Instinct took hold. Sun moved in front of the boys as the bearer of the rifle eased into the lantern light.
She blinked in surprise. “Carver?” Her blind date from hell?
“You never texted me back,” he said. The look he gave her expressed just how much he detested her. “I wouldn’t.” He gave Levi a sideways glance as though he were an idiot for even thinking about trying something.
Levi hadn’t moved, but even Sun sensed the tension coiled in his muscles.
He motioned for Levi to get closer to the group. He did, strategically maneuvering in front of Adam as Carver scissor-walked toward the opening on the west wall, putting some distance between them.
“Look at you two. Willing to risk your lives all noble-like.”
“What is this about, Carver?” Sun asked.
“See,” he said, getting frustrated. “That’s what I mean. You call yourself a sheriff, but you can’t even figure out what’s right in front of your face. There’s a little thief among us.” He leaned over and looked past her to Elliot, who’d eased his brother a little farther back. “Isn’t that right?”
Sun took another step sideways, keeping her body between the gun and Elliot about the same time she realized Carver was shaking. Adrenaline tended to do that, but this seemed like more. He seemed paler than usual. Shinier, his skin caked with sweat and oil, like he was on something. That fact raised the stakes even higher. Negotiating with a perpetrator on drugs was always volatile.
“Your father is very upset with you,” he said to Elliot, jabbing the gun in his direction. “But Seabright wouldn’t let him near you when he got out of jail. Had no idea where the soldier was keeping you, so he sent me in to find out.”
“Elliot’s father sent you here?” Sun asked.
“Mmm,” he said in answer. “I figured if I got Seabright out of the way, I could get to the kid.”
“You hired those men at the bar?” Levi asked, his tone razor-sharp.
“I did.”
“Sorry I had to kill one of them.”
“No worries. I killed the other two.”
“You killed them?” Sun asked, getting an answer to her immediate questions on how far was he willing to go. Rojas had called it. Man was a sociopath. “You tried to have Seabright killed because he wouldn’t let his father near Elliot? But why? Why go to all that trouble?”
If looks could kill, he would’ve done her in as well. “Because somebody moved the money! Pay attention, Sunshine!” He looked around her again. “And there was only one person on the planet who knew where that money was, right Eli?”
“The money from the Ponzi scheme,” Sun said as though confirming her suspicions. In reality, she was simply trying to keep him talking so she could come up with a plan. “His father had it the entire time.”
“Little shit was only five, so his dad didn’t expect him to understand what he was seeing when he buried that money. Much less remember where it was. But you did, didn’t you?”
Sun glanced to the side and could see Elliot in her periphery. The color had drained from his face. Adam’s as well. But both boys knew enough to stay quiet and absolutely still. Elliot reached out, took Adam’s hand, and pulled him closer. At the same time, Levi closed the distance between Sun and himself to keep Adam covered.
Without taking his hands off the rifle, Carver lifted a shoulder and mopped his brow with his shirt sleeve.
“Are you okay, Carver?” Maybe she could appeal to his drug-addled side. “You don’t look well.”
“I’ll be fine as soon as I get out of this fucking hole in the ground.”
He was claustrophobic? Unfortunately, Sun didn’t know if that would work for or against her. “You don’t like confined spaces?” she asked him, pretending to care.
He didn’t answer.
“Then I’m assuming you’re not really in pest control, what with all the creeping under houses and squeezing into crawl spaces. On the count of three,” she said as nonchalantly as possible.
“No,” Levi said.
Carver was starting to panic. The whites of his eyes shined in the low light. His brows snapped together as he volleyed the gun between them.
“He’ll take me out,” she said. “I could very well survive the hit, especially this close. Through and through. You know that. Either way, it’ll give you an opportunity to rush him.”
A waxy grin slid across Carver’s face. “This is going to be fun.”
Levi shook his head. “Not on your life, beautiful. I’ll rush him.”
He mopped his brow with a sleeve again. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
“When I do, you put every round you have into his chest.”
“I can’t risk hitting you.”
“Are you guys inbred?” Carver asked, astonished that they’d kept talking.
They both watched him like hawks waiting for their prey to flinch. To weaken. To lose focus for that tenth of a second it would take for them to make their move.
“You’re stronger than I am,” she said. “You’ll have a better chance at overpowering him.”
“That’s it.” He pointed the barrel at Levi’s chest, and the world tilted under her feet. “How ’bout I just take him out of the equation altogether?”
Sun risked a glance. Adam had taken hold of Levi’s T-shirt with his free hand, the fear on his face palpable. Elliot stood close behind her, but he was also almost as tall as she was. She wasn’t as much of a barrier for him as Levi would have been. If she rushed Carver, Elliot could be shot instead of her. Or, more likely, the bullet would go right through her and into him.
She needed to divert the gunfire away from the boys and give Levi enough time to do the rushing. She would have to dive away from them.
“If you don’t stop those wheels spinning in your brain, Sheriff, I’ll kill the boys first.”
“If you kill them, you won’t know where the money is,” she said.
“I only need one for that, sweet cheeks.”
“Are you sure? How do you know Seabright didn’t move the money himself? Elliot could have told him where to find it.”
“I can work with that.” He was having a hard time keeping the gun steady. Her chances of survival were multiplying by the second. “I’ll kill you all and pay Seabright a visit in the hospital.”
“He doesn’t know where it is,” Elliot said, trying to step around her.
She held him back.
“Only I know where it is and I’ll never tell you.”
“Problem solved,” Carver said.
“On three,” she said to Levi. Of course, she wasn’t an idiot. She’d never really count. But Carver didn’t need to know that. She dragged her palm across her duty weapon in preparation.
Levi lowered his head and watched Carver from underneath his thick lashes.
Carver scoffed at her. “Do you really think you stand a chance against an assault rifle?”
“I do.” She tilted her head. “Not a particularly great one, but yeah. I think I have a decent chance.”
“I think I have a better one.” He stepped closer and aimed the gun at her chest point-blank.
He was really bad at this. He was far too close, for one thing. The small room probably had more to do with that than his bad-guy skills. She shouldn’t be so quick to judge. But the claustrophobia? He should’ve thought this through before barreling into a mineshaft.
Sun tensed, preparing to make her move, when Zee’s voice drifted toward them like a ghost in the darkness.
“I think I have the best chance of all.” She eased forward into the light, the shadow from the tunnel sliding off her like water. She kept her rifle steady and leveled at Carver’s head.
Quincy followed behind her, his sidearm drawn, his aim as steady as Zee’s despite his heavy breathing. He knelt at her side, keeping the sites trained on the sociopath.
Both of them were covered in a fine sheen of sweat. They’d run. Something had alerted them to Carver’s presence, and they’d run up
the mountain instead of using the ATVs so they wouldn’t tip him off.
“It’s over, Carver.” Sun raised a hand and showed him her palm, keeping her other one on her sidearm.
“You clearly don’t know how talented I am with this gun. I once picked off a diplomat in a crowd of thousands in Russia at five hundred yards in high winds.”
“You’re an assassin?” she asked, appalled.
He lifted a shoulder.
“My parents set me up with an assassin?” She shook her head. “Why am I not surprised?”
He didn’t fall for it.
“Actually,” Elliot said from behind her, “if anyone pulls the trigger, the cave will explode.”
She glanced over her shoulder in shock. “What? Why?”
“I opened the propane tank.”
She looked down. Sure enough, he stood right by the propane tank hooked to the small cookstove and the smell of rotten eggs hit her.
“He’s lying,” Carver said.
She turned back to him. “Take a whiff, Carver. You pull that trigger, we all die.”
She could see it in his eyes. The moment he made the decision. The microsecond he’d come to terms with the fact that he would just have to kill everyone there, including Elliot, and hope to make it out alive. He stood at the opening to the tunnel that led to the pit. It was too much to hope he’d fall into it. He could fire his rifle and dive into the next shaft, but the pit was farther in, if Sun’s memory was correct. Carver could feasibly escape with his life. Maybe get to Seabright and attempt to torture the guy into telling him where the money was stashed.
Clearly, he didn’t know Seabright.
Carver tightened his grip on the rifle and eased back into the adjoining tunnel. “Then I guess we all die,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut for a fraction of a second as though trying to focus.
The claustrophobia was taking its toll. She imagined the walls were closing in on him. The edges of his vision were darkening. He was running out of time and he knew it.
Zee and Quincy exchanged glances, not sure of what to do. They couldn’t fire, either.
Then again, if Carver did, would the explosion really kill them? Sun doubted there was enough gas in the air to get the job done. It would burn off instantly, but the propane tank could explode. The propane tank that was right beside the boys.
The fact that Carver had yet to pull the trigger gave Sun hope. He could have killed her easily before Zee and Quincy arrived, but he hesitated. Maybe not quite the world-renowned assassin he claimed to be.
Both Zee and Quincy looked to her for direction. She quickly dropped her gaze, then returned it to them, indicating the boys. They nodded. The minute Carver fired, they would protect them the best that they could while she and Levi tried to subdue her would-be ex.
Carver backed farther into the tunnel, putting more distance between them. Lessening her chances of success with each step.
Sun felt rather than saw the tension in Levi’s muscles. They were coiled, ready to strike the moment she made her move.
Carver tightened his grip on the rifle, preparing to fire. She’d hoped for another blink. Another microsecond of freedom to up her chances of lunging toward him without getting a bullet through her heart, but even the sweat beading onto his lashes didn’t elicit a response.
“You’re forgetting one thing,” she said, stalling when she realized he was actually aiming at the propane tank now. It would definitely explode. It would likely kill Elliot. Or Adam. Or Levi. She fought the fear that had a stranglehold on her throat and moved to block his line of sight.
The glare he cast her should’ve scorched her skin. “Do you honestly believe your skinny ass will stop this bullet?” A visible drop of sweat fell from his brow onto his lashes and the involuntary reflex was the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
She lunged.
The gun went off.
The cave erupted into a ball of fire.
The explosion echoed through the chamber so loudly, Sun thought her ears would bleed, but it did propel her forward. She rammed into Carver with everything she had, but it wasn’t enough to take him down. He stumbled but kept his footing as they fought for the rifle.
Then she was airborne. She flew back and landed on the cavern floor. The air left her lungs in a pitiful whoosh.
Levi had dragged her off him so he could have Carver all to himself. Enraged, he wrapped a powerful arm around Carver’s neck and dropped back, taking him to the ground. Their struggle lasted all of five seconds and Sun was worried he’d break his neck before Levi’s choke hold began to take its toll.
Carver’s kicks slowed. His face crimsoned and his shallow breaths came in short, choking wheezes. Sensing the inevitable, he raised the rifle and aimed it at Sun.
Their date must have gone so much worse than she’d thought. She scrambled back, but the flash of a blade caught her gaze. Before she could order him to stop, Levi struck.
Two lightning-quick slices, as smooth and clean as a shark through water, and Carver’s arm went limp. The rifle fell to the side and his eyes rounded in disbelief.
Sun scurried closer as Carver lost consciousness. She took the rifle out of his grasp and tossed it aside.
Levi let go and pushed the man off him as though disgusted. He’d sliced through the tendons under Carver’s arm first, obliterating his ability to pull the trigger. In the process, he’d severed the man’s brachial artery. Next he’d severed his femoral artery. So fast Sun barely saw it happen.
Carver’s tactical khakis were soaked instantly, the blood-red pool spreading fast.
Sun pressed into Carver’s wound and spared a quick glance over her shoulder for something to help stop the bleeding. The chamber was empty of children, thank God. Zee and Quincy had gotten the boys out, but Quincy eased back inside, his movements wary, his gun drawn.
“Sunshine?”
“Clear,” she said loudly, then pointed to the boys’ blankets. “Hand me one!” That was when she noticed the propane tank spewing a bright blue flame. It hadn’t exploded.
Quincy hurried over and tried to turn the handle, but it was too hot. He grabbed a dirty T-shirt off the floor and twisted. The flame shut off. “The bullet bounced off,” Quincy said, gesturing toward the scuff mark. “The spark must’ve set off the gas.”
It must have. She’d been thrown from that direction. Not back, which was what would’ve happened if the gun had set it off. “Blanket.”
Quincy grabbed one and rushed forward, handing it to her before giving her a doubtful look.
Levi straightened to his full height. “He’s gone.”
“I need your belt,” she said, putting all of her weight into the task of suppressing the blood loss.
“Sun,” Quincy said.
She looked at Carver’s face. His eyes were open and his breathing had stopped.
Quincy bent to help her up. “He’s gone, boss.”
It all happened so fast, Sun sat stunned for a solid minute before she heard Elliot’s voice.
“Is he dead?”
Sun hurried to cover Carver with the blanket, then let Quincy help her up. She rushed to the boys. “He is, honey. Are you guys okay?”
Zee had let them come back in. “Sorry, boss. They got away from me.”
Sun summoned her best mommy frown and planted it on them. “I can’t imagine how.”
Elliot gave her a sheepish grin, but Adam’s gaze was locked onto the body. They both had black residue on their faces and scorch marks on their T-shirts.
She knelt in front of them, turning them this way and that and lifting their shirts to get a better look. “Are you hurt? Were you burned?”
When she lifted Elliot’s shirt where most of the scorching was, he grinned at his little brother. “What’d I tell you? Chicks dig me.”
His skin was red. He was burned worse than his brother, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could’ve been had the tank exploded.
Then she heard it. Someone else coming dow
n the tunnel, but the newest visitor was having a hard time trying to navigate the narrow opening while running. All Sun heard was an occasional, “Son of a bitch,” and a “What the fuck?”
After a few seconds, Rojas emerged, a little bloody but no worse for wear.
He skidded to a halt in the chamber, his sidearm drawn, and watched as Zee knelt to officially check Carver for a pulse, noting the time of death for the ME. He braced an arm on the cavern wall to catch his breath.
Sun no longer cared what her attentions would do to the boys. They would be traumatized regardless. She gathered them in her arms and hugged, making sure to avoid the scorched parts of their shirts. To her eternal joy, they hugged her back.
Adam visibly shook, but either Elliot was amazingly well-trained or he was in shock. He wasn’t shaking at all, but he did hold on to her for dear life.
Then he turned and hugged Levi.
“What do you say we get you to your mom?” Sun said.
Adam nodded and wiped at his eyes.
She stood and nodded to Levi. “Thank you.”
He didn’t respond. He stared at her neck instead before walking closer and doing some checking of his own. “He got you.”
“No. That’s not my blood.”
“It is.”
Sun felt and realized the bullet had grazed her before ricocheting off the propane tank. “Oh.” She drew her hand back for a look. “It’s not bad. I’m fine.”
The worried expression on his face confirmed he wasn’t so sure. It left her warm and fuzzy inside, but she had to stay focused. She turned to Quincy. “How did you and Zee know Carver was up here?”
“Carver?” he asked, gaping at the assailant. “That was your date?”
“My parents set me up with an assassin.”
“Told you,” Rojas said, still panting. “Sociopath.”
“If you didn’t know he followed us up here, why did you run all that way?”
“We figured out that the third guy staking out the town wasn’t at the hotel. We thought maybe he’d slipped past us on the trail.”
A soft groan echoed off the rock walls around them.
Elliot cringed and looked at his brother. “He woke up.”
“Excuse me?” Sun said.
A Good Day for Chardonnay Page 27