by Dale Mayer
She sank back down. “What if we were still inside?” she cried out softly.
He rolled over, held her close, and said, “But we weren’t.”
She stared at him blankly. “But we were,” she said.
“And we left. We followed our instincts. We left, and we’re fine.”
She blinked several times and then she burst into gentle tears, as he held her close in his arms.
“I promise. It’ll be okay.”
She shook her head. “Oh, my God,” she said, “how can you promise anything?”
“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
At that, she leaned back, looked up at him, and said, “Yes,” she said, “I am. But, God, it seems like it’s getting closer each time.”
His face was grim, when he nodded. “I hear you,” he said. “But remember, we’re still fine.”
In the distance he heard vehicles. “And now the cavalry has arrived.”
“Thank God,” she whispered. “But where’s Rory? I’m worried about him.”
That’s the one thing Noah wasn’t worried about. Rory was a big boy, and he’d been doing this a hell of a long time. “He’s fine,” Noah said. “Don’t you worry about Rory. We just need to make sure that the new arrivals don’t get shot too.”
She stared at him, and the tears leaked even more.
He wished he had stayed quiet about that last part.
Chapter 13
Very quickly, Dianne was engulfed with Levi’s crew. She was helped into a vehicle and spirited away. She twisted to look behind her, but she saw no sign of Noah and asked Logan, “Is it safe to leave him behind?”
Logan looked at her in confusion, then realized she was talking about Noah. “Not only is it safe to leave him behind, it’ll be a fight to get him to leave. He wants to find this guy and get payback. Same with Rory and the rest of us.”
“Ah,” she said, settling back into her seat. “I can understand that. I wouldn’t mind a chance to punch him myself.”
He grinned at her. “The fighting spirit, we like that.”
“Not much fighting has been done at this point,” she said. “All we’re doing is evasive maneuvers.”
“That’s exactly right, and now we need to take that up a notch.”
“But we can’t do it unless it’s safe.”
“I like the way you think.”
She shrugged. “I’m not even sure I’m thinking straight anymore,” she said. “It’s just been attack after attack after attack.”
“And they’re escalating,” he said, with a nod. “I’m sure you realize that.”
“I do,” she said quietly.
“And obviously it’s a huge concern. But you’re not alone, and we’re here to help.”
“I’m glad to hear that. After that conference this week,” she said,” I was really looking forward to a chance to unwind.”
“And you can unwind as soon as you get to Levi’s.”
She looked over at him and, after a moment, asked, “Can I really though?”
He smiled. “Nobody’ll get to you in the compound.”
“No, but I can’t stay there forever. Ice isn’t running a hotel.”
“Maybe you should mention it,” he said. “You never know. She might be totally okay doing just that for you.”
She laughed. “I don’t think so. She’s got chaos happening with her own family now.”
“Not chaos as much as craziness. But that goes along with having kids.”
“Anybody else pregnant?”
“Not any who are talking,” he said, “but I have my suspicions.”
She looked at him. “Really?”
He shrugged. “Well, once Ice and Levi got married, others followed suit. When she got pregnant, you know it was only a matter of time.”
“Right. It’s like she put a stamp of approval on both.”
Logan chuckled. “That’s one way to look at it. I don’t think Levi would stop it, no matter what.”
“Do you think he wanted to?”
“Nope, I don’t think so. I just don’t think he thought it was the safest choice, considering the industry and all.”
“But Ice spent all that time and money to make the compound safe.”
“Exactly.”
With that, she realized that he had neatly turned the conversation around on her. She sighed. “Okay, okay,” she said. “I get it. If Ice thinks it’s safe enough for her children, chances are, I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be fine, while you de-stress, decompress, and relax.”
“Pretty sure those three words mean exactly the same thing,” she announced.
“So, in that case, you should have gotten the message three times over,” he said, with a smile. And just then, they took the turn toward the long driveway leading to the compound. She looked at the huge space and said, “She’s really done a hell of a job.”
“They both have,” he said, with a nod. “Not everybody lives right here, but we all come back and forth on a regular basis.”
“It’s like a huge family, isn’t it?”
“It is, and one I wasn’t sure could work long-term, but,” he said, “I’ve been more than pleasantly surprised. Something is very special about being part of a group like this, where there’s mutual respect, understanding, and acceptance.”
She nodded. “And love, apparently.”
“Absolutely,” he said. “Love is a huge part of it. Not just for each other but for the families we’ve brought in. The extended families are working out beautifully.”
As they neared the compound, the gates opened for them, and she smiled. “Everything’s under lock and key, right?”
“Even more so right now because of the attacks,” he said. “Nobody’s getting in here who isn’t allowed to be here.”
She took a long slow breath, as she sat up taller to see Ice standing out front, her hands on her hips, as she studied the layout ahead of her. “She’s always on watch, isn’t she?”
“She’s always a warrior,” Logan said quietly. “A hard lesson learned, and one mantle she’ll never put down.”
“How sad that she has to be so vigilant.”
“It’s the work she does. Work that both of them chose. This isn’t a job that’s nine-to-five, and then it’s over on the weekends or on holidays or even after your twenty years. This is a lifetime career. She knows it. Levi knows it, and they’ll do everything they can to not only protect themselves but everybody they help in the world.”
She sighed. “And here I am, thinking about opening up a natural food franchise in town. It sounds completely boring and useless compared to the work she does.”
He burst out laughing. “And you know she’d have a lot to say about that too.”
She chuckled. “That she would.” And, with that, she hopped out of the vehicle and walked up to Ice, who opened her arms, and the two women hugged.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Ice cried out, “this is just going from bad to worse.”
“The truck blowing up was pretty rough,” she said, “and it wasn’t even mine.”
Ice burst out laughing. “There’s a reason we have high insurance premiums,” she said. “Don’t you worry about the vehicle.”
“Hey, it was bulletproof but not bombproof?”
“Probably a rocket launcher,” she said comfortably. “Although I didn’t hear a loud woosh.”
Di just stared at her and shook her head. “I know it’s Texas, and we’re allowed guns, but, jeez, when is it okay to carry that kind of stuff around?”
“Happens all the time,” Ice said, with a shrug.
“Scary though,” Di added.
“It can be, yes.”
“And you’re still okay to be in this industry?”
“Somebody needs to do it,” she said, with a sideways look at her.
“I know, but that could be somebody else too.” Dianne didn’t know why she was persisting, but it just seemed hard to understand why Ice would continu
e to work in a field like this, even though it was so dangerous, especially now that she had Hunter.
“Not only does somebody have to do it but somebody has to organize the fight against evil. Somebody has to keep everything safe, and somebody has to keep normality happening,” Ice said.
“That’s the trick, isn’t it? That normality part? Half the world functions in a way that nobody else really realizes. How messed up is it that most people go about their daily lives clueless, while you handle a lot of these shadowy cases that people are better off not knowing about.”
“That’s why keeping the base normal is so important,” she said, “because it’s not just the stress of our business, but it’s also the health and safety of all the people who work for us. We need to make sure that they’re whole and healthy and happy too.”
“That’s a lot to take on.”
“It is,” Ice said, with a gentle smile. “But I think I’m pretty good at it.”
*
Noah knew in his gut that Levi and his men were conducting an organized search of the hills. Noah had been out fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, and had covered just one mile, as he studied and looked out into the darkness. He thought he’d seen something up in this corner and was moving his way toward the spot, but he hadn’t seen anything move since then. As he sat here in the silence, listening, a rock tumbled off to his left. He immediately crouched lower to the ground, as he studied that area. And then it came again.
He smiled. Since he only heard one rock disturbed at a time, that was a good indicator that it wasn’t an animal moving about. Since they moved with four legs, it generally caused more rocks to shift. He waited and listened, smiling as the sounds came closer and closer.
There was a chance this wasn’t the shooter Noah was looking for, but he’d bet it was. As he waited, he heard another footstep. And another.
Then it stopped.
Noah studied the darkness ahead of him, and there. He vaguely confirmed the outline of a man standing. He had a weapon over his shoulder, a handgun on his hip, but he was turned slightly away from Noah, so it was hard to make out who it was. Noah didn’t recognize him as one of the team, but the man was just unclear enough that Noah couldn’t risk making a mistake. Then the guy turned and headed toward him, directly to the spot where Noah hid. He watched him take two more steps and then stop, as if filled with that inner knowledge that something was wrong in his world.
Of course what was wrong was Noah. He would make sure this asshole knew it too.
Almost as if he just realized the danger he was in, the man turned and bolted to the right. Noah leaped off the ground, like a jackrabbit, running as fast as he could behind the gunman, but the ground was almost shale-like here and tumbling under his feet. The only good thing was that this guy had the same problem. The shooter gained the trees just ahead of Noah, who burst through into the brush, hitting the ground, knowing the guy would be turning with his gun in his hand, ready to take him out.
No shots were fired.
Noah waited, listening ever-so-quietly, his own gun up. Now this was a case of the stealthy rabbit and the hunter after his prey, and Noah just had to make sure he was the one who came out on top. As he listened, he thought he heard an odd birdcall. He didn’t dare answer it, but it could be one of Levi’s team. It was a call they used regularly. But, if they were coming in his direction, they were just as likely to get themselves shot too because this guy was hunting anybody and looking for a target, any target. As long as it was connected to Levi, this gunman would chalk it up as being a good shot.
Just as Noah thought it couldn’t get any worse, he heard a second birdcall. He knew the search was heading in his direction. He hadn’t checked in, and now they were coming to see if he was okay too. An almost imperceptible sound—the clearing of a throat—could be heard, maybe ten yards away. Noah shifted silently, so he had a better view. Then focusing on the shadows ahead, he waited for the man to show himself. And slowly, ever-so-slowly, his prey stood and lined up his rifle to take a shot.
Immediately Noah jumped to his feet, hoping to alert his team. “Hands up,” Noah snapped. The man froze, but he didn’t drop the weapon. “Lower your weapon,” Noah ordered, “or I’ll shoot.”
The gunman gave a broken laugh. “I don’t give a shit if you do shoot,” he said.
“You’ve been targeting Levi,” he said, “and that poor woman in town.”
“She’s nothing but one of Levi’s whores,” he said. “She should know better than to lie down with the devil.” None of that even made sense to Noah. “I don’t know who you think she is, but she has nothing to do with Levi.”
At that, the man stiffened. “Everyone to do with Levi is walking with the devil,” he said. “The man could have done so much, and instead he chose the wrong side.”
“He’s not to blame for the death of your child.”
“My son,” he snapped. “It was my only son.”
“Levi’s still not to blame,” Noah said, swearing in his head for not being more specific.
“You don’t know anything about it.”
“I know you asked for help and that he wasn’t in a position to give it.”
“He could have. He just didn’t make it a priority.”
“He was doing another job in the States and didn’t have any men free to go to Australia. Was he supposed to stop and let everybody else suffer because you were suffering and needed saving too?”
“I didn’t need saving,” the man said in a vindictive voice. “My son did. I’d have done anything to save my son.”
“And yet you couldn’t. That happened, and it’s unfortunate,” he said, “but you need to accept it. It wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t Levi’s fault.” He knew that other people moved in the darkness around them, so he had to keep this guy talking, keep him focused on Noah. He also needed to get that damn gun away from him. “You didn’t have to go after Di.”
“Why not?” he said. “They were friends. I figured it would be a way to get at him. Slowly picking them off, one by one.”
“How many have you killed?”
“One,” he said, “but Levi didn’t even know, making it completely useless as a method to hurt him.”
“Who was it?”
“Roger, someone Levi knows out of Sydney, but I guess the relationship was too distant to cause him to even notice,” he said. “I fixed his vehicle so it went off a cliff. Levi didn’t even know.” There was a broken laugh, as he shouted, “He didn’t even fucking know. Somebody lost his life, and Levi didn’t even care.”
“It’s not that he didn’t care. He didn’t know, like you just said,” Noah replied. “You know he cares.”
“I hope so,” he said. “I hate to think all that effort I put out was in vain.”
And that was part of the bottom line here too. It wasn’t about the victim at all. It was about the effort he went to, to create what he wanted out of this.
“So, you killed a man, and you’re only worried about the fact that you may have wasted your time and effort, instead of the fact that you might have taken a man’s life uselessly?”
“I’m sure he had a good reason to die. Everybody’s a sinner.”
“Including yourself.”
“Absolutely,” he said, “including myself.”
“So maybe you’re to blame for your son’s death.”
At that, there was a moment’s silence. “I’ll kill you for saying that,” he said in a way-too-quiet voice.
“Maybe,” Noah said. “But you’re pretty busy blaming everybody else and taking lives, making innocent victims out of people who had nothing to do with the death of your son. Is that how your son should know who you are? Do you think he’s not up there, watching you?”
“I hope he is,” he cried out passionately. “I want him to know that I’m avenging him. I want him to know that I’m doing everything I can to make up for this.”
“You mean, everything now because you couldn’t do it back then.
”
“That’s not fair,” he cried out. “He wasn’t supposed to get hurt.”
At that weird wording, Noah asked, “What do you mean, wasn’t supposed to? Did you have something to do with his kidnapping?”
“It was an insurance scam,” he said, “but it went wrong, and they decided to take it to a whole new level. I needed Levi to go after them.”
“There are other teams in this world that do the same work Levi does.”
“But he should have done this for me.”
“Why is that?” Noah asked curiously.
“Because it was his idea that I do the insurance scam.”
Noah knew that was a lie, another twisted scenario that this guy had concocted to relieve himself of guilt. “No way,” he said flatly. “That isn’t true. This was your own messed-up deal. You just decided to lay the blame on Levi to make it easier on yourself. You needed a target, and Levi happened to be a good one. But he isn’t an easy one.”
“But he’s not a hard one,” the gunman said. “He’s nothing but a pumped-up arrogant asshole.”
“You should know something about that,” he said quietly.
“And you, you’re nothing but a dog in heat, chasing after that bitch.”
“Yet you’re the one who gave her a date-rape drug,” Noah said, ignoring the words meant to anger him, to distract him. “The woman doesn’t have anything to do with you, and you’re busy hunting her down, attacking her at every corner.”
“Of course. Mostly just as a lesson to prove that I can and that you can’t stop me. That Levi and his circle will never be safe.”
“Nice,” he said, “and yet here I am, with a gun on you.”
“So,” he said, “I’ve still got a gun in my hand. I’ll take you out, and you can do your best to take me out,” he said, “but I’ll survive with a handgun. You won’t survive this at all.”
“Maybe not,” he said, “but I’m quite happy to die trying. At least I know that I didn’t kill any innocents in this world to ease my own guilt for not having been there for my child.”
At that, the man roared and shot randomly in Noah’s direction.
Only Noah wasn’t there.