Line of Fire

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  His next punch left an opening. Deflecting the hit, I stepped behind his back and threw my arm around his neck, squeezing tight. I could hold tighter until he fainted, or I could pull him backwards to the restaurant and yell for someone to call the police.

  “Let him go,” said the man.

  My eyes went to Cody and his attacker. For a moment, I thought Cody had stopped struggling because he’d set me up, but the metal barrel of a gun glinted in the light of the street lamp.

  “Let him go or your friend dies. And maybe a few others.”

  I looked around, seeing that two couples had emerged from the restaurant and stood some distance away, staring in our direction. One woman pulled out her cell phone.

  No choice. I hadn’t come to see Cody only to be the cause of his death. Or that of innocent bystanders. I released the man, who quickly distanced himself from me.

  “Nothing to see,” he called to the couples. “Just a demonstration.”

  He opened the side door to the van. I could see two rows of seats running the length of the back under each of the side windows, leaving the middle free. “Get in, dear.”

  I climbed inside, followed by Cody and the man with the gun. The last thing I saw before he shut the door was the white food carton, its contents strewn over the dirty snow at the edge of the sidewalk.

  Chapter 17

  The men didn’t cover our eyes as we drove through the city, and that failure hinted that maybe they didn’t plan to keep us alive long enough for us to give away their destination. Not that I’d ever be able to retrace our route anyway.

  “You should have run,” Cody muttered. “Don’t the police teach anything to their consultants? I’m old. I’ve lived a long time. You should have left me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him and said nothing. What I should have done, besides keeping better watch, was to have mentioned to Shannon that the house from the imprint was an old mortuary. At least that would have narrowed down the search for Jenny. Maybe for Kirt, too, if that was where he had gone.

  Across from us, amusement was plain on our gunman’s face. At this close distance I noted that he was huskier than I’d first glimpsed, but his fleshy face told me it was more the bulk of an athlete turned couch potato than muscles built from a daily workout. He had brown hair, dark eyes, and an oblong face. I felt I’d seen him before, though I knew neither he nor his companion had been among those who’d jumped us in Portland. Perhaps they’d been among the shooters at the hospital.

  Cody was staring at him, too. “The keys,” he said under his breath.

  Right. This man had been one of the men on the leather couches in Kirt’s imprint. The man who was now driving the van, the one I’d nearly strangled, hadn’t been among them.

  “No talking,” the driver called. “Dale, keep ’em quiet.”

  “Don’t know why. They’re not going anywhere.”

  “You know the rules. Now keep them shut up.” He held up his own gun complete with a silencer. “Don’t think I can’t use this just because I’m driving.”

  He was smarter than I’d given him credit because I had been thinking of working with Cody to get the gun away from Dale. Two guns decreased our odds exponentially.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked.

  “Because apparently you’re psychic.” Dale pointed to Cody. “He was just in the way.”

  The driver turned a brief glare at him. “We just follow orders. Now shut up.”

  I exchanged a look with Cody. If I’d been taken because of my ability to read imprints, that meant someone involved in the case, someone who believed in imprints, thought I might have information that would incriminate them or might uncover some very soon.

  But who?

  Given her lack of surprise at her daughter’s search for her birth father, Gail Vandyke might have something more to hide, yet I felt her love and concern for her daughter was real. She’d been protecting Jenny all her life. As for Kenyon Vandyke, the imprints on his keys seemed real enough, so if the Vandykes had let anything spill about me, it had probably been unintentional.

  Both Agents Cross and Morley believed in what I could do, but neither seemed to have it out for me. Besides, despite her occasional ineptness at questioning, Cross seemed dedicated to her job. However, she had mentioned in her car earlier that Morley was a new partner. How much did she really know about him?

  Levine seemed too quiet and friendly to want harm to come to me, though wasn’t it always the quiet ones who led secret lives? Maybe his Barney Fife demeanor was a cover, though how anyone could fake that kind of awkwardness was beyond me. He also hadn’t been able to find Kirt for questioning, though maybe none of the sheriff’s deputies could have. It was possible Kirt had already been taken out.

  Then there was Greeley. He had gone behind Huish’s back while submitting evidence. Had he first tampered with it? Or had he submitted evidence that way because he suspected Huish of wrongdoing? He hadn’t known where I was going, but he could have asked Huish or the guard. Any of them could have.

  Commander Huish had known I was heading to Jonathan’s. His wife was dying, his son was on drugs, and the resulting money problems might be a strong motive for betrayal. Maybe he’d received money for turning me over. The most damaging evidence could be his slowness to obtain a search warrant for Kirt’s house where I’d found the imprint of the old mortuary. Had he wanted me to draw the place so he could find it or to discover how much I really knew? I felt sick, thinking the commander could be involved. If it actually was him, how far would he go to protect his secret? This was far larger than one young girl going missing. Huge amounts of money were involved, and people would go to great lengths to protect their profits.

  It could be any of them or none at all. Even if I discovered who, I was in no position now to warn Shannon or anyone else.

  How long would it take Shannon to realize I was gone? How long before he questioned people at the restaurant and discovered his steak in the snow?

  Our captors hadn’t taken my phone yet or searched me. I closed my eyes, thinking hard. If they left me alone, I could make a call, but it was unlikely that would happen, and I couldn’t call without looking at the screen, so no chance of dialing and letting Shannon hear what was going on.

  Thanks to my preoccupation with being spied on, he couldn’t follow me by my phone’s GPS, either, though maybe in time they could track me by more complicated methods. If Huish was involved, I didn’t want to bet on that happening.

  In other words, we were on our own. Or my own, rather. Cody slumped beside me looking discouraged and beaten. I wondered how severely his leg was hurting and if he was losing blood. It wasn’t showing through his jeans.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “Shut up!” barked the driver.

  Dale scowled. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t be there long.”

  I looked at Cody, but he avoided my gaze. Disappointment filled me. I don’t know what I expected from him. A last-moment apology for what he did to my mother? Sorrow that because of her pregnancy, she’d met an early death? Whatever, I wasn’t getting it. I’d known for most of my adult life that I’d never hear any kind of apology or see my birth father pay for his sins, and I thought I’d come to terms with it. I guess I’d been fooling myself.

  Even so, I didn’t want him to suffer at the hands of these men, regardless of the cosmic justice they might mete out.

  Think, I told myself.

  The uneasy feeling in my stomach increased when we eventually pulled up at a U-shaped house I recognized all too well—the columns framing the double front doors, the circular drive. The old mortuary.

  Again I mentally berated myself for not telling Shannon more about the place.

  The mortuary sat on a large triangular piece of land that bordered streets on the front and back. On the remaining side were businesses—all dark. In fact, with the exception of two lone street lamps, the whole area was dark. We could expect no help from the neighbors
. A car passed, but it was the first I’d seen in a long time.

  The van drove to the far end of the circular drive, which passed a side door before exiting the property. Probably where they used to load the hearses. I hoped it wasn’t a statement of our life expectancy that we entered there now.

  The driver kept his gun on Cody, while the larger man, Dale, stayed with me. “So are you really psychic?” he asked in an undertone.

  If I ever caught up to whoever started that rumor, they were going to regret it.

  Wait. Maybe I could put it to good use. “Of course I am,” I said. “And this isn’t going to end well for you. The only way out I see for you is to call the sheriff’s office and tell them where we are.”

  His step faltered almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, right. You’re a fake.”

  No help from him. Unless …

  I had to time this exactly right and to choose my spot carefully. Stumbling, I reached out for his hand, aiming for the gold watch just visible beneath his wool coat.

  Images assailed me: screaming, shootings, beatings. Flashes of eagerness, alternated by a boundless remorse quickly quashed by yet another heinous deed. My stomach curled with horror. Thankfully the images faded. Another imprint followed. Pride. The gift of this watch meant I was one of the elite. Maybe in time I’d have my own crew and earn enough money for a thousand gold watches and vacations on sun-kissed beaches. All the things I’d had to do to get here meant nothing. All the things I knew I would have yet to do.

  Then the first imprint began again.

  I fell to my knees, gagging. What have I done? I thought. No. Not me. Him. I was grateful the watch was relatively new and attached to Dale instead of in my hands, or I might have become stuck in that terror-filled loop.

  “Get up,” Dale growled, pointing his gun.

  “You’ve hurt so many people,” I said. “Are their lives really worth a thousand gold watches and a beach vacation?”

  Dale’s eyes widened. “Stay away from me.” He took a step back, motioning me forward, up a ramp where Cody and the driver waited.

  Disgust swept through me. “You will never see that beach unless you leave here now and call the police.” I didn’t know any such thing, but he didn’t know that, and I couldn’t resist. It was less than he deserved.

  “I said shut up!” a voice shouted in my ear. Pain echoed through my shoulder as the driver’s gun jabbed into my left shoulder, reverberating through the newly healed wound in my upper arm.

  Almost I wished I’d kept my mouth shut. Almost.

  The driver’s presence meant Cody was momentarily unguarded. Run, I screamed at him silently.

  Too late. Another man had appeared in the doorway, the gun in his left hand pointing at Cody, his right arm in a sling.

  Kirt, the gas station attendant. My stomach dropped.

  “Get inside.” His voice held no compromise.

  We were led down a wide hallway where Kirt pocketed his gun to unlock a door. The way he fumbled told me he was normally right-handed. “Sorry for the digs, but it’s all we could arrange at such short notice.”

  “Kirt, please,” I said. “It’s not too late. Think of your fiancée. Does she know about all this?”

  He barked a laugh. “She believes exactly what I want her to believe. I’m her whole world, remember?”

  He shoved me up against the wall with his good arm and began checking the pockets of my coat and then my black pants. He threw my phone at the driver. “Open this and take out the battery. Just in case.”

  Nodding, the driver dismantled my phone and handed it back to Kirt, who tucked it in his pocket.

  Dale had been checking Cody at the same time, coming up with a handful of rusty nails and his wad of cash. Cody looked ready to burst.

  “I have nothing to do with this,” I said to Kirt. “And neither does Cody. I saved your life!”

  Kirt’s gaze shifted to Cody and back to me. “Look, I appreciate what you did, but that’s the way it goes. I’m not going to prison.”

  “Is that why you ordered them to kill your cousin?”

  Kirt’s eyes narrowed. “He knew the risks when we entered this business. We both knew the risks.”

  There was a hesitation in the way he answered that told me more than he’d intended. “You didn’t order it, did you?” I guessed. “You only identified him when you were at the hospital for your shoulder, and whoever is really in charge ordered the hit. You didn’t expect that, did you? You’re nothing but an underling.”

  Kirt’s nostrils flared. “I’m the one who schedules the drops. I’m the one who supplies the locations. This is my operation now.”

  “Your cousin was heading to the gas station for help, but all you did was sign his death warrant.”

  “He messed up. I should have shot him myself.” Kirt nodded at Dale, who twisted the knob on the door Kirt had unlocked earlier. Kirt grabbed my shoulder, pushing me forward.

  I struggled against him. “They’ll cut you a deal, if you give up whoever’s working with you in the sheriff’s office.”

  Kirt stopped pushing.

  Ah, I thought. He hadn’t expected me to know about that.

  Instead of answering, he tightened his grip and gave me another shove. I tripped forward into the dark room, falling over something and sprawling on the carpet.

  Dale began tugging off my boots.

  “What are you—”

  “So you don’t run away,” Kirt said.

  For most people he’d be right, especially in the snow, but I felt only relief as I wiggled my freed toes. I could count on two hands the days I’d worn shoes the entire year.

  The door shut behind us, and I heard the unmistakable click of the lock.

  Cody snorted somewhere above me in the dark. “Don’t you know when to shut up? Thought you were going to get yourself killed.”

  “What would you care? I’m nothing to you. You’ve made that very clear.”

  “He might have shot me, too.”

  “You know what? You’re nothing but the dregs of humanity, the leftover stuff that’s too bitter and gross to do anything with but toss in the trash.” It wasn’t something Winter or Summer would have ever said, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Just so you don’t expect anything from me.”

  “Believe me, I gave that up a long time ago. From the moment I found out what you did to my mother.”

  Her fifteenth birthday, and he and my grandmother had been drugged out of their minds. He’d accosted Kendall in her own room. Tawnia and I were the result.

  Silence. Heavy silence. Then rustling from across the room and more movement nearby.

  I squinted, willing my eyes to adjust to the darkness. “Who’s there?” Hope arose inside me. Funny how hope works, appearing when you least expect it. “Jenny? Is that you?”

  “There’s no Jenny here,” came a young, feminine voice.

  “Who are you?”

  “You’re a prisoner like us, right?” said another girl.

  “I guess so. For now. We’ve been trying to find Jenny Vandyke. She’s missing.”

  A tiny flame flickered to life across the room, revealing a girl who couldn’t be older than twelve. “We’re all missing,” she said. “Can you help us?”

  Gradually, I could make out two others standing next to the girl, and more spread out across the small room. One lay close to me, still half asleep, though it must have been her I’d stumbled over.

  I counted at least twenty girls, arrayed in various articles of clothing. Not one wore shoes. Most of the girls huddled together in small groups in the cold room, some sharing a blanket. Several of the youngest looked as though they’d been roused from their beds only moments ago and taken from their families.

  I met Cody’s eyes, and though I couldn’t see him well, I felt the same shock radiating from him.

  “We’ll help all of you,” I said.

  I would. Providing I could stay alive myself.

  Chapter 18


  The girls were from all over the country and all different ethnicities, mostly runaways and foster children, but two had been taken from different malls in the East. The girl with the light said her parents were dead and that her uncle had sold her.

  They didn’t know where they were going, but I knew it wasn’t anywhere good.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked, pointing to a prone figure near the boarded window. As the dim light washed over the teen, I could see the lank hair and the sweat on her face, though the room was decidedly cold. Someone had thrown a blanket over her.

  “Drugs,” Cody said without emotion.

  “They give them to us if we get hysterical.” The girl who answered sounded tough and streetwise, though her face put her near fourteen. “But she was already on them. A couple of us are.” Her gaze landed on three girls huddled together under a blanket against the right wall.

  “They’ll all be drugged up before long,” Cody said in an undertone. “Easier to control them.”

  Sniffling drew my attention to a younger girl under a blanket with another child who slept the deathlike sleep of someone drugged. The weeping girl couldn’t have been more than ten, and her tears made my chest tight.

  I scooted over to her, removing the shaman’s colorful shawl from my coat pocket and draping it around her. “Don’t cry, honey. We’ll get out of here.”

  A small hand closed over mine. “Promise?”

  “I’ll do everything I can. But if you get a chance to run, do it.” I raised my voice an octave. “That goes for all of you. If you ever have a chance—run.”

  “They’ll shoot us,” someone said.

  Cody cleared his throat. “They can’t shoot all of you.”

  Not exactly a comfort. No wonder they hadn’t tried. None of them could know the horrors awaiting them that would make dying by gunshot seem easy by comparison.

  “So how we getting out?” asked the tough girl.

  The little girl with the light moved closer. “I heard them say something about moving us tonight. Wasn’t supposed to be until a few more days.”