“I’ve got it,” she said in his ear.
Thank You, God! “Where’s the truck?” he asked.
“On the other side of the wall,” she said. She slid the phone into her pocket. “But the metal wiring on top of the wall is electrified.”
Okay, so they had to find a way over the wall. He checked Eddie’s gun and found it was out of bullets. He frowned, tossed it in the snow and glanced up at the building. The door was ajar and the building was only a few feet from the perimeter. There appeared to be skylights at the top to let in natural light. If they found a way to the roof, they could take a running leap and clear the wall, with several feet of snow to cushion their landing.
He scanned the courtyard. The coast seemed clear.
“Come on,” he said. “This way.”
He reached for her hand, she let him take it and he pulled her to her feet. They ran inside the building. He pushed the door closed behind them and the noise outside faded. Hot and muggy air surrounded them, so thick that for a moment he could barely breathe. A lush garden of huge deep red and fuchsia flowers lay ahead of them. Mack held a finger to his lips, she nodded and he led her to a narrow alcove behind what looked like the pipes of an irrigation system.
“Where is everyone?” Iris asked.
“A place like this won’t have that many people,” Mack said. “A couple dozen, if that. Maybe even less. Skeletal crews are easier to manage, especially when you don’t want information leaking out. They have a lot of ground to cover looking for me.”
Considering they were looking for Graves the criminal, and not Mack the detective, they’d be checking places filled with high-tech electronics and weapons before they searched the flowers.
Iris squeezed his hand, only lightly, but somehow the simple gesture sent shivers spreading through his core. It was only then he realized that they were still holding hands and that he wasn’t in a hurry to let go.
“And we’re back.” Seth’s sudden voice was faint but unmistakable.
Iris pulled her hand away from Mack’s and fished the cell phone back out of her pocket.
“You still on the call with the team?” Mack asked.
“Apparently,” she said. “But the screen was dead when I pulled it out of the snow. Guessing it came back to life.”
He stepped toward her and glanced at the screen. Seth, Liam and Jess were still crowded around Seth’s desk back at their safe house headquarters. The red icon in the corner of the screen indicated that battery was down to 20 percent.
“Probably a reaction to the extreme temperature,” Seth said. “Gotta look into that later.” He raised a hand in greeting. “Hey, Mack! Good to see you alive. See, Iris, told you he’d be back.”
Iris smiled.
“Where are you?” Liam asked.
“Inside one of Crow’s Farm’s greenhouses looking at some very suspicious flowers,” Mack said. “My top goal is getting Iris out alive. But we’ll record everything we can as we go. Heads up though, the battery is pretty low, so it might cut out.”
“Got it.” Liam nodded.
“Just point the camera at stuff,” Seth said. “I’ll do the rest.”
Mack held out his hand for the phone, Iris handed it to him and he slid it in his jacket’s breast pocket, with the camera turned out toward the room. Then he started moving along the wall, gesturing at Iris to follow.
A field of flowers spread before them, wild and lush, in various shades of red, pink, lavender and mauve. He watched as her fingers darted out, stopping just inches away from touching the huge, serrated petals.
“They’re gorgeous,” she said, and he could almost hear her breath catch in her throat. “Do you have any idea what they are?”
“Opium poppies,” he said. “Seth will be able to confirm it. Very illegal and used for making heroin.”
“They’re making homegrown heroin here?” she asked.
“Looks like it,” he said. Would definitely explain the size of the operation and the level of security. “It’s not an easy thing to make. Most street drugs are smuggled in. But our Vice squad’s pretty good at catching that stuff at the border, so guess Corvus decided to innovate. Liam’s probably tipping off the closest RCMP division as we speak. They’ll get a warrant and raid the place. In forty-eight hours, all this will be gone and anyone still here when police arrive will be behind bars.”
Some rural RCMP cops were going to get a career-changing bust on their record. He wished them well and prayed it all went down smoothly.
“No one will ever know you were behind it, right?” Iris asked. “You won’t get any of the credit?”
He shrugged. “I mean, there’s always a few people who know but undercover detective work isn’t the kind of job you go into to get famous.”
If he’d wanted his face and name splashed all over the media, he’d have kept his birth name of Mackenzie Gravenhurst, instead of changing it when he’d entered the police force. He’d have gone through life as the only child of wealthy couple Patrick and Annie Gravenhurst, who networked with important people and whose large donations got the family name stuck on things like parks, hospital wards and museum wings. But then Mack wouldn’t be himself anymore. After helping take down dozens of organizations and hundreds of criminals, this would be just yet another arrest he’d know he had a small hand in.
But as he glanced at Iris’s face, he saw something flicker in the depths of her hazel eyes he’d never expected to see—awe. Suddenly it hit him that this beautiful and tenacious woman standing here with him in a hothouse filled with illegal flowers had now seen several more sides of him than he’d ever let anyone see before. And even after all that, she’d scaled a wall to help him instead of turning her back.
He looked away quickly. Was it his imagination or was the air in there getting warmer?
Then he spotted a thin, narrow wooden trellis leaning up against the wall at the far end of the room. It wasn’t a ladder, but it would do. He signaled for her to follow him and then, crouching low, he led her through the flowers until he reached the end of the row.
“We climb up there,” he said, pointing. “Then we open a skylight, run across the roof and jump over the wall. Got it?”
She nodded. “Absolutely.”
He scanned her face. There wasn’t even a flicker of doubt in her eyes. “You sure?”
“Yup,” she said. “Sounds a lot easier than how I got in here. Who goes first?”
He frowned. He hadn’t thought of that and didn’t much like either option.
“I’ll go,” he said, making a snap decision. “Whoever’s on that trellis is out in the open if someone comes in. I’ll make sure it’ll support our weight, that the window will open and the coast is clear. Then you’ll climb up and join me on the roof.” It was the best out of two terrible options, and it was amazing how much he hated the idea of leaving her side even for a moment. “Stay hidden and wait until I signal you, okay?”
“Will do.”
His arms reached out to try to hug her before he even realized what he was doing. He pulled back at the last second and found himself awkwardly squeezing her shoulder instead. Then he darted out of the row of flowers, grabbed the trellis and started climbing. The structure shook under his weight, and he was thankful they hadn’t tried to climb it together. As his eyes rose to the snow-covered glass above, he found himself struggling to keep from glancing back at the woman hiding in the flowers. He didn’t know what this thing, this feeling inside him was. All he knew was that it was always there, distracting him, pulling him toward her, and he didn’t know how to shake it.
He reached the skylight, forced the latch back and swung it open. Cold air and snow rushed in, as did the sound of sirens that still blared. He glanced down at Iris, and she flashed him a quick thumbs-up. Then he slid his body through the skylight and out. The wall was less than four feet from the e
dge of the roof.
He steeled his breath. He still had no idea why this detour had landed in their path or how he felt about Iris seeing this side of him, but he had to have faith that God would make something good come of it. Starting with the major drug bust some very fortunate RCMP officers were about to make.
But beyond that, his plans still hadn’t changed. They’d escape, get somewhere safe, he’d somehow convince Iris to go back into witness protection and then they’d say goodbye and leave each other’s lives forever. A man who did the kind of work he did didn’t deserve a woman like Iris. She was worth far more than a life married to an undercover detective who disappeared for months at a time into criminal organizations. He had no idea how she’d react to knowing his parents were wealthy, but he knew just how much his father would turn his nose up at her. Mack wanted to spare her that, too.
Besides, was he even capable of living a life with his heart feeling this wide open and vulnerable all the time?
He glanced back down through the skylight and gestured at her to climb up and join him. She waved back, and a determined smile crossed her lips. And despite the way he knew it had to be, he still found himself wondering what it would’ve been like to spend the rest of his life with a woman who smiled like that in the face of adversity.
Iris darted from the flowers and ran for the trellis. Her hands grabbed the wood, and she started climbing. He heard a voice shouting below him. Then, as he watched, she froze and terror washed across her face.
Iris! Come on, keep climbing!
But she jumped down, her hands raised, and his heart stopped in his chest as he saw a second figure step into view.
It was Bud, the bald and tattooed young man who’d been outside with Eddie. He pointed a gun at Iris.
SIX
Fear filled Iris’s veins as she stared into the pale eyes of the tattooed young man. She prayed he hadn’t seen her looking up at Mack and that she hadn’t blown Mack’s cover.
“Please, don’t shoot,” she said, holding her empty palms up where he could see them. “I know I’m trespassing and I’m really sorry. But I honestly just want to leave. Like a lot. I climbed the wall to see if I could look in and see my friend. But then I accidentally triggered the alarm, the electric fencing at the top of the wall zapped me, and I fell in.”
“You don’t recognize me, do you?” he asked.
She blinked. Her eyes searched his face. “No, I really don’t,” she said. “Eddie called you Bud when you were both holding me at gunpoint outside the camper. But I don’t know if that’s your name.”
“It’ll do.” Bud shrugged and the strap of his semiautomatic moved up and down on his shoulder. “I know you. You’re that chick who runs the homeless center place in Toronto, right? They call you Missy?”
“Yeah...” Her heart switched from fear to regret in a beat. How would he know that? “I’m really sorry. I don’t recognize you.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Bud said. It was almost an order, like the fact she was now apologizing to him somehow bothered him. “I had a lot of long hair back then that covered my face and I didn’t have these tattoos. Plus, I was wearing a hoodie. I remember that because there were signs telling me to take the hood off when I came into your place and I didn’t. I came in for the community meal about six months ago. I was grabbing some food when some snitch told you I had a gun tucked under my shirt. You came over and told me I had to get rid of it. I told you the gun was a fake and that it couldn’t even fire, but you said you didn’t care. I could go put it in a locker at the front door or I could get out. Those were my options.”
Yeah, she vaguely remembered that. It had been about two months before she’d met Mack.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Even if it wasn’t a real gun, the rules are the rules.”
“Stop saying that,” Bud snapped. “You say sorry too much, you know that? And it wasn’t a fake. It was real, and I was there because I had business with someone. But you didn’t call the police on me and you let me take some food. You actually packed a bag of food for me yourself—like, a lot of food—and handed it to me all while making me leave. Plus you told me I could take some clothes from a bin on my way out. They were new. Never got new clothes from someone before.” His shoulders rose and fell again. “You did me a solid that you didn’t have to do. It reminded me of my mom. She was too nice and said sorry too much, too.”
“Thank you,” Iris said, not knowing what else to say. This wasn’t the first troubled youth she’d met who’d blurted out some of his damage to her. Sometimes people who were hurt hid all the basic stuff—like name and age—but couldn’t help but tell her the deeper stuff, like their parents’ addictions or the fact someone they loved was in prison. He also wasn’t the first who’d said she’d reminded them of a parental or authority figure, for good or for bad. Not even the first who’d been holding a weapon. And no matter what happened next, she still thanked God that she’d fed and helped him.
“Well, she’s dead now,” Bud said and as she watched, something went cold in his gaze. His chin rose. “She trusted the wrong people. But I got honor, even if some people don’t. So I’m gonna return the favor and let you run, okay? Because Corvus will want you dead, and I don’t kill people who don’t deserve killing. Because I’m not that kind of person.”
Like the person who’d killed his mother? Like someone else who’d once hurt him?
“Come with me,” she said, “and I’ll get you help. I’ll help you get a good job, where you’re not working for criminals. You can go to school. You can have a whole different and better life.”
His eyes narrowed. “There’s something really wrong with you, lady,” he said. “You know that? You’ve got no sense of self-preservation. You can’t just go around trying to help everyone else. Because one day you’re going to try to help the wrong person and that’ll be it for you.”
“Maybe,” she said, feeling something strong and fierce move through her heart. “But I can think of worse ways to go. I think I’m the way God made me to be, and I’m not going to stop being me just because someone’s waving a gun at me.”
Bud just shook his head. “Get out of here. Now. Before I get caught talking to you and we both get killed.”
Fair enough. She walked backward to the trellis and felt the wood beneath her back.
“I heard about this place from some kids at the homeless center who were trying to escape Oscar Underwood and his Jackals,” she said. “They said your boss wanted nothing to do with that whole kidnapping situation and only had people working for him who wanted to be. Not everyone who I think the Jackals nabbed were found. I feel like there was something else going on there and if I can find out where the others went, I can tip the police off so they can be rescued.”
Bud’s eyes narrowed. “Trust me, if the Jackals got them and they weren’t working at one of Underwood’s farms, they don’t want to be found.” He leveled the weapon at her. “Now go.”
There was a shout from the other end of the building. “Hey, Bud!”
He turned. “Yeah?”
She started climbing the trellis, forcing her hands and feet faster and expecting any moment to hear a gunshot fire and feel a bullet pierce her skin. Then she felt a strong, warm, solid hand reaching for her. She grabbed hold of it and looked up into Mack’s eyes as he pulled her through the skylight. She tumbled out onto the roof beside him, feeling the cold and wind lash her skin.
“I heard that.” Mack’s deep voice rumbled beside her. “You tried to talk a guy pointing a gun at you into escaping with us.”
She nodded. Hot tears froze in the corners of her eyes. “I tried but I failed.”
“You have no idea how absolutely incredible you are, do you?” He stood from his crouch, ready to sprint. “You ready to get out of here?”
“Yeah.”
His fingers linked through hers. The warmth of his
touch seemed to fill her body. She set her sights on the wall. They ran, hand in hand, until they reached the end of the roof. Then they leaped.
* * *
Mack’s hands tightened on the steering wheel of Iris’s truck as they drove through the night. Inky blackness filled the air outside, and the dashboard clock told him it was almost eleven. It hadn’t even been five hours since he’d found her in the diner, and already they’d been through more in one evening than he had in any relationship he’d ever had with a woman.
She hadn’t exactly liked the fact he’d insisted on driving. But considering how sore his body was from their jump over the wall, despite landing on a soft snowy cushion, he couldn’t imagine how she felt having gone over the wall in both directions. That plus the argument about needing to evade any of Corvus’s crew who might pursue them had seemed to finally win her over.
Thankfully they hadn’t been chased. Probably because Corvus hadn’t realized Mack had escaped the facility and still had his crew searching the grounds for a man who’d never really existed to begin with.
“You told Bud that some of the other street youth had told you about this place,” he said, “and you asked if he knew where they were.”
“Not everyone was found.” Her slender shoulders rose and fell. “That means either they all escaped the Jackals and disappeared, or there are more kids out there waiting to be rescued.”
“Is that what you’ve been doing while you’ve been on the run?” Mack asked. “Have you been looking for people?”
“No, not specifically,” Iris said. “I’m not a cop, and I also still take seriously the fact I’m not supposed to be contacting people from my past. But I’m still keeping my eyes and ears open, just in case.”
Yeah, he could respect that. Especially considering he’d come looking for her.
“I can’t believe you destroyed my map,” she said. “I’m sure you were just trying to keep Eddie from seeing it, but I don’t know how I’m going to keep running without it.”
Runaway Witness Page 6