Gone Duck #5 (Romantic Suspense) (4 page)

His eyes started to roll skyward. “Don’t…” was all
he could get out.

“I suggest aiming for the bed,” she said.

Dorothy Jean grabbed his arm, tugged him around
the chair and got him headed in the right direction. His torso landed on the
thin mattress then slid to the floor with little sound.

Lacrosse was going to be pissed, all right. And
Macey would have felt much worse about what the man might do to Dave if he
hadn’t planned on serving her to the monster himself.

She pitied Dave, of course. He’d been a good guy
with good intentions. It had pulled at her heartstrings when he, too, had added
the
half
when she’d mentioned the five months he watched over Dorothy
Jean. And when she thought about it, maybe the only thing that separated him
from Shawn was the fact that Dave had a sister who needed saving. But somehow
she doubted Shawn would have gone about saving anyone in quite the same way.

Dorothy Jean grinned and held out a set of red,
padded manacles.

Macey chuckled. “Where did you find those?”

“In the cabinet over the bed. Don’t look. There
are some pretty disturbing things in there. It was almost enough to give me
heart palpitations. Four sets. Big enough for ankles. I don’t think this cabin
was intended for sleeping.”

Macey took half a second to congratulate herself
on achieving the first goal of getting a hold of Dave's gun. She'd also managed
to bring Dorothy Jean into the loop without the woman's head exploding, so that
was another win.

Only four more hurdles left. And if she didn't screw
up, maybe her heart could take a rest for a while. As it was, she was worried
she might need a little bit of tranquilizing herself.

She left Dorothy Jean in the cabin and went after
Kofford. She walked slowly but purposefully toward the man who instantly
stiffened and put his right hand in his pocket. Funny, but she'd never noticed
the movement except when he'd followed her to the park and tried to persuade
her to get into the van. The guy probably had the gun there all the time, and
she kicked herself for not paying closer attention to him. She might’ve caught
on much sooner and maybe been able to avoid the first plane ride.

She pretended to be pissed to have to talk to him.
“He needs help getting Mrs. Lyman onto the bed,” she said. “
I’m
not
going to do it.”

Kofford nodded and stood.

She stepped back to let him go ahead of her. He
frowned for a second, noted her empty hands, then turned his back on her and
headed for the rear of the plane.

She pulled the gun from the back of her jeans.
“You really should trust your instincts,” she said.

His hand went to his pocket.

“Uh, uh un,” she warned with a metal poke to his
back.

He raised his hands in the air.

“Hand it over. Nice and slow.”

He pulled his weapon out of the pocket using two
fingers. There was a silencer on the end, so she figured he didn’t want the
pilots alarmed if he’d needed to shoot someone. It gave her hope that the
pilots weren’t Lacrosse’s men. It would make the rest of her plan go much
smoother.

She stayed back out of Kofford’s reach in case he
had some secret agent moves for disarming her. She also didn’t want to get
close enough to take the gun from him.

“Lay it on the seat, then go to the back. You move
funny, even if it’s just turbulence, I’ll shoot first.”

He did what she said, then started walking.

“I'll tell you a little secret, Kofford. I don't
have a lot to live for at the moment, and I'm feeling a little giddy about
holding all the cards. So please, don't test me. I'd hate for you to be the
first man I had to kill. I would rather save that honor for Lacrosse. If you
want to take a bullet for the guy, that's up to you. But be aware, that bullet
will be going into your heart.”

He shrugged carefully. “If Wells has flipped sides
again, I wouldn't want to be him.”

“Flipped? No. More like he slid...”

Dorothy Jean pulled the door wide and grinned up
at them. “Welcome, welcome. You're just in time to help me pick up some trash,
young man.” She gestured to the heap on the floor that was Dave. “If you'll
just lay him on the bed, I'd appreciate it.”

Kofford glanced over his shoulder at the gun, then
gave Macey a dirty look before he pulled Dave up beneath the shoulders and
dragged him onto the bed.

“All the way up, if you don't mind,” Dorothy Jean
said. “We should make him comfortable.”

Macey moved around behind her and took the syringe
from her hand, then moved to the opposite side of the bed, still careful to
keep as much distance between her and Kofford as the small room would allow.

Dorothy Jean handed the man the bright red
manacles. “There's a metal ring there, on the corner. I'm sure you know what to
do.”

Kofford snorted in amusement at the padded cuffs,
but took them. While he straddled Dave and worked one of the clamps around the
unconscious man’s wrist, Dorothy Jean tossed him another pair.

“Get comfortable, young man, and lock yourself to
that bed too.”

As soon as Kofford was secure, Macey planned to
put him out as well. She’d be stupid to leave him awake and plotting his escape
when there was a relatively harmless way to put him to sleep.

Suddenly Kofford’s long leg swung around and
struck Macey’s left arm and knocked her to the side. The gun flew from her hand
and hit the headboard, then fell between it and the mattress. Kofford jumped
off the bed, pushed Dorothy Jean aside, and ran out the door.

Macey dropped the syringe and dug for Dave's gun
while she imagined Kofford going for his. She used both hands to pull the heavy
mattress back from the wall but Dave's body weighed it down. A yank, an inch.
Another yank, another inch.

Kofford’s footsteps headed back.

“Shut the door!” she told Dorothy Jean, but the
woman’s hands were busy filling another syringe. By the time she reached the
edge of the door, it was too late. Kofford burst through the opening and
knocked her veiny hand away. She stumbled back, but stayed on her feet. Kofford
ignored her and turned his gun on Macey.

Macey forced her hand between the mattress and the
wall, jamming her middle finger into the hard metal. She forced her fingers
apart and plunged again, then felt the satisfaction of cold steel fill her
hand.

“Freeze,” Kofford warned.

“Hold it right there, bucko.” Dorothy Jean held
another syringe next to her shoulder like a javelin.

He gave the old woman a smirk. It gave Macey just
enough time to raise her gun.

Time slowed.

She could see it in his eyes the second he decided
to pull the trigger. But she couldn't shoot him. He was the bad guy, holding
the power of life and death in his hand, and she just couldn't do it.

Epic, epic fail.

She felt the sting of the bullet the same instant
she heard the shot—a strange little spitting noise, just like in the movies.

Macey spun to the left from the force of the
bullet hitting her side. If the cabin had been larger, she couldn’t have
remained on her feet, but the wall stopped her momentum and knocked a grunt
from her. It also gave her a little bounce that helped her turn back to face
Kofford.

Though she knew she’d never pull the trigger, she
brought her own weapon back to aim at him. She simply wasn’t ready to
surrender.

Would he shoot her again?

Why was he grabbing his neck?

His gun swiveled forward and hung from his fingers
as he grasped his neck with his left hand. He pulled a spent syringe free and
staggered forward. His eyes blazed, then dulled quickly. Dorothy Jean pushed
him from behind and the guy tipped over the low back of the first chair. His
torso landed on the bed, on top of Dave. Macey tried to dive sideways to avoid
the end of the silencer, but the pain in her side stopped her cold. The gun hit
the bed with Kofford’s finger on the trigger. A quiet bullet spit from the end
of it and hit the headboard. 

Dorothy Jean pushed herself up under Macey’s arm
and steered her around until her knees hit the nearest seat. Macey carefully
lowered herself onto it.

“You’re going to be fine,” Dorothy Jean cooed at
her.

Macey was a little disappointed in the old woman’s
reaction. Of course she was happy Dorothy Jean wasn’t freaking out, since that
might be dangerous. But she could at least conjure up a little sympathy—or be
impressed Macey had still been able to stand. She felt like some movie
character that got shot a dozen times and just kept advancing on the enemy, and
she wanted some credit.

All right. So it was just one bullet, but still,
it hurt so badly there may as well have been a dozen. Her body screamed and it
came out her mouth in a moan.

“Don’t be a baby,” Dorothy Jean chided. “It went
clean through.”

“How can you tell? I can still feel it.”

Dorothy Jean’s fingers prodded her side and Macey
sucked a breath in through her teeth. She was pretty sure, if she’d have known
how badly being shot was going to hurt, she’d have shot Kofford, no problem,
just to get him back. In fact, she felt like shooting him then, even though he
was unconscious.

The old woman opened a cupboard next to the chair
and pulled out a first-aid kit. On the shelf was a defibrilizer.

“How did you know where to find that?”

“Naturally curious.”

Must have been an old-person term for
nosey
.

The bleeding stopped soon after the old woman
ceased scrubbing alcohol wipes in the little holes because, she’d said, “the
bullet hadn’t damaged much more than a bit of fat.” And by the way, the fat
that had been protruding out the second hole, she’d just pushed back in.

Good to know
.

A few minutes later, Dorothy Jean the Battlefield
Nurse had her wounds cleaned and dressed with compresses held into place by
white tape and a rolled bandage that wrapped around her waist. It seemed a
little anti-climactic for a gunshot wound, but Macey figured they didn’t have
time for unnecessary drama.

She opted to keep her own shirt on because the
extra clothing Dorothy Jean found in the cabinets were little more than leather
straps and ribbons. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to face Lacrosse in any
of that.

Bloody cotton was just fine.

With a few shoves and Macey using as little core
muscle as possible, the two of them got the bottom half of Kofford onto the
bed, though they couldn’t get his body completely off of Dave. It worked out
fine, however. They cuffed Kofford’s left ankle to Dave’s right hand, Kofford’s
right hand to Dave’s left ankle, then they hooked together whatever was left
dangling. Neither of them was going to be happy when they woke up. If they woke
up.

They’d been guessing on the dosage, using roughly
the same amount Dave had loaded in the syringe for Dorothy Jean, and with both
men being so much bigger than her, they should recover just fine.

While they sat and caught their breath, they
reloaded both syringes and tucked them into the small black sack. Macey handled
the guns while Dorothy Jean the Dart Queen took charge of the bag.

Apparently, she hadn’t spent all her life as a
librarian.

“Now what?” Dorothy Jean rubbed her hands together
and glanced at the door.

Macey grimaced. “Well, this is where my plan gets
a little fuzzy.”

Dorothy Jean waited.

“We have the guns. It isn’t like the cockpit is
behind locked doors, so we can tell the pilots to take us wherever we want to
go, really.”

“But where do we want to go?”

Macey shrugged. “That’s what I was going to ask
you.”

“I don’t know where my daughter is, only that
they’re watching her phone line. So I can’t really go looking for her without
getting her into trouble. It’s best if she keeps on believing I died.” She
swallowed hard, her chin wobbling with the effort.

Macey moved on. “If we try to land at any major
airport, security will be waiting for us, even if Lacrosse has nothing to do
with it. We don’t have passports with our faces. And we don’t have any money
for bribes. I gave Shawn the bag with all the money and the duck.”

“The duck?”

“Yeah. It was hidden in a pocket of my backpack
all along. The old trucker lied about chucking it out the window.”

“So you still have proof about what WHOSO is
doing! That’s wonderful!”

“Yeah,” she said soberly. “But only if Shawn’s
alive.”

Dorothy Jean nodded, then she sucked in a deep
breath and let it out slowly. “He just has to be alive then.”

Macey couldn’t help smile at the forced optimism.
“That’s right. But unfortunately, he’s not going to be able to catch up with us
for a while. If our butts are going to be saved, we’re going to have to do it
ourselves. So. Again. Where do we go?”

Dorothy Jean looked at the little black bag on her
lap. “The truth is, neither of us can guess how much time I’ve got left. This
thing in my brain might go off and kill me if I so much as fart wrong and we
both know it.” Her smile was fleeting. “But when I do fade out, I want you to
promise you’ll dig this son of a bitch out of my head and get to it whoever can
do the most good with it—even if it’s Lacrosse. Do you hear me?”

Dorothy Jean was right. The cure for the disease
might lie inside that chip, and the researchers at WHOSO might be the only ones
to access it. But Macey had come to care for the old bird far too much to
consider letting the bastards kill Dorothy Jean, to get it before she was done
with it, no matter how many other lives it might save.

Macey nodded. “Yes. I promise. My plan is to do
what Shawn hoped to do, to expose WHOSO however I can. If Shawn never…finds us,
and we don’t have the files from the duck, I’ll just have to do what I can with
social media. And I can do that from anywhere.”

Dorothy Jean grinned. “Then let’s find a beach
somewhere, in the states. Florida, maybe?”

Macey smiled. “Sounds relaxing. And relaxing’s
good for us both. I’ll just have the pilot find a small airstrip near the
coast. Hopefully, we can find a boat to take us south.”

“Too bad we can’t leave a trail of breadcrumbs on
the water so Shawn could track us.”

A memory clicked into place and Macey pointed to
Dorothy Jean’s backpack. “Turn that bag inside out. There’s a tracking device
somewhere inside it. Shawn put it there in just in case. I’m sure there is
another one in the backpack he left on the plane.”

Dorothy Jean started removing prescription bottles
from the backpack. “What if we lose the bags? He’ll never be able to find us.”

“It won’t matter.” Ignoring the pain in her side,
Macey started opening cupboards until she found what she was looking for, then
she held up the blue latex glove. “The transmitters have to be small, right? We’re
going to swallow them.”

Dorothy Jean gave her a disgusted look. “Oh, yeah?
And just how many times will we have to swallow them until lover boy catches up
to us?”

Macey grimaced, then forced a smile. “We’ll just
have to take it…one day at a time, that’s all.”

Dorothy Jean nodded, her eyes bugging slightly.
“That’s what I’m afraid of—re-swallowing it, one day at a time.”

*            *            *

Together, they went out into the main cabin and
sat down like nothing was wrong. Macey stashed Dave’s gun between her seat and
the wall and kept the more menacing one tucked next to her leg. Across the
aisle, Dorothy Jean stashed the little black bag with the hypodermics out of
sight but within reach.

Since Kofford had used a silencer, Macey hoped the
pilots weren’t involved, but it wouldn’t be long before they knew for certain.

She pulled out Kofford’s phone. She’d watched him
turn it on enough that she thought she could figure out his security code. The
man hadn’t been very clever about it. Bottom row of three numbers. But which
order?

7899.

Wrong.

7789

Wrong.

How many chances would she have before the phone
would freeze?

7889.

Nope.

7898.

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

She exhaled an excited breath and gave Dorothy
Jean a thumbs up. She entered her search and after a few wild goose chases, she
found just the information she needed. She set the phone aside and picked up
Kofford’s weapon, complete with the menacing-looking silencer, and stood.

Dorothy Jean gave her an encouraging nod, but as
planned, she remained seated and tried to remain calm, just in case. Of course,
if the worst happened and the plane went down, it wasn’t going to matter much
if the micro-chip went off in her head or not.

The pilot wore headphones and seemed to be
concentrating on whatever he was listening to. The co-pilot glanced sideways,
sensing someone was standing behind him, but not taking the time to see who it
was.

“Everything all right?” he asked.

Macey smiled, but said nothing. The guy turned
until he saw her. Alarmed, he slapped the pilot’s arm, then returned his hand
to the controls.

“Hello, gentlemen,” she said sweetly.

The pilot whipped off the headphones and turned in
his seat to face her. When he leaned forward to look behind her, she laughed.

“The men are…taking a nap.” She reached behind her
and pulled the gun from her waistband. Apparently they knew she was a prisoner
on the plane and shouldn’t be wandering around alone, which meant they were
probably on Lacrosse’s payroll. “I was hoping we could have a polite conversation,
but it looks like you’re not going to want to answer my questions.”

The co-pilot’s hand strayed, so she tapped him on
the cheek with the silencer.

“You want to hand that over to me?”

Stiffly, he reached into a cubby and pulled out a
gun, careful not to touch the trigger. She watched the other man while she
tucked it into her waistband. That one’s hand twitched, his fingers all but
pointing to his ankle.

“I’ll take yours too.” She pointed to his foot and
held out her hand.

Grudgingly, he tugged up his pant leg and produced
a teeny gun that fit in her pocket, though she wasn’t comfortable with it being
there, even with the safety on.

“We don’t have a lot of fuel,” the pilot warned.

She leaned forward and squinted at the fuel gauge.
“Ah, don’t worry. We have plenty. The question is…who is going to land this
plane? One of you? Or me?”

The pilot scowled at her. “
I’ll
land it.”

She smirked. “We’ll see.” She turned to the
co-pilot, who was starting to sweat. “Where is Lacrosse expecting us to land?”

His eyes showed an unusual amount of white. “Who?”

She shook her head, smiling. “Wrong answer.” She
pressed the point of her weapon into his neck.

“Wait! What are you doing?” the pilot barked.
“We’re just the pilots!”

“Wrong again.” She turned and pointed the gun at his
head, and though he put his hands up, she still thought his attitude was bad.
“You think I
need
you?” She gestured at the control panel. “Altitude
indicator. Airspeed—we’re moving pretty slow, my guess is so Lacrosse can catch
up. Vertical speed.” She pointed at the large handle between the seats. “Yolk.
Please. I can land this in my sleep.”

The pilot smirked. “Go ahead.”

“Fine.” She pressed the point of the gun into the
guy’s arm, pushing it down into the armrest…and pulled the trigger.

He screamed immediately, though he might have been
just as shocked and angry as he was hurt.

“Still not liking your attitude, man.” She aimed
at his crotch.

He covered his threatened parts with his now
bloody, but uninjured hand. “You’re crazy!”

She narrowed her eyes at him and leaned forward. “
You’re
noisy.”

He shut up immediately.

She tapped the co-pilot on the shoulder. He may or
may not have wet himself.

“How soon will we reach Virginia?”

He swallowed hard. “Two hours.”

She tried not to show how pleased she was for guessing
their destination. “You’re sure?”

He nodded vigorously. “I’m sure. If we don’t alter
our airspeed, 118 minutes.”

“Tell her nothing,” the other man grunted.

“Shut up, Peter.” The co-pilot glanced at the gun,
then back at the controls. “What do you want me to do?”

She sighed silently, relieved at least one of them
was going to take orders from her. There was no way she could land the plane.
She’d only learned the basics of airplane control panels while doing research
for a book. When she was forced to travel, she always flew coach. She’d never
even been in a small plane before, let alone a cockpit, until Dave put them all
on that one in Spokane.