An Ill Wind

by Monette Michaels

  “Damn right, because you’re mine, and I love you more than anything else in this world.”

  “God, I’m going to cry,” Keely said, her eyes glistening. “That’s so beautiful.” She turned to Ren. “Wasn’t that beautiful, big guy? I’m thinking you Maddox men are very romantic … well, in a macho, alpha-male badass sort of way.”

  Everyone laughed, even Fee.

  Trey shook his head at his sister-in-law who was now on Ren’s lap being cuddled. “So, little doc, what changed with the calls?”

  “The earliest calls were mostly hang-ups. So for a while I thought they were wrong numbers or maybe pranks. But then they changed to heavy breathing…” Trey stiffened. Price muttered and slipped Keely a quarter even before the blonde had glared his way. “…and on the call yesterday, he made growling noises. When I demanded to know who he was, why he was calling me … he threatened me. The gals all heard it.”

  “Yeah,” DJ said. “Made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.”

  “Threatened you?” Trey’s voice was calm on the surface, but underneath Fee sensed a volcanic anger ready to explode.

  “Frick-fracking asshole said he was coming for her,” Keely said. “That’s when Fee ‘fessed up to us. I asked her for her phone so Tweetie and I could investigate. Gave her my SSI-issued satphone so she wouldn’t be without.”

  “How’s he getting her new numbers?” Price asked.

  “From the Federal medical student loan program,” Tweeter answered. “Keely asked me to check to see if I could hack the site and get participants’ identity information. I did and I could. Stall probably hired a hacker, if he couldn’t do it himself. The site seems to update as soon as a participant updates their personal info, so it would explain the small lags of time between him getting the new phone numbers.”

  “Shit,” Trey muttered. “So, earlier, I interrupted Keely … she was saying something about…”

  “About cell towers,” Keely said. “Cell phone companies are required to keep call detail records for six months. Some companies keep them longer. We lucked out, and Fee’s carrier keeps them for one year. Tweetie and I split up the unknown calls Fee received, eliminated auto-dialers and solicitation calls, and tracked the ones left to a single prepaid phone carrier’s throw-away phones. Yeah, Stall used the same company each time he bought a new throw-away. The call detail records show the location of the cell towers used during the duration of the each call.”

  “Were the calls all from the Detroit area?” Fee’s stomach clenched until she thought she’d throw up.

  “In the beginning they were,” Tweeter said. “But the last few were from New Mexico, near the Mexican border.”

  “Fuck,” Price said and looked at Keely who told him, “You can have that f-word, gratis.”

  Price grinned and shook his head.

  “He’ll have discovered she’s moved by now. He’ll eventually find out where. He’ll also keep calling her at the current number.” Trey looked at Keely then at Tweeter. “Keep tracking him. I want to know when he heads north.”

  “That was the plan,” Tweeter said.

  Trey tipped up Fee’s chin. “While he’s at large, I don’t want you working at the…”

  “I’m not giving up my job.” Fee’s voice was firm. Her stomach, however, was twisting and turning like a Mobius strip. “He’s taken so much away from me already. I’m not going to run or hide from the bastard any longer.”

  Trey massaged her lips with his thumb. “You didn’t let me finish, sweetheart. I was going to say I don’t want you working at the clinic alone. Also, we’ll improve the security at the clinic to add stronger doors, locks, and surveillance cameras in the public areas and around the outside of the building.”

  “Okay.” Fee loved this man more than ever. How she’d lucked out, she didn’t know. But she thanked the fates that put her in Trey’s path and led him to loving her. “I know you’re worried. I’ll admit Stall scares me”—Trey growled and she stroked his jaw—“so I won’t do anything stupid. I’ll do my part. I promise to stay in touch. If anything bothers me at the clinic or on the road to or from the clinic or the ER, I’ll shout out immediately.”

  “Hell, yeah, you will,” Ren said. “We’ll always be able to find you since you have the Sanctuary identifying tracker.”

  “What tracker?” Fee asked.

  “Oh, shit,” muttered Keely as she punched her husband on the arm.

  “Trey?” Fee laid her hand along his clean-shaven jaw. “Talk to me.”

  He grimaced. “That flu shot you got from Lacey?”

  “It wasn’t a flu shot?” Fee frowned.

  “It was, but it also injected a small tracker. We all have them,” Trey said. “It’s part of the security system for Sanctuary, besides being a way to find our people if they get lost or are taken.”

  Fee looked around the table and found a lot of nodding heads, including Pia’s and Carmela’s. “So why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  “Well, you weren’t actually living on Sanctuary,” Trey said, “and you were sort of adamant about not living here, and we all were concerned about…”

  “Fee, they’re all concerned about Chavez and El Hacha,” Pia said. “The cartel put out a bounty out on you and me, and probably by now everyone who got us out of Mexico. So, I am sure Trey wanted you covered in case the assholes came after us.”

  Fee touched the spot on her arm where she recalled Lacey had used the pressure injector. “Okay, I’m sort of pissed you didn’t tell me. But then again, I’m not, because you did it for all the right reasons.” She stroked Trey’s jaw and then pinched his chin. “But don’t do anything like that again without telling me. Also, don’t hide any threats from me, either.”

  Trey grasped her hand and brought it to his lips and then kissed the back of it. “I won’t. I want you to wear an emergency alert necklace, so you can send out an alarm if some dangerous fuckwit invades your clinic again.”

  “Like senior citizens wear?” Fee wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you think that would be too noticeable”—she swallowed past the lump of fear in her throat—“if Stall got a hold of me? He’d probably recognize what it was.”

  “No, no, you can have a bracelet,” Keely interrupted. “See mine?” She held up her wrist and showed off a set of bangle bracelets with all sorts of charms on them. “Tweetie and I made them a fashion statement.”

  “Fashion statement for you, maybe.” DJ snorted and pulled a necklace from under her long-sleeved T-shirt. “Mine’s a necklace. It looks nothing like the senior citizen ones.”

  To Fee, it looked like a Greek medallion necklace.

  DJ continued, “It’s easier to wear, and I don’t fricking jingle all the darn time.”

  Keely shook her arm, and the tinkling and clinking of all the bracelets and charms had everyone laughing.

  “Okay—” Fee looked at Trey. “Get me a necklace like DJ’s. I can’t wear bracelets when I examine patients. It wouldn’t be sanitary.”

  Trey touched his forehead to hers. “Thank you, baby, for understanding.” The expression in his eyes, serious. “Stall won’t hurt you again. I promise.”

  “You can’t promise that,” she whispered against his lips.

  “Hell, yeah, I can.” He kissed her once more and cupped Riley’s head. The baby still slept, snuggled on her chest. “Now, give the baby to Keely and eat. Then we can go grocery shopping and pick up any other things you might need to get you fully settled into my place.”

  “Like a couple,” she murmured. “I like that.”

  “So do I.” Trey grinned at her. “So do I.”

  CHAPTER 21

  April 23rd, 7:30 a.m.

  “Shit.” Standing just inside the Grangeville Medical Center’s emergency room doors, Fee looked outside. “It’s snowing!” She turned to look at one of the ER nurses also coming off the Friday-night-to-Saturday-morning shift.

  The nurse laughed. “Welcome to Idaho. It’ll melt. We’ll be in shir
t-sleeves by Monday.” She waved and headed out the door into the blustery storm, which while not quite a whiteout was close.

  “Okay, dummy,” she mumbled. “You’ve driven in worse than this in Michigan.” Hell, she’d survived worse last June when she and Keely had outrun and out-smarted mercenaries. “Clean the car off and hit the road. There’s a warm bed with a hot man in it waiting on you to start his day with a bang.” She chuckled at her double entendre and followed the nurse into the storm.

  Being height-challenged, she had to stretch to scrape and brush snow and ice crystals off the Beast, the name she’d given the humongous SSI Hummer Trey had insisted she drive for work. Good thing she’d started the vehicle first and had the defrosters on high, because there was no way she could reach all of the windshield; her arms were just not long enough.

  As she moved around to clear off all the lights, she couldn’t help recall how she’d begun each morning over the last week … until today, that is. Wake-up sex was the best thing ever, mostly because Fee got to wake up next to the sexiest, most wonderful man in the world. She’d never been so happy in her life.

  Tonight would be their one-week anniversary of moving in together. She didn’t have to cover the ER, so she’d planned a fabulous meal and had the perfect set of lingerie to wear for the occasion. She’d let Trey handle the sex portion of their celebration; she still wasn’t all that comfortable initiating their lovemaking, and might never want to take on that role—especially since Trey was so good at it. He made sure she came first each and every time—and often more than once—before he sought his own release. Fee had no complaints. The man was a sex god besides being loving and caring and, well, just perfect … though slightly over-protective.

  After climbing into the Beast, she sighed as warmth enveloped her. It was damn cold outside, and the light-weight jacket which had been a perfect choice on Friday afternoon when she’d headed out to work, now provided zilcho protection against the wind chill factor and the heavy wet snow.

  Fee snuggled into the heated leather seats and groaned. Heated car seats? The best invention ever.

  She patted the Beast’s control console. “Such a good car.” Then she used the blue-tooth phone connection on her steering wheel to place the Trey-required call through the car’s audio system. If she didn’t call him, he’d call her, and she hated talking on the phone and driving at the same time.

  Out of the blue, a strong gust shook the heavy vehicle, underlining the point that phone conversations and driving didn’t mix, especially in these kinds of driving conditions.

  “Hey, little doc.” Trey’s voice was full of love, relief, and, uh oh, concern. She mentally geared up for an alpha-male display of fretting. Though if she ever used that word with him, he’d probably spank her. Real men didn’t fret. “You on the road yet?”

  “No, just cleaned the Beast off and got it warmed up.” She checked her mirrors and all the windows—they were clear. The Beast had an excellent defroster system and heated side mirrors. “I can see to drive. I’ll be home soon.”

  Home, and didn’t that word make her feel all warm inside.

  “Baby, the weather radar indicates the conditions are bad in Grangeville, but they’re worse at our elevation. You want me to come pick you up?”

  Trey’s tone urged her to agree.

  Fee thought about it for several seconds, looked at the weather radar on the on-board computer which was connected to the same satellite system SSI used. The weather was dicey, but not life-threatening. The Beast was built for this kind of weather. Besides she really was an excellent driver. She lived here now and it snowed in Idaho a lot. Trey couldn’t come pick her up from work each and every time the weather turned bad. So, she’d have to draw a line in the snow and begin the way she meant to go in their relationship.

  “Trey”—and she let her exasperation through—“I’m from Michigan. I know ice and snow—and even blizzards. Do the words ‘lake effect’ register?” She smiled at his snort. “I’m quite capable of driving home in this weather. Fix me something warm to eat, and afterward you can take me to bed and warm me up even more.” She paused. “I missed you last night.”

  His growl of frustration was loud, but his soft “I missed you, too” was full of love.

  She smiled. “Good. I promise to be very careful. See you in an hour or so.”

  The drive from Grangeville to Sanctuary usually took about an hour, but she figured with weather and road conditions, it would be more like an hour and a half. Good thing her ER coverage was only every other Friday; she couldn’t imagine doing this drive every day.

  “Take your time, Fee.” His tone had turned all alpha-male protector. “If you have issues, pull over and call me. I’ll come get you. I’m up and dressed.”

  “Dang it,” she said. “I was imagining you buck-naked in our bed, waiting for me.”

  Trey chuckled, a rumbling sexy sound that gave her goose bumps and had her pressing her thighs together. “That’ll happen … after you’re home and safe.”

  “Love you, Trey.”

  “Love you back. Take care of my little doc.”

  “Will do.” She ended the call and put the vehicle into gear.

  The Beast proved to have excellent traction on the snow-covered parking lot. It should— it weighed like a gazillion pounds and had all-wheel drive. The roads this close to town had already been plowed and were down to wet pavement, but were slick in spots. As she passed Ma’s Bar and Grill, located on the far outskirts of Grangeville, she honked at Nick who shoveled snow off the sidewalk in front of his place. He waved and went back to shoveling.

  From Ma’s, it was all uphill to Sanctuary. Trey’s summation of the conditions proved to be correct—the roads got measurably worse. Still, the Beast handled the worsening road conditions like the armor-laden behemoth it was. Only the best and safest vehicles would do for the Maddox brothers, especially where their women were concerned. Fee could still remember hanging onto another Hummer’s sissy bar as the pregnant-and-laboring Keely had taken these same mountain curves at speeds she wouldn’t have attempted even on dry pavement.

  Today’s drive was nothing like that dangerous situation. Thank God.

  “This is a piece-of-cake drive.” Fee patted the Beast’s dashboard. “Wish I had you during lake-effect blizzards back in Michigan.”

  Fee passed Carmela’s small diner which was still in the midst of renovations, but not today. Today, the parking lot was a blanket of undisturbed snow. She smiled, remembering Carmela’s excitement as she and Pia showed Fee and their new SSI family the designer’s drawings and the fabrics and colors to be used in the Tex-Mex-American fusion restaurant.

  The Beast slipped toward the railing as she entered a sharp curve.

  Head in the game, Fee.

  Fee shifted her focus back to the road. There were few vehicles out. The tracks that were on the road were filling in with the snow being blown around by the ferocious mountain winds. Just ahead, lay the first set of S-curves. She’d need all her concentration to get through them without slipping and sliding even with the Beast’s excellent traction.

  While there were railings, she didn’t want to test them. The drop to the valley below was over a thousand feet at points. She planned to hug the mountain-wall side of the curves as much as possible. With no traffic to speak of, she had room for error.

  Slowing as she entered the first curve, she caught a glimpse of lights in her driver’s side mirror. Someone was coming up behind her at a high rate of speed.

  “Asshole,” she muttered.

  As she exited the first curve, she slowed even more and steered toward what she knew was a generous shoulder on the right-hand side of the road. There was a short straight-away leading into the next curve.

  “Go on, pass me, jerkwad,” she muttered as the approaching car, also a Hummer with rental plates on the front, was almost upon her.

  But the idiot driver didn’t pass her, instead, he rode her rear bumper and flashed his lig
hts.

  “What the…?” Was he signaling her to pull over and stop? Like hell.

  Clenching the steering wheel, Fee sped up and took the next curve at about twenty miles per hour more than she should’ve under the current conditions, but she wanted to put some space between her and the crazy person behind her.

  The asshole remained on her tail. His vehicle’s flashers blinking irritatingly in her rearview and side mirrors. She gritted her teeth and drove, pushing her speed. She blessed Trey for giving her the Beast to drive.

  When Fee pulled out of the last curve in this particular grouping of S-curves, the bumper-riding jerk pulled up alongside her. She glanced at the driver.

  Ice chilled her veins and shock had her gasping. It was Stall.

  Fee choked up on the steering wheel, gave the Beast more gas, and pulled away. History seemed to be repeating itself. Here she was in another fox-and-hound chase, but this time she was the fox driving the car and there was only one hound in pursuit.

  And all she could think was—“What would Keely do?”

  The answer was “change the game, become the hound.”

  Fee knew the road, knew the terrain—and knew what she had to do. Quickly, she formulated her plans, because if she’d learned nothing else from her experiences with SSI, it was always best to have more than one plan.

  Then she hit re-dial on the blue tooth connection on her steering wheel.

  “What’s up, Fee? You need me to come get you?” The sound of Trey’s voice emboldened her … strengthened her. He had her back. She didn’t have to face problems alone any longer. They were a team.

  “Stall’s tailing me. I can’t shake him.” Her words were breathy. There was no way Trey hadn’t heard the tension in her voice.

  “Where are you?” His words were spaced out. He was furious, but in control.

  “Too far from Sanctuary.” She noted the mile-marker. It was one with which she was far too intimate. “I’m coming up on the set of S-curves right before the turn-off to the ranger access road.”

  And the cave where she’d delivered Riley.