Larger Than Life

by Alison Kent

  It was the right decision to bring him in. She knew it was. She reluctantly dragged her gaze from his. "Candy, can you and Ed get rid of the car? Mick doesn't know the area and doesn't need to be driving."

  "Sure," Candy said, already on her feet. "Lib, did you leave the keys inside?"

  Liberty nodded. "I'm sorry. I probably ruined the car. I suck at driving."

  Ed dropped a hand to the teen's shoulder and squeezed. "Forget about the car. We'll take care of it. You let Neva take care of you."

  Ed and Candy left the kitchen, and moments later both the BMW and Ed's truck headed down the drive. Neva offered Liberty a hand, helped the teen to her feet and toward the door, then looked back at Mick.

  He pushed out of his chair when he realized she was waiting, lifted a brow along with one corner of his mouth as if he realized the gig was up. "Where are we going?"

  Neva returned his look. "Where do you think?"

  "Then what?"

  "Then we make her disappear."

  Ten

  Walking behind the two women on the way from Neva's house to the barn, Mick remained silent as Liberty Mitchell told her story. It was a story that should've been hard to believe. A charismatic leader herding his congregation of lemmings toward the edge of a religious cliff, assuring them the rapture of spiritual enlightenment once they took that Olympic-sized leap of faith and went down.

  The healthier they left the church financially, the more enlightened their afterlife. The more wives the men took with them, the more rapture bestowed on all parties to the marriages. Thing was, it wasn't hard to believe at all when one looked at the legacies left by Jim Jones, David Koresh, or Marshall Applewhite and the Heaven's Gate cult.

  Mick added Pastor Straight from this so-called church in Earnestine Township to the list. Bringing innocent girls into the mix and using them as pawns. Bloody bunch of perverted bastards made him sick. And he couldn't figure why the hell the lawyer protecting this sex racket dressed like he worked on Wall Street and drove a car that could put the girl he proposed to marry through a year or more of a good state school.

  Something was very fucking wrong with this picture. Mick started to interrupt the conversation ahead and ferret out what he could about Wagner, but both Neva's and Liberty's voices had lowered, shutting him out. He dropped back a bit to let them have the private time. FM dropped back, as well. It wasn't a problem. He wasn't here to get involved. He was only here should Neva need help.

  That was it. That was all. He wasn't here because he couldn't bring himself to leave when she was in danger. He wasn't here because walking away meant never seeing her again. He wasn't here because leaving seemed so very wrong. On all counts. Every way he turned. Oh, yeah. Bloody well screwed he was, wasn't he? And he would have to deal with it. But later, once he saw for himself the truth of what went on at Neva's Big Brown Barn.

  They'd reached the side patio and the door she'd ushered him through when she'd put him to work this morning. Leaving the dog outside, Mick followed behind Liberty as Neva led them both through the structure's first floor maze to the same corner where earlier he'd packed boxes for shipping. Once there, she headed for the wall of cubbyholes, hesitated as she made some sort of decision, then turned around and faced him?

  "Wait here a second, sweetie," she said to Liberty before taking hold of his good arm and guiding him several steps back into the labyrinth so that they stood out of Liberty's sight and earshot between shelves of supplies. "Look." Neva stopped, twisted her hands together at her waist.

  He looked. At her show of nerves. At the way her freckles stood out on her pale skin. At the way she held her chin high even as it threatened to quiver. He wasn't about to move until he found out what was wrong. Seeing her this terrified when she was one of the strongest women he'd had the pleasure to know had him on edge, had his nape tingling, his gut drawing up tight like a red rubber ball.

  "I shouldn't be doing this, involving you," she was saying. "My instinct tells me it's okay. That I can trust you. But I'm running into a wall here. Keeping my mouth shut has been a part of my self-preservation for so long that I'm not sure I can get past it."

  He understood. He had expected no less. "I'm not here to bust your operation. I know you've wondered."

  "I have," she admitted. "You told me you'd done some things in your life that no one could prove. Well"— she paused, shrugged—"so have I. You may not have come here for me, but you're here now. And if you're law enforcement I expect you to do your job. You can't be who you are and not."

  He reached out, toyed with the open collar of the plain purple shirt she wore tucked into blue jeans. It wasn't the way he wanted to touch her, but it was all he would let himself do. "I'm not law enforcement or military. I'm not a mercenary. I don't do what I do for money."

  "I'm not even a private investigator," he added for good measure, certain each of those options had at some point crossed her mind. "I told you before, I'm no saint. I'm also no stranger to working outside of the law. I've been known to cross lines that I shouldn't."

  "Like trespassing?" she asked, her voice shaking though she did at least smile.

  "Yeah. That, too." He stepped closer, wrapped an arm around her shoulders, brought her to his body and held her, feeling as if he should've been around for her sooner, to offer her this from the very beginning. "If you want a show of good faith, Neva, I'll give you this. The money the Bremmer boy shouldn't have had access to? It may belong to a laundering operation."

  "The good people of Earnestine? Involved in a crime? Say it isn't so," she mocked, as her head came to rest on his chest. She touched him carefully. She didn't squeeze, didn't linger. And then she stepped back, seeming as reluctant to leave him as he was to let her go. "Speaking of crimes, I need to get Liberty upstairs."

  They returned to where the girl paced nervously, chewing her cuticles, her hair a tangled mess of brittle brown strands. Neva gave Liberty a quick reassuring hug before kneeling down to slip her hand into the cubbyhole on the bottom right corner. A loud click sounded as the latch securing that section of the wall released.

  She reached around the side and pulled; the partition swiveled open on a hidden base to reveal a small closet, one hiding a steep staircase that angled to the right at the first landing and disappeared between the outside wall of the barn and what Mick surmised to be an inside wall belonging to Candy's apartment.

  "Wow," Liberty said as Neva shepherded the girl inside. Mick followed, bloody well impressed with the deceptive setup and layout of Candy's living space. It would take a lot more than a first glance to notice the discrepancy between where the barn ended and her apartment began.

  Pushing the cubbyholes back into position, Neva locked the wall into place and used a flashlight she grabbed off the bottom step to illuminate their climb to the top. The door there opened into another small closet; once inside, she entered a numbered code into a keypad on the frame and hung the flashlight's strap on the doorknob.

  "Wow," Liberty said again, as the closet wall slid open on similarly concealed tracks to reveal a small sitting room complete with a computer desk and open kitchen area beyond. "Is this where I'm going to live?"

  "No, but it's where you'll stay until I can move you out of here safely." Neva flipped one wall switch and the panel closed, flipped another and two table lamps came on. "You need to be sure this is what you want because once I put the ball in motion, that's it. You can't come back. It's too risky to both of us. To Ed and Candy, too."

  "I am sure. I want to be able to work and start saving money to go to school. I don't want to be one of five wives doing nothing but changing diapers all my life." Liberty walked farther into the room, ran her fingers over the padded arm of the cushy blue corduroy love seat. "I can't believe that's all my parents want for me."

  "Finding this out now is better than finding it out later. You've got your entire life ahead of you and learning now to rely on yourself is going to take you far," Neva said, then glanced at Mick, who was cl
ueless about teenage girls.

  He merely nodded and shrugged. Give him a physically menacing threat, he was all over it. And though the idea of hunting down her parents and making them see the light sounded like a damn good one, he had no experience with this. Meaning he wasn't sure he was going to be a whole lot of help. "What do you want me to do?"

  She flipped a third switch and an inset section of the wall beside the door and above the desk slid up to reveal a bank of four small screens. Pulling out the keyboard tray, she clicked through several windows on the flat panel monitor, bringing up the feed from the security cameras positioned on the exterior corners of the barn.

  "I want to get Liberty settled in her room. Will you watch and let me know if anyone besides Candy or Ed shows up?" she asked, gesturing toward the wall.

  "That I can do," he said, feeling much more in his undercover element while his respect for this woman notched upward toward awe. This was one hell of a sophisticated operation she was running.

  "Thanks," she said, and smiled, hesitating briefly, as if she had something she wanted to tell him, something she needed to say, before turning and leading Liberty through the kitchen and down the hallway beyond.

  Mick crossed the carpeted floor, an obvious soundproofing measure between this apartment and Candy's, and stood in front of the screens, leaning against the love seat where it backed up to the desk. The only movement he saw on any of the feeds came when his dog walked off the patio to sniff around the graveled parking area.

  From the far end of the barn's second floor, he heard the murmur of the two female voices, neither loud enough to make out any of what they said. He glanced in that direction, taking in what he could of the utilitarian kitchen. A refrigerator, a microwave, a small stove with a heavy duty vented hood above to keep cooking odors from drifting.

  The build-out of this structure had not come cheap. He wondered about the chicken and the egg. Which had come first. The Big Brown Barn's current business success, which he couldn't quite see paying for all of this—or the modifications to the original building, which the business was now supporting. He had a whole lot of questions he wanted to ask Neva Case.

  She might be an attorney and an entrepreneur, but there was a hell of a lot more to her than that. Her secrets weren't simple, and he was certain could get her killed. He didn't want to see that happen. He wanted to keep her safe. How the hell he was going to manage that from a state away once he returned to New Mexico was going to require more than pulling a rabbit out of his hat.

  He might just have to pull one out of Manhattan.

  By the time Neva walked her newest charge through the upstairs rooms of the barn, the girl's exhaustion was evident. Liberty had been sitting on the foot of the bed she'd chosen when Neva left to set out towels and toiletries in the bathroom. Checking back minutes later, she found the events of the past few days had taken their toll. Liberty was fast asleep.

  After drawing the chenille coverlet over the teenager's legs, Neva returned to the main room to explain things to Mick. She didn't want to have to answer his questions. But doing so was a much more palatable alternative than having him leave. He'd said he'd stayed to help, and right now she'd take it—even if she wished he was staying for her.

  "Anything going on?" she asked, watching him as he watched the feeds from the cameras.

  Pushing up and away from the love seat on which he'd been leaning, he shook his head. "Nothing moving but the dog. Restless mutt."

  She crossed her arms, smiled. "He's probably anxious to get back to hunting."

  He snorted. "He's bloody useless at it. My fault. I don't know a retriever from a shepherd or a hound."

  Her grin widened. He was so cute when he was so honestly clueless. "Could be he's the part of your costume that gave you away."

  "And here all this time you've been telling me it was the knife and the gun." When she remained silent, he added, "You do still have my gun, don't you?"

  "I do," she said with a nod.

  He turned to face her, holding a hand to his ribs. "If you really want me to be any help here, you might think about giving it back."

  "I don't need you to shoot anybody," she said, thinking as she did how much safer she felt in the dark with her own gun close by. Thinking, too, how having him here added to that sense of security.

  "Then cross your fingers no one comes out of the corner swinging. Because I promise you. That happens?" He patted his damaged midsection. "I'm going down."

  "I'll think about it." And she would. He was so stoic in the face of his injuries, she'd forgotten how extensive they were. "But I don't think anyone will be coming after you. If anything, they'll come after me."

  He huffed, shook his head. "Women."

  "What?"

  He stepped closer, hovered, forcing her gaze up to meet his, which glittered dangerously. "Someone comes after me, I'll duck as many punches as I can. They come after you, ducking won't make the same dent as my gun."

  Her heart beat so hard she couldn't swallow. She could barely even breathe. She hadn't had anyone on her side in so long that she didn't know what to do but say the first thing that popped into her mind. "Then we hope it doesn't come to that. And if we're careful, there's no reason it should."

  "Careful?" His lips narrowed. His eyes, too, the corners crinkling from his time in the sun, from his experience in matters illegal that she was sure far surpassed hers. "You've got five people who know about this already. How many more are going to find out before that girl gets to where you're sending her?"

  She blew out a long slow breath and walked around to curl up in the corner of the love seat. She could see the four screens just as well from here as she could from where she'd been standing. And right now, keeping the piece of furniture between her and Mick seemed the smart thing to do. Standing out in the open, she too easily broadcast all of her thoughts. And his antennae were too damn strong.

  "Neva?" he demanded in a harsh tone that didn't sound a whole lot like her protector, her hero, her crusader of minutes before.

  She looked up and into the eyes of the not very nice man who hunted with a SIG Sauer. "I don't know what to do."

  He frowned, then came around to sit beside her, perching on the edge of the love seat's second cushion, leaning forward, elbows on his widespread knees. So much for the barrier between them. She could feel his body's heat, his tension, his instincts kicking in. "What do you mean you don't know what to do? This is what you do, isn't it?"

  She nodded, brought her knees to her chest, tucked the toes of her boots beneath his cushion. "For five years now."

  His frown said it all. "Then I'd think you'd have the system down pat."

  "I thought I did." Dear Lord, was she really going to tell him things she hadn't even told Ed and Candy? Her partners in crime? Her hands trembled with the force of her decision, and she tucked them into the folds of her knees. "But I've run into a couple of problems that make me leery to put Liberty into my network."

  Moisture welled in her eyes, and she looked away to scan the camera feeds. She would not cry. She didn't have time to cry. Crying in front of Mick Savin was the last thing she wanted to do.

  "What sort of problems?" he asked, and when she continued to look away, added, "I can't help if I don't know."

  "I'm not sure you can help anyway." She breathed in, breathed out, allowed her stomach to settle, her unshed tears to dry. "I'm not sure anyone can."

  "Have you let anyone try?"

  She looked over at him then, away from the monitors and to the man staring into her eyes. His piercing expression made it hard for her to speak, to admit that what he was accusing her of was true. She was unnecessarily shouldering this sizable burden alone. It didn't make sense, no, and she knew that. But there were only two others to tell.

  Candy had been through one fight for her life already. If this went that far, Neva wanted to spare her friend a repeat of that pain. Ed would ask too many questions, demand answers she didn't have, and then try to ta
ke over. And this particular truth was ammunition she didn't want to put like a gift into his hands.

  But now she had Mick. Mick who was still waiting, still patient, still offering to help. "I think there's a leak in my network."

  "A leak." He laced his fingers between his spread knees. "Someone's talking?"

  She shrugged, feeling stupid for knowing no more than she did. "I don't know if it's talk, or someone not following through, dropping the ball, I don't know. I just know I've lost three of the girls who came to me for help."

  His head bobbed as he worked to process what she'd told him. "Lost how?"

  "Lost as in vanished. I can't find them anywhere." She moved one hand to the back of the love seat, pinched and played with a fabric seam. "They were with their handler where they should've been, then they were gone. No one has a clue."

  Mick glanced over, shifted to face her. "No chance they ended up back in Earnestine and were hidden away?"

  She shook her head. "If that had happened, I would've heard. Holden Wagner would never let me live down such a failure."

  "Even if he couldn't prove your involvement?"

  Smart man. "How fast you're learning the vagaries of our celebrity lawyer."

  "Celebrity?"

  "Oh, yes." She nodded briskly "Before he moved here, he was a big First Amendment activist. Upholding freedom of religious expression at all costs."

  "What's he doing in small-town West Texas?" Mick asked, his brows drawing together, his forehead furrowed.

  "The township apparently made him an offer he couldn't refuse. And yeah," she added, listening to the gears whir in Mick's mind, gears that had whirred in hers for years. "No one I know believes that's the whole story. Problem is, research resources in the area are limited. I've got the only satellite dish for miles. And most people in the area are happy to think of what goes on down the road as gossip. Otherwise they might feel compelled to get involved."

  "And you who are involved. You've never wondered?"