Tara was sure the latter part was an exaggeration. Maybe.
"Sprite…" The warning note in Ren's voice had Tara turning toward Keely.
Tara was surprised to see a look of guilt sweep over the little blonde's face.
"What are you doing, baby?" Ren asked.
"Nothing." Keely tapped the phone screen to darken it, then smiled, first, at Tara, then her husband. "Now, what are we going to eat? I'm starved."
Tara knew a deflection when she heard one.
Just as she was about to question Keely, or more likely Ren, on what Keely was hiding, Little Nick stopped by to get the new arrivals' orders. "Glad to see you guys. Tara has her beer, what do you all want to drink? And are you ready to order?"
The teen knew better than to offer menus. She and the SSI crowd were regulars. Besides nothing ever seemed to change on the printed menu and the daily specials were posted on the board by the door.
After everyone placed their orders, Tara turned to Ren. Whatever Keely had been up to, she'd find out later, right now she had bigger fish to fry. "Ren, Ranger Turner is being very close-mouthed." Asshole. "Can you tell me what the hell you guys found out there on Saturday?"
Ren's lips thinned. "Turner is a douchebag of the highest order." Great minds and all. "If he doesn't straighten up, either Dan or I will be kicking his ass all the way to Boise. Where did the Forest Service find him?"
"Nepotism," Tara said. Sucked, but that was the way of the world most days. It wasn't what you knew, it was who you knew and could buy.
"Turner doesn't like me." She figured she'd better get that out there. "But I don't disagree with your conclusion on his character." The man was also not the sharpest tack on the bulletin board. "Did the shooter leave any evidence behind to lead us to him or her?"
The sniper, in her opinion, had to have been a man; the odds were in her favor on that point. Plus, Tara couldn't think of a woman who had it in for her.
"Vanko saw the shooter right before he escaped into the denser part of the forest. Definitely not a professional…"
Which was why she and Price were still alive and not severely wounded.
"…left his spent cartridges and cigarette butts. We're lucky he didn't start a damn forest fire." Ren's voice was harsh. "Could be ex-military, but hell, I hope not, because of the reasons I just stated."
"So, we most likely have his DNA," Tara said. "Maybe his fingerprints on the casings."
"No prints on the casings, according to Dan. The guy was smart enough to wear gloves while loading. Maybe he missed the CSI episodes about cigarette butts as evidence," Tweeter said. "The crime scene techs lucked out and found traces of blood on the cigarette butts. Either he bit his lip or had gum disease. So, yeah, odds are good we'll have his DNA and blood type. But the state forensic lab in Boise is backed up, so there'll be a wait on the DNA. But even if the lab wasn't busy—"
"He probably isn't in the system," Tara finished.
The five of them sat in gloomy silence for several seconds. Nothing was ever as simple as the CSI shows on television made it out to be.
"The shooter ran when I flew the chopper in. Vanko said the guy looked to be medium height and wore hunter's camo," DJ offered, her finger sliding through the condensation on the side of her glass of iced tea. "The responding rangers had to have passed right by wherever he went to ground. Lots of heavy brush and trees. Easy to miss a man not wanting to be found. We hovered over the area until they got there. Vanko didn't spot him again."
Her shooter's description could fit hundreds of men who came to the national forest and wilderness areas each week—including the guy who'd just tried to pick her up.
Glancing toward the bar, she was relieved to see Brown-and-Brown was gone. So was Maisie.
A frisson of awareness slithered down her spine, the old goose walking over her grave feeling. A sensation she'd often get right before something bad happened. Her Blackfoot relations said it was her shamanic side coming to the foreground and that she should always heed the warning.
Considering Tara was as safe as anyone could be, surrounded by SSI operatives and a dining area full of locals, she prayed if Brown-and-Brown had gone home with Maisie that the redhead would be all right. There'd been something off about him, besides his inebriation. She shook off the bad feeling and turned her attention back to the ongoing discussion about the shooter.
"…or he had a hole to crawl into," Keely said. "There's just as many caves on that side of the ravine as there are on our side."
"Very likely." Tara had checked out a lot of the caves on the national forest land for drug stashes and other illegal activities as part of her job as a ranger. "Well, I'd appreciate it if you guys or Dan kept me posted. Until we know who and why, I'm not going anywhere unarmed."
"Good idea." Ren shot her a look of approval.
"Ren?" Keely said. "What we talked about earlier?"
"Go ahead, sprite. Ask her." He smoothed a hand over Keely's hair.
Keely turned and placed a hand over Tara's where it lay on the table. "We want you to move into the Lodge. Your place isn't safe."
"Well, that was blunt." Tara chuckled. "And sounds very familiar. Didn't we convince Fee in this very booth just over a month ago to make that move for the very same reason?"
"Yep," Keely's head bobbed up and down, sending her blonde curls flying, "and it makes sense this time, too." When Tara didn't say anything further, Keely turned to her husband. "Ren?"
Ren squeezed his wife's shoulder. "Give her a chance to assimilate it, baby." Giving his wife a loving smile and a kiss on the cheek, he then addressed Tara, a more serious expression on his face. "We'd really like you to consider moving to the Lodge. There's lots of room. You'd have your own private en suite. Your drive to work would be longer, but at least at night and your off-duty time, you'd be safer." Ren grimaced. "Keely had me drive by where you live. Your cabin is very isolated. A ten-year-old with a nail file could break in from what I could see."
Sheesh, it wasn't that bad. Plus, she had cameras and an alarm system they couldn't see. Just as she was about to defend her security and her independence, DJ raised her hand, stopping her.
"Um, Tara, before you get all bent out of shape, you need to know something," DJ said.
"What?" she turned and looked the former Army chopper pilot in the eye.
"Ace and I also drove by."
"DJ—" Tweeter drawled.
A flush colored DJ's cheeks. "Okay…okay, um, we did more than drive by, we sort of broke in and left you a note in your freezer behind the ice trays. You can check it out when we follow you home this evening and wait while you pack a bag to come back to Sanctuary. We can move the rest of your stuff later this week."
"What?" Tara looked between the two couples. "But I have an alarm system and…cameras. Why didn't—"
"Why didn't you get a signal?" Tweeter asked.
She nodded.
"I disconnected them, erased the video, and reset the alarm." He grinned, no guilt at all on his face. "Maybe a ten-year-old couldn't have done that, but anyone with basic knowledge of out-of-the-box security systems could've done it. Hell, DJ could've done it."
His wife punched him in the arm, hard enough that Tweeter winced. Then he laughed and kissed his bride of just over three months on the mouth…with tongue. The battle-hardened woman who'd done as many tours in Afghanistan as Tara all but melted into her husband's embrace.
Tara envied DJ and wondered if she'd ever have that kind of relationship with…anyone.
With Price. Stop second-guessing yourself. He likes you.
"Get a room, you two," Keely teased, then turned to her husband and said, "Why didn't we break in, big guy?"
Tara muttered "Jesus" under her breath.
"Because it's illegal, baby. Tara…" Ren chuckled at the look on her face. "…if you haven't figured it out by now—after you bonded with the gals over lunch and then helped rescue Fee, you became part of the SSI family. Get used to it. These two will h
ound you until you move in."
A feeling of warmth flooded her heart. She was just about to respond she'd move in, but only until her security could be upgraded—which she would ask Tweeter and Keely to help her with—when her phone signaled a voice message.
Checking the screen, she frowned. If her eldest brother Aidan was calling to rant about the shooting and Price again, well, she'd need some privacy, because her response wouldn't be for public consumption.
"Um, I need to return this call. It's sort of private. If you could let me out, I'll be back once I'm done. Please order me a Diet Pepsi when my burger comes, okay?"
"Sure," Keely replied as she and Ren scooted out of the booth to let Tara pass. "Do you want Little Nick to keep your burger under the warmer until you get back?"
"That would be great. I'm not sure how long this will take." She gave them all a smile, then rounded the corner of the booth and entered the hallway where the restrooms were located. Once she hit the farthest end of the hall, near a rear exit, and away from the constant bathroom traffic, she hit re-dial.
The call was answered immediately, as if Aidan had been waiting on her to return it. That bad, icy feeling slithered down her spine once more. Shit. Her shamanic side was working overtime this evening. "Aidan—"
"Where are you?" His tone was harsh. He was never harsh with her. Bossy, yes. Sharp, no.
"At a diner—"
"Fuck, Tara. Didn't you listen to the message I left?"
He sounded frantic. Scared. Whatever this was about, it was bad.
"No." Her voice cracked, a nervous tell, one she hated. "Are you and the family okay? Is someone sick?"
Their parents were elderly, but had always been abnormally healthy. Yet, accidents happened. All three of her brothers were smokejumpers and the job was dangerous. But she'd been monitoring the fires in the U.S., and things were calm right now, nothing that would've needed smokejumpers on call.
"He's out." Aidan's voice had disintegrated into an angry growl.
A mewling sound escaped before she could stop it. Her heart rate soared so quickly she got lightheaded and had to brace a hand on the wall. She blinked rapidly as her field of vision narrowed. Her breaths were harsh, erratic.
"Shh, sisttsí. It's okay." Aidan's croon was harsh, gritty, but his need to soothe her definitely came through since he'd used the brothers' pet name for her—bird. "Breathe, Tara. Now."
"I'm okay."
Liar.
Yeah, she was lying through her teeth. This was her nightmare come to life. Miller'd gotten out, somehow. He would come for her. He'd vowed it the day he was sentenced to prison for life, not for what he'd done to her, but for the murders he'd committed and she'd helped expose. Miller had merely kidnapped, raped, and sold her into sexual slavery.
Tara's stomach roiled, but she managed to keep the beer and the few nuts she'd ingested in her stomach.
"How? When?" she whispered, her throat and mouth so dry it hurt to talk.
If Aidan answered her, she didn't process it. Her primitive brain had taken over.
Tara pushed through the diner's back exit door and headed for her vehicle. Her first instinct, her only thought, was to run…hide. Like a frightened animal, she needed to go to ground, go to the safe haven she'd created for herself in the cabin outside of Elk City.
Run. Run. Run.
Breathing hard, she wove in and out of the badly parked cars. Her vision blurred, she stumbled over the uneven ground, bouncing off vehicles in her haste to get away. A sound from the trees bordering the diner startled her. She stopped and panted. Too loud. Too loud. Shh. She held her breath and listened as cold sweat trickled down her back, making her shiver.
It was quiet, but she'd heard something. She had. Was Miller already here? Was he the one who'd shot at her on Saturday?
Fuck. Shit. Fuck. She moved again, slowly at first, away from the lines of cars parked closest to the diner, then back to a jog. She looked from side to side as she careened off a car, then a truck. But she saw no movement, heard nothing more than the loud pounding of her pulse in her ears and her harsh breaths.
Where in the hell was her Rover? She staggered to a halt in an attempt to get her bearings. It was too dark. Why was it so dark? Hadn't there been a light on earlier when she parked?
Then she recalled, she'd parked in the last row under a light. She turned to head that way when something snagged the shoulder of her jacket. She shrieked.
"Sisttsí, what's wrong?" Aidan's urgent tone, a tone of command, pulled her back to the present, to her surroundings—to the fact she still held her cell in her hand and her brother hadn't hung up.
"N-n-nothing. It's d-d-dark and I got hung up on s-s-something."
"Are you outside? Haven't you listened to anything I've—" He growled. "Snap out of it, Tara, and get back inside the diner."
She inhaled slowly, then exhaled. Twice. Just the way the therapist had taught her. It helped. The tightness in her throat was still there, but she could breathe. Her vision had cleared. Her mind was engaged once more and she cringed at her reaction. All her military training had flown right out the door. She had her bearings now.
But she could admit, she was still shaky. There was no way she belonged behind the wheel of a vehicle.
"Tara. Talk to me." Aidan's terse tone held a tinge of pleading.
"I'm almost to my vehicle." She'd spotted its familiar profile, and yeah, it was parked under the light, which was out. "I'll get my Kimber. I need my gun—" She felt herself losing it again, so she took a long slow breath. "—then I'll go back inside. Okay? You can hang up now. I'm fine."
"No. I'll wait until you're armed."
He would, too. No use arguing with him. She could hang up, but then she'd never hear the end of it. Plus, he'd travel to Idaho to deliver the lecture in person. Besides, having her big brother on the other end of the phone while she traversed the dark lot made her feel better.
Tara gritted her teeth against uttering a four-letter word after stepping into deep rut and almost losing her balance. She had to catch herself by bracing a hand on the hood of a car.
Slow down. No need to twist an ankle. Talk about being helpless. She'd been lucky she hadn't already injured herself in her crazed flight out of the diner.
She placed her next steps more carefully.
A sound caught her attention. The back of her neck tingled and her skin broke out in chill bumps. The last time she'd had those two reactions simultaneously was when she'd sensed Miller coming at her as she ran the track at the smokejumping school, right before he'd darted her and her nightmare had begun.
There it was again. Tara inhaled sharply and went motionless, barely breathed, so whoever was out there wouldn't see or hear her. Yeah, she was possibly overreacting, but every instinct she possessed urged caution.
Aidan must've heard her gasp, because he shouted, "Tara! Fucking talk to me!"
"Quiet," she muttered into the phone.
Tara had stopped between two large pickup trucks and felt comfortable that she was relatively hidden. She shifted her phone to her non-dominant hand, then leaned down to pull her Ka-Bar from its sheath, wishing more than ever that she had her trusty Kimber.
Slowing her breathing even more, she listened for the sound that had triggered her primitive brain's alert system.
At first, everything seemed normal. Wind whistled through the pine forest that bordered the last row of the diner's back lot. The hoot of an owl echoed from somewhere nearby. The occasional sound of a vehicle pulling in and out of the graveled lot at the front of Ma's punctuated the night air. Underlying it all was the faint sound of music from the diner as people opened and shut the building's main door.
Then there it was. The sound she'd heard earlier—a crunch of stone, but not like the sound vehicles made, the continuous sound of stone being crushed and rolled over. This sound was from a person walking on loose gravel—and it was tentative…furtive.
Whoever it was, he was getting closer, approachi
ng the row where she currently hid.
Tara dropped to a crouch, sheltering even more of her body from view. Unless he had a light of some sort, he wouldn't see her in the deeper shadows between the two trucks.
Someone's merely going to his car.
Maybe.
But his stride would be more confident; there'd be more noise. Plus, a feeling of impending doom told her she was being stalked. Her brain could rationalize the situation all night, but Tara would rather be safe than sorry. She'd remain where she was. If a car drove out of the lot in the next minute or so, then no problem. She'd get up, retrieve her gun, and then go back inside and take her friends up on their offer of shelter at the Lodge.
As she continued to listen, attempting to figure out where exactly the person was, her brother growled out her name, "Tara, what—"
She cut off the call and muted the phone.
The slight crunch and stealthy shifting of stones sounded again. Off to her left, closer to her Rover. And far too close to her current position.
"Where's that fucking bitch?" a man's voice muttered, the sound carried on the night breeze.
Shit. Shit. Shit. Damn panic attack. If not for losing her damn mind, she'd be still safe inside Ma's.
You can't control fear.
She could fucking try. Right now, she needed to get back into the diner where she had backup. For that, she'd need an undivided attention and both hands in case she had to fight.
Tara texted her brother. "Went dark. Will call later." She then sent another quick text to Keely with an SOS, which if nothing else would have them looking for her, and then shoved the phone into the inside zippered pocket of her jacket.
She couldn't count on Ren and the others finding her before the man swearing at her non-appearance did, so she stayed where she was and waited. Sometimes the best action is non-action.
It was good that she hadn't moved, because he was now moving away from her Rover and heading toward the front of Ma's.
Good, she'd follow him. The pursuer would become the pursued.
Tara moved out slowly, carefully and quietly placing each step so as not to draw the man's attention. She used as many of the larger vehicles as possible to hide her body just in case he looked back or changed direction.
Firestorm (Security Specialists International Book 6) Page 5