King's Ransom: (Tall, Dark and Dangerous Book 13)

by Suzanne Brockmann

  What did that say about him, wanting to keep treating her like a child even though she was clearly an adult? Some men treated all women like children, and how creepy was that?

  What if he could just let go of the past, and meet Tasha, as very much his equal, here in the present?

  Thomas found himself thinking about last night, and the way her hair had shone as it caught the overhead lights, the smile that curved her graceful lips and made her face light up with amusement, the faint lines at the sides of her laughing eyes. Even without any makeup on, she looked her age, with her grown woman’s body beneath her clothes and the blanket that she’d wrapped around her shoulders.

  And this was where, always in the past, he’d start feeling uncomfortable, like he needed to smack himself for thinking about Tasha as a woman. And no, not just as a grown-up, adult woman—he absolutely could see that she was that—but instead as a woman that he, personally, found to be physically attractive.

  And yeah, he was still unsettled, but maybe that was because he now couldn’t stop thinking about how she’d made it damn clear that she’d always found him to be physically attractive, too. And she didn’t wax poetic about his graceful lips and laughing eyes. She’d made it very clear that she still wanted to climb naked into his bed and jump his bones.

  And after, lie in his arms, forever at ease.

  It hit him, like a blow to the gut, that with Tasha in his arms, he’d be at ease forever, too. With Tasha in his arms, he’d at long last be able to breathe.

  And suddenly now the question What about Ted? was no longer the conversational shield that he’d thought it to be. Suddenly, now, he wanted to know.

  What about Ted?

  Back soon.

  Tasha worked at the dining table in the pod’s main living space, occasionally eating a small handful of her peanuts from today’s jar.

  That was what Thomas had recommended in terms of rationing their limited food. For the next three days, they’d each get a full jar of both peanuts and olives. After three days, if they hadn’t been rescued, they’d cut back to what he called half rations, which was, quite literally, half of that.

  Back soon.

  He’d signed his terse note with a T, and had also put the time of his departure—0515—so she’d have a reference point for that soon.

  She’d gotten up at 5:30, thinking he wouldn’t have left yet.

  Hah.

  She’d showered and washed her hair and put her clothes back on, but then decided that her sweater smelled ripe, so she’d washed that too. It was going to take forever to dry, so she got another blanket from the bedroom, in case she needed to add a layer as she went back to work on the fleece “pants” she was making for Thomas.

  She winced every time he left the pod dressed only in those thin plaid PJ pants, even though he shrugged it off. I’m fine.

  Back when they’d first arrived, she’d helped him engineer some waterproof toes for his cut-open, too-small boots, using a trash bag and a couple of rubber bands she’d found in the kitchen’s junk drawer. It wasn’t great, and Thomas had pointed out that the thick plastic was a recipe for trench foot—or it would be if he didn’t have the opportunity to take his boots off, shower, and then go barefoot while back inside for most of the day.

  But after she’d helped him cut a hole in one of the fleece blankets to create a poncho against the cold, she realized that she could make him warmer pants, too. Or she could at least try. There were certainly enough fleece blankets to spare if she ruined one in her attempt.

  There’d been a small collection of sewing kits in that kitchen junk drawer—many bearing the names of five-star hotels, where they’d no doubt been available in the bathroom along with the expensive tiny shampoos and variety of lotions. Each of the kits had a small amount of thread in a rainbow of colors. They were designed for mending or sewing buttons back onto shirts and blouses. So, not a lot of thread, but there were six kits. She was also being careful not to waste any thread—to use as much of it as humanly possible on the two inseams and the single side-seam that she was sewing by hand. One of the sides of the “pants” didn’t have a seam—she’d simply folded the blanket over.

  So no, they would not be pretty—that much was clear—which was why she used scare quotes around the word “pants,” even when thinking about them.

  Although her aunt Mia had been incredibly crafty, with a sewing machine that she’d inherited from an elderly relative, Tasha hadn’t done much sewing—and certainly never without a machine. But she’d taken a look at the seams of her shirt and was attempting to duplicate the tiny, reinforced stitches. Her handiwork was ugly, but what she was doing seemed to be holding the pieces of fabric together securely.

  Also filed under remarkably unattractive was the fact that the “pants” would be much too big for Thomas—but better that than too small. They would keep him warm. Warmer. But only if she could figure out some way to keep them on. A pair of suspenders. Some kind of belt or... ooh, maybe a drawstring.

  Yeah, a drawstring at the alleged waistline would work. She could use the cord from one of the bedside table lamps in the bedroom, if she couldn’t find anything else. And rather than folding over the top and painstakingly sewing a casing—and possibly running out of thread in the process—she could simply cut a series of holes in the approximate waist and run the cord both inside and out of the “pants.” Although best to wait to do that until after Thomas came back, and tried them on. Probably after he showered.

  And probably also after he sat her down and told her—gently, because he was Thomas and he absolutely loved her—that he didn’t love her that way, and that he was glad they’d talked, but now it was time to let it go and put the White Russian incident fully behind them.

  Still friends? he’d ask.

  And she’d nod, and say Of course, because the alternative was too awful to consider. So yes, they’d remain friends. Except they wouldn’t. They would merely be friendly. But that would be better than the past five years.

  Still, it was going to suck, having Thomas try on the “pants,” fresh from the shower. His chest and stomach bare as she tried to ignore his gorgeous rich brown skin and hard muscles, as she crouched in front of him, checking to see where the “pants” met his hips, so she could figure out where above them to cut the holes for the drawstring, while still giving him enough inseam space in the crotch to move and not get his male package squeezed.

  Oh, good. Perfect thing to be thinking about.

  In truth, she could simply let him do it. Toss him the “pants,” the lamp cord, and a pair of scissors—okay, she wouldn’t throw scissors at him, not even in theory—and let him figure it out. He was certainly smart enough—the poncho had been his idea.

  Of course, maybe this time he’d finally return from the extraction point with some SEALs and FBI agents in tow, and she’d leave the “pants” behind for archeologists to puzzle over, five hundred years from now.

  As Tasha threaded the needle with the next segment of thread—she was out of everything but red, orange, and pink—the lights abruptly went off, signaling that the door at the top of the stairs was being opened.

  It was officially soon, and Thomas was back.

  Heart in her throat, Tash sat very still as she waited the endlessly long five seconds before the lights came back on again. When they did, she moved deliberately carefully, securing the needle back in the plastic case—mostly because stepping on it with bare feet would suck, but also because a sewing needle was a limited resource, and each kit only contained one.

  She stood up, moving toward the door, ready to open it at Thomas’s Lizzo-knock.

  But the knock didn’t come.

  And it didn’t come.

  Do not open this door if it’s not our established knock.

  Okay. She’d understood that very clearly. But the options were always Thomas doesn’t come back, or Thomas comes back, then knocks in their established pattern, or Thomas comes back, but knocks a non-Lizzo kno
ck.

  It hadn’t occurred to either of them to create a rule for Thomas comes back, but doesn’t knock.

  And the big question that popped up was why? Why wasn’t he knocking? Or perhaps more accurately, why couldn’t he knock?

  And a scenario—a catastrophic one—immediately popped into Tasha’s head. One in which Thomas had been badly injured and just managed to crawl back to the pod and through the bulkhead door, only to fall unconscious once inside.

  She opened the door.

  It was heavy, but she wrestled it ajar enough for her to peer out and up the stairs. The dim lights were still on but the landing was silent and empty. So she pulled the door even further open—enough for her to slip through.

  But before she did that, she stopped again to listen for a moment, and again heard nothing. No labored breathing, no regular breathing.

  God, did she even remember how to do CPR?

  She shrugged off the blanket that she’d wrapped around her shoulders, and went out the door and up the stairs, as swiftly and silently as she could manage.

  Thomas wasn’t lying on the landing, thank God. He wasn’t standing there, either. He wasn’t there at all.

  But his rifle was.

  It was on the concrete floor, close to the bulkhead door, as if he’d opened the hatch only to put the weapon inside. A baggie he’d used to carry extra ammo in his raincoat pocket was beside it.

  Tasha felt the blood drain from her head so swiftly that she had to sit down, right there next to the rifle.

  Because now other possible catastrophic scenarios flashed through her head.

  He was dying, and he knew that he couldn’t make it inside, but he’d managed to give her this gun and these extra bullets.

  But there was no blood anywhere. Not on the rifle, not on the floor, not on the baggie, not on the bulkhead.

  So maybe he’d been spotted, was being chased, and was on the verge of being captured so he’d come back here to give her this weapon.

  No, wait, that didn’t make sense. Protecting her—he’d told her just last night that he still saw himself mainly as her protector. If he was being chased, there was no way he’d lead his pursuers to this bomb shelter. He’d definitely run in a different direction, leading them away from her.

  Unless...

  Thomas had said there were around twenty men in that camp he’d discovered. It was one thing to evade a handful of wannabe commandos, but twenty? And if they were all closing in? Thomas was a SEAL, and SEALs were good, but no one was that good.

  Tasha suddenly knew, quite clearly, what this rifle meant—what Thomas had done.

  With that large of a group of men chasing him, his chances of evasion were less likely, although not impossible. Except, he knew that if he suddenly, mysteriously vanished—i.e. went through the hatch—those men would search this area hard until they found the bulkhead. And then Thomas and Tasha would be trapped. So instead, he’d dropped off this weapon, and now was purposely going out into the woods, unarmed.

  But...

  “Oh, hell no!” She pushed herself back to her feet and scrambled down the stairs to grab her jacket and her hat-towel, this time wrapping it around her throat like a scarf as she raced back up to the landing.

  Outmaneuvering the small army of men wasn’t going to be enough. He’d look at the logistics and realize that he’d need to let those men catch him, so that they didn’t find the bulkhead.

  This nightmare scenario kept spinning out—because it didn’t end there.

  After he let them catch him, he’d try to bluff and tell them she’d died. They wouldn’t believe him, so they’d torture him to force him to reveal her hiding place. Which he’d eventually do, except he’d lie and intentionally mislead them, again, far away from her.

  And when they didn’t find her, they would kill him.

  Tasha picked up the rifle, scooped up the extra ammo, and popped open the hatch.

  The admiral was bullshit.

  Rio could hear it in the man’s clipped tone as he relayed the bad news over the phone.

  “The young woman—Kayla Conway, she’s still back with the queen, at their safe location. But she says his name’s Jeff Willems. He got into an argument with the prince, who wanted to go back to the ski lodge and look for Tasha, but Willems refused. He did, however, agree to pose as Tedric and take the jet—I’m assuming he’s got a pilot’s license?” Francisco’s voice got slightly muffled as he no doubt turned to ask that question of whatever bearer of bad news was likely standing at attention in his office.

  Back to louder: “Not that it matters, but yeah, he does.”

  Back to muffled. “Keep him in police custody. One rich idiot floating loose is all I can handle.”

  Back to louder: “Willems is gonna go into local lockup—he’s no longer our responsibility, thank God. Kayla—our twenty-something definitely inebriated source of intel—reported that the prince’s plan was to use his pal to make everyone believe that Tedric was flying back. Instead, the prince started driving. He’s alone, he’s armed—”

  Oh, good. Rio glanced at Dave who sat shotgun in the SUV.

  “—and he’s using Willems’s phone,” the admiral continued. “We’ve just tracked his GPS, so we know where he is right now—assuming Kayla’s not lying to us—but cell service has been spotty, and we expect to lose his signal again, soon. Details are being sent to you because—”

  “Aw, hell, no,” Rio heard himself interrupt the admiral, so he quickly slapped on a “Sir,” even as he gripped the steering wheel more tightly.

  “Yup,” Francisco grimly said. “You’re it, Rossetti. You and Patterson. You’re closest. And I need both of you on this, so don’t mess around. Find him, get him to Burlington—”

  “But, sir, if this is just another diversion,” Rio started. This was going to take a solid twelve hours—if they were lucky. And it would take longer if they weren’t.

  “I’ve seen a video interview with the girl,” the admiral said. “She’s a friend of Tasha’s, too—Tash likes her. And trusts her. She’s drunk, but it looks like liquid courage, so she could bring herself to ask for help. I think Tedric’s smart, but he’s not that smart. He’s got his buddy’s phone. Find the phone, we’ll find the prince. And if you haul ass, you can still intercept him before he leaves his vehicle and becomes harder to track, on foot in the goddamn mountains.”

  “Tracking coordinates received, sir,” Dave reported, pulling open the paper map to have at the ready for when their SAT signal failed—which it would do, probably soon after they started moving toward those same goddamn mountains. “Out to the main road, then north,” he told Rio.

  Rio jammed the SUV into gear and floored it. “Hauling ass, sir.”

  “Keep me updated, and as tempting as it might be, do not kill the idiot, and do not let him get himself killed,” the admiral ground out, before he hung up.

  “And... we just lost GPS,” Dave told Rio as they sped northward into the night. “But it’ll be back.”

  “I fucking hate this,” Rio said.

  Dave nodded. “I know.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Thomas was moving fast.

  With a four man patrol hot on his heels, he had to be thinking fast, too. He had to be four steps ahead.

  Mere evasion would’ve been easy.

  Easier.

  Three of his pursuers were idiots, with close to zero training. Only one was a real operator—probably Army recon. He was the man Thomas had to work to avoid.

  But he wasn’t just evading them in order to hide. He was actively leading them away from the entrance to the pod, so that they wouldn’t find the bulkhead door.

  Because if they found the bomb shelter, he and Tash would instantly be in siege mode. They’d be extremely vulnerable, with no eyes and ears to the outside world, and a limited, dwindling food supply.

  And that was the best case scenario—assuming that the hostiles wouldn’t be able to figure out a way to cut off their power, whi
ch would make them lose their light and heat. A power cut would lose them their water supply, too, since the pump that drew the water from its well was electric.

  Although true worst case was that the hostiles would somehow screw with the shelter’s ventilation system, cutting off their air. That would mean game over.

  Siege mode was to be avoided at all costs.

  All costs.

  So even though Thomas’s initial plan, formed when he’d realized he’d walked straight into an ambush, was only partially developed, it had a very solid Step One: Lead these amateur motherfuckers far, far from Tasha and the pod.

  He should’ve been more careful.

  Although, to be fair, today’s SNAFU had started while he’d been moving through the woods steadily, employing his usual high level of care and stealth as he returned from checking the contact point. In fact, he’d been disturbingly close to the camouflaged-by-brush-and-debris bulkhead entrance to the underground shelter when his SEAL-senses had started tingling. He was being watched and followed.

  At first he spotted glimpses of just two of them—clumsy Stooges One and Two. But as he started moving faster—right past the bulkhead—the second pair, Army and Stooge Three, had revealed themselves, because stealth was harder to achieve at higher speeds.

  Thomas had led the four-man team due south, careful to stay visible, his mind racing as he got to work on steps two-plus of his plan. The four men were following him. They weren’t trying to kill or capture him for an obvious reason, which was that they hoped he’d lead them to Tasha.

  When he was a safe enough distance from the bomb shelter entrance, Thomas finally let himself vanish. Then he circled back around, tracking his trackers for a bit to make sure he was right, and that there really were only four men in this little hunting patrol.

  Only after confirming that did he backtrack even more, all the way to the shelter, where he’d opened the hatch and deposited both the rifle and one of the small bags of ammo he’d been carrying in his raincoat pockets. While he had no intention of getting apprehended by Army and his stooges, he knew for damn sure that if something did go wrong, he wanted Tasha to have access to that weapon. Besides, he could move faster without it. Plus, without it, he could carry more shit.