by K. J. Dahlen
Eve snapped her head over to stare at Chase.
Knowledge dawned on him as well.
“Could that be the third man in the alley that night?” she wondered out loud.
“What are you talking about?” Ron asked looking confused.
“The night Travis shot Ian, I saw someone else in the alley,” Eve explained. “He was back in the shadows and I couldn’t see him clearly but I smelled him well enough. The aftershave he was wearing smelled overly sweet and nauseating. He leaned into the light but not far enough. His face was distorted and he was angry, very, very angry. He kept telling Travis to get this done. He told him to clean up the mess he made.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Barry dared to ask.
“I think it means we just identified the ring leader.” Ron grinned. “Old man Trainer might be the kingpin we’ve been looking for all this time.” He sat up in his chair and nodded at Eve. “It does make sense though when you think about it. If he were the kingpin, he wouldn’t have to worry about running afoul of the law. With both his sons as police, he’d have free rein to run the shipments through both towns.”
“Can you check his financials?” Eve asked. “Maybe we could get the evidence we’d need from an independent source that would tie him into the ring.”
Ron reached for his phone and called his guy at headquarters. “Billy, we need you to run financials on…” He glanced over at Chase. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Seth.”
“On Seth Trainer.”
Chase leaned forward and interjected, “Also try Margaret Trainer. That’s Seth’s wife. Seth might not want anything in his name in case this situation came up.”
Ron nodded and gave her name to his contact as well. When he hung up the phone, he glanced at Chase. “Would he be that much of a bastard to lay the blame on his own wife?”
Chase shook his head, disgusted. “Seth Trainer would lay the blame on his dog if he thought he would get away with it. Hell, he’d put a bullet in the dog’s head just to keep him from talking if dog could talk.”
“Damn. What a guy.” Ron sobered for a moment as he reached out and patted Eve’s hand. “I’m sorry Ian is gone. He was a nice guy. We’ve taken care of him. He’s at the morgue waiting for you to decide how you want to care for his remains.”
Chase saw the tears burning in her eyes and his heart wrenched for her.
“What about Grayson?” she asked.
“Until we catch up with him, you both need to go under wraps.”
Eve glanced over at Chase. “I know you won’t like hiding—”
He reached out and grasped her hand. No, and he didn’t want to leave her quite yet. They needed to talk about happened in the cavern and what it meant for their future.
“Well, it looks like you’re still stuck with me for a little longer,” Eve stated. “It shouldn’t take too long to run Grayson down. Then you can have your life back.”
I don’t want my life back without you in it. Aloud, Chase asked, “What about Beau? I can’t leave my horse here alone.”
“Can Barry take Beau back to the stables?” Eve asked as she looked over at him.
“I can do that boss.” Barry nodded.
“But we need to get the two of you somewhere safe, fast,” Ron warned.
“What happened at the ranch?” She stared at Ron.
He frowned. “From what I heard, the men went back to the ranch after the first visit. Only this time, they came in on two sides. There was a small firefight. We saw part of the group bolt. Three of the seven men who had returned, escaped our men for a second time. We managed to get the remainder of the group contained and the FBI went after the three who got away. That’s where they split up and disappeared into the woods. FBI and DEA went in after them and found all three. Unfortunately, Grayson wasn’t one of the men we captured. We still don’t know where he is yet.”
“Damn,” Eve swore.
The door opened and a man with a gun strode into the restaurant.
Ron pushed her to the floor. He reached for his gun but the intruder raised his weapon and got a round off. Ron went down clutching his shoulder.
From where he was sitting, Chase watched Eve fumble for Ron’s gun then begin firing at the man by the door.
Her first bullet hit him in the chest and knocked him off his feet but it didn’t put him down. The man shot off another round. His bullet splintered the table over her head. Her second bullet put a hole in the man’s forehead. The gunman dropped to the floor.
Everything happened so fast, Chase hadn’t had time to even think, he simply watched her react, a blessed consequence of endless training. Feeling sick to his stomach, he went to check on Ron.
Barry handed Chase a towel. Chase pressed it down on the wound in Ron’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Ron nodded then turned his head to see Eve was standing over the man she’d just shot.
Chase followed his gaze and shook his head. Looking back at Ron, he said softly, “I’d better go check on Beau.” He didn’t know what to do for Eve right now, but he knew that old man Trainer wasn’t above shooting his horse just for the spite of it.
Ron nodded and grimaced in pain as Barry pressed the towel into his shoulder.
~ * ~
Evelyn stared down at the man who’d just tried to kill her and everyone in the diner. She let out a long, slow breath. Raising her head, she gazed around.
Ron was struggling to sit up, holding his shoulder, in pain and rapidly going into shock, but he was alive. Barry was assisting him. Evelyn looked at the front door again. Shock reverberated through her mind at what had just happened. Time had slowed down and now it seemed to pick up, as she knew something was off.
She glanced back at Ron and saw Barry still holding a cloth to Ron’s shoulder. She knew he would be taken care of. “Are you all right?”
Ron nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be okay. It’s just a shoulder wound.”
“Where did Chase go?” she looked around but couldn’t find him. Yes, this was the thing that was wrong. Where is he?
Barry raised his head up. His alarmed expression showing that he’d been caught completely off guard by the shooting. Glancing at the man lying dead, he said, “Chase went to check on Beau.”
She nodded and headed for the back door. She still had Ron’s gun in her hand, automatically checking the load as she carefully scanned the lot. She opened the door part way and slowly slid through it, plastering herself against the wall of the restaurant. She couldn’t see anyone but if the man she shot was one of Grayson’s men, she couldn’t take the chance that Grayson wasn’t out there somewhere. She made her way around the building. She found Chase’s horse but again there was no sign of Chase. She turned to go around the other way and ran into a man’s arms. “Chase! Oh, thank god. I was looking for you.”
“I had to retrieve Beau. How is Ron? He said he was ok but you never know with bullet wounds.”
“Ron will be fine. I’ve never seen the shooter before so you may need to identify him for us.” She paused then looked at him carefully. “Are you sure you’re all right? You seem a little freaked out.”
Chase nodded. “He’s one of Grayson’s men, Jared Fry.”
“Did you see Grayson out there somewhere?” Evelyn asked.
“No, Grayson wouldn’t be here.” He pointed toward the other side of the road to the snowmobile sitting there. “But you can be sure he sent Fry. That’s just what kind of guy he is. You can bet though, he’s safe and sound somewhere being protected by his men.”
“So where is Grayson, do you think?”
Chase rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “I’ll have to think about where he might go. Jared must have found our tracks by the cabin and followed them.”
“Either that or Grayson is smart enough to have had someone waiting for us at the nearest phone in the area. The quicker we can get to the safe house, the more time the agency men will have to find him.” Evelyn took his elbow. “L
et’s go see how Ron is.”
Chase followed her back inside the restaurant.
Ron was sitting in a chair while one of the staff manufactured a pressure bandage from several laundered kitchen towels. He badly needed to see a doctor. He glanced up at Evelyn. “I called the DEA office. They are sending another team to pick you up.” He gazed over at the dead man. “Do you know who he was?”
Chase nodded. “Jared Fry. He’s one of Grayson’s men.”
“Three men escaped the ranch this morning. He could have been one of them,” Ron told them. “Grayson is still out there somewhere.”
A few minutes later, two agents entered the restaurant, Steve Houser and Ben Lock. They quickly assessed the situation. “We have orders to take Evelyn and Chase Rivers into custody and get you to the hospital.”
“Have you heard anything new about Grayson Trainer yet?” Ron asked as he got to his feet.
Steve shook his head. “No, but we have all possible police personnel looking for him.” He glanced back at the front door to the body on the floor. “We’ll call an ambulance for that one. He needs a ride to the morgue.”
Ron nodded. “Evelyn shot him before he could finish what he started.”
Ben looked over at Chase. “I’m ready to take you and her to a safe house. Steve will stay here with Fry until the ambulance gets here then he’ll meet us.”
Evelyn nodded as she glanced at Chase. “Barry will take Beau home. I told him I’d check with him in a few days. It shouldn’t take much longer than that for you to bring in Grayson.”
A few minutes later, the ambulance pulled up. The medics argued hard to take Ron with them as his situation had deteriorated. Ron kind of minded riding with a corpse, but in the end he had no choice.
Ben drove Chase and her about forty miles to a town called Winona. Turning off highway 61 onto Huff Street, Ben drove through town toward the Mississippi River. Ben took Huff Street right into the heart of the city. He turned on Broadway and traveled several blocks to Walnut Street. Turning left, he traveled several more blocks before he pulled into a driveway on the left, a light blue house on the corner of the block. The safe house faced the Mississippi River. They could see ice along the shoreline from where they stood.
Evelyn, Chase, and Ben got out of the car then walked to the front door.
She glanced down the street but didn’t see anything out of order. All the other houses in the area were a little run down. They wore fading and peeling paint while their sidewalks hadn’t been shoveled since the last snowstorm. Yet, everywhere she looked, she could see signs of the Christmas holiday. The porch across the street had Christmas lights wrapped around the railing, a Christmas tree in the window. The red and green lights sparkled through the glass. The neighborhood looked quiet, homes sat on large lots making rows of just five to a block face. It was just the place to hide in plain sight.
Ben dug in his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. He unlocked the front door and inside they all went. Ben let Steve know they had arrived safely then went out to scout the perimeter.
~ * ~
Chase sat down on the sofa and watched them at work. In the first place, he wasn’t happy being there. He’d rather have been able to go back to his ranch. He’d been unusually quiet throughout the trip down here, and he didn’t have too much to say right now. He had been thinking about where Grayson Trainer might hide out. Likewise, he’d also been thinking about what happened last night. She’d said after this was over, he could have his life back. He wanted her in it, but he wasn’t sure what Eve was really thinking. Starting out of a brown study, he looked in her direction only to find her looking back at him. When she winked at him, he felt a bit surprised and intrigued by her amused expression. “Where are we exactly?” Not much of a conversational starter, but the best he could do at the moment.
“We’re in Winona. It’s a small town on the Mississippi River,” Eve told him.
“I know where Winona is. In case you’ve forgotten, I live in Minnesota,” Chase told her gruffly.
Eve closed her eyes. “I didn’t mean to patronize you. I forgot you grew up here. I guess I’ve forgotten quite a lot the last few days.”
“But you remembered things, too,” Chase reminded her.
She nodded as she looked around the room. “I have remembered most of it but Ian is still dead, and you and I are hiding out until Grayson Trainer is in custody.”
Ben joined them and announced, “The word is that Ron is going to be fine. He’s on his way back to Minneapolis. We’re supposed to stay here tonight and check in with Steve tomorrow. They found the other men who got away with Grayson but they haven’t found Grayson yet.”
Eve asked Chase, “Do you have any idea where Grayson would go if he were hiding?”
Chase shook his head. “He knows the woods pretty well, although if he were really in trouble, he might go back home. Seth Trainer is a mean bastard, but he wouldn’t allow his sons to come to any harm unless he did the harming. He doesn’t much care for any unrelated members of law enforcement. There are plenty of places he could be hiding on his father’s land.”
Eve stretched and covered a yawn. “They just play cops. They don’t really enforce any laws.”
Chase’s mouth twisted in what passed for a grin. “Seth figured he could work with them to monopolize local law departments.” He sat back on the sofa. “They used fear and intimidation and kept their noses clean, at least on the surface. They know enough about forensics to clean up a crime scene before anyone else gets there. They never would leave enough evidence to condemn themselves.” He paused and shook his head. “Until now.”
“Until now? What are you thinking?” Eve asked.
“Now Travis is behind bars while Grayson is on the run. A Trainer behaves when threatened, like a wounded animal. If you back one of them into a corner, he will fight for his life, so more people are going to get hurt.”
Eve stilled and stared closely at his expression. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that Grayson won’t come quietly once you do find him. If he figures he’s caught, there is going to be a gunfight. He isn’t going to be happy that Travis is sitting in jail. He might even figure he’ll never go to jail.”
“Ok, how can we get to him with minimal damage control?” Ben asked.
Chase shrugged. “I think we are going to have to convince him that Travis is going to talk. Grayson will see today as a failure. Reason number one: Travis got busted so his brother is in jail even though he’s not. Reason number two: he’ll think I probably set him up, so he’s going to link me with ending his career. He’ll more than likely come after me because he can and he still has to get Eve. He thinks I’ve been hiding her all this time. But she’s not the only witness who can place Travis but also his father at Ian’s murder. Right now, the charges against Grayson aren’t that serious. They are circumstantial, until the DEA can link him to the drug ring but if the State Police convince Travis that Eve’s testimony and his would give him room to bargain for a reduced sentence in exchange for catching Grayson, we stand a better chance of finding him before he surprises me and Eve.”
Ben nodded. “Ok, say all of this is true, how do we stop him?”
Chase shook his head. “You aren’t going to like my idea.”
“If it involves using yourself as a target, forget it.” Eve looked like she was about to get riled up again. “I see where the conversation is going and I don’t like it!”
Chase switched his gaze to her for a moment then turned to look at Ben. “It might be the fastest way to catch him, if not the only way to catch him.”
Ben had certainly read the look that passed between the two and didn’t quite know what to think. He didn’t want to get in the middle. “I’ll have to talk this over with my supervisors, but it might be the only way, like you said.”
Eve growled. “You can’t, I won’t allow it. He’ll kill you without even thinking about it. He hates you and all you represent.”
/> Chase glanced at her and smiled. “I won’t let that happen. Remember I’m a soldier?” He now gave her a wink. “Don’t you know that the good guys always win?”
She huffed as she crossed her arms over that lovely chest of hers. “Not always, they don’t. Sometimes, the good guys die young,” Eve reminded him with tears in her eyes. “My brother was a one of the good guys.”
“Not this time. I won’t let him kill me.”
Eve could read the determined expression in his eyes and knew there was nothing she could say to change his mind. “You might not see the bullet until it’s too late to stop it, then what? You’ll be dead and he’ll still be free.” She shook her head. “I don’t want this.”
“I don’t want this either but it might be the only way to catch him without anyone else getting hurt,” Chase reminded her.
Eve looked away with tears in her eyes. There was nothing she could say.
Chapter Nine
The evening passed slowly as they waited for word from the boss in Minneapolis. If they agreed to Chase’s plan, they would go back to the ranch to wait for Grayson to come to them. Evelyn couldn’t look at Chase, let alone talk to him. She didn’t want to put his life in danger, yet she knew it might be the only way to get to Grayson. She was afraid for him but she was also afraid for herself. She didn’t understand her feelings for him and that confused her. She’d always been so sure of herself in the past.
Ben called for pizza. As they ate supper, there was very little conversation.
Evelyn took first watch in order to let Ben sleep. There was no activity at this hour while the time alone would give her time to think. She needed it. She was glad Chase had disappeared behind the door of the second bedroom. She sat on the couch thinking about everything that had happened over the last few days. The longer she thought, the more confused she became. Finally, she glanced over at the bedroom door Chase had gone through.
She got up off the couch and marched over to the door. She reached for the knob and turned it before she had time to stop herself.