Cold Silence (A High Stakes Thriller) (36 page)

"I meant it when I said I thought you were beautiful," he said in Cantonese.

It was about the nicest-sounding thing she'd ever heard. She savored the words in her head before turning to him.
"Do jeh,"
she thanked him.

"I didn't say it to get a thank-you."

She shifted her gaze across his face until it settled on his lips. She forced herself to turn away. "Why, then?"

"So you would know. So you'd know this wasn't a joke for me. The meeting, us. It's about work, I know," he said, and for the first time she sensed he was nervous, too.

"But I hope when the work is over that there might be something else." He paused and shook his head, laughing at himself. "I'm not making any sense, I know." He turned away, but she touched his hand.

"No. You do—you are making sense. And I'd like that, too."

Just then another agent appeared at their aisle.

Mei pulled her hand off Andy's arm and turned to the window.

"You two are going to have to cut out all that Chinese shit," Kyler Wisenor said. Kyler was tall, lean, with blue eyes and light brown hair. Women in the Bureau thought he was gorgeous. The Bureau's own Brad Pitt. "Bernadini's back there getting jealous, and I'm wondering if you two aren't about to start making out up here."

"What?" Andy laughed.

"That's ridiculous," Mei added.

Kyler leaned down and winked at Mei, giving Andy a conspiring elbow. "Hey, the words might be different but love sounds the same no matter what the language."

Mei could hear the other guys from the Office of Professional Responsibility let out a series of whoops and whistles from the back of the plane. She didn't answer.

"Get the hell out of here, Wisenor," Andy said, but Mei could see him blushing, too.

Kyler Wisenor made a kissing face and smacked his lips before sauntering down the aisle to the back of the plane.

Mei tucked the small paper-thin pillow back under her head and closed her eyes.

"Sure," Andy whispered. "Sleep and leave me to take all the abuse."

Mei smiled but didn't open her eyes. "Pretending to sleep seems to have worked for me so far."

She opened one eye and caught him looking at her. He opened his mouth to talk when the cell phone rang.

"If it's your mother, you want to talk to her this time?"

Mei laughed. "She probably called back to ask you if you want to join us for Chinese New Year next year."

"Oh, good, I didn't have plans yet." He winked. "Chang," he answered.

His face dropped immediately.

Mei closed her hands over the armrests.

"When?" He nodded at her response. "Okay. Thanks for the news."

He shut the phone and looked over. "Jennifer didn't make it."

Mei nodded and felt the slightest hint of relief. Jennifer's life was a loss, but Mei's focus was on Megan now. Megan and Ryan. "Jennifer didn't but Megan and Ryan have to," she whispered, more for her own benefit than anyone else's.

Andy squeezed her hand as she thought about the reason they were together. The playful spirit was gone, but Mei knew this was much more important.

"We'll be on the ground in twenty minutes," the captain announced from the cockpit. "Make sure everyone's belted in."

"You hear that, lovebirds," Kyler Wisenor shouted. "Break it up so you don't lose any teeth in the landing."

Mei and Andy ignored them. "We'll find them," Andy said.

"We have to," Mei agreed. "Megan Riggs deserves that much from us." Mei thought she deserved a hell of a lot more after what Jennifer had done to jeopardize her life and the life of her son. But keeping Oskar Kirov away from her and putting him behind bars would certainly be a good start.

As the plane started to bump lower into the sky, Mei focused her thoughts on Megan and Ryan, praying that they would be there in time to help.

Chapter 35

Cody watched as the end of Fallen Leaf Lake came into view. The FBI and the local authorities were on their way, but she was pretty sure she was the first to arrive. None of them had said much since they had left the gas station. The trip had taken them seven hours with the stop. It was normally a four-hour drive.

Cody pointed to a sign that directed people to Stanford Camp, and for the briefest moment in her mind, she could imagine being in a car with Ryan and Mark on their way to drop Ryan at camp. A normal family, a normal life. The ones like her sisters Alison and Amy and Nicole had.

Ryan had never been to camp, of course. She wouldn't let him. She would now. She bargained with whoever might be listening. Just bring Ryan home to her and she'd swear to let him live a more normal life.

As they rounded the last bend, she switched the headlights off. Florence had started to make a breathy snoring sound, and Cody was thankful for the way it broke the otherwise steely silence.

"It's that one." Travis pointed to a shingled house that looked to be almost as large as the one he had back in the Bay Area. It was dark except for one light toward the back of the house. But there was a car out front.

"You recognize the cars?"

"No."

Cody ignored the fact that he sounded almost relieved.

She imagined most of the houses were locked up this time of year. There wasn't any skiing close by, so the lake's inhabitants came mostly for summer vacations. Though the main road hadn't been plowed recently, there were tire tracks, and she could see that they led right up to that one house.

"Cody?"

She nodded without taking her eyes off the house. "Okay." The scent of fire filled her nostrils and she realized it was from her memories. She had not been this close to Oskar Kirov or his people since that day three years ago.

"What do we do from here?" Travis asked.

She pointed to a dark parking lot off to their right. "We go there and you wait with Florence."

She pulled the car ahead slowly, using the emergency brake to slow down to avoid the bright red of the brake lights.

When they were stopped, Cody opened the glove compartment and pulled out her 9mm SIG Sauer, cleaned and loaded, and checked the magazine. She set it in her lap, then pulled her Model 66 .357 Magnum out from under the seat and checked to make sure all six chambers held rounds. She left the motor running, and Cody zipped her jacket to her chin and pulled on a pair of thin black wool gloves. She knew she hadn't brought nearly enough to protect her against the weather, but her adrenaline would more than keep out the cold.

The colonel closed his own jacket and turned the collar up toward his ears.

"You guys leave the car running. If you don't hear from me in ten minutes, head back to town and get help."

"No way I'm letting you go in there by yourself," the colonel said.

She noticed Travis was silent.

Cody shook her head. "It's too dangerous. And you should be here with Florence."

He looked back at his wife and his eyes softened as he gave her a sad smile. "She'll be fine. She sleeps like a baby, and someone will arrive shortly. Plus, Travis'll watch her."

"Sure," he said quickly.

Cody paused. She didn't want the colonel to get hurt, but she knew she could use the help.

His mouth made a flat line. "She'd want me to do this, Cody. I won't let her down."

Cody shook her head. "I can do this alone. At least let me check it out. I can signal if I need you."

"Give me that Magnum. It was always my favorite anyway." He reached for the gun.

"You don't—"

"Let's go get Ryan."

She met his gaze and nodded. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me until we're all safely on our way home."

Landon explained the layout of the house and Cody took it in, focusing on each detail as she committed it to memory. Then Cody handed the colonel a gun and he weighed it in his grip as though getting the feel of it before snapping it open, rolling the barrel, and clicking it shut again.

"Ready?"

She picked up the SIG Sauer and put her hand on the door handle.

"No use waiting, then," he said, and before she could respond, he was out in the cold.

Without another word to Landon, Cody opened the door and latched it softly behind her. She saw only the thin gray exhaust coming out the back, and even that became quickly invisible as they moved toward the house.

The night was silent in the way a city never was. She heard the crunch of snow beneath their feet and the occasional
swish
of snow dropping from the trees. The wind had picked up, and it made a low whistling sound off the water as if it were warning them of something.

Cody listened with her eyes half-shut, hearing the sounds and adjusting her eyes to the blackness. The moon was a sliver on the far end of the lake, and it offered little light for them to go by.

She heard the low groan of a motor revving in the distance and halted.

The colonel was beside her. He pointed. "There."

"It's a snowmobile," she said.

"Can you tell who's on it?"

She squinted, but it was too dark to make out anything but the shape of the vehicle. "Not from here."

"What now?" he asked.

"The house, I think."

"Right," the colonel agreed, continuing up the hill.

They plodded on in silence for a few minutes, and Cody felt her lungs burn from the altitude. She pushed herself on despite it.

Two-thirds of the way up the hill to the house, Cody heard the colonel slip. He made a low grunting sound, and before she could react, he had slid by her.

She turned to try to find him, suddenly panicked that he might be injured and she might be alone. She opened her mouth to whisper his name when someone coughed loudly from beyond them. She knelt in the snow, ducking down behind a short pine tree and holding the gun pointed outward.

In the light of the cabin's back porch, she caught the reflection of a thick patch of smoke, and at first she thought it was her own breath. But something moved and she was able to make out a man on the porch, smoking a cigarette. It wasn't Oskar Kirov. He was too young and too agile to be Kirov, but she immediately sensed he didn't belong there either.

She swung around at the sound of steps beside her.

"It's just me," the colonel whispered.

She exhaled, pressing her palm to her chest.

"You okay?"

"You scared me. Are you okay? Did you fall far?"

"I'm fine," he said, then motioned with his chin to the porch. "That our kidnapper?"

She shrugged.

"You think that's a Russian?"

She looked at him, working her bottom lip between her teeth. "I don't have any good reason for thinking it's him."

"Just your gut?"

"Right."

"Sometimes that's the truest warning."

"How are we going to get up there?" she said, watching the man pace back and forth across the deck. His hands were bare, and she tried to determine what to make of that. Was he from up here and used to the cold? He shivered and threw his cigarette off the porch. Then he turned his back and disappeared back into the house. "I know how to be sure who it is," she said.

"How?"

"I'll show you." Keeping her head low, she moved in a low crouch toward the house. The wind stopped momentarily, and besides their own steps, the only sound she could hear was that of the colonel's breath behind her. She was pushing him, she knew, and she tried to get herself to slow down.

They reached a patch of tall pine trees less than twenty yards from the porch when Cody stopped. The colonel was behind her, his breathing fast and heavy. Her own heart was pounding and the cold burned her throat.

Under the porch, she crouched in the white snow. Squinting, she searched the uneven surface until she found what she was looking for. Picking up the discarded butt of a lone cigarette, she moved back into the shadow of the porch.