“They’re dead because they were careless.”
A pair of blue, fabric-topped boots stepped into my line of vision, joined in short order by a large pair of lace-up leather boots. They were the same style Clive wore, and Teagun, and nearly everyone else I’d seen out here. Caleb had concocted a pair as well. Teagun had said they were standard protective gear against the prevalence of rattlesnakes.
“Where did she fall, this Boothenay Irons?” Adainette asked, sounding annoyed. “Hijo de puta, Duncan, did you have to bury her so soon? Look at this mess. Call Diego in, have him help you clear it away before you go after Deane.”
I was afraid to move. Afraid to retrieve the Guardian from my ankle holster, and in so doing, cause motion that would point out my location and let them know I was alive.
Duncan’s size elevens kicked at a cluster of small stones held together by a dab of mortar. The cluster rumbled across the floor toward the dead boyfriend’s body until it broke apart against a table leg. “Call the maids,” he said. I could tell he had no desire to strain himself with any of the dirty work. “Have them clean up.”
“No,” Adainette snarled. “Don’t be stupid. You and Diego. Keep the others out.”
“Deane will get away,” the big man protested, yet to my mind, he didn’t seem all that eager to chase after a man he may have realized was every bit as tough as himself.
“Wait,” Adainette said. “He won’t run.”
Unless I could blame the dust clogging my abused breathing passages, which I didn’t believe was the case, panic had set in. My poor heart was racketing around as if trying to break through my ribs, and I was starting to hyperventilate.
Where the hell was everybody? Had they all written me off? Caleb as well as Teagun? Did Duncan know something the rest of us didn’t?
But no. That couldn’t be. Caleb knew I was alive. Teagun must suspect I was only lying low. Did neither of them care enough to even try to furnish a distraction and let me save myself? I had no doubt I’d do it, too, if only I could get to the Guardian without burying myself.
A prickle in my nose warned I was about to sneeze—all I needed to give the game away. Dust really was rising up in worrisome proportions, I found. Pressing a free finger tight over my upper lip, I pinched down hard, trying to shut down the sneeze reflex.
The thing is, I knew it wasn’t going to work.
Duncan kicked aside another, larger stone. Mortar dust plumed up and spread, making it harder for me to capture enough air. Dear Lord. It was now or never.
As Duncan hauled his foot back for another punt at the loose stones, I, too, reared up, grabbing the Guardian out of my ankle holster on the way. The butt snapped tight against my palm. My thumb swept down, disengaging the safety.
I forgot all about the need to sneeze, because by then I was up and running. Blown-up bits of waterfall rained from my clothing and hair as I leapt left, wanting to go the way Caleb taken when he disappeared. The leap turned into a feint as I saw Adainette blocking my way. She fumbled for her laser, her reactions frighteningly faster than I’d ever have believed.
Duncan, who had his back to me, spun swiftly about at Adainette’s inarticulate cry. But he swung toward her instead of toward me, and I lunged past him, like a racehorse out of the starting gate. Pointed now in the same direction Kirsten had taken earlier, I stumbled awkwardly over the floor I, myself, had torn and splintered when I fired the LS.
Oh, Jeez, I was thinking. She’s right over there waiting for me. Please, please, don’t let her have a weapon. Please let her still think she can stop me with the control.
I had a confused impression of Diego carrying an object I couldn’t identify in his right hand. The thing was neither a laser nor a stunner. As I went past him, I snapped one shot in his general direction, never expecting to hit anything, only hearing Adainette scream at him, “Get out of my way. Move. Move.”
Exultation hit. Home free. I knew it. Just don’t let Kirsten block my path. But in the difficult manner life has of turning against you when you most need help, I saw the rear office door opening.
I had no other place to go, no place to hide. I heard myself screaming as I barreled on.
Kirsten’s arm was lifting. In her hand was the 9mm Beretta that only a few hours ago I had so carefully loaded and helped Petra Dill cache. Not the world’s best-kept secret apparently.
Still, there was no turning back for me. My feet felt glued to the floor and though I wished to rise up and fly, I couldn’t. With every step, the 9mm barrel loomed larger and larger in my eyes, swelling to cannon-like proportions. My body, in a strange, karmic kind of way, prepared to accept the slug.
My ears rang with the pistol’s report. I’m hit, I was thinking, although I felt no particular pain. And yet, my feet had totally gone out from under me, and incredibly, I was sliding on my belly as though carried on runners, past Kirsten, past the reception desk, and straight down the hall where the Dill family had their personal quarters.
And there, finally—finally—Teagun rose ghost-like out of the darkened corridor. My slide stopped at the door standing open behind him, a black hole to the unknown. Here we’d make our final stand.
Looking up, I saw the most visible thing about Teagun was his silver-white hair, an angel’s shining halo. His black clothing made the rest of him invisible against the backdrop of the lightless hall. Yet I wondered at the clarity of my vision. Clear as could be, I saw he had the Weatherby out, holding the heavy pistol butt in a policeman’s two- handed grip, wrists locked. He was sighting coolly through the Leupold scope I’d put on the gun. I could only pray I’d done my very best work when I repaired the gun on a far-away day that already seemed a lifetime ago.
Orange fire sparked through the corridor toward us. Duncan or Adainette putting in their two cents, I suppose. Teagun didn’t flinch. The Beretta in Kirsten’s hand bit sharply, adding a staccato punctuation, but it didn’t matter. Teagun was squeezing gently on the trigger and the Weatherby roared a storm of sound.
CHAPTER 22
At last I thunked up against the immovable buttress of a wall. Directly beside me was an open door I’d barely missed scooting on through. My ears rang with the cacophony of gunfire in an enclosed space, and yet, before that particular sound wave hit, I knew I’d heard the meaty smack of a .223 bullet penetrating living flesh. Laser light exploded in a burst right next to me. But not into Teagun, I prayed. Please not into Teagun.
The sulfurous odor of burned powder assailed my nostrils, until I believed when I lifted my head, I’d actually see smoke wreathing around him. I didn’t of course. All indications to the contrary, this was a newer time. Smokeless powder and laser weapons, along with the laser’s foreign stench, were the norm. Clean and tidy warfare; except that the smell of death is still the smell of death. I smelled blood, hot and strong, and much too close.
Back at the end of the hall, it was Kirsten who was crumbling, her legs splaying, arms flopping like a disjointed doll, with her head ricked backward, leading the collapse of her body.
Behind her, Adainette screamed. I heard anger there, but no pain, no fear. Where, I wondered, was the sorrow for a fallen comrade
Teagun remained on his feet, though crouched low as he fired the last of the three cartridges the Weatherby holds. And when he was finished, he moved quickly, grabbing me by the back of the jumpsuit and hauling me through the dark opening into the room behind us. The door slammed shut, closing out the spark of laser fire. There was barely enough light to see Teagun immediately shovel four fresh cartridges into the Weatherby, including one in the chamber.
“Teagun,” I said, sounding breathless and faint and scared to myself. The enclosed space made the pathos worse. “I’ve been hit. I can’t walk.”
He swore once. “Brighter,” he said, followed by a quick series of clicks with his tongue. The illumination notched up to daylight levels, showing rooms done up in 1920’s hunting lodge style. “Did you douse the surveillance, Ma?”
�
��Of course,” said Petra Dill.
Afraid of what I’d see, I watched his face as he squatted beside me. His lips twitched, once and again. A low chuckle came from the depths of a large, wingback chair placed beside a non-functioning gas fireplace. Petra was not, I observed sourly, so sorely wounded she couldn’t take pleasure in someone else’s misfortune.
A misplaced accusation, as I soon discovered.
“What’s so damn funny?” I asked, meaning the question to snarl. Instead, I sounded petulant and pathetic.
“Take a look, Boothenay,” Teagun said. His dimple deepened. “You’ll see what brought you down.”
The “what” was a mysterious combination of three sticks, each about a foot long with a diameter the size of a broom handle. Two-foot- long lengths of rope connected them. Mysteriously, they had become wrapped around my ankles like the horse hobbles I’d seen Caleb use, and when I’d tried to run, tripped me so I crashed to the floor of my own momentum. In themselves, they didn’t hurt. Only my pride was wounded, along with my sense of humor, and a much-abused hip upon which I’d fallen twice heavily within the last hour.
I made a noise, relieved, yet disgusted with myself, too. “Oh, for crying out loud! What are these things? Where did they come from? And how, pray tell, did I get wound up in them?”
Petra, cradling her handless arm across her body, the stump supported in her remaining hand, took it upon herself to answer. “They’re called a tanglefoot. One of the men, probably Diego—I’ve seen him practicing—must have thrown it. Didn’t you see?”
I’d never have known anything was wrong, from the amused tone of her voice, except I saw her rocking the chair as if it had runners instead of badly creaking legs. Faster and faster, she went, as though trying to outrace the horror and agony that had overtaken her.
“Thrown, huh? Now that must be a trick to behold. I wonder why I didn’t feel the ropes wrapping around my ankles? But no, I didn’t see anyone.” The one item I’d seen that really stuck in my mind, if you’re counting that sort of thing, was Petra’s own hand lying on the floor. I’d caught a glimpse as I skated past on my belly. The fingers had been curled upward, the whole looking like the head of a wilted, dead flower.
With a shudder, I tried to dismiss the memory from my mind. “Did you spot him, Teagun? I’d been wondering where Diego disappeared to when the brouhaha broke out in the dining room. I guess I was hoping he’d run away.”
“I never saw who threw the tanglefoot,” he said. “All I saw is you, Boothenay, crashing and belly-flopping down the hall.”
Teagun helped me into a sitting position, took one of the sticks and began disentangling it from around my right calf and ankle. I went to work on another. Although the shock had fairly well worn off, I found all the falls, the tight ropes, and the many blows hadn’t done my sprain a bit of good. Given Petra’s example, I tried to ignore my growing list of aches and pains.
Another thing I tried to ignore was the raw stub of Petra’s arm. Don’t look, I told myself. But of course, saying that was of no use. I couldn’t help but look.
“Your hand can be reattached, can’t it?” I asked her. “If you get help in time?”
The rocking slowed and ceased. “Perhaps,” she said, biting the word short. Nothing more, although from all the way across the room I heard her panting, every intake of breath a shuddering, agonized effort.
Teagun’s expression warned me to say no more. He remained intent on detaching the final stick and rope.
“How did he get here?” he asked quietly, both our heads bent over the twisted cord. He found the end and started unwrapping it from around the calf of my leg.
“Who?” I glanced up at him. “Caleb?”
“Yes, Caleb. Who else? You got more friends here I should know about?”
My mouth quirked. “He’s enough. You’ll find out.”
“Enough? But where is he now? I don’t see him. Has he run away? Gone back where he came from?”
I ignored the jibe about Caleb running away. I knew differently. “What good would it do for him to be penned up in here with us? This way, he’s free to move around, do whatever is necessary. I wish he had a better weapon than that sawed-off Defender though. He has to be practically on top of them before it’s effective, and frankly, I’d just as soon he didn’t have to get that close. I didn’t have a lull long enough to tell him about their bag of tricks; the light whip and stuff.”
Teagun agreed almost anything was better than being penned up in this room, although he didn’t break any records in saying so. “You still didn’t say how he got here.”
I eyed him levelly. “The same way you came and got me, I suppose. Is there any other way?”
“And he will take you with him when he goes?”
“Yes,” I said.
I wasn’t altogether sure what he meant by that. He must know the only reason Caleb had come was to find me. For all I knew, Teagun would have to physically return me to my time, since he’s the one who brought me here. Or perhaps, only the Weatherby could enable my power and draw me home. But I’d be willing to bet if anyone could drop in cold and manipulate things, Caleb was that person. And, as anyone with an ounce of brains would realize, I’d be leaving with him if I were able.
As soon as Teagun finished freeing me from the tanglefoot, I leapt, relatively speaking, to my feet. “Let’s get out of here. This place is a trap. We should link up with Caleb as quickly as possible.”
Plain truth? I was very nervous, stuck in here with no way out except through a single door where every bit of the outlaw’s firepower must be aimed.
“Petra can’t run,” Teagun said soberly.
I spared her a glance. “I know that. But so do they. It won’t occur to them she could be a threat to them now. They’ll ignore her and come after us.”
He rolled his shoulders. “I can’t leave her alone.”
“Teagun, you’re going to have to. Caleb and I can’t do this by ourselves. You can’t expect us to even try. You’re asking too much.”
Though we both had been speaking quietly, there was no way Petra could avoid overhearing us. “Boothenay is right, my son,” she said. “We are in a trap. If you can think of a way to get out, go. Don’t wait for me.”
He went over to her chair and knelt in front of her drawn-up knees. “The windows are barred from the outside, Ma. No exit there. And there’s only one door. You know we’ll be cut down the minute that door opens.”
She answered before I had an opening. “Do you want to wait until we’re old and withered—or until Boothenay has hair as white as ours?”
Goodness. She was making a joke. “Or until we starve out,” I added.
“One of you stand up and blind-fire a sparkler,” she suggested. “Cover for the one crawling out on his belly.”
“Sparkler?” I asked.
“Stunner,” Teagun told me impatiently. “Won’t work, Ma. That’s what they want us to do.”
Glum silence held us at this dead end. Petra resumed rocking. Teagun paced, doing his level best to wear holes in a threadbare carpet that must once have been fine. I seated myself in the desk chair and took off my boot. Propping my abused ankle up on the desk, I rewrapped the elastic bandage loosened by all the recent activity and drew it down snug.
Then, as I set my foot down in order to pull the boot strings tight, the paneling in the desk kneehole caught my attention. It was a dead on match for the paneling that hid the safe in my own room.
My sudden gasp brought both Petra and Teagun’s heads up.
The Weatherby slid out of Teagun’s back holster and into his hand in one smooth grab.
“What is it?” asked Petra in alarm.
An idea had raised its tiny head inside my brain. “Petra! The safe. The other side of which opens into my room⏤”
They looked at me like I must be deranged.
“Yeah? So?” Teagun, seeing no cause for alarm, holstered the pistol. He came over to where I sat and bent to look in at the
paneling as though he’d never seen it before.
“So what’s wrong with opening both sides, crawling through the safe, and going out the other room’s door instead of this one. Take them by surprise for a change.”
Teagun’s black eyes lit. “I won’t fit, but you will. Go ahead, Boothenay. I’ll fire Ma’s sparkler.”
“Yahoo!” Before I could think twice, I reached up and planted a kiss—no more than a peck, really—on his lips.
I caught sight of a frown flitting across Petra’s face, but forgot it in the exhilaration of our discovery. Her cool words brought me back to earth.
“I don’t know if you can open the other door from this side. You best not get too excited before you find out.”
“You try, Teagun,” I said.
The desk tilted and the door popped open as programmed, just like the expensive, precision-built equipment it was. Eagerly, Teagun reached through the empty space and drummed on the backside of the heavy door. Nothing happened.
He backed out from under the desk. “Didn’t work.” Disappointment made him sound flat.
“Oh, phooey,” I said. “It has to work. This thing is keyed by sound, right? Or by vibration? Either way, the sensor should pick up the signal from the inside as well as the outside.”
Petra reefed herself out of the wingback chair and came over to where Teagun and I, both red-faced in our bent-over positions, crouched around the safe. “I don’t remember the mechanics. Try again, son.”
He reached in and tapped through the cycle again. The door, as though jinxed, remained stubbornly locked. Teagun’s head reappeared, shaking once with disgust. “Good idea, if it’d worked,” he said.
“Doggone thing!” I pushed by him. “Let me try. What if you’ve forgotten the correct cadence?”
“In two seconds?” Highly insulted from the miffed look he gave me, he stepped aside, crossing his arms in a wait-and-see attitude.
On impulse, I went to the other end of the safe’s unmarked door, opposite of where he had tried. Trying to judge the distance from the bottom, I tapped firmly.
Crossroad (The Gunsmith Book 3) Page 25