Colorado Bodyguard (17 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Sophie buried her face against Rand's chest and put her hands over her ears, trying to block out the groan of splintering timbers and crash of falling rock. Only his arms holding her tightly kept the panic at bay. With Rand, she could be strong enough to get through this.

Eerie silence settled over them. “What happened?” she asked. “Did they set off another charge?”

“I don't think so,” he said. “I think the timbers will shift and settle for a while after an explosion. It's one of the things that make mine rescue work so dangerous.” He coughed and switched on his flashlight. “Hey, take a look at this!”

She didn't want to look, didn't want to see their world reduced even further to a rocked-in tomb. But something in his voice encouraged her to lift her head and peer down the narrow beam of light.

Rather than reducing their world, this latest collapse had opened the way into a new passage. “Is that a light up ahead?” she asked.

“Let's go find out.” He took her hand and helped her over the rubble. In a few moments, they stood on the other side of the debris, in a smooth-walled tunnel. “Why does this section look different?” she asked.

“I think this must be the passage leading to the house.” He ran his hand over the pale surface of the wall on their right. “It's poured concrete,” he said. “Like one of those big highway culverts.” He drew his gun. “Stay behind me. In case we run into one of Prentice's guards.”

But they met no one in the tunnel, and no one waited at the door at the end. Rand tried the knob, but it wouldn't turn. “Stand back,” he told her.

She took two steps back and covered her ears, expecting he'd shoot off the lock, as she'd seen in movies. Instead, he slammed his heel into the lock, collapsing it inward. The door swung open. They waited, but no one emerged. No one shouted. No alarms sounded.

Rand motioned her forward and cautiously, they stepped into what appeared at first to be a closet. He shone the light around the paneled walls until the beam illuminated a steel door.

“It's an elevator,” Sophie said.

“Looks like it.” He pressed the single lighted button on the wall, and the door slid open. They stepped inside and Rand pressed the number
one
. After a few seconds, the doors silently closed and the car began to rise.

The elevator opened and they faced another door, this one unlocked, and it opened into a coat closet on the mansion's first floor. They passed through the closet, into the deserted front hall of Richard Prentice's mansion. “Where is everyone?” Sophie whispered.

“I hear something down there.” Rand motioned with the pistol toward the back of the house. As they walked closer, she could hear a whirring sound and see the light spilling into the corridor.

Richard Prentice stood beside a filing cabinet, pulling out papers, a handful at a time, and depositing them in a whirring shredder. He looked up at their approach and frowned. “I don't have time to talk now, Officer,” he said. “I'm very busy.”

Rand motioned for Sophie to step back, then addressed the billionaire. “Richard Prentice, you're under arrest for the kidnapping of Lauren Starling.”

Prentice inserted another sheaf of papers into the shredder, and raised his voice to be heard over the whirring. “I wouldn't believe anything poor Lauren tells you,” he said. “She's crazy, you know. Completely unbalanced.”

“Lauren is not crazy.” Sophie couldn't keep quiet any longer. If anyone here was unbalanced, it was Richard Prentice. “She certainly didn't lock herself in that mine all these weeks,” she said.

Prentice shook his head. “Lauren suffers from severe paranoia. She believed people were trying to kill her. I suppose she's transferred those feelings to me now. She came to me and I tried to help her. I care about her and I thought with time and attention, she'd recover. I see that's impossible now.”

He sounded so calm and reasonable. So sane. If she hadn't known better, even Sophie might have believed him. “You were holding her prisoner in a mine,” she protested.

“I created that room in the mine to reassure her.” He continued shredding documents as he spoke. “She felt safe and protected there, at least at first.”

“Liar,” Sophie said. “Don't think your money will protect you now.”

“You need to come with me, sir,” Rand said. “You have the right to remain silent—”

Sophie didn't see the gun in Prentice's hands until it fired. She screamed as Rand fired his own weapon, but Prentice was already racing toward a door on the other side of the room. Rand shoved Sophie to the floor and fired again, bullets striking the door frame as Prentice jerked it open and threw himself outside.

Rand raced after him, Sophie trailing after. When she burst through the door she spotted a waiting helicopter, Richard Prentice running toward its open door.

“He's getting away!” she shouted as the door to the helicopter slammed shut, and the aircraft rose into a sky streaked pink with the dawn.

A black-and-white Ranger Brigade vehicle raced into the yard and skidded to a halt near where the helicopter had waited. Michael and Graham climbed out of the front seat, while Marco and Lauren exited the back. No longer the elegant newscaster who had smiled from television screens and billboards, Lauren's face was streaked with dirt, her hair long and limp, a sweatshirt and pants hanging on her small frame. But at the sight of her sister, she broke into a smile. “Sophie!” she cried, and held out her arms.

Sophie didn't try to hold back the tears as she embraced Lauren. “I've been so worried about you,” she said. “What happened?”

“Marco and I escaped during the explosion,” she said. “He found a way out of the mine. Then we went for help. But I was so worried about you.”

“I'm fine. But Richard Prentice got away.” She looked up, toward the fast-departing silhouette of the helicopter.

“We'll find him,” Graham's expression was grim, but determined. “We have more than enough evidence now to charge him with a long list of crimes, thanks to Ms. Starling.”

“His lawyers won't pull him out of the fire this time,” Rand said. “We'll make sure of that.”

Sophie clung tightly to her sister's hand and watched the helicopter until it disappeared over a distant mountain. She wanted to believe justice would be served, and Richard Prentice would be punished for what he'd done, but the memory of him standing before the shredder, explaining away every bit of evidence against him with the assurance of a man who can buy the best lawyers and the best reputation, made her sick to her stomach. Maybe no matter how hard they all tried, he was a man who was truly above the law.

* * *

T
HE
 
DAY
 
AFTER
 
her dramatic rescue, dressed in a new suit, her hair carefully styled and makeup perfected, Lauren Starling stood before two dozen reporters at the Dragon Point overlook in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park. Flanked by Captain Graham Ellison and Agent Marco Cruz of The Ranger Brigade, she looked composed and professional, and much calmer than Sophie would have been in her position.

Sophie waited with Rand to one side of the gathering, marveling at her sister's composure. “I want to thank The Ranger Brigade for their tireless efforts to locate and rescue me,” Lauren said, in the smooth, modulated tones of a professional broadcaster. “And I especially want to thank my sister, Sophie Montgomery, who put aside everything to come to my aid in my time of need. People talk about the depths of brotherly love, but nothing can match the depths of a sister's devotion.” She smiled at Sophie, and dozens of cameras flashed.

Lauren directed that dazzling smile to the reporters in front of her. “And now I'll take a few questions.”

“Ms. Starling, what do you say to Richard Prentice's assertion that everything you've told us today is a lie, an elaborate scenario that resulted from your own mental illness?” The reporter, a man in a bow tie whom Sophie didn't recognize, hurled the question like a dagger.

Lauren's smile vanished. Maybe Sophie was the only one who saw the flash of pain in her eyes, the tightening of her fingers on the edge of the podium, the tension in her shoulders. She quickly masked the fear, and replaced it with a stern, but determined look. “Mr. Prentice is facing many years in prison for his crimes, and the complete ruin of his reputation,” she said evenly. “He is desperate to blame anyone but himself for his misdeeds. He is the one who is lying.”

“But you are mentally ill,” the reporter persisted. “You've admitted to a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.”

“Yes, I suffer from an illness shared by five-point-seven million people in this country alone,” she said. “And as with other illnesses, such as diabetes or asthma, I take medication and have adjusted my lifestyle to control the disease. I was definitely in my right mind when Richard Prentice kidnapped me and held me hostage for six weeks. He's the one who's delusional, if he thinks he can dismiss that behavior as a product of my imagination.”

“In the statement he issued this morning, Mr. Prentice says the Rangers have no proof of the other charges against him,” another reporter read from a tablet computer. “He says, quote, ‘The Ranger Brigade continue their established pattern of harassment and character assassination with these unfounded claims. I have no connection to drug dealers, murders, smuggling and the other crimes they have charged me with.' End quote. What do you say to that?”

“I came to Montrose to interview a witness and obtain photographic proof of Mr. Prentice's ties to drug dealing in the area,” she said. “That witness has since been murdered, and Mr. Prentice tried to silence me, but failed. Once he is returned for trial, the world will see we have plenty of proof.”

“If he wanted to silence you, why didn't he just kill you?” a female reporter asked.

“That will be explained in the trial.” Graham stepped forward. The Rangers' attorney had advised Lauren not to go into Prentice's plan to persuade her to marry him. The scheme was outlandish enough that some in the media might latch on to it as proof of Prentice's claims that Lauren was delusional. After all, the stoic billionaire didn't strike people as the type to obsess over a woman, no matter how beautiful.

“That's all the questions we have time for today,” Graham said, and reporters immediately turned their attention to him, firing questions about the Rangers' case against Richard Prentice. Lauren moved to stand beside Marco Cruz. Sophie had noticed her sister seemed to feel safest near the handsome, taciturn officer.

The press conference ended and the reporters and cameramen began to move back toward their cars. But one man, tall and blond and dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, the sleeves carefully folded back to reveal muscular forearms, broke away from the crowd and moved toward Lauren. “Phil!” she said, her expression wary. “I didn't expect to see you here.”

He glanced at the officers flanking her and held out his hands, palms up. “I'm not here to cause trouble. I just wanted to say I'm glad you're okay. Despite what other people might think—” again, a look at the officers “—I didn't have anything to do with what happened to you.”

“I know you didn't.” Lauren's smile would have melted chocolate. “Take care of yourself, Phil.”

“I'm trying.” He adjusted his collar. “I'm checking into a rehab program in Grand Junction this afternoon.”

“That's a good idea,” Lauren said.

“Yeah, well, I guess this is goodbye. For now, anyway.”

“Goodbye, Phil.” Marco took her arm and she turned away, toward his waiting car.

“She did great,” Sophie whispered to Rand. “She's so brave.”

He took her hand and squeezed it. “You're the one who's brave. I'm proud of you.”

She had to look away from the admiration in his eyes, aware of the people crowded around them. Her gaze focused on the dog beside him. “I'm glad Lotte's all right,” she said. “I was worried.”

“Lucky those guys were terrible shots.” Rand scratched the dog behind the ears. Then he put his arm around Sophie. “Let's go for a walk.”

He led her down the path to the very edge of the canyon, where she looked out at the figures of the fighting dragons etched in the opposite wall of the chasm. Though composed by nature, they looked like Chinese paintings, the giant figures in red and black crisp against the gray stone walls.

“What will you do now that Lauren is safe?” he asked.

“I don't know. I'm thinking of staying here for a while, to make sure she's all right.” Though Lauren hadn't said much about her ordeal, Sophie sensed her sister was still fragile. She'd need support for the long trial—both in the media and in the courtroom—that lay ahead. “I don't really have anything to go back to in Wisconsin. My job stopped challenging me a long time ago, and I could probably find another one here.”

“Does that mean you'll stay in Montrose?”

“I'm thinking about it. Lauren plans to stay here. She'll do all she can to see that Richard Prentice is convicted. It's not going to be easy for her. I want to be here to help.”

“I'd like it if you stayed.”

She met his eyes, searching for the emotions behind his words. Did he mean he'd like it if they got to know each other better, maybe casually dated? Or did he want what she wanted, to continue this deeper connection she felt for him? “Why would you like me to stay?” she asked.

He smoothed his palm down her arm, then caught her hand in his. “I used to joke that Lotte was the only woman I needed in my life,” he said. “But I was wrong. I need you. I think I've stayed single until now because I was waiting for you.”

“I can't make any promises right now,” she said. “Not while things are still so unsettled for Lauren.”