The Last Resort

by Janice Kay Johnson - His Best Friend's Baby

  Laughing, Alex realized he hadn’t felt this good since the last time he’d made love with Leah, and then the astonishing pleasure was transitory. They’d both been all too aware of the frightening reality awaiting them.

  Before he could say anything else, he heard voices in the hall, followed by one that said, “Knock knock,” even as a hand drew back the curtain.

  The visitor was Matt Sanford, the deputy who had picked them up off the side of the highway. He had a black duffel bag slung over one shoulder and was pulling a small suitcase with the other hand. “I thought you might like to have your stuff,” he said cheerfully.

  Leah beamed at him. “Yes, please. Is my purse there somewhere? You do have my phone?”

  He let her seize the suitcase handle from him. “I’m told your purse is in the suitcase. The phone, I don’t know. If anything is missing, I’ll follow up on it.” He looked at Alex. “And I take it this is yours.”

  “Well, the bag is.”

  “Do you want your phone?” Leah asked, starting to reach for the zipper.

  “Eventually. Unfortunately, I don’t dare use it until we know it’s clean. Somebody was supposed to bring me—”

  The deputy pulled a phone from a pocket. “I’m the somebody.”

  “Turned you into the pack mule, huh?”

  “Beats my average day. You introduced some excitement into our lives.”

  Alex’s eyes met Leah’s. “More than I ever want to experience again.”

  “Amen,” she murmured.

  “Thank you,” Alex added. “You don’t know how glad to see you we were.”

  “That’s what they all say,” Deputy Sanford joked, but he also smiled. “I’m happy I came on you when I did. Oh, I forgot to say I have an update.”

  Both focused on him.

  “I hear the FBI has caught up with four men. A guy with a Scandinavian name...”

  “Arne Larson?”

  “That’s it. He was with a Robert Kirk.”

  Leah’s hand tightened on Alex’s. “I don’t remember a Robert.”

  Alex wasn’t surprised. Unremarkable in appearance, Rob had never seemed interested in pushing himself forward.

  “The other two were Don Durand—his truck was loaded with rifles, they said—and Garrett Zeigler.”

  “Those two were together?”

  “Not from what I heard.”

  “I’m glad someone is willing to tell us what’s happening.”

  “Yeah, I figured.” Sanford sounded sympathetic. “I put my number in that phone. Call if I can do anything.”

  They expressed more thanks. He left, leaving silence in his wake.

  * * *

  THIS SILENCE FELT awkward to Leah. She wouldn’t try to leave until morning at the soonest, Saturday if it looked like she’d have her car by then, but...should she hang around and keep Alex company now? Or make this breezy but plan to stop by in the morning to say goodbye?

  Would she hear from him someday?

  “I almost hope Del and Dirk get away,” she blurted.

  He grimaced. “Me, too, but that won’t happen with Del. He got himself in too deep. Dirk... I’ll try to keep him from being charged if he followed my advice.”

  He’d told her about the confrontation with Dirk and what he’d suggested. “If he didn’t, there’s not much I can do for him.”

  “How will you know?”

  He ran a hand over his rough jaw. “As long as he doesn’t have any stolen weapons on him when he’s stopped, I’ll assume he’s running from Higgs, not still taking his orders. Dirk saved us by keeping his mouth shut.”

  Leah nodded. “They didn’t let you shave?”

  “Wasn’t high on their list of priorities, but, damn it, I itch.”

  His disgruntlement made her smile. It also, for some obscure reason, made her sad. Just ask, she told herself.

  “You’ll be going back to Chicago, won’t you?”

  An emotion she couldn’t read passed through his light gray eyes. “For the short term,” he agreed. “I’m in no shape to be useful here.”

  “No. Um, I’m expected back at work Monday. So...”

  “Have you talked to your parents?” he asked.

  She scrunched up her nose. “Yes. Mom was next thing to hysterical. I could hear Dad in the background reminding her that I’m okay.”

  Annoyingly, amusement curved Alex’s very sexy mouth. “Did you mention getting shot?”

  Feeling sort of teenaged, she said, “I figured that could wait.”

  He laughed, but there was something intense in the way he watched her. “Leah...”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t want to say goodbye.”

  “I don’t want to, either,” she whispered, praying he didn’t mean that in a “We had quite an adventure, and I’ll miss you” way.

  “Are you still serious about applying to vet school?”

  “Yes, except...there’s still the money issue. I suppose I should talk to some real estate agents tomorrow. It might be a while before they can actually take a look at the resort, though, huh?”

  “I’m guessing a week or so,” he agreed. His gaze never left hers. “I want to keep seeing you.”

  Her heart did a somersault. “But... Chicago.”

  “I’m done with undercover work. I can apply for a transfer to be near you.”

  He meant it. Suddenly, tears rolled down her cheeks. “I was so afraid...”

  “I’ve been afraid, too,” he said huskily, tugging her toward him.

  Leah surrendered, lifting her feet from the floor so she could snuggle on the bed beside him, her head resting on his shoulder, her hand somewhere in the vicinity of his heart. The familiar position felt right. She hated the idea of going to bed without him.

  “I had the terrifying thought that you might like nightclubs,” he murmured.

  She actually giggled at that. “Not a chance. Please tell me you don’t bag a deer every year.”

  This laugh rumbled in his chest. “Nope. Guess that wouldn’t go over very well with an animal doc, would it?”

  “No.” Her cheeks might still be wet, but Leah was also smiling.

  “Now that we have that covered, I guess we know everything we need to about each other,” he said with an undertone of humor.

  “I guess we do.” No, he wouldn’t be able to go home with her to meet her parents immediately; she could only imagine the kind of debriefing he’d face. “Is there a Portland office?”

  “FBI? Yeah, a field office. That’s what I’ll aim for in the short term. If you want me to.”

  “I do.” She was in love with this man who was willing to make big changes in his life to be with her. The sexiest man she’d ever met. A man who just never quit.

  “Good,” he said. A minute later his breathing changed as he relaxed into sleep. Apparently, she’d removed his last worry.

  Not planning to go anywhere, she closed her eyes, too.

  Epilogue

  Ten days later Alex strode off the plane at Portland International Airport. Leah had promised to be waiting for him at baggage claim. In part because of the cast he still wore, he carried only his laptop case. He’d taken a two-week vacation, the best he could manage until a transfer came through. This was a “meet the family” trip. Even as alienated as he often felt from his own parents, he supposed he’d be taking Leah to meet them one of these days, too. They loved him, if not in a way he’d want to replicate with his own kids. For the first time he was seriously thinking he’d like to start a family.

  Only two days ago he’d gotten word that Higgs had been captured trying to charter a boat in Florida. When the local FBI located the beach cabin where he’d been staying, they’d surprised two other men: Steve Baldwin and Ken Vogel. They’d also found two rocket launchers and a small amount
of uranium as well as evidence that the men had been constructing a bomb.

  Higgs wasn’t talking, but under pressure, Baldwin admitted they’d intended to sail to a Caribbean island where they wouldn’t be found until they were ready to make their strike.

  Alex felt sick, imagining what might have happened if the charter operator hadn’t had an uneasy feeling he’d seen Higgs’s face, and not in a context he liked.

  Yeah, the FBI had ended up putting Lieutenant Colonel Edward Higgs on a watch list, and released his photo. This time it had paid off big.

  They had also quietly arrested army Colonel Thomas Nash, the man Alex recognized when he and Higgs met the suppliers. Turned out Nash and Higgs had been friends for years.

  Of course, the single arrest was the equivalent of peeling open the proverbial can of worms. Nash couldn’t have stolen that quantity of weapons on his own. Even with help, procedures were designed to prevent things like this from happening. It was fair to say that army base would be crawling with investigators for months to come, making a lot of people’s lives miserable.

  Dirk had been picked up and released, at Alex’s recommendation. They’d spoken last week, Dirk shaken at his weakness in letting his father push him into something so hateful. He and Helen were getting married and moving to Montana, where he’d found a job with a well-drilling company based in Billings. Alex intended to stay in touch. He and Leah might not have survived if Dirk hadn’t listened to his conscience.

  Suddenly, he didn’t want to think about any of that. The baggage claim carousels were just ahead...and his gaze locked on a woman hurrying toward him, her face alight. Relief and something more powerful flooded him. He let the laptop case drop to the floor and held out his arms.

  Leah flew into them, saying only his name. His real name.

  * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from Toxin Alert by Tyler Anne Snell.

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  Toxin Alert

  by Tyler Anne Snell

  Prologue

  Noah Miller slipped his hands into his pockets, squared his shoulders against the cold and counted the bodies in silence. On a normal day he’d be the first to tell you that he didn’t think Potter’s Creek had a spot of ugly in it, but today? Today wasn’t normal.

  Today wasn’t right.

  And he’d guessed as much before he had come out to Amish country at the invitation of his father. A rare occurrence on its own, but nothing compared to what they were looking at on the Yoder farm.

  “Twenty-four.” Samuel Miller’s voice was a shock against the cold quiet. Samuel nodded in the direction they were already facing. “Twenty-four cows dead,” he repeated. “Make sure you don’t touch anything.”

  Noah hadn’t been planning on it but didn’t say as much. He and his father hadn’t been on good terms since he’d left home when he was sixteen. Now, twelve years later, they lived in the constant strain of their differences. Noah was just whom his family and their community called with an emergency, and that was still a hard pill for some to swallow. He might live only a mile from where they were now standing but that mile was the difference between the Amish world and the English world. And that difference was enough.

  “What do you think it is?” Noah asked. “Poison? A virus? I’ve had a few cows pass on my farm before from sickness but I’ve never seen anything on this scale.”

  Out in the pasture was a sea of death. Not at all what he’d expected when he’d seen the number for the community phone pop up on his caller ID that morning.

  His father hesitated. Not a great sign for an already dark situation.

  “I don’t know but it gets worse.” Noah’s brow rose at that. His father let out a long, low breath then nodded to the barn next to the pasture. “Isaiah is inside the barn. There are black sores on his arms.”

  “Black sores?”

  His father nodded, solemn. Noah’s confusion at being called out to meet him was swiftly hardening into a deep, terrible sense of foreboding. Isaiah Yoder, a loving father of five and a good guy, owned and worked the farm. Black sores on his arms and dead cows in his pasture?

  This was bad.

  This was very bad.

  “The Haas farm lost ten cows a few days ago,” his father continued, surprising Noah. “David and his sons who worked the fields became sick but then recovered. They believed it was a virus they picked up from the cows or something in the soil. Now I’m afraid that with these black sores it’s something else. Something that could endanger the entire community.”

  Noah might have been estranged from his family but he still knew when his father was afraid. He could read it in the set of his shoulders and jaw, and hear it beneath a tone he was trying to keep even.

  And he didn’t blame him one bit for it.

  “Whatever it is, it’s bad,” Noah spelled out. “We need to take Isaiah to the hospital.”

  His father shook his head. Fear was no match for being set in his ways.

  “The Englisher doctor is in the barn examining him now.”

  Noah had every intention of continuing to insist but movement from the same barn pulled at their attention.

  A balding man with large-framed glasses and a crease of worry along his brow stepped outside. When he saw them, he waved them over, shutting the door behind him, a palpable nervousness in his gestures.

  “It’s never good when the doc is nervous,” Noah muttered.

  His father didn’t say a word as they walked over to greet the man. He introduced himself to Noah as Carson and then apologized for not shaking his hand.

  That was a giant red flag to Noah even before the man got right to his point.

  “It looks like Mr. Yoder is suffering from anthrax poisoning,” he started, not pausing for any reactions. “In itself that’s not necessarily a scary thing—anthrax poisoning can occur naturally in soil and infect cows and people—but, well, come look at this.”

  Noah and his father followed the doctor to an outside corner of the barn. He stopped by a pair of worn, brown work boots.

  “These are Isaiah’s boots. He was wearing them when I got here.” Carson bent down and, without touching them, pointed between the heels. A dusting of white powder could be seen on each. “And this is what I believe to be anthrax.”

  Noah and his father were far from being in sync since he’d left the homestead but, in that moment, both Millers took a horrified step backward.

  “As a bacterial infection, anthrax isn’t contagious,” the doctor continued. “But inhaling the powder? That can be lethal.”

  “But where did it come from?” his father asked. “Somewhere in the field?”

  The doctor shrugged.

  “That would be my best guess. Though, that’s maybe not what worries me most.”

  Noah could see his father trying to work out what the doctor was referring to, but Noah already knew.

  “Does this mean that someone put the anthrax in the field intentionally?” Noah asked. “And, if so, why?”

  “Good questions, son,” the doctor said.

  They let those thoughts mingle in with the cold around them for a moment. No one had to say out loud that their morning had gone from one of worry to something much more.

  Why would anyone put anthrax in the cow pastures on purpose?

  Why would anyone target the Amish community like that?

  Another flash of movement pulled Noah’s attention away from his current thoughts, back toward the dirt road that led from the Yoder farm to the main one.

  Someone was running toward them. A teenager.

 
And he was terrified.

  Noah’s adrenaline spiked at the sight. He started to run toward the boy, his father and the doctor behind him. When they met him next to the pasture’s fence, he glanced at the dead cows without an ounce of surprise and then put his hands on his knees to try to catch his breath.

  “What’s wrong?” Noah hurried. “Are you hurt?”

  The teen shook his head and then pointed wildly behind him.

  “No, but my—my father and brother need—need help,” he panted out. “They—they collapsed in the pasture at our farm.”

  Noah shared a quick look with the doctor.

  “We need to get there now.”

  While his father had never liked riding in anything but horse-drawn vehicles, he didn’t push back as Noah herded everyone into his truck. Instead, he got into the front seat and directed him to the farm of the boy’s family while the doctor asked the teen questions in the back seat. However, when Noah cut the engine next to the cow pasture fence, his father became quiet.

  “Doc, let’s go,” Noah said, another surge of adrenaline going through him. “Dad, you two stay in here.”

  Noah didn’t have time to be surprised that his father listened. He and Carson hurried out into the field with purpose and caution.

  Neither did them any good.

  The father and son weren’t unconscious on the grass.

  They were dead. Black sores on their bodies.

  Noah kept his back to his truck after Carson confirmed there was nothing he could do. The two were gone.

  But there were still people they could help.

  “Isaiah needs to go to the hospital,” Noah reiterated, voice low. “I think Mrs. Yoder will agree to that now.”

  Carson nodded.

  “And I need to call the CDC.”

  He shared a look with Noah and said what Noah had circled back to thinking.

  “I don’t understand why anyone would do this. Especially here.”

  Noah gritted his teeth.