isn’t. He doesn’t.” Rachel huffed out a weary breath. “Criminal or not, I was happy with my jackpot win, Amber. I really was. All you had to do was say no to the FBI. You could have looked the other way and married Gareth. Then win, win, we’d both have been living the high life. We still could, if… Oh, to hell with it.” She sighed. “Just hurry up and get here before one of those assholes finds me. Hurry, Amber, please.”
Gage walked toward her along a narrow path between stacks of trucks that creaked and groaned and occasionally threatened to topple. “I found a tire. There’s an air pump outside the office. Were you talking to Rachel?”
“She wants us to hurry.”
“Was she wobbling?”
“No.” Amber slipped the phone into her pocket. “I’m thinking she’s in shock. She’s angry with me for not marrying Gareth.” Her gaze rose as one of the overhead creaks grew louder. “We should go. Does Scrap have a jack, or do we have to steal that, too?”
“We’re not stealing anything. I’ll leave enough cash to cover the damaged lock and the tire. It’s getting windy.”
She shivered. “I noticed… No, I’m fine. You don’t have to do that.”
Ignoring her, he draped an arm over her shoulders. “This is for warmth, not a quick grope in the dark.”
Not that she’d have minded a quick grope, but…no.
“We’re doing this for Rachel,” she said out loud. “It has nothing to do with you or me or potential sex in a crappy RV.”
“Point taken. I’ll give you my jacket. After I change the tire, we’ll drive the thirty miles and see what’s waiting for us at Bitterroot Lake.”
She accepted the offering, zipped it up. “She’s not involved… Whoa, wait, what was that?”
Amber looked up quickly as one of the creaks above them became a loud shriek of cascading metal.
She glimpsed an avalanche of motion a split second before she hit the ground, with Gage on top of her and stars glittering like diamonds in her skull. When the shriek faded to eerie silence, nothing moved in the wrecking yard. Not the fallen metal, not her, and not Gage.
…
Twenty minutes later, Gage’s head was clear enough that he could swear at McCabe and the world in general while Amber cleaned a cut on his forehead. Junkyards were accidents waiting to happen. He should have paid more attention to the dangers around them.
“Sit for a minute.” She went into the RV’s kitchen to look for a bandage. “You don’t think we should do this, do you? Go to Bitterroot Lake.”
“I think we’ll be walking into something and it won’t be pretty. Look what we walked into right here, and this had nothing to do with Fixx’s people.”
She inspected the cut above his eye. “Give me an alternative, then. Tell me what we can do besides what Fixx expects.”
“Not a damn thing. We play the hand we’re dealt and hope to hell we’re quicker and smarter than he is.” Gage stood and waited for the pain in his side. When it didn’t materialize beyond a quick twinge, he reached for his jacket. “I need to use the air compressor. Tidy up what you need to in here. Then we’ll change the tire and leave. Maybe I’ll come up with a brilliant idea before we get to Bitterroot Lake.”
Or maybe he’d go with the one already swimming in his head.
While the air compressor hummed, he emailed McCabe. For some reason, his mind wanted to slide back to a more bizarre period in his life. He stopped the weird descent, but not without a fight. Amber wasn’t Lydia. And who knew, Rachel might turn out to be halfway pleasant, as well. Unlikely, but people had surprised him before.
He saw Amber moving around inside the Winnebago and made his decision. He used the keypad, waited for the ring.
“Come on, you know it’s me.” Partway through the third ring, he heard a rough laugh.
“It’s already done, old friend. Nothing left to say or do on my end. I know where you are, and you know where I am. I’d say mission accomplished, except we both know it isn’t.” Another harsh sound rumbled from the speaker. “Have a nice trip, Gage. I’m guessing I’ll see you and your lady in hell.”
…
They slept, because neither of them was functioning at full capacity. Four hours and a whole lot of doubts and questions later, Amber was back in her seat in the RV, searching for road signs that would point the way to their destination. Dolly’s “Coat of Many Colors” played on her iPhone. Oddly, the music didn’t make her happy right then.
“You’ve veered over the center line twice in the last fifteen minutes,” she said to Gage. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head harder than you told me back in the junkyard?”
“I’ve been shot in the head before and survived,” he replied. “The steering on this thing is loose as hell. You can try driving it yourself if you don’t believe me.”
“Crankiness after the fact can signify a concussion.” She smiled a little when he sent her a dark look. “Okay, fine. What do you mean you’ve been shot in the head?”
He shrugged. “Shot, grazed, whatever. There were bullets involved. A bit of falling debris is no big deal.”
“Hmm.” Amber spotted a sign. “Bitterroot Lake, five miles. The exit should be coming up soon. Have you had any brilliant ideas about how we can get Rachel out?”
“There are no brilliant ideas in situations like these. There’s calculation, which is usually wrong, theory, which is seldom the right one, and pure dumb luck. You have to figure we’ll all wind up dead. However, since I don’t have a viable alternative, we’re going in. Does Rachel understand what we want her to do?”
“Stay low, keep quiet, and do exactly as she’s been told. She wants out. I think she’ll cooperate.”
“All the way?”
“I hope so.”
“Call her then,” he said, “and let’s get this done.”
Amber used her speed dial.
“Amber?” Rachel shouted into her phone. “Why is this taking so long?”
“Don’t talk, just listen, okay?” Code, she reminded herself. She had to stick to it, for all their sakes. “Remember when we were kids, and you and Elijah and I wanted to get away from the screaming at home? I need you to do what we did back then, but add in our midnight escapes during the hottest part of summer. All that heat and humidity. It was like being underwater. And when we got there, we were mermaids, free and unburdened in a world where no one could yell at us.”
“Oh God, I hate all this coded gobbledygook the Witness Protection people taught us to use. I don’t know how, but I understand what you want me to do, and I’ll do it.”
“Good. We’re almost there. You’ll see our headlights in a few minutes. Be ready. Do exactly as I told you, and trust me.”
She ended the call before Rachel could blurt out anything that would give Gage’s plan—in as much as Amber actu
ally understood it—away.
When Gage parked the RV, she turned to confront him. “You haven’t told me everything, have you?”
“No.” He stuffed weapons in his waistband and pockets. “If I had, you’d be arguing with me, or trying to modify part of it, and we don’t have time. Rachel needs to do as she’s been instructed. Nothing more, nothing less. And you need to stay close behind me.”
Which made no sense to Amber and only served to widen the cracks in her belief that any of them would survive this night. Unfortunately, since she had nothing better to offer, she trailed him through the dense woods toward the cabin Rachel had described to them.
The shadows shifted as filmy layers of cloud passed over the moon. “Less light would be good,” Gage remarked. He had a gun in each hand and three more that Amber knew of in his belt. “Do you see anything? Anyone?”
She shook her head, realized he couldn’t see her, and whispered a soft, “No. Unless…” Had she spied a movement on the far side of the cabin? “Straight ahead, Gage. Was that someone?”
“Chances are.” He went down on one knee, waited. “Trust me,” he said when she opened her mouth to speak. “This is all about faith, timing, and your sister’s willingness to follow through. We know this is probably a trap with Rachel as the bait.”
It required a huge effort, but Amber knelt behind him. This wasn’t quite what she’d envisioned, rescue-wise. She assumed his intention was to pick off Fixx’s men back here, before moving in and helping Rachel.
Her sharp eyes spotted a definite movement. One, then two, and behind them, a third. “Near the twin pine trees,” she told him. “Can you see those three men?”
“Yeah.” He raised both hands. “A little more to the left, guys. And…”
He fired both guns simultaneously, with no gaps between shots. The rapid blasts reminded Amber of an Uzi. She saw the first man fall, and the third. The second almost made it to the shelter of a giant sycamore, but Gage’s bullet took him down.
He dropped his weapons. “Reload those.” He motioned downward. “And keep an eye on the woods behind us.”
She did both things. And caught the sound of someone creeping through the bushes. Snapping the clip in, she shot twice. The bushes stopped rustling as the creeping man staggered backward and fell into view.