Cut and Run 09 Crash & Burn (30 page)

Then a shadow moved amid the trees, blocking out the light.

Zane hadn’t realized he was nervous until he’d tried to move his hands from where they were clutching his jeans, and his fingers throbbed as they started getting blood to them again.

Earl was sitting across from him, on the edge of the sofa. Mara and Chester had joined them, which seemed to make Owen and Digger uncomfortable, but Zane knew the Gradys. Mara wasn’t exactly the little woman puttering around the kitchen.

She didn’t seem as distraught as Earl did right now.

“That can’t be,” he was insisting. He was shaking his head, staring at the table. “I knew him too well.”

“Sir,” Owen said gently. “We wish it weren’t true, but we have too much evidence.”

Earl glanced up at him, then turned his attention back to Zane. He looked so wounded, Zane wasn’t sure how to handle it. He had expected Earl to rail at them, to deny it, to get violent and protective like Ty had when Nick had tried to tell him. But Earl was none of those things. He merely seemed broken and sad.

“I’m sorry,” Zane whispered.

Earl shook his head. “Don’t apologize, son, this ain’t your doing. Where is Ty?”

Zane winced, glancing at Owen and Digger to make sure they had his back. They both nodded. Zane licked his lips and took a deep breath. “He’s in the truck,” he answered carefully.

Mara sat up straighter and peered out the window, scowling. “Why didn’t he come in?”

But the dawning realization in Earl’s eyes told Zane that Earl knew exactly why Ty had stayed in the truck. He blew out a noisy puff of air.

“I have to ask you a few questions,” Zane told him, trying to keep the professional mask that had served him so well for so long.

Mara turned back around, her brow still furrowed. She looked between them and put her hand on Earl’s knee.

“Of course you do,” Earl said, and he was astoundingly calm. Fuck, he was making Zane nervous! “Go on, boy. Get it over with.”

“Were you aware of Richard Burns’s activities?”

“No.” Earl’s answer came out soft and sad.

“Were you aware of the safe he had installed in the floor of his home?”

Earl shook his head. “No.”

Zane licked his lips, steeling himself. “Were you aware that Richard Burns was planning to murder myself and Ty so we’d take the fall for his crimes?”

Earl looked up sharply, eyes flashing. His breath seemed to leave him, and he stood. “Is that true?” he asked, barely audible since he still hadn’t caught his breath.

Zane nodded. “We believe so, yes.”

Earl covered his face with both hands, and Zane could see he was trying to calm himself. It obviously didn’t work, because he snatched a round decorative candle off the coffee table and chucked it at the nearest wall. It smashed into a picture, and glass shards crashed to the ground.

Zane stood, and Owen and Digger were both tensing, waiting. Earl didn’t move again, though. He stood with his hands on his hips, his entire body shaking.

“Earl?” Zane tried.

“Can’t believe that bastard got himself killed before I could do it,” Earl growled.

“Zane,” Mara said shakily. “Can you call Tyler in now?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Zane nodded for Digger to flash the porch light like they’d discussed. “He’ll be just a second.”

Ty saw the old yellow light on the front porch flash on and off, bathing the yard in a kinetic sort of energy for a few brief seconds that seemed entirely too fitting with the arm wrapped around his neck.

Ty reached out toward the light, then went back to trying to pry the arm full of solid muscle away from his windpipe so he could call out for backup or, hell, breathe. Breathing would be just fine right now.

He kicked at the man holding him, aiming for a kneecap, or maybe even a nice tendon, but his bootheel hit with a solid
thunk
. The guy was wearing body armor.

That was why Ty’s initial attack had failed so miserably. You can’t hit a pressure point that’s under a protective layer of Kevlar. Ty lurched forward, then threw himself back with all his strength. He heard Under Armour’s head hit the tree behind them, and it stunned him enough that Ty could break the hold around his neck and duck away. He turned with a wheelhouse kick toward the side of the man’s knee, where the body armor was weakest.

A twig snapped behind him, and he spun in time to see the attack, but not to defend it. The second man leveled him with a fallen tree limb.

Ty found himself staring at the moonlight through the trees, trying to shake off the whirling queasiness of an impending blackout. He slid his hand into his pocket and got a grip on his gun as the man came into his view. He pulled the trigger without even taking the weapon out of his coat.

The man fell away, and Ty lay there on the frozen ground, fighting to stay conscious. If there were two men on this side of the house, there were definitely more. He sure as hell wasn’t safe, and neither was his family inside.

In the clear cold of the night, Ty heard the screen door screech open and slam again. The floodlights he and Deuce had spent one Easter installing all snapped on, bathing the backyard and the edges of the forest in light.

“Ty!” Zane called.

Ty turned his head, blinking away the sprinkling of floating lights on the edge of his vision. He saw Under Armour trying to stand on his newly ruined knee and bringing his assault rifle up.

Ty tugged his Smith & Wesson out of his destroyed pocket and pointed it at the man. “One chance,” he said to the guy, who was caught with his head turned toward Ty but his weapon turned toward the house.

They stared at each other for long seconds as Ty’s family and friends called his name and fanned out. Someone was coming closer to them, calling. Under Armour turned, aiming the assault rifle at whoever was approaching.

Ty pulled the trigger, and no armor in the world was a match for a head shot. The man coming toward them dropped to the ground at the sound of the gun.

“Six?” Digger called.

“I’m here.” Ty’s abused voice was hoarse, so he swallowed and tried again. “Here! Incoming!”

He could hear Digger skittering through the undergrowth toward him, and soon enough he’d found Ty in the darkness.

“You hit?” Digger asked him.

“No. Got me with a fucking stick in the head.”

Digger’s hands came to his head, checking him over. He could feel what seemed to be a split on his cheek, but Digger didn’t seem concerned. “You’ll live.”

He got Ty up without a word, letting him lean on him as they struggled their way toward the edge of the forest. They stopped right on the periphery of the light, crouching down.

“How many?”

“I got two,” Ty answered. “It’s an NIA strike team; they travel in packs of six to eight. They either tailed us, or they were sitting on my parents, waiting for us to show.”

“Why the fuck they after us?”

“They must think we have the money.”

“Well, fuck.”

Ty nodded as he strained to spot Zane or his dad, both of whom had probably come out in search of him. Owen was out there somewhere too, and between the five of them they could be pretty fucking lethal. They just needed a plan.

“Got a plan, boss?” Digger asked.

Ty huffed a laugh. “I was about to ask you that.”

“You knew Richard Burns well, didn’t you, Agent Tanner?” Nick asked the grizzled man who’d let them into his living room in Stafford, Virginia.

“Just call me Jack,” he told him with a wave. He’d offered them all drinks when they’d filtered into his home, but they’d declined. Tanner hadn’t, pouring himself a bourbon right out of a flask in his back pocket.

Nick glanced sideways as the man drank, meeting Kelly’s eyes dubiously. This guy was the one Ty and Zane both spoke so highly of?

“You boys say you’re friends with Tyler Grady?”

“Yes, sir,” Nick answered. “Laura Burns asked him to make some inquiries after her husband’s death.”

Tanner nodded, glancing at the others.

Julian had remained outside, and Liam was standing and restless, walking around the living room. Nick knew he was looking for anything that might help them, but he was still making Nick edgy. Nick was fighting against telling him to just sit the fuck down.

“I knew Richard,” Tanner said with a sorrowful nod. “He was a good friend. Good man. They made any progress in finding out who killed him?”

Nick didn’t blink. “Not that I know of,” he said evenly.

“Well, I hope they hang the bastard by his nut sac,” Tanner said before taking a long swig from his glass.

Liam coughed behind Nick to cover any sound he’d been about to make.

“That’s why we’re here,” Nick added.

“Sir, did you happen to know about anything Burns was keeping hidden?” Kelly asked Tanner. “A hiding spot he had from even his wife?”

“You mean the safe he put in his floor?” Tanner asked, his keen eyes narrowing.

Kelly and Nick shared another glance, surprised it was looking like this lead might pan out.

“He had that thing put in a few years ago. I made fun of him. ‘What you going to do with a safe in a floor, put your wife’s heart in there?’” Tanner smiled weakly. “Ain’t so funny now.”

Nick realized he was scowling at the man, and he worked to school his features again.

“Did he ever say why he needed it?” Kelly asked.

Tanner shook his head. “I figured it had something to do with the ops he ran on the side.”

“Can you tell us about those?” Nick asked. Ty and Zane had told them that Tanner helped Burns recruit for his side jobs, but it never hurt to play a little dumb.

Tanner sighed. “He’d have me single out promising candidates, wine and dine them, groom them for special tasks. He shut it all down a few years ago, ’round the same time he put that safe in. I just thought he took all the evidence he gathered and put it in there. Second coming of J. Edgar Hoover or something.”

Nick was frowning again when he asked, “Who else would know about that safe?”

Tanner raised both eyebrows, tapping a finger against his glass. “Well, his son came by here not two weeks ago. I told him about it.”

“His son?” Nick repeated.

Tanner hummed. “Yeah, estranged or something. Trying to find his daddy’s will, he said.”

“Can you tell us what he looked like?” Kelly asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

Tanner pursed his lips. “Must have been a fling ’cause he didn’t exactly look the part. Latino, if you ask me.”