Hot Zone (11 page)

She wanted to cry and scream too. For days. While eating ice cream in a hot bubble bath. Then curling up to sleep beside Hugh while her body recharged from this nightmare.

But she didn’t have that luxury.

Survival was paramount right now, right along with making sure she didn’t fall on her face. She braced her feet farther apart to keep from toppling over and making things harder for Hugh. It was her fault he was in this mess. How many times would he have to come to her rescue? She might not be able to get out of this on her own, but she would be damned before she let him bear the full burden.

Hugh reached into the van.

“Please be careful, Hugh.” The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them. “The smoke looks like it’s getting worse.”

“Got my eye on it.” He hauled Oliver’s unconscious body out and dumped him against the rotting log. “Let me know if he so much as twitches. I’m taking the weapons, anything that could be of use to us… or that he might use against us. We need them.”

“
We
need
you
alive,” she gasped, determined to be a help, but still scared out of her mind. Usually when she faced criminals, she had a bailiff or a couple of city cops with her, not to mention handcuffs or bars for the person who might want to use her as leverage in an escape.

Who else might try to find them now?

They were in the middle of nowhere in a lawless country, with no means of transportation and only however many water bottles they could carry. “Tell me what you need for me to do.”

God, she hoped he had some tricks up his sleeve with that military training because she was way out of her element. She hadn’t even been a Girl Scout.

Hugh’s big body leaned deeper inside. “Just let me know if you see flames.”

Flames? Oh God.

He pitched another knife on top of his growing arsenal. He jogged around to the back of the van, stuck his head inside, and pulled out a crate of bottled juice.

Hugh pried open the lid with his bare hands and a hefty grunt. “We’ll drink our fill now, then take as much juice and water as we can carry.”

“I really think we should go. Now.” She leaned to pluck out a bottle.

“The time is well invested pulling together as much as we can in survival gear,” he said, his voice steely calm and cool, as if they hadn’t almost died a few minutes ago. “If the van wasn’t about to blow, I could set up a lot more.”

“So we stay here and wait for someone to follow the smoke signal to us?” She twisted off the cap, took a sip to check the drink—pineapple juice—then tipped the bottle to Joshua’s lips.

“Actually, that’s more of a worry than a help.” His head ducked back out. Blood stained his pants along a tear.

“Exactly who do you think will be looking for us?”

“They had time to call their boss—the ‘Guardian’ person—and that concerns me. But I’m armed. I’m ready.” He faced her full-on, his features and body still warrior-set. “And I’ll be damned if I’ll let us be sitting ducks.”

***

The early morning charged upward too fast, time slipping away. Liam didn’t have much longer to make use of Rachel’s expertise before they both went back for another grueling day searching for survivors in the rubble. He wanted to believe this was the right choice, snagging her resources, exhausting them both further, on the hope that he could locate Franco. Choices were damn near impossible when there were so many to save at times like this.

And God help Franco if they found him tucked away in some corner making out with his new girlfriend.

Rachel walked with Disco alongside her as they made fast tracks up the dusty road to the nearby school-turned-hospital. Rachel Flores had taken five minutes to put on her gear that she’d called her PPE: personal protective equipment. A safety helmet with a headlamp, glasses, gloves, steel-toed/steel-shanked boots, along with kneepads. Goggles dangled from the pocket of her dark blue pants.

The look worked for her, sexier than any froufrou pink lingerie and heels his third wife had collected as avidly as some collected stamps. There was something hot about the way Rachel charged ahead without hesitation rather than waiting for him to clear the way.

Still, he hitched his M4 more securely over his shoulder and kept his eyes trained for any threats. “I owe you for this.”

“Damn straight, you do.” Dust puffed from under her steps. “Don’t think this gives you the right to put me on speed dial for all your personal emergencies. I’m taking time out of my sleep only to get you and your guy back out there on the job. We need you. Every one of those trapped individuals needs you. Now walk faster.”

“I’ll buy you a five-star meal when we get back to the States. Where is it you live?”

She eyed him incredulously. “Are you actually hitting on me?”

He held his hands up with overplayed innocence. “Just asking where you’re from to narrow the restaurant choices.”

“You know full well my FEMA urban search and rescue task force is from Virginia.”

True enough, since the only USARs designated to work international missions with the air force were from California and Virginia. “I spend a fair amount of time in D.C. taking care of Pentagon BS. I could make good on that dinner.”

She stopped dead in her tracks, her black Lab halting in step. “Is your friend actually missing? Because if you’re wasting my time, I’m going to kick your ass with my steel-toed boots, then I’m going to go back to work helping people who actually need saving.”

“Whoa, whoa, hang on a second.” He reached for her arm, pausing when she cocked an eyebrow at him. “My guy is most definitely missing, since he left the hooch last night just after that last tremor. I forget sometimes that people don’t know what an irreverent bastard I am. I crack jokes at funerals and hit on women during earthquakes. Makes coping easier.”

“Fair enough.” She gestured forward. “Lead on and let’s find your missing airman.”

“Thanks, and I promise not to ask you out to dinner again.”

She clicked and her dog trotted alongside her. “That would be best. I hear the service isn’t so great around here right now.”

Without another word, she made tracks. He wasn’t big on silence. Left too much time to think, especially at times like this. “What made you get into this line of work?”

She veered off the path with Disco to let a family of four walk past, backpacks overflowing. So many people on the move, the masses became almost invisible. “I could ask the same of you.”

“You first.” He reclaimed his spot beside her.

“Fine. You want my life story? Okay, but it’s not bar pickup cutesy. My mother was a hoarder. She hoarded dogs.” Her pointy jaw jutted. “She died when the animal crates fell on top of her, and since then, I’ve had a mission to rescue.”

“Holy shit.” Her words knocked the stuffing right out of him, a damn rare occurrence. “That’s… uh…”

“The stuff reality shows are made of? Yep, it sure is.” She clapped a hand on her chest. “And in my case, it’s not true. I’m joking.”

And there she went, with a surprise second punch.

“Oh, right.” He stared at her, trying to figure her out, and if he couldn’t figure her out, how come he was so into her? “And why did you feel the need to lead with a reality-show fib?”

“You said jokes are your way of coping with stress. I was just doing my part to help out.”

At the fork in the cracked dirt road, she steered her dog left, the school coming into sight a hundred yards ahead, just past a topsy-turvy playground. A dozen or so staff moved in and out of the building, probably a shift change.

Liam jogged to catch up with Rachel, a different feel, since he was usually in the lead. His knees groaned a little more these days after his years jumping from planes as an Army Ranger, then cross-training to become an air force PJ. But he could still keep up with a challenge, whether locating a friend…

Or bantering with a sexy lady dog handler. In which case, he should be sure of one little detail. “Is there a Mr. Flores?”

“Only my father,” she shot over her shoulder.

Good so far. “Ever been divorced?”

“Never married. Never had the time. I have my dogs for companionship.” A dark brown strand slipped from under her helmet, catching in the wind. “My career keeps me on the road most of the time. Not many men are interested in a wife who’s never around.”

“Ever been in love?”

She pivoted to face him. “Ever been called nosy? Or rude?”

“More than once.” He stopped in front of her, a few feet shy of the school’s front steps.

He reached into his vest and pulled out the wadded-up T-shirt Hugh had left after his shower. “This is the door the army nurse—Lieutenant Gable—said Hugh would have left out of. And here’s something he wore yesterday. It’s filthy and reeks, but there’s definitely plenty of Hugh Franco’s sweat here for your dog to work with.”

“We would call this the PLS—point last seen.”

“Right, okay then.” Swallowing hard, he passed over the dirty cotton.

Rachel swapped into professional mode in a snap—as if she hadn’t already been all business. Disco’s loping manner morphed to sleek attentiveness. Rachel unwound a lengthy leash, about thirty feet, attached to his harness, different from when he’d run freely on top of the piles of earthquake debris to locate survivors. She held the shirt out for the dog.

“Go find,” she ordered. “Go find.”

Disco buried his nose in the soiled shirt, sniff-sniff-sniffing, while Rachel let him take his time to get a solid read. Disco tipped his head into the airstream left and right, then shifted his attention downward, to the ground. He worked in circles outward, farther and farther away in some sort of doggy grid system Liam couldn’t help but notice and admire.

He kept his silence, not sure what protocol she would prefer. And God, he hoped Disco could work some kind of SAR magic that located Hugh holed up somewhere taking a nap or enjoying a hefty breakfast with the woman and kid.

Except while Hugh Franco was one edgy bastard, he was always, always, one hundred percent in the mission.

Rachel followed her dog at work, watching his path with narrowed eyes. “Actually, I was engaged once,” she said softly, catching Liam off guard. “Right after graduation from high school. He proposed just before he deployed overseas. He never came back.”

“I’m sorry,” Liam said automatically, insufficiently, but sincerely.

“Me, too.” She looped the leash around and around her hand. “I had my chance, found my soul mate, and lost him. End of story.”

“So you’re determined to spend the rest of your life alone? Come on, no disrespect meant to your first love and all, but do you really believe in that soul mate crap?”

“I take it from your oh-so-sensitive answer that you’re not a believer.”

“Three failed marriages will leave a guy jaded about the lasting quality of love.”

“Three?” She simply smiled. “Because you didn’t find your soul mate.”

“Touché.” He followed her as Disco continued his grid search of the concrete. “Although that’s damn presumptuous of you to assume I didn’t fall as deeply as you did.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not my place to speak about your feelings… for all
three
women you loved more than life until—”

“Fine, your point is made.” He tucked closer to her as the foot traffic picked around the playground, kids and adults looking at the swings as if unsure whether playing was okay again after such a tragedy. A couple went from one person to the next, flashing a photo and asking if anyone had seen their son. Like so many other couples here searching.

Liam tore his attention away from them and back to Rachel. “And since we’re saying to hell with personal boundaries, do you really plan to spend the rest of your life single?”

“Do you really intend to risk more divorces?” she snapped back.

“My banking account can’t take another split.” And wasn’t that the truth?

“So what do you say we have a raging affair?” she said matter-of-factly, without taking her eyes off her black Labrador.

The air crackled with her words.

“And if I fall head over ass in love with you?”

She looked over her shoulder slowly, her exotic dark eyes undressing him. “I’ll already know you’re a fickle-hearted man who’s had three wives, so I won’t believe your declaration of undying love.”

Her proposition obviously wasn’t serious, but still it lay out there between them. What would it be like to have an affair? With this woman? Exactly what he’d been hoping for since the second he’d laid eyes on her—except when he thought about sex, his mind traveled to the possibilities of what it felt like to be in love, plan for forever.

Although forever and love hadn’t gone that well for him so far. There was also a fundamental difference here. Rachel wasn’t like other women he’d been drawn to. She was making it clear she would never fall for him, never lay claim to his overused last name and paltry bank balance. Yet for some reason, what should be simple confused the shit out of him.

Disco barked sharply.

Liam looked up fast as Rachel announced, “He’s locked in on the scent.”

For five years he hadn’t held a kid.

Now Hugh had one strapped to his back like a papoose as he and Amelia walked toward civilization. Wildlife screeched and called on one side in the trees. Waves rolled and crashed against limestone on his other side. Rock iguanas bathed in the sunlight, brown and nearly three feet long.

He’d weighed all his options before choosing this slightly longer route following the beach. The van had veered so far off the beaten track before he overpowered Oliver, he’d decided it was better, not to mention safer, to follow the water. While he could find his way through the wooded area, if something happened to him, Amelia would almost certainly get lost. So, water route it would be for them.

Shrugging his shoulders, he adjusted the fit of the baby carrier he’d rigged from his survival vest, holding twenty pounds of kiddo that weighed much heavier on his soul. He stifled a curse that the kid would likely parrot back at him. Marissa had almost had a coronary when Tilly fell off her Big Wheel and said, “Shit.” Of course, once her mom reprimanded her, Tilly had said the word again and again for nearly a week before losing interest.

His throat clogged.

He resisted the urge to thrust Joshua at Amelia. She could barely stand up straight after their daylong hike through the jungle and now along the beach. Carrying the kid would slow her down even farther as she trudged through the sandy earth.

Intellectually, he knew this. That still didn’t help the cold knot in his chest or memories of hiking trips with Tilly in a kid carrier on his back, her tiny fists holding on to his ears as she whispered, “Love you, Daddy.” Her tight grip hurt like hell and was the sweetest thing he’d ever known.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Joshua babbled nonsensically, all gums and six tiny teeth, and so damn cute.

Hugh tripped over a root.

He regained his balance just shy of slamming into a coconut tree.

God, he couldn’t do this. He couldn’t go there again, even for a few hours of pretend parenting. And while Joshua already had a mom and dad, after watching Amelia, he could see clearly she was meant to be a mother. She’d obviously wanted that during her marriage to the rat bastard.

Not that this kid liked him much. His tiny body went stiff when Hugh reached to take him out of Amelia’s arms. Now Joshua had relented enough to hold on to his shirt in fists still sticky from downing a banana. Joshua had to be tired. His head even bobbled every now and again, but the stinker held tough about not resting his head on Hugh’s shoulder as the sound of crashing waves lulled him.

Amelia swatted her way past fronds poking out of the jungle. She jabbed and poked ahead, checking for the snakes he knew terrified her, but she just kept jab-jab-jabbing. He couldn’t bring himself to mention that one could fall out of a tree on top of her.

She would edge closer to the water and get fried by the sun beating down on the beach.

Jab, jab.
She walked ahead, branches snagging on her scrubs and shoelaces. “Are you sure I can’t carry him for a while? You both look rather, uh, uncomfortable.”

“If you get tired, you’ll slow us down, and that’s not good for the kid.” He studied her fair complexion, already turning pink. He needed to start keeping an eye out for aloe plants.

“That Superman thing again.” She laughed hoarsely. “You’ve got the most endurance, the fitness required, an extra twenty pounds wouldn’t faze you. And you’re right. I’m sounding like a wheezing asthmatic, which just proves your point.”

“You should drink some water,” he said, even knowing she would ignore him. Again.

A rustle sounded in the underbrush. Amelia tensed. A raccoon-like creature scampered past and she exhaled hard. “How far do you think it will take us to get back or at least find people?”

“I’m hoping before dark.” He scanned the horizon, frustrated as hell that they still hadn’t come across some signs of civilization. “But if we do have to stay out here in the wild, I have the training to build us adequate shelter.”

“Does that training have any tips on how to fashion a diaper in the wild?”

“We’ll make this work.” Yeah, he already had a warm wet spot in the middle of his back, but he’d mucked through a helluva lot worse. “You’re doing good, hanging tough.”

Better than he would have expected, even though he’d already learned not to underestimate this woman. Still, she and the boy had been through too much.

Eyes watching the trail for wild boars, he spotted a pigeon plum hanging low. He tugged it free and polished it on his pants leg. The dark fruit offered a natural cure for diarrhea. The kid hadn’t shown signs of any such problem, but that wasn’t a risk Hugh was willing to take.

He started to pass the plum back to Joshua—then stopped. He cut the fruit in half, pried out the pit so the toddler wouldn’t choke on it, then gave him both halves.

Old parenting skills returned in a snap, bringing too many memories rolling back. All the more motivation to haul his butt out of here as fast as possible.

Amelia gripped a walking stick she’d started using about two miles ago. “I’m not going to let you down. I will hold up my end of things.”

“I believe you.” And he really did.

“I’ve never failed at anything in my life, you know. I made straight As. I behaved in school, always did my homework.” She stabbed the sand with the stick again and again. “The only time I ever got a detention was for reading a romance novel behind my history textbook in class. I already had an A in the class.”

“Of course you did.” A smile tugged through his frustration. The sound of Joshua’s contented chewing even felt right, despite the fruit juice dribbling on his neck.

“I brushed my teeth four times a day no matter what—well, except for that earthquake incident and today. Do you happen to have toothpaste in that vest of yours?”

“I have gum.” He reached into one of the pockets on his vest, glad he could do something to help this stubborn woman.

“I would kill for a piece of it.”

“No need. It’s yours for free.” He tossed her the pack.

Leaping forward, she caught the gum in midair with two hands, struggling for a second not to drop if before holding it up victoriously. He thought it was probably best not to tell her she’d just hopped right over a pygmy boa constrictor.

She peeled off the wrapper and pulled out a piece. She tossed the pack back to him and unwrapped her stick. Popping the gum into her mouth, she chewed slowly, sensually, taking so much obvious pleasure from that bit of spearmint, he found his mind zipping uncomfortably back to the cleaning closet. He forced his attention back onto her words.

“My parents taught me that if I worked hard enough, anything was possible.” She trailed her fingers over a bush, her fingers snagging on the bloom of a yellow elder, the national flower, which bloomed year-round.

“I sense an
until
coming.”

“My marriage.” She shot him a thumbs down. Joshua threw the pulpy remains of his plum into the bushes as if to punctuate Amelia’s anger. “Big fat F. Failing grade. But you already know that.”

“His fault, his failing grade, not yours.”

She blew a small bubble with the gum, popping it. “I know that now. Still sucks though. I tried so hard to do everything right. I ran an organized house. Even my spice cabinet is in alphabetical order. I read relationship books, went to marriage retreats, shopped at Victoria’s Secret.” She shook her head, twirling the stem of the yellow elder between two fingers. “And still the rat bastard cheated on me. He left me for a totally disorganized, lovely person who couldn’t balance her checking account if you implanted a calculator into her palm.”

He took the bloom from between her fingers and tucked it behind her ear. Memories of their time together at the hospital filled his mind, hell, even seemed to pack the space between them. “Your jerk of an ex didn’t appreciate how lucky he was.”

“That’s nice of you to say.” She cupped his hand against her cheek for a second before starting out again. “I can’t even hate his new wife, because she’s stuck with him.”

“You should hate her,” he said forcefully. “She screwed a married man, and the jackass had such a small, uh… ego, he couldn’t handle being married to one of the strongest women I’ve ever met.”

“Only one of?”

“By the end of this, I may be willing to give you top honors.”

She laughed wryly. “Heaven knows, I work for grades.”

“It’s a wonder you don’t have ulcers.”

“Yet. Give me time.” Her smile faded. “What I really hate is how those people—Oliver and Tandi—caught me unaware. I should have been smarter than that. I should have been on guard.”

“How? How could you have seen that coming?” Thank God she’d caught them in time. The thought of the kid at the mercy of those two… Anger turned the sunset a deeper haze of red.

“It’s my job as a lawyer to see through crooks. I put puzzle pieces together in a flash all the time to get to the truth.”

“You got two loud screams off without dying.” The echo of those in his head still sucker punched him. “That’s pretty impressive.”

“But what if I missed something because I was distracted… from earlier?”

No doubt about it, the memories weren’t just in his mind anymore. They were out in there in front of them, as tangible as the sand and waves. “From when you walked out on me before I could zip my pants?”

“If I’d stayed with Joshua”—her hand gravitated to the sleeping boy’s head as it rested on Hugh’s shoulder—“none of this would have happened. He would be safe.”

He needed to keep her spirits up, as important as her energy on a trek like this. “People like those are determined. They would have found another opening when you went to the bathroom or fell asleep. You’re human, you know.”

“Easy for Superman to say.” She picked her way over a fallen tree. “I’m sorry for how I handled things afterward, back at the school. Being with you wasn’t what I expected.”

“What did you expect?”

“Less.”

He just smiled, ready to take this conversation down to a less serious level, to ease the stress lines on her face.

She smacked his shoulder. “That wasn’t a size comment, you Cro-Magnon.”

“Hey, just an attempt at some lightheartedness.” Except he wasn’t usually the one to crack jokes in a crisis. That was squadron funnyman Liam McCabe’s forte. “It’s been an intense time, with the earthquake, that time underground. We were both on edge and those aftershocks just sent us over. We needed an outlet and we found it. Together.” He held her eyes with his. “I don’t regret that.”

Yet rather than being reassured, her faced scrunched with even more worry. “I just wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t walked away. Or if I had made it back to the nursery. Or never left in the first place.”

“Life is so full of what-ifs, you can drive yourself crazy.” He knew all about regrets and self-recrimination. He should have realized he couldn’t make this any lighter for her.

Just as he’d failed to lift her spirits, he’d also failed to get them back to civilization before dark. He couldn’t ignore it any longer. He was going to have to spend the night in the jungle with Amelia…

And the baby.

***

Feeling helpless as hell, Aiden stood outside the tent shower and listened to his wife cry. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to fix this for Lisabeth. He could only stand outside this crummy refugee-like bathhouse and make sure his wife was safe while others filed in and out of the shower stalls and latrines.

His hand rested on his 9 mm, now in a leather shoulder harness he’d been given by a local cop who’d insisted, after Aiden stitched up a gash in the guy’s arm. The policeman said he hadn’t wanted Aiden shooting his foot off with that weapon tucked in his waistband. The weight of leather and metal seared through his scrubs.

He eyed the shift and shuffle of shell-shocked humanity under the umbrella of halogen lights. Generators droned along with night beasts.

His wife cried softly on the other side of the tarp curtain.

They’d arrived at the temporary hospital at the school only to learn that both Amelia and Joshua had gone missing. No one seemed to know what had happened to them. They’d even sent out a search dog, only to have the dog lose the scent in the parking lot.

Their best bet? They’d gotten into a vehicle to leave. But with whom? To go where?

Even though he’d heard that the search and rescue dog handler had given up, he and Lisabeth still spent hours more questioning people at the hospital. They’d passed around the one photo of Joshua that had survived the earthquake, a picture Lisabeth had carried in her purse for the weeks prior to the adoption. Since she’d had her bag with her, it hadn’t been lost in the hotel.

No one remembered seeing the boy after the middle of the night. But he’d been there with a blonde-haired woman who must have been Amelia.

They’d been so close. Just a couple of miles away this whole time, only to learn too damn late. He just had to hang onto that hope that they were out there, safe and searching as well.

Meanwhile, he didn’t know how much more stress Lisabeth could take. There was a tension in her worse than anything he’d ever seen in his normally unflappable wife. He’d taken comfort from her serenity from the start of their relationship. She thought him such a calm man, but he just kept a steely band around his emotions because with the least fissure, all would overflow like acid on everything.

So how did he go about making this right for her when he had no experience to draw on in helping her? And wasn’t that a piss-poor testament to what kind of husband he’d been?

Shit.

Nothing to do but dive in headfirst and try his best.

He parted the shower curtain and slid sideways inside, careful to block the opening with his body until he could seal the cubicle closed again.

Lisabeth gasped, lurching back and covering her nakedness with an arm around her breasts and a hand between her legs. Then she sagged with relief. “Aiden, God, you could have given me a little warning.”

“I heard you crying.” He thumbed away a tear leaking from the corner of her eye as the pooling water soaked his shoes.