After a few more stops it became clear that the news of Chuck’s death was a hot topic. As, it appeared, was the imminent arrival of a full force of Redstone security, which seemed in most islanders’ minds to be tantamount to an invading army bound by no rules.
They were back in the truck, Draven behind the wheel—like so many other things in the past few hours, he’d given her no option about that—when his cell phone rang. He flipped it open and spoke into the receiver.
“Draven.” A pause while he listened. “Is that the only movement?” Another pause. “Anyone with him?” And then, finally, “I’ll take it. Have your guy stand by.”
He disconnected and closed the phone, tossing it on the seat beside him. “We think we’ve got him.”
She knew it should have been that news that had the most impact, but instead it was that “we.”
“That was him? El mercader?”
Draven eyed her warily for a moment before nodding. She suppressed a shiver.
“Go back in the store. I’ll call Buckley. He can pick you up there.”
She was already very tired of taking his orders. “Why?”
“Grace, I’ve got to go.”
“Before he gets away?” She knew she was right when she saw the split-second flicker in his gaze. “Then go.”
“Not with you.”
She tried not to be insulted, knowing he was simply trying to protect her. That had never stopped, despite her fury with him. She also didn’t relish the idea of being anywhere near el mercader or his men. But neither did she relish the idea of sitting and waiting like a good little girl to see if Draven came back alive.
Not, she admitted ruefully, that she wouldn’t like to murder him right now. But she wanted to reserve that pleasure for herself.
Besides, if the man behind all this had really been found, she wanted to know who he was. And she wanted to look him in the eye and make him see he hadn’t won.
“You can sit here and argue with me some more and miss your chance,” she said cheerfully. “Or you can try to force me out of the truck, which while I won’t deny you’ll be able to do it, I promise it will take long enough for you to miss your chance. Or you can shut up and drive.”
She expected him to yell, to swear, to do anything but what he did.
“Touché,” he said softly.
And then he put the truck in gear and they started to move. Before she was over her surprise at that, he shocked her again, reaching beneath the driver’s seat and pulling out the small handgun she’d seen him strap to his ankle before and handing it to her.
“I hope you’ve kept up,” he said.
She stared at the gun in her hand, felt the compact, heavy weight of it. As per Josh’s orders, any of his people who went to some of the less civilized or peaceful parts of the world knew how to defend themselves, so she had been through the standard firearms course Redstone provided. She’d done better with rifles than pistols, but she’d passed.
Of course, that had been years ago. She told herself that didn’t matter; she wasn’t going to have to put every round in the ten ring as the instructor had wanted then.
“It’s a revolver,” she said, remembering what the Redstone instructor, a former SWAT cop, had told her all that time ago. “Point and shoot.”
“Pretty much,” Draven agreed.
She gave him a sideways glance. For some reason the day she’d first arrived in Turkey came to mind. She remembered meeting Redstone point man Noah Rider there. Rider had been classically chiseled. Draven was scarred and rugged. Rider had been open and amusing. Draven was taciturn and solemn.
Yet it was Draven who stirred her pulse, while Rider had left her aesthetically appreciative, but unmoved.
So is that lousy taste, or just lousy judgment? she wondered to herself.
Or perhaps it was simply that Rider radiated contentment, especially when the subject of his wife, Paige, arose.
Draven started issuing orders as he drove. “You stay in the truck. In the driver’s seat. You shoot only to protect yourself. If anything goes wrong, or you hear shots, you get the hell out. Get back to the site and to Buckley. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
He shot her a sharp glance, but she had kept her voice carefully neutral and didn’t look at him now. She didn’t dare look at him, not after the image he’d called up in her mind of her sitting here wondering which end of those shots he’d been on.
“I mean it, Grace.”
“I never thought you didn’t.”
He went silent again. They went north through the rest of the small town, then, to her surprise, past the clinic that was on the outskirts. They made a turn just beyond that and started up the slight hill that rose above the village. It was thick with acacia trees and hibiscus run wild as undergrowth, and would make for a great hiding place if you needed one.
He stopped short of the top, where the gravel road ended. Quickly and efficiently, even on the narrow road, he turned the truck around so it was facing downhill and out. For her, she realized with a sinking feeling, in case she had to run.
“If you hear a car coming down,” he said, “get out and take cover off the road. Don’t wait to think about it.”
Her brows furrowed, but she nodded. When he got out of the truck, she slid over behind the wheel. He nodded, then turned to head toward the junglelike hillside.
Then he turned back.
“Grace?”
She looked up.
“It had to stop. This was the quickest way.”
She took in a deep breath. She sensed that this was an exception for him. That John Draven didn’t waste breath explaining himself. And she wondered why he’d felt compelled to do it now. It wasn’t an apology, yet that was the undertone in his voice.
And then he was gone, so quickly she couldn’t quite believe it. Almost instantly he was out of sight in the brush, and she couldn’t even see a leaf moving to mark his passage.
She looked around, something tickling the edges of her memory. She thought she might have been up here before, but she couldn’t be sure. The road and the surroundings looked familiar, but her memory was telling her it had been different.
It had been dark, she suddenly realized. That’s why she hadn’t been sure if this had been the same road. But she was almost positive now, and—
The sound of a vehicle approaching from farther up the hill cut off her thoughts. For a brief moment she simply sat there, listening, making sure she was really hearing it. And then Draven’s order played through her head.
Get out. Don’t think, get out.
She scrambled across the seat to the passenger door, yanked it open and slid to the ground. The engine sound was closer, as if it were rounding the curve just beyond the truck.
And it was coming fast.
She felt a little foolish—what if it was just some resident or tourist—but the fierceness of Draven’s warning echoed in her ears, and she dove for the shelter of the huge, orange-flowered hibiscus that was the closest to the side of the road.
She crouched down, peering back through the glossy leaves, looking up toward the curve where anything coming down the road would come around the hill. She caught a glimpse of something long and white and shiny moving fast. Far too fast for the road.
It slammed into the parked truck.
The wrenching, nerve-shattering noise of the impact made her cry out instinctively. She smothered the sound, although she doubted anyone could have heard anything over the noise of the crash. The big white car hit with such force the pickup skewed sideways, and she flinched back as it seemed to be coming right at her.
The echoes of the crash finally seemed to stop, and the only thing she heard was the slight tinkle of shattered glass falling, and the drip of something liquid. Certain someone had to have been hurt, she stood up. As she did she caught sight of the side of the truck. The driver’s door, where she had been sitting, was demolished. The entire truck had buckled on that side, and she was r
easonably sure if she had stayed there she would have been badly hurt or even killed.
She heard somebody swearing, and what sounded like a woman crying. The presence of the female decided her, and she scrambled back to the road and ran toward the wreck. She got there just as the driver managed to force open his door, obviously also buckled by the impact.
Her relief that the man was moving, and apparently all right, was quickly overtaken by shock.
It was Mayor Remington.
She wasn’t surprised, since she’d just realized this was the road they’d driven the night he had thrown the party at his house to welcome Redstone to the island. His luxurious home was the last one at the top of the hill.
Oh, boy, Redstone’s not going to like this, she thought. We’ve destroyed the mayor’s fancy car.
The woman she’d heard wasn’t getting out. Seeing that the mayor, who apparently hadn’t seen her yet, was up and moving, she instead ran to the other side of the car. In the passenger seat was the source of the weeping she’d heard, not a woman but a girl, who looked even younger than Marly. Grace didn’t see any immediate signs of injury, but since she hadn’t gotten out of the car she had to think something was wrong.
Then the girl seemed to realize she was there. She looked up at Grace, her dark eyes wide and full of tears, and something else, some wilder thing Grace couldn’t put a name to.
“Please,” the girl gulped out.
“Ms. O’Conner?”
The mayor’s voice made her straighten and look over at him. “Are you all right?” she asked him.
“I think so,” he said, watching her in an oddly intent way. “What are you doing here?”
This wasn’t the time to explain, especially since she didn’t really have the answer.
“I think your passenger may be hurt,” she said, bending back down to look at the girl. “We’d better call for help.”
“I don’t think so.”
There was something different about his voice, very different than the jovial man who had welcomed her here.
“But she may need—”
Grace’s words stopped abruptly. She’d just seen the reason the girl hadn’t gotten out of the wrecked car.
She was tied to the seat.
Grace looked across the car roof at Mayor Remington in shock. And got an even bigger shock.
He was pointing a gun at her.
Chapter 21
Grace.
Draven had never felt anything like the jolt of horror that stabbed through him like a sizzling poker when he heard the crash.
He had just put his cell phone back in his pocket after el mercader had called again, saying their man was on the move. Mere seconds later he’d heard the vehicle on the road.
He’d known immediately it was traveling too fast. It either wouldn’t make the curve, or if it did it would be because the driver likely stayed so tight to the edge he couldn’t help but hit the truck.
Even as he thought it, the sound of the impact ripped through the tropical air.
Instantly he spun around and reversed his course. He couldn’t be sure this was their ultimate quarry, but he didn’t care. There was only one vehicle that whoever it was could have hit, and that was all that mattered.
For the first time in his life his work fell completely off the radar. Nothing was in his mind but getting back to Grace. Thoughts of silence, caution, strategy and reconnaissance vanished as he fought his way back to the road where he’d left the truck.
And the woman he suddenly and belatedly realized he didn’t want to leave behind. Ever.
Only when he got within earshot did he slow enough to approach silently. When he reached the edge of the brush he saw a scene out of his worst nightmare. The mangled remains of the truck and the mayor’s car sat half off the road, obviously pushed by the force of the collision. His gaze zeroed in on the driver’s seat where he’d left Grace; if she’d been there, she was surely dead.
And then, after a moment when he couldn’t breathe, his focus widened. He took in the entire scene. Including Grace, alive and out of the truck. He could breathe again.
She was on the far side of the wrecked car. The mayor was on the near side. And he was holding a chrome revolver pointed across the crumpled roof at Grace.
Draven had only a split second to assess. Grace was looking at something inside the car, possibly a passenger. Given what he’d just learned, Draven thought he had an idea who that passenger might be. But Grace wasn’t bent down far enough to be out of any line of fire, his or Remington’s. Draven’s mind raced, looking for the answer.
“Stop it, bitch!” Remington yelled across the car at her, obviously unaware of Draven’s presence.
Grace ignored him, and ignored the weapon trained on her. She continued to work on something inside the car, from here Draven couldn’t tell what.
But Remington was starting to lose it. The gun waved wildly, and Draven thought he was just crazy enough to fire it by accident. He dodged behind the remains of the truck. Headed for the front. Rounded it, which put him on a straight line with his target.
At the last second, he slammed his fist down on the bent hood of the truck. The hollow, metallic thud made Grace’s head snap upward.
More important, it startled Remington. And he turned.
The instant the weapon was no longer trained on Grace, Draven launched himself.
He hit the man at the waist. The impetus sent him sprawling backward. They hit the ground together. Draven made sure his shoulder dug deep, heard the grunt and whoosh of air escaping Remington’s lungs. At the same time he assessed. Calculated with the swiftness of long experience what he was dealing with.
The man was soft.
But it didn’t take strength to fire the pistol. And Grace was still vulnerable. A wild shot could be disastrous.
The gun was the goal.
Remington realized that, too. He twisted, trying to bring the gun to bear. Draven shifted, trying to get leverage. Remington grunted, twisted.
The gun went off.
Draven felt the familiar sharp burn and sting of a bullet leaving a gouge on his right arm. Swiftly he calculated. Angle, trajectory. Decided Grace should have been safe. Rolled, until he had the man pinned. He clamped a hand over Remington’s. Tightened his fingers. The man swore. Draven slid a finger and his thumb forward, gripping the cylinder so it couldn’t rotate.
Remington began to flail, striking out wildly with his free left hand. He landed some glancing blows, nothing Draven couldn’t ignore. At least, until he managed to squarely hit the spot where the bullet had grazed Draven’s arm.
Draven winced, his jaw tightening. He turned the concentration he’d developed early in his life onto one thing: keeping his hold on the gun. He poured every bit of strength he could into his grip. He envisioned pushing Remington’s fingers through the gunmetal. The man pulled desperately, trying to break free of the relentless squeeze.
In his gyrations Remington finally twisted so that Draven could see his eyes. He fixed his gaze, concentrating. Never wavering. He saw the fear dawn, then spread across Remington’s face. He’d never been certain what it was about him that did it, only that it happened.
In the moment when Remington gave up, Draven became aware that someone was beside him. He flicked a glance upward.
Grace. The small weapon he’d given her in her hands, aimed and ready to fire.
He had to force himself to keep his mind on the job at hand, and even when he looked back at Remington, it was the image of Grace on guard at his side that was uppermost in his mind.
As Draven wrested the gun away from the now exhausted Remington Grace lowered her arms, thankful she hadn’t had to shoot. Her gaze fastened on Draven’s right arm, just below the shoulder.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
“I imagine so.”
“We need to get you to the clinic.”
“I’m fine.”
Grace grimaced. “Be stubborn, then. But there’s a
girl in the car, and I think she’s hurt, too.”
“Probably more than you know,” Draven said grimly. “We’ll get her to the clinic, and then we can have the pleasure of turning the former mayor here over to Sergeant Espinoza.”
Remington muttered something under his breath. Grace looked at him, then at Draven. “What do you mean, more than I know?”
Draven looked at Remington, who at the moment was looking like the cockroach he was. “He was probably going to deliver her. To a buyer.”
Grace’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Seems the mayor had a lucrative little sideline going. Little girls for men with sick tastes. He’s running because he heard the rumor el mercader started that he himself was bailing out because Redstone was sending an army for revenge.”
“Little girls?” Grace gasped, her eyes widening.
“That’s why he didn’t want the airstrip built, or Redstone here. He thought it would interfere with his sex trade.”
She glanced back at the car, where the girl still sat. The girl who was not much older than her own precious child. Then she looked back at Remington.
“Is this true?”
He called her a name in Spanish. She didn’t recognize it, but with his tone that was hardly necessary. And Draven’s reaction—placing his foot atop the man’s throat and telling him if he spoke once more he would never speak again—just made it clearer.
“My God,” Grace whispered, staring at the man on the ground.
She tried to wrap her mind around the idea, but she just couldn’t. At least, not yet, while the shock was fresh. She willingly held her small gun on the man she’d thought of as, if not a friend, at least a decent person, while Draven checked the vehicles. Her aim was rock steady as she looked at him.
Remington looked up at her assessingly. It didn’t take Draven’s training or experience to guess what he was thinking.
“If you think I’d hesitate to rid the world of you, you’re very mistaken,” she said softly. The look faded from eyes that now held only fear.
Second-Chance Hero Page 20