Regan leaned toward the center of the car, unsure where the cameras would be mounted. She hoped they’d been mounted above the top of the vehicle so they’d be harder to locate and sabotage, and not at window level, which would give viewers a clearer shot at her face. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to have the element of surprise about her presence. Nothing else was in her favor.
A couple of minutes after turning onto the road, the white-sided, black-roofed guard shack came into view. It looked the same as the guard house of any resort or time-share community, and too innocuous for its purpose. A red-striped gate blocked the road.
Tyler slowed the vehicle as they approached, his ID out and friendly greeting already in place. Then, suddenly, he slammed on the brakes and lost the smile.
The guard came out of the shack and stood in front of them, gun drawn and aimed directly at the car.
***
If Van had ever stopped fretting about her mother’s infuriating tendency toward the dramatic, and if Tom hadn’t been staring morosely at the keys on the table for three hours, Kelsey never would have given in.
She also blamed exhaustion, worry, boredom, and the infuriating status of not knowing anything happening anywhere.
Tom started with a reasonable suggestion in a reasonable tone. “I can drive to town and get a paper, so we can at least see if anything’s happening. I can probably do it without being seen. It’ll take me an hour and if our parents have been talking to the media, we’ll know.”
Reasonable was easy to shoot down, but Van didn’t give her a chance. She pounced on the idea.
“I can go with him and call my folks! Then they’ll know everything’s fine.”
“What would you tell them about missing class, if they know?”
“I’ve been sick all week!” She gave a fake cough. “You know I had that terrible cold.”
“Yeah, weeks ago. What if Mom and Tyler get back before you do? They’d be furious.”
“They won’t,” Tom assured her, his attitude perking up now that she hadn’t said a flat-out no. He laid his hand over hers. “There’s no way they could get there and back so soon, even if they didn’t see your grandparents. Tyler told me how far they are from the airport and stuff. They won’t be here until tomorrow.”
“Someone will recognize the car. There can’t be any others like it out there.”
“They might, but they won’t think anything of it. None of them know what Tyler does or who we are.”
“C’mon, Kelsey, it’ll be fun. We can get out of this house and cure ourselves of the godawful monotony of this place. And then we’ll be in better moods and won’t fight.” Van folded her hands under her chin. “Please, please, pleasepleasepleaseplease let’s do this.”
Kelsey looked out the window toward the barn. All of her other arguments stalled in her brain. She knew Tom could get the car out of the barn and drive it without damage. She knew they’d be better off if Van could call her parents, and if they had some outside information. And the chances of any of them getting caught by someone who knew what was going on were very slim. If their enemy knew about this place, something would have happened by now.
“All right,” she finally said. Van cheered and Tom beamed, and they rushed around getting their things. Kelsey stayed where she was until Van skidded to a stop at the front door.
“You’re not coming?”
Kelsey shook her head. “It’s a two-seater. I can’t go with Tom because I can’t call your folks. If anyone is watching the town because they know this house is somewhere around here but not exactly where, they’ll be looking for me. So I’m safer actually being here.” She stood and walked over to them, realizing she couldn’t just let them go. They didn’t have the training she did.
“Watch cars to be sure you’re not followed, especially coming back. They might trade off two or more vehicles so it looks like different people are behind you. Try not to be seen together outside of the car. Keep the top up in town, don’t go anywhere except to get the paper, and come right back.” For a second she wished she was the one going, but strengthened her resolve and hugged them both. “Be careful.”
Tom held her tight and kissed the top of her head. “You, too. Here.” He twisted the key to the barn off the ring and handed it to her. “Get to the trap room if you get scared about anything.”
“I’m fine. I’m better equipped for this than you are.” She followed them outside to open the barn and watched while Tom expertly maneuvered the little car onto the gravel drive, then locked the barn before watching them go slowly up the driveway. She knew the slow speed was for her benefit and he’d open her up on the main road. She’d have done the same.
She stood on the porch for a while, the car getting smaller and smaller until she could only see it from its movement rather than its shape. Birds twittered, and a confused cicada buzzed once. Those were reassuring sounds, because they meant no one was hanging around out here who shouldn’t be.
But even more reassuring was the weight of the gun in the small of her back, and that wasn’t something she’d ever thought she’d say.
***
“So much for plan A,” Regan said wryly, watching the guard step slowly toward them, his aggressive posture muted a bit by the black slicker he wore over his head and body. “Take the lead, boss.”
“Shush.” He shoved the car into park and slowly opened his door, keeping his hands up so the guard could see them. He held his ID up between two fingers. Water poured into the car and plastered Tyler’s longish hair and loose oxford shirt to his body. He kept one foot in the car and stayed in the crook of the door.
“That you, Dyson?”
Regan couldn’t hear what the guard shouted. He didn’t change his stance, though, and her heart rate slowly increased. She schooled her breathing, trying to stay focused and ready to act. Adrenaline seemed to seep through her body.
“It’s me, Tyler Sloane.”
More shouting. The guard stopped about ten feet away, gun aimed at Tyler but his eyes on the windshield like he was trying to see who else was inside the car. Regan held still, letting the rain on the window obscure her features.
“Dyson, I need to see the Harrisons. Let me through.”
Feeling helpless only hearing one side of the conversation, Regan rolled down her window. Of course, a gust of wind blew water through the three-inch gap. So she was wet—at least she could hear.
“I’ve got orders to detain you, Sloane!”
“For what?”
“Not my job to know.”
“Who gave the order?”
“McCormick.”
Regan knew McCormick was head of security here. Tyler’s boss, though he’d said he reported directly to Ben Harrison while in Ohio. So was McCormick the leak? Or was Ben Harrison the bad guy?
Tyler kept his body loose and unthreatening while he pressed Dyson for information. Regan knew it was a mask, knew how fast he could move if attacked, but that wasn’t faster than a bullet. She tried to think rationally, to hold down the growing need to slam her foot on the accelerator and get past Dyson.
Being detained didn’t bode well for anything. They could turn around and regroup, but it wouldn’t do them any good. Harrison’s team would just come after them. They’d be back on the defensive, exactly where she didn’t want to be.
She reached for her door handle. Her presence might alter things, push through this standoff.
“Stay in the car.”
Tyler’s voice was low but reached her anyway, his urgency clear. Dyson edged closer, coming around the front of the car toward Tyler, who still stood casual and unthreatening behind his door. Regan squinted through the rain, trying to see if anyone was approaching from a different direction, but if they were, they were well hidden by the sheets of gray. She carefully opened the glove compartment and lifted the top tray, beneath which Tyler had stashed two pistols. She didn’t know where he’d gotten them, but relaxed as soon as the cold grip was in her hand. She shif
ted her weight away from the driver’s side and pulled her legs up so she could jump into the other seat and take off with the car, if necessary.
It wasn’t.
Dyson reached for Tyler’s upraised left hand. Tyler jerked it down and around, latching on to Dyson’s forearm and pulling him off balance as he shoved the door forward. Dyson’s forehead hit the edge of the door and he fell back onto the ground. Tyler grabbed his gun as he did, then jumped into the car and slammed the door. The car was moving before Dyson had rolled to his knees, never mind gotten to his feet. A moment later, they smashed through the wooden gate.
“I think they’re gonna know we’re here now,” Regan quipped.
“I think they already did.”
Tyler raced the car about halfway up the quarter mile between the first gate and the second. Then he whipped it around to a skidding stop, blocking the road, and turned it off.
“Forget Plan A completely,” he said, pulling the other gun out of the glove compartment, hesitating a second when he realized Regan already had one. “We need to be armed, we need to be ready, and we’re probably going to have to fight.”
Regan checked her clip and chamber and nodded.
He did the check routine of both guns in his hands. “There’s a curve up ahead, then a straight shot to the gate. If we approach by road, car or not, they’ll plow us down.”
“So we’re going through the woods.”
“Yep.” He grabbed her chin and kissed her hard. “Ready?”
If I die, there’s no one to protect Kelsey.
So don’t die then, idiot.
“Ready.”
They shot out opposite sides of the car and split the road, Tyler to one side, Regan to the other, without having planned it. For a second she panicked, but kept going. Hesitation was fatal. Then she decided it was better this way. Splitting up gave them two targets, potential confusion, and double the opportunity to get through.
Regan ran easily through the mature forest bordering the drive. The ground, shadowed by the tall, old trees, was clear of small plants and debris, and the trunks were spaced far enough apart so she could move at near-top speed. It also meant tripwires and other alerting devices or traps were more difficult to hide. She spotted and avoided two motion sensors but didn’t know how many more she’d set off. Not that it mattered. They knew they were coming.
As she ran, a calm she’d never felt before filled her. Finally, she was doing something real. She wasn’t a victim, or trying to prevent becoming one. She was going to put a stop to whatever was happening. She was going to get answers. And—
The epiphany blasted through her, a jolt to her system. Euphoria. She was going to get a life. It faded quickly—after all, she didn’t have it yet—but it left behind a conviction and sense of purpose that made her positive everything was going to work out.
A few minutes later she slowed. Several dark shapes moved around another white-painted guard enclosure, this one much less friendly looking. Instead of a bar gate, ten-foot-tall chain link topped with barbed wire blocked the entrance. Regan crouched just inside the tree line and studied the group. Five figures. In the rain she couldn’t tell if they were men or women. She also couldn’t see how they were armed, though she knew they had to be.
She looked across the glistening blacktop and saw Tyler crouched opposite, watching her. As soon as she spotted him he nodded once, raised his weapon slightly in a two-fisted grip, and tilted his head at the gate.
Dear lord, he wants us to rush it. She didn’t see how that would work, but nodded anyway. He knew the property. If there was a better way in, they’d be taking it now.
She stood and started running again. She kept to the tree line, hoping her dark, wet sweatshirt and jeans would blend against the as-wet tree bark. Sure enough, Tyler’s light blue, flapping shirt drew their attention, and all five of the bodies aimed their weapons his way as they shouted. Three of them moved toward him while the other two stayed near the gate. But they were angled away from Regan, watching Tyler, and she darted behind them and headed for the gate.
As soon as she touched it, she realized she’d made a mistake. It was clearly a motorized unit, unmovable by hand, and latched to boot.
And alarmed.
A klaxon-like whoop started above her. The two guards in front of her—one woman, one man—whirled. She had her weapon up before they finished their movement, but they had theirs on her, too. They shouted something she couldn’t hear, probably “drop your weapon,” so she shouted it back. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Tyler advancing slowly across the macadam, his gun aiming alternately at the other three guards, all of whom kept theirs trained firmly on him, even as they slowly moved backward.
The woman guard shouted again. The alarm was driving Regan insane. The shut-off must be in the guard house to her right, so she feinted left, like she was going to run around them and join Tyler, and then dove right, twisting the door handle and knocking the door open all in one move. She landed on her right hip on the cement floor, kicked the door closed, and reached up to lock it before she lay panting on her back, her right hip screaming.
Shit. Her left one had just healed enough so she didn’t feel the sting or pull of the knife wound anymore, and here she went, messing up the other one.
The klaxon wasn’t as loud in here, but a flashing red light on a console, timed to a beeping sound, looked like it might be the right signal for the alarm. She dragged herself to her feet and hit a button below the light. The alarm stopped.
Outside, four guards now had Tyler surrounded while the fifth one aimed her pistol through the window, straight at Regan’s head.
***
Kelsey calculated that if Tom satisfied his need for speed over the first five miles or so, it would take him half an hour to get to town and at least that back. Depending how quickly they found a newspaper box, and how long Van had to talk to her mother, it might be another half hour in town. By the time they got back, it would be dark.
She tried reading a book but couldn’t process any of the words. She listened to music and managed to kill about half an hour, but got tired of that quickly, too. Finally, she decided to cook dinner to have waiting when they got back. She could stretch it to take all the time they’d be gone, and have something to show for her time alone.
Calmer and more focused than before, she decided to try making spaghetti. She pulled a package of ground meat from the freezer, unwrapped it, and stuck it in the microwave to thaw. Then she found two jars of sauce and a pound of pasta in the pantry. Would be kind of boring, though. Had they bought peppers and onions on their way here?
As she pulled open the crisper drawer, she found herself missing her mother. It was weird. She hadn’t missed her much when she’d gone to Whetstone. There had been too much going on, and she was making new friends and was pretty wrapped up in Tom. She turned on the stove and adjusted the flame a bit higher than the last time she tried, then filled a pot with water and set it to boil while she chopped the veggies.
So did she miss her only because she was bored here? Or because of all the crap going on? She didn’t have a clue if her mother was even alive at the moment, never mind getting the answers she was determined to get. And even though Tom made her feel better about the becoming-a-weapon thing, it was still there, in her head. Without her mother here, she felt more alone in this than she had even when they were separated.
The microwave beeped. She hit the start button again and watched the bright red meat revolve. No, she didn’t think the boredom or the danger was the reason she missed her. It was the domesticity. She could ignore it when she was with Van and Tom, but making a whole meal by herself was too much like being at home. So she was a little homesick.
She had to get over that. Not only had she grown up and left home, Tyler had entered their world. Even if things went back to “normal,” or better than normal, and even if her mother and Tyler didn’t work out, things would never be like they were before.
The microwave beeped again and she removed the meat and dumped it in a frying pan. While she browned it—adjusting and readjusting the flame until it seemed the right height—she wondered what it would be like to have a father type around the house. Would Tyler try to impose curfews and stuff when she was home on break? Probably not. But the idea made her smile.
Until she thought about her real father—and how he’d never had a chance to set a curfew, or say she couldn’t date until she was thirty. Who had robbed him of all that? Robbed her of even more? What about them was so important, or so frightening, it had been worth killing an eighteen-year-old boy, and kidnapping a baby?
That was another thing. Those people had found her and her mother after she was born. And in the last week, they’d found them over and over again. So how come they hadn’t found them in the years in between?
Or had they? Tyler’d been around for two years. Maybe they’d always known where she was but didn’t want her, as he’d said, until now.
Damn, it made her head hurt.
She poured the pasta into the boiling water and stirred it, then turned down the heat under the meat sauce and put the cover on, pleased with herself. It should be about done by the time—
A click at the front door made her freeze. But she hadn’t heard the car or seen lights, so it wasn’t Van and Tom. Carefully she turned off the burners and took stock. The lights were all on, so she could be seen from the front windows and the back yard through the kitchen window. She couldn’t act like she’d heard anything.
If she had.
As the pasta water slowed and silence filled the little house, she heard the click again. Then a creak. The floorboards on the porch. There was definitely someone out there.
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