And he’d been a fool. Too focused on Kelsey and Montego, he’d missed the obvious. Somehow, Tara had walked right past him, and then kept her back toward Seth and Beckam until Montego popped the smoke. That had to be what happened. Tara had also believed Montego was here tonight for a different reason than schmoozing the press. She hadn’t known what it was, but she’d been prepared to protect Kelsey the only way she knew how. By becoming Kelsey. Montego had no idea that her little smoke bomb would create enough confusion to fool even her.
Renner’s worst nightmare had come true. “Montego’s got Tara,” he whispered.
“How?” Aaron asked through his earpiece. “My guys are all over this place, inside and out. They would’ve seen and apprehended her.”
“I don’t know...” Renner could barely speak. He truly didn’t understand how Montego and Tara could’ve disappeared into thin air. He’d been at the exit, Seth and Beckam at the kitchen exit. She hadn’t gotten past them. But then he knew. Montego had escaped and she’d kidnapped the wrong woman.
“She thinks she’s got Kelsey, but she kidnapped Tara instead.” He ran across the hall and pounded on the locked door. “It’s me, Kels. Open up!”
The door swung open. Kelsey stood there, her arm around Jed, her pistol pointed down.
“Where’s your security camera footage. I need to see it right damned now,” Renner ordered. “There’s still time. We can apprehend her.”
“What happened?”
“Montego kidnapped Tara.” Man, his heart felt like an Abrams tank had parked on his chest.
“Jed, you stay here,” Kelsey said as she scrambled into the hall with Aaron on her six.
Of course, Jed-the-Meek took the nearest seat, sitting there like the lost man he was. It didn’t get any sadder than this. The man who’d bankrolled both Alex’s TEAM and Raymond’s Kids, now just as lost as the children she rescued.
“Mark, we need to get those people out of here,” Renner ordered.
An ashen-faced reporter stuck her mic in his face and asked, “What’s your name? You look important. Who are you and just what happened here tonight? Was this simply another hoax? Another publicity stunt to get more funding for this pathetic excuse of a charity? And where is LuAnn? What’d you do to her? Talk to America. We have a right to know.” By then she was screaming at him, her voice in entitled, demanding, panic mode.
Renner squared his shoulders and looked straight into her cameraman’s lens. “You want the truth?” he asked, his heart on his sleeve. “You think you can handle the truth?” And now he was channeling Jack Nicholson.
“That’s what I asked, isn’t it?”
And enough! Renner snapped the mic out of that ballsy woman’s grip and gritted his teeth, staring at America but aiming for Montego. “My name is USMC Staff Sergeant Renner Graves. You hear me, Catalina Montego? You understand what I’m telling you? Look at this face and remember it, because I’m the last thing you’re going to see. I don’t give a damn what you call yourself now. LuAnn. Catalina. Or asswipe. I’m coming for you. So run, you goddamned bitch.” Renner clicked the mic off, then handed it back to the reporter. “There. Now you’ve got a story.”
“Wait!” she squealed, chasing after him. “You think LuAnn’s really that serial killer, Catalina Montego?”
“No further comment,” he shot over his shoulder.
“Way to go, big mouth,” Mark murmured, keeping his reprimand low as he fell into step alongside Renner. “You just made yourself a target, not what we need.”
“I don’t give a shit. She wanted a war, now she’s got one.”
“Come with me. You need to see what Aaron found.”
“Where is—” He spotted Kelsey with Aaron outside the kitchen door. Oh, thank God. She was still safe and protected. “What?”
She waved him forward. The crowd of Aaron’s men gathered around her parted like the Red Sea had for Moses hundreds of years ago. And Renner lost it.
“Shit, shit, shit!” he snarled, now looking at something else he hadn’t known existed. A hidden door! About three-by-three, it dropped into a chute that led to the basement—or outside.
“You,” he said pointed to the nearest man. “Go downstairs and—”
“There’s nothing there,” Aaron said. “We live downstairs. This chute has to go outside.”
Renner suppressed an urge to kick something. This was how Montego had gotten Tara out of the building. Once that smoke filled the other end of the room, she’d forced Tara down this chute and into someone else’s waiting arms. What a clusterfuck. He should’ve studied this building’s blueprints closer, better, quicker! Hell, Jed should’ve given him more time to do his job right!
“I didn’t know this was here,” Kelsey whispered. “It must’ve been how they sent their full lunchroom trash down to the main garbage bin when this was a functioning high school.”
You think? Renner bit his tongue at the panic hammering his heart into oblivion. The chute led to the west side of the building where there weren’t enough lights. Where it was extra dark. Where someone had obviously been waiting with a vehicle large enough for Montego and her prey. Tara. Where Renner had made his first error.
“Tell me you at least have security cameras there?” Renner asked, trying not to sound like an ass, but pissed as hell.
“Yes, I do. I can get everything up and running in my office,” Kelsey replied. “I’m sor—”
Renner’s right hand came up, demanding silence, not excuses. He had no more patience to give, not even for Kelsey. “Just take me there. Mark, Seth, and Beckam, do not let Jed McCormack out of your sight, and will someone please get rid of these people? The party’s over,” he called out.
Notice he didn’t say ‘fucking people’? That ought to count for something.
Mark shot him a warning glare but complied. And yeah, Renner knew he needed to stop treating his senior agent like a junior agent. But shit. Tara!
He all but shoved Kelsey into her office. Aaron sat at her desk now, watching the big screen Renner also hadn’t realized she owned. But hey, look. Another secret panel. Only this one was actually an armoire that matched her solid oak desk. So it didn’t count. “Find anything?”
Aaron nodded, pointing as he rewound the footage. “The garbage chute leads directly from the kitchen to this point right here. It’s hidden in this alcove, but watch…”
Renner shut the overhead light off to see past the reflection on the monitor. The tape showed a black van parked at the westside curb, its lights off. A wintery night and fog made it hard to see the plates. Then two black shadows materialized from the alcove, one with a bag over her head, the other pushing the first forward. Montego shoved Tara and she slumped into the open van door. Still no headlights. Not even taillights flickered when the van pulled away.
With his blood thrumming in his ears, Renner said, “Okay, now we know how.”
“But how could Montego have known we had a chute?” Kelsey asked. “I work here and I didn’t know.”
“Tara must’ve known. She must have told her,” Aaron said.
“Which might be how Tyson’s getting out of the building,” Kelsey said thoughtfully.
Another thing Renner hadn’t known. Not like he’d had enough warning to perform a thorough search of this old building. Not that McCormack had given him or Kelsey sufficient time to prepare for the snake he’d brought into this safe place. Jesus Christ! What else could go wrong?
“But why Tara?” Kelsey asked, wiping tears Renner didn’t want to see. Couldn’t see. Not now. Not with his heart and his reason for living in Montego’s cold-blooded hands. God damn it, everything came back to Kelsey.
“She did it for you,” he told her, fighting to see through the shimmer in his eyes. “Tara dressed like you tonight. Ten to one she didn’t know Montego was going after you or Jed, but she’d prepared, just in case. She made certain she was on her feet. It was just dumb luck she was right and that Monteg
o smuggled in a smoke bomb, probably in her heel. Montego thinks she’s got you, Kels.”
Her slender fingers cupped her mouth. “No—” she croaked.
“I’m sorry, but yeah.” Renner swallowed hard. “Tara told me how you saved her life the day you welcomed her to Raymond’s Kids. She loves you, Kels, and because she does, she made herself a target. She planned this all along.”
Kelsey dissolved into tears, and Renner turned away, fighting his terror. He’d seen what Montego did the night she’d kidnapped Beau. That time she’d taken just his little finger. While Renner knew the pain Beau suffered, he couldn’t help worrying what Montego would do to a woman who’d had the audacity to deceive her, especially when she’d fully believed she finally stabbed Alex where it would hurt him the worst. At his heart.
Instead, she’d stabbed Renner’s heart. And it was killing him.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Once again. Maybe one last time. Tara shook off the effects of the knock-out drug Montego had plunged into her neck when they’d gone down that chute to her getaway van. The concrete floor beneath her was damp, kind of slimy. It smelled bad, though Tara wasn’t positive that she wasn’t smelling her own blood. But the sickening sweet stink of urine? Couldn’t be her. Just could not. That would mean she’d been so scared she’d lost control and wet herself. But Tara wasn’t scared, and she wasn’t that kind of wet. Not yet.
Her sluggish mind wandered. She was concerned, maybe. Thoughtful. But not for one second did she doubt her decision to save Kelsey Stewart’s life. This was precisely what Renner would’ve done, if he’d had the girlish figure. But he just plain didn’t have what it took. There really were some things only a woman could do, and standing in for her best friend was one of them.
That smoke bomb was quite a surprise. Tara took that as a sign that she’d been meant to save Kelsey. Coincidences didn’t just happen.
“Please, get… can you get off my foot?” some guy whined.
Tara jerked awake. Instinctively, she rolled to her butt and away from that voice. Where had Montego taken her? And what was that putrid smell?
“Who are you?” she asked as she lifted her arm to cover her nose as the stench worsened.
“R-Roger,” he answered, sounding more like a ten-year-old kid than a man. “Jesus, you’re a… a woman?”
“Last time I checked, yeah,” she answered, trying to keep her cool.
“I’m Gilbert,” another voice said.
“Pete.”
“Samson, here.”
“Antonio, but you can call me Tony.” That one came with a definite flirty Bronx accent and a tight twinge of pain.
“Shy,” the last voice rasped. He sounded sickly. Weak.
“Gary.”
But it was too dark to make out faces. “There’s seven of you?” she asked. “Where am I?”
“In hell,” Shy murmured hoarsely. “With us.”
“And we got us an angel,” Tony piped up. “You gonna save us?”
“Shhhhh, you gotta rest, Shy,” one of the guys said, maybe Roger. “Stop talking or you ain’t gonna last. But please, ma’am, you gotta get off my foot. It’s… God, I don’t want to scare you, but it’s still bleeding.”
“Bleeding? Oh, my gosh!” Tara eased her calf off the hard lump she’d thought was a rock. “I’m so sorry!”
“’S okay,” he groaned as he pulled his foot from under her.
That’s what the smell was. These men. That foot. Shit! as Renner would say if he’d been here. Montego hadn’t planned to just kidnap and kill Kelsey. She’d meant to torture her like she’d tortured these men.
Tara decided right then and there, she was not going to die at Montego’s hands. She’d survived one asshole. She could survive another. But first…
“Shy?” she asked. “I’m no angel, but you sound like you’re badly hurt, am I right?”
“We’re all badly hurt, ma’am, but yeah. Shy got it the worst.”
Tara couldn’t be sure which man said that. They all sounded so ragged, so much the same.
“Cuz I wouldn’t cry,” he whispered. “She likes it when guys cry.”
Oh, damn, this was so, so bad. Tara swallowed hard, then said, “So maybe, somehow, I can help.” That seemed the best solution. She helped kids, and these guys were all just big kids. As far as she could tell, they weren’t restrained any more than she was.
“D-don’t t-t-touch me,” Shy whimpered. “Just them. Just help them.”
Which meant he needed critical care, and he needed it first. Tara pulled that damned wig off, the same one she’d worn the night she’d first showed up at Raymond’s Kids. She’d been traveling incognito back then. But once again, it served its purpose. It had kept her safe. It would keep Kelsey safe now.
This place was cramped, crowded, and stifling hot, which made no sense at this time of year. Tara didn’t have a clue what those conditions meant. She hadn’t come across any places warmer than the heat vents over Metro stations that crisscrossed the District when she’d lived on the streets.
“Talk to me, Shy,” she said calmly. “I’m coming to you. I can help. I know I can. Just reach out and take hold of my hand—”
“No. Please, no. You can’t help. Not me. Please…” He broke into shuddering sobs. “D-d-don’t. J-just don’t.”
Tara stopped, kneeling and facing darkness with no way to know where any of these men were. “I just want to help.”
“You can’t help us, ma’am,” Roger said, his tone as hopeless as Shy’s. “It’s too late. There isn’t anything to do for Shy now but pray for him to die. Pray for us, too. You wouldn’t happen to have a gun on you?”
She shook her head in the dark, even though she knew none of these guys could see her.
“I figure that’s a no,” he muttered sadly. “Too bad. I’d pray for a bullet myself.”
“We can’t give up hope,” she told him in her best imitation of Kelsey.
“Yeah...” Shy whispered. “Yeah, we can, Ma’am. It’s easy… easier… than…” It sounded as if his last breath had just wheezed out of him.
“Shy?” Tara panicked. “Shy? Talk to me. I can help. I know—”
“Shhhhh,” Roger hissed. “He’s gone.”
“He’s dead?”
“Yes, ma’am. It was only a matter of time. We tried to help him for days. There was nothing you could’ve done.”
“But…” She couldn’t think. Couldn’t breathe. Poor Shy had just died less than five feet from her. She could’ve helped! She could have... “What… what’d Montego do to him?” she asked as tears started to flow.
“You don’t want to know. What are you wearing? Any extra clothes? A jacket maybe? You got any water on you?”
“No water, but I’ve got a jacket. You want my clothes? You can have them.”
“Only what you can spare, ma’am. Just need to make a couple tourniquets, that’s all.”
“Oh, sure.” Tourniquets, just tourniquets to stop yourselves from bleeding to death before Montego comes back to kill you. By now Tara was shivering, but not from the cold. “I-I can rip my sleeves and pant legs off, too. Here you go,” she said as…
R-r-i-p-p-p-p-p-p! Who needed sleeves when men were dying?
“Thank you, kindly,” Roger said gruffly. “You have no idea what this means to us.”
“Spare a couple pieces for me?” Antonio’s voice for sure.
“She hurt all of you,” Tara whispered, understanding now. Montego had taken fingers, toes, and limbs from these men. Maybe more. Off came her shirt. “Here, let me do that,” she told Roger as she tugged it back and proceeded to turn that shirt into bandages and tourniquets and anything else these guys needed.
“Ah, thanks,” Roger whispered, his voice ragged and broken as she wrapped part of her jacket around his foot, then tied it with a narrow strip of her shirt. “You’re very kind. Sure sorry you’re here, though.”
“I’m not,�
�� she declared bravely. That quiver in her voice didn’t mean anything.
Roger didn’t reply, and Tara was certain he was crying. For her.
So was she.
Chapter Thirty
Renner was still in Kelsey’s office. Still pissed at himself and everyone else on this son of a bitchin’ failed op. Renner couldn’t believe that no one—no one!—knew where Montego had gone or where she could be. Not any of Aaron’s men. Not Aaron. The security footage didn’t extend far enough into the street to know if that van had turned left or right. Ember was hard at work searching traffic cams in the area, but that took time. Time Tara didn’t have.
Christ on a cracker! She could be dying right now. Or already dead.
“Shit!” he hissed for the umpteenth time.
“We’ll find her,” Aaron said quietly. He’d been saying that since this ‘event’ had turned to crap, and it was working Renner’s last nerve.
“She’s smart,” Kelsey added. “She escaped Jorge when they lived in Colorado and—”
“Sir, you need to step back!” Beckam bellowed from the rear exit where he was supposed to be keeping watch for… Oh, whatever. Who cared? There was no sense watching the henhouse now that the fox had come and gone.
“I will shoot you, now back off!”
Renner scrubbed a hand over his face, pissed at yet one more interruption, one more thing he’d failed to consider. He’d barely cleared the door, when he was confronted with Beckam’s broad back, his boots planted, his butt taut, and both arms extended forward, his pistol in some guy’s face.
“What’s up, Beck?” Renner asked tiredly.
“Sir, yes, sir, this jerk-off refuses to stand down.”
Said jerk-off peered around Beckam with one lethal gray eye. “Are you in charge of this fucked up mess?” he asked, his voice an exact duplicate of Christian Bale’s Batman. Deep. Distorted. Dangerous.
The guy’s eyepatch made him look like a pirate. Heavy burns mottled his lower left cheek and jaw. Both eyebrows were missing. Renner doubted any hair existed beneath the knitted skull cap pulled tight over his head. He had to be the leader of Montego’s other nine.
Renner (In the Company of Snipers Book 19) Page 25