The thought not only raised bile in the back of her throat, but hastened her footsteps until she finally reached the bottom landing.
The storm had passed and faint moonlight shone like a beacon to the kitchen’s service entry.
Adrenaline propelled her forward until she was pushing open the door, diving for freedom.
I did it! Elation and relief and a myriad of other emotions she didn’t fully comprehend swept through her as she jogged down the stone path leading around the back of the mansion to the convent.
She had almost reached the fork where the path veered toward the service buildings and garage when a dark figure stepped off the convent’s side porch.
The glowing red tip of his cigar and its sticky-sweet smell alerted Mary Margaret to the fact that this was the same guard who had initially blocked her from seeing the señora.
“Sister.” He bowed his head. “Where are you off to in such a hurry? Especially with the señora’s child, at this time of night?”
8
Moonlight showed the terror on his angel’s features.
Baby Joe’s cries were loud enough to wake the dead and any other guards in the vicinity. Not thinking, just doing, from beneath the bush where he’d taken cover, Everett took out the guard with one shot between his beady black eyes.
It was thoughtful of their hostess to have equipped her security team with an assortment of weapons—even a DTA SRS outfitted with a TBAC noise suppressor.
His angel shrieked, then took off running toward the van where Everett was supposed to have been waiting.
“Hold up!” he called, scrambling out from under the bush as fast as his injury allowed. “It’s me.”
“I-I told you to stay in the van.” Despite the sticky heat, her teeth chattered. Shock?
“Yeah, well, I suspect like you, following directions has never been my strong suit. Come on . . .” Gritting his teeth against what felt like shards of glass cutting at the tendons around his knee, Everett took the heavy baby bag from his angel, then led her to their ride.
At the van, he said, “Since we don’t have an infant seat, how about you sit in back.”
Her eyes loomed huge and glassy. Everett had seen this look before on innocent locals in the Middle East who’d had the misfortune of being caught between the good guys and the government du jour. The look typically signaled the man, woman, or child having checked out. But in this case, Everett needed his angel with him.
He popped open the passenger-side rear door, gesturing for her to climb in.
When she didn’t, he tossed the bag on the floorboard, then, bracing himself as best he could against the van’s side, hefted her and the baby onto the seat before buckling her in.
She was soaked. Shivering. Her teeth chattered.
Obviously, his first order of business was to get them far from the compound. But after that, he had to get her dry. Who knew how long of a journey they had ahead of them to smuggle the baby out of a country that Camilla Rodriguez practically owned. For however long it took, he needed his angel in good shape.
“Look,” he said, after fastening her seat belt, “I know this has to have been rough for a woman of your stature, but you did good. Real good. I’m going to get us out of here—hopefully, without drawing more attention, then—”
Too late.
A trio of guards rounded the convent’s south corner, spotted Everett, then charged—guns blazing.
“Get down!” The time for being gentle had passed. He shoved her as low as the seat belt allowed.
Baby Joe wailed.
It took superhuman strength for Everett to close the nun’s door, then somehow get himself behind the wheel.
He reached into his jeans front pocket for the keys, only they weren’t there.
Shit.
Had they fallen out when he’d been under the bush?
From outside came the muffled sounds of shouting in heated Spanish.
Everett ignored it all long enough to hotwire the thankfully ancient van. The engine chugged to life.
Why the goon squad hadn’t just shot out the tires Everett didn’t know, but he wasn’t complaining. Punching the clutch was a real treat to his screwy knee, but even with sweat popping out on his brow, he managed.
Bullets struck the windshield, shattering the tempered glass.
While Baby Joe wailed and the angel shrieked, Everett leaned forward, using the heel of his hand to knock out enough glass for him to at least see where the hell he was going.
He made it out the estate’s massive iron electronic gates just before they closed, then intuitively turned north, toward the Jeep he’d stashed during what now felt like another lifetime. How had it only been a couple days?
Knowing he had like three minutes tops before Camilla’s gang mobilized and gave chase, Everett needed a radical escape plan—fast.
The region was mountainous to the extreme with thick forest lining both sides of a narrow dirt—mostly mud—road. Under ordinary circumstances, he’d have had time to study every detail from which locals could be trusted down to which plants could be eaten in a pinch.
Now, he had nothing to rely on but luck and his own ingenuity.
His Jeep and supply stash were still a good four miles away. He floored the van’s accelerator, but slowed when the vehicle fishtailed on the road’s slimy surface.
Low-hanging clouds had rolled in, not only blocking moonlight, but the landmark he’d established for finding his ride. A huge rock outcropping that had reminded him of an old Chevy he’d once owned. Not far from there, the road launched into a series of hairpin curves with sheer drop-offs. If he could find the damned Jeep, he just might have a way to get Camilla’s goons off their trail long enough to get to a phone so he could arrange for an extraction. His sat phone had been taken along with all of his other primary supplies by Camilla’s welcoming committee.
“You know they will find us.” From the backseat, his angel’s voice barely carried above the van’s chugging engine and baby’s fitful cries.
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “I’m not gonna lie, the odds aren’t exactly in our favor, but what you did in getting the baby safely from the compound was huge. With that accomplished, all we have to do now is get him home to Florida.”
“Piece of cake, right?” Her laughter bordered on hysteria. “It just occurred to me that I don’t even have a passport. And how do we sneak an infant out of a country when he has no papers or parents?”
“Let me handle that. I have friends in seriously great places. All I need you to do is grab the baby and his gear, then jump when I say.”
“E-excuse me? Jump where?”
He glanced in the rearview, Instead of the rapidly approaching headlights he’d anticipated, he saw nothing but darkness. Sweet.
“Mr. Black? Where, exactly, am I supposed to jump?”
“Call me Everett. And trust me, as soon as I can see far enough through this pea soup to find where I hid my ride, you’ll be the first to know.” He squinted into the ghostly white.
“If you’d tell me what exactly you’re looking for, I could help.”
“A rock that looks like a Chevy.”
She sighed. “We’re all going to die.”
“Oh, ye of little faith. What kind of nun are you?”
“H-honestly? I’m not really a nun at all . . .” Her words trailed into an ugly, crying-sob combo that tore at his guts. “Mother Superior and the high council never voted me s-suitable for taking my final vows.”
Damn. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but anyone who didn’t think this sweetheart was good enough to make a great nun could suck it. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I mean, it’s not, but—” He glanced over his shoulder to find her covering her face with her hands. “After this whole mess, it’s not like I could go back to the church even if I wanted to.”
“Not to change the subject, because I really am sorry that by helping me you’ve screwed your entire future, but remember how I told you
to be ready to jump?”
“Now?”
“Yeah.” He stopped the van. The rock form he’d been looking for loomed from the mist. “Just climb the hill and the Jeep is parked in a mass of wax palms. If I don’t come back, keys are under the driver’s seat. There’s a tarp over it, but if you’re looking, you can’t miss it.”
“What’s a wax palm? And w-where are you going?” She clutched Baby Joe to her chest, then hoisted the diaper bag over her shoulder.
“Don’t worry about it. Just stay—” Shit. Headlights backlit the fog. Arguing voices carried. “Go! I’ll catch up.”
“But—”
“Go!” Before she was even all the way out, he tried gunning the engine, but excruciating knee pain made him pop the damn clutch.
Ruh, ruh, ruh.
Ruh, ruh, ruh.
When the van’s engine refused to start, Everett released a string of curses, but then stopped. He needed help from the big man Himself. No need in further pissing Him off.
Slamming the heel of his hand against the wheel, he tried one more time. When the engine chugged to life, he winced through the process of slipping it into gear, then lurching down the road, praying his angel and the baby were safe.
He released a long, slow exhale.
Back in business. But for how long?
The lights in the rearview were no longer diffused by the fog, but distinct. He’d have one chance to make this work. If it didn’t? Well, he’d just have to revert back to having to make it work. Failure wasn’t an option.
He gunned the van as fast as he dared on the unforgiving road surface. Then, at the next hairpin turn, he sucked in as much air as his lungs would hold before taking a literal leap of faith . . .
9
THE EXPLOSION SHOOK the earth hard enough to make Mary Margaret slip and lose her footing.
Mr. Black!
Panic surged through her in drowning waves. This couldn’t be happening. He had to be okay. But logic told her he wasn’t. No one could survive such a violent explosion.
An agonized sob escaped her. Why? Mr. Black was such a good soul. How could he have been taken from her before they’d ever even . . . What? Held hands? Kissed? Gotten to know each other the way a man and woman should?
She was acting crazy. She’d hardly known him. Yet with every breath in her body, she felt as if she’d always known him and he’d now been stolen.
The baby cried louder than ever, so she paused behind the rock’s shelter. Dropping the diaper bag, she swaddled him in the relatively dry towel, then gathered her composure long enough to rock him into a fitful sleep.
How could he be gone? How could he be gone? The phrase played on endless repeat through her head and heart.
Silent tears streamed down her cheeks as she pondered the unfathomable selfless action Everett Black had just performed.
He had died so that she might live, thereby returning this innocent babe to his mother and father. Her throat and heart ached for the man she’d hardly known, yet on some unfathomable, soul-deep level, mourned.
Never had she felt more alone.
Despair settled into her heart like a cold rain.
The van’s plummet over the edge of the sheer cliff had resulted in a fire ball hot enough to burn off a section of fog. At the cliff’s edge stood the señora’s entire security brigade, arms folded in front of four Hummers. They’d left the headlights on, and it looked as if several were hooking themselves in to rappelling gear.
“Son todos muertos!” One of the men called into the night.
Muertos. Dead. Just as Everett had planned, they believed all three of them had died—not just him. Mary Margaret prayed for his dear soul.
Prepared to complete his goal of returning the infant to his parents, Mary Margaret turned from the grisly scene to shift away a portion of the Jeep’s cover. She would not dare leave until all of Señora’s security team had gone. But until then, she climbed inside the vehicle for shelter from the rapidly cooling temps. To cry out her grief without fear of attracting unwanted attention.
She owed Everett Black a very steep debt. If it was the last thing she ever did, she planned to pay that debt in full.
Everett’s entire body trembled from the effort of hanging onto the sheer rock face with his fingertips. He loved climbing. His entire adult life, he’d climbed for work and pleasure. But swear to God, if he survived this night, if he never saw another rock, it would be too soon.
When he’d jumped from behind the van’s wheel, he’d underestimated its speed, meaning that instead of landing with a painful thump in the road’s mud, he’d arced over the cliff alongside his ride. If his shirt hadn’t caught on a scraggly tree growing out of the side of the mountain, he’d have been splattered.
He might still be if he lost his grip before outlasting his welcoming committee. They stood at the cliff’s edge about fifty feet above, engaged in a heated debate over what his pathetic Spanish told him involved how they would tell their boss that her son and the gringos who took him were apparently dead.
A low rumble of thunder signaled the approach of another storm.
Lightning showed Everett poised about fifteen horizontal feet from a narrow ledge.
Gritting his teeth, muscles screaming, he inched in that direction until his fingertips stung from dime-sized blisters that popped into a matching set of ten bleeding wounds. Good times. He told himself he’d been through worse, but at the moment, he was hard pressed to remember when.
As if God had turned on a faucet, rain fell in wind-driven sheets. Pelting his face, and making the already impossible task that much harder when the rocks grew even more slippery beneath his touch.
Lightning struck too close for comfort.
The resulting boom made him jerk, and come too damned close to losing his already failing grip.
He made the mistake of looking down. If he so much as sneezed, it’d be lights out. Shit, shit, shit.
Teeth chattering from cold, fingers and arms dangerously close to numb, he finally reached the ledge, then dragged himself on top of it, not even caring that as he lay prone, trying to catch his breath, the rocky cradle was filling with enough water that if he passed out, he’d be in the new but very real danger of drowning.
Hypothermia was another likely way he could go.
And that was assuming the guys above him didn’t wise up to the fact that they’d been duped by his classic diversionary plan.
Once Everett’s breathing evened, he pushed himself onto his knees, then scrambled beneath a slim overhang. It provided zero protection from the cold, but some from the driving rain.
He closed his eyes and saw her. His angel.
Was she okay? Had she found the Jeep?
How was Baby Joe?
Exhaustion settled in. His thoughts drifted to the kinds of things best left alone. Like the realization that if his angel was no longer a nun, he might—just might—stand a narrow chance of getting to know her in the way a man and woman should. In the process, he might be forced to break his no-commitment rule, but at least it’d be a helluva way to go.
. . . Assuming he survived the night.
Teeth chattering so hard that he feared biting his tongue, Everett hunkered down to wait. If he didn’t survive, at least it had been a good ride.
He regretted not calling his parents before heading out on this mission. He regretted not saving his best friend’s son. Most of all, he regretted never having seen what he’d imagined to be his angel’s long, blond hair . . .
Mary Margaret woke stiff and sore, but drenched in gentle morning sun.
The previous night rushed into her mind like a sudden wind gust, blustery and unwanted.
Everett Black was dead.
How could she miss a man she’d never even known? Yet she did. With a biting, keening intensity that made it hard to breathe past the knot in her throat.
She ducked her head, burying her face in the baby’s downy hair.
For him, she had to stay stro
ng. She had to uncover the Jeep, somehow drive it down from the rocky perch where Everett had left it, then make her way to America. The whole of which felt beyond impossible. She had to break it down. First creep from the vehicle to ensure none of Señora’s men remained.
With the sleeping infant cradled to her chest, she nudged open the Jeep’s passenger-side door. Upon hearing it groan in protest, she cringed. But when no one else seemed to have heard, she continued on.
Her most pressing issue was an urgent need of a restroom.
Nuns didn’t typically mosey about the forest, let alone raise their skirts to relieve themselves outdoors, but Mary Margaret settled the baby on the still-warm seat, took wipes from his bag, then accomplished the first of what she could only imagine would be countless more steps toward acclimating herself toward a secular life.
Finished, she changed the baby’s diaper, then crept to the edge of the rock that afforded her the best view of the road below. It was empty. No sign of any of the señora’s men.
Exhaling in relief, she scooped up the baby, then gingerly maneuvered the hillside. Her long, wool skirt caught on countless vines and brambles, but a minute later, she’d made it to the muddy road, only to run across, catching herself twice when the slick surface threatened her balance.
She should be leaving this very second.
She was wasting valuable time in even looking at the grisly accident scene.
Only Everett Black’s death had been no accident, but a sacrifice for her and his friends’ son. For as long as she lived, she’d never forget his selfless act.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she gathered her skirt to keep it from dragging in the mud, then slowed when she reached the cliff’s edge.
Holding tight to the baby, she peered over, soon finding the charred remains of the convent van. By now, the shame of what she’d done must be the talk of everyone she knew. If only she could have trusted them to share the real truth. Then maybe everything would be different.
Mr. Black might still be alive.
Shunned (SEAL Team: Disavowed Book 3) Page 5