Dead Heat (42 page)

Tobias spoke calmly. “There are always more.” He had a slight accent. Neither Mexican nor American. A hybrid of something. Maybe a bit affected. Lucy was usually good with language, but she couldn’t figure out where he was from.

“DeSantos is dead. His cover was blown. CPS is going to get a rectal exam by the feds. That source is burned.”

“You need to choose your people more wisely. Relax, Vasco. The only problem you’ll have is if all my guns aren’t there. Once I get the report from my men, I’ll leave and you live.”

Trejo scowled. “Don’t threaten me.”

There must be a second way off the mountain, opposite the way they came in. They hadn’t passed anyone leaving and heading for the prison complex.

“It’s not a threat. You either give me the guns, or return my money with a loss fee of twenty percent, as you agreed to.” Tobias paused. “What aren’t you telling me, Vasco?”

“One of the trucks was stolen. It’s only ten percent of the weapons, but—.”

“Then you’ll give me ten percent of the two million back.”

“I have something better.”

“There’s nothing better than cash or guns.”

“Yes, there is. Come inside.”

They went back through the doors they’d come out of.

Lucy couldn’t wait another minute. She didn’t know when or if they’d leave the room. She crawled along the wall to the door that Tobias had originally vacated. There was a lone light on, no one inside. The door leading to what she presumed was the hall was closed. She and Michael slipped inside and closed the terrace door.

It was an office. Files from CPS were stacked on the desk. Dozens of files. That bastard—Lucy forced herself to remain calm. Getting angry now wasn’t going to help her find Bella. And DeSantos was dead. The FBI knew he’d been working with Sanchez; they’d help CPS with their security.

She walked over to the door and listened. She heard nothing. Michael came close to her and whispered, “There’s a back staircase, next to the kitchen. The big staircase is right outside this door, but the other staircase is better.”

“When I say go, you lead.”

Her heart raced and she willed it to slow down. It didn’t obey. She closed her eyes and listened. No voices. She was two rooms away from Tobias and Trejo. There was a third man in that room. A guard? Sanchez?

She slowly cracked the door and peered out.

The lights were all on, but she saw no one. She opened the door wider, looked down the hall where the men were talking. That door was closed. She nodded to Michael.

He wasn’t right there. He’d gone back into the room.

She didn’t risk talking or closing the door. She crossed silently to where he stood next to the bookshelf. He was staring at a black box. The black box that had started this all. It was a perfect cube the width and height of a CD. It could hold maybe fifty CDs. And it was valuable to Trejo.

Which meant it was now valuable to the government. It could be anything, but if it helped them shut down drug pipelines or gunrunning or corrupt officials, they needed it.

He didn’t look at her; he simply picked it up and tucked it under his arm. Then he followed Lucy to the door. She looked out again. Clear.

Michael led the way down the hall, their shoes making faint sounds on the tile floor. She winced and prayed no one could hear them. As if he sensed the same thing, Michael walked slower, with more purpose, and their footfalls became muted.

A shadow at the end of the hall had Lucy pushing Michael back. Then it disappeared. They moved again, past a dining room, past the kitchen where there were voices—young voices, talking about going to town to get laid when the job was over. Excited. Scared.

Just past the kitchen was a narrow staircase that led up. If anyone came up or down while they were on the staircase, they would be trapped—the bullets would have few places to go except to hit them.

They didn’t have a choice.

There was no light on, and Lucy kept it that way. They took the stairs as fast as they dared and stopped just at the top of the landing. Standing flush against the wall, Lucy peered left and right. Michael motioned to the right:
That’s Trejo’s wing
.

Now or never.

The one positive was that they exited on the short side of the wing, so anyone coming up the main stairs couldn’t see them. There were four doors on the right and three on the left. Double doors at the end of the hall. That, Lucy assumed, was Trejo’s suite.

But where was Bella? Lucy doubted they had time to check each room, and she had no idea if there were others sleeping up here. If she were Trejo, how would she think?

He wanted Bella why? Because she’d been kept from him? Because his name wasn’t on the birth certificate? Did he truly want a child, or did he take her as punishment for her mother who listed another man as her father?

It could go either way, Lucy realized, but would Jaime Sanchez turn his niece over to a man who would hurt her? Or did he truly believe that living here would be better for her?

For Jaime … it was punishing Mirabelle as much as it was keeping his employer happy. For Trejo … she leaned toward him wanting a prodigy. Wanting to keep her close.

Making sure no one had emerged from any of the rooms, she made her way immediately down the hall to the door closest to Trejo’s suite.

It was locked from the outside.

This had to be it.

She motioned for Michael to be lookout while she picked the lock, wishing that Sean were here. He’d take half as long as she. The twenty seconds it took felt like twenty minutes.

She opened the door and they both slipped in. She had her gun ready in case she’d been wrong.

She hadn’t been. There was a night-light next to the bed, bathing the room in a shiny pink glow. Everything was pink. Pink walls, pink comforter, pink rugs on the tile floor. And dark-haired Bella, curled into a fetal position, in a large pink bed, under a collection of letters that spelled
ISABELLA
in bright ballerinas.

Lucy motioned for Michael to stay by the door, to listen. She walked over to Bella and squatted next to the bed.

“Bella. Isabella,” Lucy whispered.

She startled awake, a cry on her lips. Lucy put her hand over the girl’s mouth.

“It’s Lucy. Lucy Kincaid. Remember me?”

The girl nodded, her eyes brimming with tears. She pointed to her dresser.

Lucy looked. There was a voice monitor there, the light flickering from green to red.

Shit.

Lucy put her finger to her lips. She gestured to Michael and Bella smiled underneath Lucy’s hand. Lucy leaned over and whispered directly into her ear and hoped the monitor didn’t pick it up, “I’m going to take you home. But no one can know I’m here.”

She nodded.

Lucy crept over to the door. If anyone came up, they’d know someone had picked the lock. She hoped and prayed no one did.

She didn’t hear anyone outside the door. She went into the closet, wincing as the door creaked. She found shoes and a warm jacket. She handed them to Bella and again put her finger to her lips to remind her to be quiet.

Bella had just put on her shoes when gunfire sounded outside the house. She sucked in her breath, loudly. Lucy prayed Trejo and his people were too busy dealing with Kane to worry about Bella.

Lucy looked from Michael to Bella and for a split second was overwhelmed by the responsibility she had to protect these two young people. Michael put his arm around the girl and Lucy was relieved she didn’t have to tell him to keep her close. She picked up a small bag with ballerinas on it and handed it to Michael. He put the black box in it, then put the bag on his back.

She held them back while she checked the hall. She heard voices at the top of the stairs, and closed the door again. Dammit, how could she get out of here?

She searched the room, looked out the windows, didn’t see any other way out. She could jump two stories, she knew how to roll to prevent breaking her ankle or worse, but she couldn’t expect Bella to do the same. There was nothing to climb down, either. No balcony off her bedroom, no trellis, no tree.

She pictured the layout of the outside. There
was
a balcony off Trejo’s bedroom. Could they get out from there?

Michael tapped her and Lucy looked. Did he see that she had no idea how they were going to get out if they couldn’t go the way they came?

He mouthed,
I know a way.

She nodded.

He held his hand out. She knew what he wanted.

She removed the small 9mm Kahr that was in her pocket. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake.

In her pocket, her radio buzzed multiple times. Not one, two or three … but constant.

Something was wrong.

Really, Lucy, what’s right?

More gunfire, on the southwest side of the property. She couldn’t bring Michael and Bella to the firefight.

Michael listened, just as she had, then he went out. She and Bella followed. She heard voices on the main staircase, running downstairs through the hall, but no one was up here.

Yet.

Michael went directly to Trejo’s suite.

The door was unlocked, and they all slipped inside. Michael whispered, “He has an escape tunnel, through the walls. Follow me.”

Lucy said, “Michael, this is important. You need to take Bella to the truck and hide. Can you do that?”

He nodded.

“If anyone comes, you know what to do—only if you have to.”

Again, he nodded and took Bella’s hand.

He slid open what appeared to be a closet door. Instead it led down a dark, narrow passage, and then to stairs. “This goes under the complex, to the corner of the property,” Michael said.

Lucy did not like closed, cramped places. Her fear was more than simple claustrophobia. It had to do with the time she’d been held captive for two days, trapped. Unable to move, unable to do anything but be hurt by the bastards who’d taken her.

She stumbled, grabbed the wall, and righted herself.

Michael glanced over his shoulder. She could barely see him; there were some dim lights, but they were few and far between. She focused on Michael, on Bella, and that Kane needed help.

The tunnel ended at a ladder. Lucy climbed up and checked the door. It was locked, but it was a simple mechanism. She focused her pin light on the hole and picked the lock, then slowly pushed the door open an inch and held it. She surveyed her surroundings.

They were in the far southwest corner, but there was a group of guards, at least six, surrounding the closest building only thirty yards away.

Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse.

She released the door.

This constituted an emergency.

She said into her radio, “Status? I’m trapped on the southwest corner of the house, in a tunnel. Guards are thirty yards away.”

Silence. Had they heard her? Couldn’t Kane at least acknowledge her?

Or was he incapacitated? She couldn’t think that he was dead.

No one was going to die tonight. There had already been too much death, too much suffering.

She heard in her radio, “Wait.” And that was it. She didn’t know if it was Ranger or Kane.

She waited what seemed like an unbearable eternity, but wasn’t longer than a minute. Then the ground shook and she heard an explosion on the eastern side of the property. Lucy tumbled off the ladder, fell heavily on her butt.

A distraction.

Thank you, Kane.

She quickly climbed back up the ladder and checked the door.

All the guards were fleeing the area, heading east.

She pushed open the trapdoor and pulled Bella up and over the ledge. Michael scrambled up behind them.

“Do you know the way?” Lucy asked him.

“Yes. Are you sure?” He didn’t want to leave, but she didn’t know if it was his sense of protection for her and the team, or his desire for revenge.

She said quietly and firmly, “I’m trusting you with Bella. Go. Take cover.”

She closed the trapdoor and didn’t watch as Michael fled with little Bella. She ran over to the building that the guards had abandoned, plastering herself against the wall.

She took several deep breaths.

How had Kane created a diversion so far from his building? Why were the guards surrounding it in the first place? Is this where Brad was being held?

Keeping her back flush against the wall, she slithered over to the door. Gun in hand, she tried the knob. It turned.

She pushed the door in slowly.

Someone was watching her. They were close.

She turned, her finger on the trigger, ready to shoot.

She stared into blue eyes.

“Sean,” she breathed, not even a voice, just a sigh.

He kissed her, hard and fast, then pulled her inside.

“How did you get back so fast?”

“I didn’t board the plane. You think I was going to leave you?”

She hugged him, willed her heart to stop beating so loud she couldn’t hear herself think. Then she pulled out her radio and said, “Sean’s here.” No response.

“Where’s Kane?”

“I don’t know. He must have set the explosion to distract the guards so I could get out. I don’t know if he found Donnelly. I sent Michael back to the truck with Bella. We have to get to them.”

Sean frowned. Lucy opened the door, looked around, and motioned for him to follow.

Her radio vibrated and she halted, then pulled it out and listened.

It was a code.

“Do you know Morse code?” she asked Sean.

He nodded and pulled them back into the shack.

He took her radio and listened to Kane’s message.

A minute later he said, “They know where Donnelly is but they can’t get to him. Kane wants us to meet up with him.”

She nodded. What other choice did they have? They’d come here to get Brad; they couldn’t leave him now. Trejo would certainly kill him.

Sean led the way out of the shack. One guard had returned. Before they were spotted, Sean knocked him out with a karate chop to his neck.

Sean led the way to a barn on the southern edge of the property. The guards were close, inspecting the corner of the mansion where Kane had lit the fuse.