Nanny

by Christina Skye

  Was she trying to block the outside thoughts, working desperately to be a normal, nothing-special nine-year-old in pink shoes and pigtails? Cara felt a stab of pain as she watched her daughter struggle to cope, facing a reality that seemed far beyond comprehension. There in the darkness Sophy was growing up fast, learning to listen to her heart.

  Cara could only watch in awe.

  chapter 27

  We’ve got company,” Summer murmured. “Stay down.” She pulled a big poncho over Izzy, who was pressed against the floor of the car’s front seat. When she checked Gabe, she was relieved to see him sliding beneath a blanket. As long as they didn’t move, the darkness should conceal them.

  Her headlights picked up the dull glint of the weapon slung over the approaching officer’s shoulder. He waved his hands, speaking a torrent of Spanish.

  Summer didn’t understand a word.

  “Roll down your window,” Gabe whispered behind her. “I’ll tell you what to do.”

  Summer took a deep breath. “He’s got a Heckler Koch MP5.” She rolled down her window and summoned a smile as the officer drew up beside her.

  “He says your front light is broken,” Gabe whispered. “Just nod and smile.”

  Cursing her high school decision to pursue French instead of Spanish, Summer followed Gabe’s directions, nodding vigorously.

  The officer bent and pointed to her front fender, speaking again.

  “He says he won’t make trouble for you this time. Not if you understand the seriousness of the problem.” Gabe spoke quietly. “Which means he wants a bribe. What color is his uniform?”

  “Gray pants, light shirt.”

  “Caminos. Federal Highway Patrol. Okay, that’s good.” Gabe’s voice was low, soothing. “Take three bills out of the envelope beneath the front seat and hold them under your hand just outside your window. No need to say anything.”

  Still smiling, Summer palmed the bills, exposing them as the officer walked toward her.

  A new torrent of Spanish followed. Summer felt a cold stab of fear to see the man frown, then trigger his walkie-talkie and step back from the car. What had she done wrong?

  A second man sprinted across the road. Short and stocky, he fingered the rifle slanted over his shoulder as his partner’s walkie-talkie buzzed harshly. He looked at the car, then walked a few steps away, complaining angrily.

  “This one is the boss,” Gabe whispered. “He gets the first cut of any bribe. Just keep smiling, honey.”

  Summer kept her mouth stretched in a tight smile as the new arrival pulled the three bills from her hand, then studied her in the dim light.

  Summer lowered her head as if shyly avoiding his eyes, befitting a modest young woman in difficulty.

  “Americano.” The man said something meant for his companion, who nodded and laughed vigorously.

  Summer was sure her smile was starting to crack. Why didn’t they just leave now that they had their money?

  She moved her foot, feeling her purse on the floor. There was a Colt in the outside pocket, but the way things were going, she wouldn’t have time to reach it. Shooting a Mexican Federal Highway officer wouldn’t help her FBI performance rating, either.

  The two men stared at her, laughing and making no move to leave. Summer felt her palms start to sweat.

  Without warning, their walkie-talkies exploded in noise, and the older man spun around, headed back toward his van, with the second officer close behind.

  “What’s going on?” Gabe whispered.

  “The older one took the money. Then his walkie-talkie started to chatter.” Summer swallowed hard, rubbing her sweaty palms. “All clear, thank God.”

  As the van roared away, Gabe pulled back the blanket and raised his head. “Nice job.”

  “Ditto.” Izzy appeared from beneath the poncho.

  Summer managed a laugh. “Yeah, except I’m drenched in sweat.” She looked back at Gabe. “What did the boss say when he was laughing with his friend?”

  Gabe’s eyes darkened. “He was speculating on your, er, figure. Trust me, you don’t want to know the details.”

  Summer drove past a row of buildings that looked like offices, with small balconies beneath elaborate Mediterranean tiled roofs. Next to them was a parking area dotted with cars and a few small trucks.

  Abruptly, a flashlight beamed down from the top of the wall.

  Gabe glanced at his watch. “Guard rotation, right on time. Underhill’s lab is inside a fireproof facility straight down that path, about thirty yards to the north. What do you think, Izzy?”

  “No sign of guard activity.”

  “Slow down, Summer.” Gabe rose slightly, scanning the darkness.

  “Nothing in sight,” Izzy muttered. “So what’s your call?”

  Gabe put down his night-vision glasses and stared into the darkness. “Let’s do this thing and get the hell out of Dodge.”

  Izzy arranged his earphone and rechecked his heavy backpack. “The tree is about twenty feet from the car, right through that row of bougainvillaea bushes. I can set up a temporary power outage for the electric fence, but it can’t be longer than ten seconds or they’ll go on alert. Short problems with power are the norm here, so we should be okay.”

  “Ten seconds is all we need.” Gabe adjusted his black tactical vest over his black shirt, checking his attachments and D rings for secure fit. He slid a long knife into its holster, then clipped the holster to his belt and looked at Izzy. Both men wore dark balaclavas, hiding their features. “Ready to party?”

  “Bring it on.”

  Gabe checked the street, then opened his door. “See you in ten minutes,” he said to Summer.

  “Break a leg. And, Gabe, don’t go for any fertility tests without me,” she said sweetly.

  His chuckle drifted back to her through the darkness, and then he was gone. A few seconds later, the lights in the clinic compound flickered, and Summer saw the tree leaves sway above the wall.

  They were over.

  It had been six long minutes since the men had left the car. One small truck blasting disco music had passed Summer, but the driver paid no attention to anything but the woman with her arms locked around his neck.

  Suddenly Summer saw the tree branches shake. Gabe loomed up out of the darkness.

  “Change of plan. Our blueprints were wrong. The lab access has been upgraded with new insulation, and I can’t fit through the damned ventilation hole.”

  “What about Izzy?”

  “No go, either. It’s the shoulders.”

  Summer realized what he wasn’t saying. “But I could fit.”

  He nodded, his face hard.

  She didn’t waste time with questions, stripping off her cardigan and pulling on a black nylon jacket. “Where’s Izzy?”

  “He’ll stay in place near the wall until we’re through. After you let me in, Izzy will bring you back here, while I hit the ventilation shafts down to the lab.”

  “Too much time wasted. You need Izzy monitoring the guard post and radio communications, not running cover for me. I’ll come back alone.”

  “Forget it.”

  “This is no time for chivalry, Gabe. I know the route and I’m armed. I’ll be fine.”

  “Our intel isn’t ironclad. Izzy goes with you or you don’t go.”

  Summer slid her lip mike into place and pulled a balaclava around her face. “You need Izzy right where he is. Trust me, I’ll call if I need him. Let’s go.”

  Gabe muttered something that sounded like “hard-ass female,” then motioned Summer to follow him into the darkness.

  The main security center for the clinic had unpainted stucco walls and probably a dozen power lines running into the roof. One guard stood outside smoking a cigarette and talking to his partner, who was busy relieving himself in the bushes.

  A few feet away, just across the wall, Summer crouched motionless on the ground, trying to ignore an itch at her nose.

  Finally the men walked away. Gabe tapped he
r shoulder once.

  Time to move.

  Without a sound, Gabe swung up into the overhanging tree, following a branch over the fence. Summer followed in silence, grimacing when a twig snapped back into her face. The wall and the electric wires were directly beneath them as they crouched tensely, waiting for Izzy to work his magic a second time.

  “Hold tight.” Izzy’s voice rippled through Summer’s headset. “One more wire to go. Bam, let’s kick it up a notch.”

  Once again the lights flickered. The air-conditioning coughed and the big waterfall in the pool stopped flowing over a cliff of man-made boulders. Gabe tapped Summer’s arm, moving out along the branch, and a moment later she heard him drop lightly onto the clinic grounds.

  As Summer was crossing above the fence, a phone rang inside the security center. She heard a man’s angry tirade as she swung down and dropped.

  She hit harder than expected. Standing up, she felt a sharp twinge at her ankle. Gabe pulled her back into the foliage just before the lights came back on. Once again the air-conditioning kicked in and the water feature began to spill over the boulders.

  Izzy’s voice crackled through her headset. “You have thirteen minutes and ten seconds until the next security check. Get moving.”

  Gabe hit his power button once in reply, then nodded at Summer. He had his game face on now. Summer realized that she probably did, too.

  Amid more cursing from the security office, the two headed toward the small shed beyond the pool enclosure and stopped beside the ventilation hole leading to the roof. Braced against the wall, Gabe held out his hands to Summer, lifting her up so that she could remove the grate, which Gabe had already unscrewed. Once in place, she swung her legs down through the open hole, but got only as far as her thighs.

  Izzy’s tense words broke the silence. “You’ve got company at six o’clock. I make out two men and both are armed as hell.”

  Major problem.

  The grate was off, and Summer was now stuck tight, completely visible.

  “Yes, Amanda, we’re fine. The girls are telling tall tales with Bud and the boys. Tate and I were just about to join them.” Cara glanced at Tate. Her eyes filled with mischief as she snapped his naked backside with a towel, earning a soft bite at the curve of her breast.

  Her voice caught in a soft gasp as Tate moved lower, finding soft, yielding folds of skin.

  “No,” she said hoarsely.

  Tate smiled darkly and ignored her.

  “No, not you, Amanda. I was talking to Tate. He—he wanted me to have some more wine and I—”

  She gripped Tate’s head, her eyes closing as a wave of pleasure tore through her.

  “What? Oh, you know Tate.” Cara took a sharp breath. “You can’t tell him no. He always gets his way.”

  “Damned straight.” Tate grabbed the phone. “She’ll call you back, Mother,” he said tightly. “Yeah, later. No, I don’t want to hear about the dead rat again.”

  Tate’s hand moved, his thumb climbing between Cara’s legs until she went rigid, digging her nails into his back. “Have to go, Mother,” he said. “I’ve got another call. That’s right, it’s an emergency. Could be a nuclear issue. Definite meltdown possibility,” he said hoarsely as Cara pushed him against the wall.

  Her mouth closed over him and he bit back a dark curse. “Where? Closer than you’d ever imagine.”

  He flipped off the phone and twisted, gripping Cara against the rough log wall of the bedroom overlooking forty miles of pristine forest.

  “Meltdown, Senator?” Cara’s eyes glinted.

  “Any damned second.”

  The phone dropped. He was inside her, her legs wrapped around his waist, before the phone hit the floor.

  chapter 28

  Summer kicked her legs, feverishly shoving against the roof, but each time something held her back. She heard the click of metal against tile and looked down. Her belt buckle was stuck.

  Somewhere a bird cried in the night, and flashlights moved over the lawn. Any moment she would be caught in their beams. Sweat dripped down her face as she unhooked the belt and yanked the leather free. With one kick she was down, plunging through the ventilation hole.

  She couldn’t let go, not with the guards close enough to hear her fall. Ignoring the burn in her fingers, she clung to the ventilation frame, suspended in the hot darkness while a steady stream of Spanish continued a few feet away, and sweat dripped in her eyes.

  Keep on walking, she prayed.

  When she heard the sound of a bullet being chambered, her heart thrashed up into her throat. Somewhere the bird cried again—then its cry was swallowed by the harsh report of gunfire.

  The guards laughed as the bird fell to the ground in front of them, and then their footsteps passed.

  Summer held out as long as she could, then fell, landing on the shed’s bare concrete floor. Biting back an oath, she flipped on her penlight with a red beam.

  The walls around her were covered with torn Baywatch posters and a Gilligan’s Island poster. On the other wall of the shed the key was hanging exactly where Gabe had said it would be, behind a small wooden picture of the president of Mexico. She hit the transmit button once, signaling all clear to Gabe, then grabbed the key, flipped off her light, and opened the door.

  Gabe shouldered inside a moment later. “Got it?”

  Summer pressed the key into his hand.

  “Izzy, what’s the status outside?”

  “Two guards at the main entrance. One more near the lab entrance. Except for that, it’s quiet as a convent at midnight.”

  “Moving.” Gabe tapped Summer’s shoulder and pointed to the roof. They made their way outside, around to the back of the shed. Gabe turned his back to the exterior wall, ready to help Summer up when a burst of Spanish stopped them cold.

  Gabe pushed Summer down behind an oleander shrub seconds before a uniformed guard appeared. As the man’s voice grew angry, his rifle climbing to level position, Gabe continued to speak calmly.

  Summer inched away in the shadows and crawled around to the far side of the shed, then circled back through the darkness.

  She needed a distraction to get in closer, so she tossed her penlight through the darkness. As it bounced off the far wall, the guard spun, and when he did, she circled in from behind and toppled him with 600,000 volts from her stun gun before he could make another sound.

  Gabe confiscated the guard’s gun and wrapped his arms and mouth with duct tape. “Thanks,” he muttered.

  “No problem.”

  Gabe dragged the guard into the shed and finished securing his legs. Summer was right behind him. “Let’s get you back,” he whispered.

  “No way. I’m going with you.”

  “She’s right, Gabe.” Over the headset, Izzy’s voice sounded tense. “You need backup, and I have got to stay here for the electric interrupts.”

  Gabe didn’t argue further, though his eyes were hard with anger as he tapped his transmit button once for affirmative. The night was suddenly very quiet, disturbed only by the restless hiss of running water. There was no going back, Summer thought.

  “They’re bound to notice a guard missing,” Izzy said quietly.

  “Who cares, just as long as we’re way the hell gone by then.” Crouching near the wall with a penlight between his teeth, Gabe explored the unpainted floorboards and picked out a thick set of electric wires with his light, following them until they vanished behind a piece of plaster. “Here’s our lab access.” He nodded at Summer. “Noise discipline from here on. According to Underhill, it’s about six feet down to the air vents for the lab. How long until the next guard rotation?”

  Silence.

  “Izzy?”

  “Sorry.” Izzy sounded breathless. “Had to duck some police. Our pals in the van are monitoring the area.”

  No one said the obvious. A police presence was one more strike against the success of the mission. “You’ve got less than eight minutes.”

  “Copy.” Gab
e worked several planks free, revealing a dark hole beneath the shed’s floor.

  He tapped Summer’s arm and then started down. He appeared to be in a power and ventilation conduit, the flat metal walls dense with wires.

  At Gabe’s signal, Summer swung down after him. The conduit appeared to stretch twenty yards in both directions, which matched the information in the blueprints Gabe had been studying at the hotel. When he pointed forward, Summer nodded, following him on all fours along the heavy frame at the inside edge of the conduit.

  Sweat dripped down her face, and her knees ached. She was starting to slip into the jittery place where you made mistakes that could blow an assignment and get you killed.

  Silence spread out around them. Summer forced her muscles to loosen and her breathing to slow. Staying relaxed was crucial, in order to prepare for any kind of response.

  Gabe pointed down, then tapped his watch and held up two fingers.

  Summer knew the drill. He had two minutes to get into the lab and open Underhill’s safe, which was hidden behind a row of glass beakers near his mainframe computer.

  If they were being set up, now was when they’d find out.

  Summer nodded at Gabe, who smiled faintly, blowing her a kiss. She had to admit, the man had guts and attitude to burn. In any other time and place, she might have developed a serious case of lust for both his body and his bravado.

  But not when they could get shot or arrested at any moment.

  “Izzy?” Gabe waited tensely.

  “Our distraction’s almost in place. Give it a few more seconds.”

  Summer didn’t know how Izzy had planned to pull the guards away from their security cameras, but she was sure it was ironclad.