JOSS: A Standalone Romance (Gray Wolf Security) (10 page)

I ran to the side door, rushing through the kitchen and out into the garage. That beautiful Mustang was still there, but there was no time to look for keys. We ducked out a second door, this one at the back of the workshop that led into the backyard. McKelty was still screaming, a little siren letting the whole world know where we were. I stopped for the briefest of seconds, set her down, and covered her mouth. She stared at me, the doll she’d been clinging to falling from her hands, her eyes still wide with fear. But the screaming stopped.

I pressed a finger to my lips. She nodded.

I picked her up again and ran, crossing the open backyard in a move that was not ideal but seemed like my best option at the moment. I heard the distinctive hiss of a gun equipped with a silencer. I took the chance and looked over my shoulder, catching sight of a tall shadow standing on the balcony that hung off the back of the second floor, opening from French doors at the back of that wide, square hallway.

The intruder.

I picked up my pace, hoping the man was as good a shot as he was a prepared kidnapper.

A row of bushes hid the low fence that surrounded the pool. I pushed into the bushes, praying they covered us enough as I searched for a way out. McKelty pointed, but it took me a moment to realize what she was showing me. Beyond the pool was a tennis court. Behind that was a tall gate that led into a wooded area that grew wild behind the house. We were in one of those canyons that went from dessert to forest in the blink of an eye. And it was forest in this section.

Thank God!

I tried to stay as deep in the cover of the bushes for as long as I could, grateful for once that I was short and the tall bushes easily kept us hidden.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket, but there was no opportunity to pause and see who it was or what they wanted. We had to keep moving.

Even as that thought crossed my mind, a chunk of the closest bush burst into tiny pieces right next to my head. We needed to get out of here.

I managed to get to the far side of the pool, now hidden behind the bushes that grew all along the fence line. I took a chance and ran, crossing the tennis court just as another bullet ricocheted off the brilliant green surface of the court. McKelty reached for the lock on the gate as we approached, quickly tugging at it just as my body fell into it, allowing it to fly open and for my momentum to take us flying into the woods, hidden by several stands of trees before I was finally able to catch myself and slow down.

We were out of the house and out of sight of the shooter for the moment. But what now? Where did we go? I had no idea. I just kept running. And I was glad I’d made that decision because less than a minute later I heard footsteps crashing through the underbrush behind us.

He was following.

My arms ached. I was in fairly good shape, but McKelty was a good seventy, eighty pounds. I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be able to carry her, but I was sure she wouldn’t be able to keep up with me for more than a minute or two. We needed to find a place to hide.

Kate had climbed into a tree when her stalker was after her. Donovan led the stalker off, deeper into the woods while Kate managed to get out of the tree and go for help. But that plan wouldn’t work for us for a million reasons, not the least of which was that I wasn’t sure McKelty could climb a tree in bright sunlight with jeans on—so how was she going to do it in the darkest hour of the night wearing a nightgown?

I just kept running, trying to ignore the ache in my arms.

I continued to hear noises behind us. I couldn’t be sure because my own heavy breathing and the low whimper issuing from McKelty’s lips made it hard to hear, but I was pretty sure I heard more than one set of footsteps behind us.

I couldn’t go much further. I had to stop. I had to put McKelty down.

I had been zigzagging through the trees, trying to confuse my pursuers. I decided to run straight, to get as far ahead as I could. Then I ducked behind a particularly large tree and pressed my back to it, setting McKelty on her feet. I rubbed my arms, stretching them to try to work out the cramps that had settled in my muscles. I leaned around the edge of the tree trunk to try to pinpoint where my pursuers were. I couldn’t hear them anymore, but I knew that didn’t mean anything. Maybe they’d realized we’d stopped, so they slowed down to hear us better.

That’s what I would have done.

“Where’s my daddy?” McKelty demanded.

I grabbed her arm and pulled her close to me, pressing my finger to her lips. She shook free, anger bright in her eyes.

“Where’s…?”

She stopped mid question, her eyes growing wide as she stared at something just over my shoulder. I thought she’d spotted our pursuers. I turned and pulled her behind me, but there was nothing behind us but darkness. I was about to face her again when I spotted fresh blood on the tree trunk. I spun around, checking every inch of her, looking for a wound. There was blood on her nightgown, but I couldn’t find a wound no matter how hard I looked.

“Not me,” she said softly.

Common sense should have told me the wound wasn’t hers, but I didn’t have time to worry about myself.

I gestured behind her, pushing her gently north. Her eyes were wide again, fear radiating from them as anger had done a moment ago. I almost wished the anger would come back.
That
I knew how to deal with.

We walked slowly, careful where we planted our feet, listening closely for the intruders who were searching for us. It crossed my mind that if I was bleeding enough to leave a mark on the tree, I might have left a trail they could follow. My only hope was that they were as useless in the woods as they were in planning a kidnapping.

I could hear traffic after about ten minutes of walking a straight, northerly path. McKelty must have heard it, too, because she began to walk faster, moving further ahead of me. In fact, she was so far ahead of me that I was beginning to fear she might move out of sight. My head was beginning to spin from a lack of sleep. At least, that’s what I told myself it was. I didn’t have time for anything else.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket again. I was worried about Carrington and Kirkland. What had the intruders done to them? Where were they? Did they know what was happening? Were they able to get out of the house before the intruders got in?

I doubted it. If Kirkland got the warning at the same time I did, there was only a second or two before the intruders were on them. But Kirkland was smart. I had to trust that he’d gotten Carrington to safety.

All these thoughts were rushing through my mind in a matter of seconds. McKelty had become nothing more than a dark blur ahead of me. I picked up my pace, rushing to catch up to her when her shadow suddenly disappeared.

What the…?

I ran, barely stopping myself as I came to the edge of a ravine.

McKelty. Where was she?

I dropped to my knees, reaching blindly into the dark, searching for some sign. There was nothing. Where was she? Had she fallen?

I couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not with these people chasing us and Carrington trusting me to bring her out alive. McKelty! Where the hell was she? She had to be here. She had to be somewhere. I kept patting the ground, searching for a hand, for a shoe, for some sign of her. Where was she? She couldn’t have just disappeared! McKelty! McKelty!

“McKelty!”

My voice was weak, cracking from four and a half years of neglect. But it still worked.

“McKelty!” I screamed as loudly as I could. It sounded incredibly loud to my ears, but I suspected it was nothing more than a harsh whisper.

“McKelty,” I said again, this time with more power.

“Here,” her voice called to me from some distance to my right. I turned, my hands outstretched, as she came back to me. “You talked.”

I touched her face, her arms. “You’re okay? You didn’t fall?”

“No. I play out here sometimes when Daddy’s working. He’d be mad at me if he knew. But I like it out here,” she said, defiance warm and strong in her little voice. “I knew that was there, so I went around. I can show you.”

I stared at her, relief burning through me, giving back some of the energy that our escape had stolen.

“Yes. Please.”

She gave me a funny look, but she took my hand and waited for me to get to my feet. She led the way around the ravine and down the side of the hill to the road I’d seen from higher up the cavern wall. There was a brightly lit convenience store not far from where we came out. I tugged her little hand and guided her there, hoping our pursuers would not be interested in attacking us in such a well-lit place.

My cell phone was blown up with text messages from Ash and David, both worried about our location. I quickly texted Ash.

Need pickup at convenience store.

We were getting some odd looks from the clerk and his few, early morning customers. I tried to stay off to one side, out of their sight but still in the light. I watched the cavern carefully, expecting to see the tall man and his companions appear at any moment. We must have been a sight, the little girl in her pink nightgown with dirt and blood smeared all over her. And me, dressed in just a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, a gun holster almost wider than I was over my shoulders. And blood. I could feel the blood now, wet on the front and back of my shoulder. I must have taken a shot from the tall man’s gun, but the adrenalin of the moment had blocked the pain. It wouldn’t much longer.

My knees were weak. I sat on the curb, much to McKelty’s astonishment.

“Get up,” she said, panic in her voice. “What if they come?”

She tugged at my arm until I touched her face, my hand moving slowly over her jaw.

“We’re okay now, McKelty,” I said, my voice still so strange to my own ear. “They won’t hurt us now.”

She shook her head, but I tugged her into my lap. I wrapped my arms around her the same way I’d once done with my son, cradling her body against me the way only an experienced mother could do.

“You were so brave,” I whispered against her ear. “You were brave and strong. Nothing can hurt you as long as you continue to be the brave girl you proved yourself to be tonight.”

She nodded, hiccupping as she tried to fight back tears. But then she lost the fight, bursting into tears and loud sobs as I simply pulled her head against my shoulder and consoled her as best as I could with just a gentle touch, a soft kiss on her forehead. Even when you can speak, sometimes silence is the best consolation.

Carrington

I went back downstairs after leaving Joss, ducking into the bar to pour myself a glass of water. Kirkland turned and gestured toward the glass.

“Can I have one of those?”

It crossed my mind to do something mean spirited like refusing, but I didn’t. I carried the drinks to where he stood in front of the French doors. I didn’t have a chance to hand him the glass before his phone began to vibrate so enthusiastically that even I could hear it as it rattled against his pocket.

He tugged it out, then immediately unholstered his gun.

“We have intruders.”

“What?”

I didn’t even have the word out before he dropped his phone into his pocket and grabbed my wrist, knocking the butt of the gun against the lightbulb in the nearest lamp. We were dropped into a pool of darkness just as I heard the side door at the back of the kitchen open.

Kirkland opened the French door and gestured for me to lead the way out.

“What about Joss and McKelty?” I hissed.

“Joss knows what to do.”

Even as he said the words, I could see concern cross his face. I turned toward the stairs, but just as I did, I caught sight of a large figure heading up. It was too late. There was nothing we could do.

I stepped out onto the back deck. Kirkland followed, closing the door behind us silently. I led the way to the left of the deck, away from the garage. There was a small gate on that side of the yard that would give us access to the front of the house. Kirkland’s car was still parked there. If we could get to it…

Kirkland grabbed my shoulder and gestured for me to be quiet. As we stood there, we could hear voices coming from the other side of the house, somewhere near the kitchen. There were at least three people in the house, probably more.

Kirkland pushed me and I continued though the shadows, moving away from the voices. There were few windows on this side of the house, so it was unlikely that someone might spot us leaving. If they had someone watching the front of the house, however, we could be in trouble.

We moved silently but quickly, jumping over the railing on this side of the deck to the yard below. I had this image of my daughter being yanked out of bed by some ugly Russian. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to turn around and rush up those stairs like some sort of fool. Why weren’t they coming after me? If they wanted to use my company so badly, why not come after me instead of my kid? What kind of cowards went after a kid?

And Joss.

Fuck!
What would I do if they hurt her?

Kirkland stopped me again when we reached the corner of the house. He moved around me, looking for any sign of danger, his gun held loosely in one hand. He gestured for me to continue. I stepped around the house, walking slowly, keeping close to the side of the building. It was only a minute or two when we hit the front of the house. That was when all hell seemed to break out. We could hear shouting inside the house. My heart started to pound, fear that they’d found Joss and McKelty overwhelming me for a minute.

“We have to go back.”

Kirkland shook his head even as he looked back toward the bright outside lights that had just come on.

“It’s my job to get you to safety.”

“I’m not the client. My daughter is.”

“You’re a package deal, buddy.”

I shook my head. “We have to go back. We have to make sure they’re okay.”

Again he hesitated. Tension rippled through him so intently that it was palpable. But then his cell phone buzzed again. He slipped it from his pocket, read the message quickly, and then turned me around toward the front of the house.

“We have to go. We’ve been given the green light.”

“What do you mean, green light?”

“David can see all areas of the house, inside and out, with the cameras his team set up. He just told me that the front is clear. We have to go.”

“Not without McKelty and Joss!”

“The best thing you can do for them right now is be alive when they come back to you.” Kirkland pushed me toward the front of the house with the muzzle of his gun. “Go. Now.”

I did, much to my own personal shame. I turned and made a run for the car. Kirkland followed, keys in his hand as he jumped behind the wheel. We were down the driveway and nearly to the gate before either of us thought about pausing to push the button that would let us out.

“How did they get in?”

Kirkland glanced at me as we sped through the streets of my neighborhood, headed God only knew where.

“What?”

“The Russians. How did they get onto my property without us knowing it?”

Kirkland just shook his head. “That’s a question you can ask David when we get to the compound.”

“The compound?”

Kirkland didn’t feel the need to elaborate. He drove like a bat out of hell, getting away with it simply because it was four o’clock in the morning and most of the cops were either having breakfast or heading back to their precincts for the morning shift change. We were nearly to Santa Monica when his phone began to buzz once again.

“What’s going on?” he asked in way of greeting.

He listened for a moment, his eyes jumping to me.

“How bad is it?” he asked at one point, causing fingers of ice to dance in my stomach.

He was quiet for a minute when he disconnected the call.

“Your daughter’s safe,” he finally said.

“Oh, God,” I moaned, a horrible weight lifting from my shoulders. “Thank you!”

Kirkland sort of nodded as he turned onto a narrow road marked “private.” We came to a gate a moment later with the same sort of security keypad as the one outside my house. Kirkland pushed a button hanging from his visor without slowing down, sliding through the gate with barely enough clearance on either side to keep from scratching the paint on his restored muscle car.

The drive took us up a small hill that revealed a large, log-cabin-style house nestled into a large wooded property. There were several SUVs parked in front of the house and lights blazed in almost every window downstairs. Kirkland jumped out of the car and stormed up to the front door without checking to see if I was following.

The large door at the front of the house opened into what was once a warm, open-plan living space. It’d been converted into something like an office with desks scattered among couches and comfortable looking chairs. There was a conference table tucked into a sort of alcove in the back, center of the room, a place that had clearly once been intended as a dining room. There was a full-service kitchen, too, but it was too clean and tidy to be used regularly.

A woman stood as I walked through the doors and came to me, offering a warm smile.

“I’m Rose,” she said, “the office manager and sort of den mother around here. You must be Mr. Matthews.”

I just nodded, too wired to be polite.

“If you’ll come with me, I’ll show you where you can rest while you wait for your daughter to be brought to you.”

“Where are they?”

Her warm smile wavered just slightly. “Kirkland didn’t tell you?”

Kirkland was gone, disappeared from sight the moment he entered the door. The woman took my hand and tried to draw me deeper into the room. But then I heard Kirkland’s voice raised in anger from somewhere across the room. I pulled away from Rose, as kind as she seemed to be, and marched toward the sound of voices.

“What the hell do you mean? Weren’t you watching?”

“They were using silencers.”

“Didn’t she have her weapon?”

“It looked like she had her holster, but I can’t be sure.”

There was a large workstation between the kitchen and the conference room. I spotted Kirkland standing behind the tower of monitors two deep and six or eight wide. He was yelling at a young man who looked incredibly like Ash Grayson, only his hair was longer and his face thinner.

Must be the brother. David.

“What’s going on? Where are Joss and McKelty?”

David stood even as Kirkland turned away from me, groaning in annoyance.

“Mr. Matthews,” David said, holding out his hand to me. “I’m David Grayson, the tech—”

“I know who you are. You’re the one who had the cameras set up in my house.” I pushed a finger into his shoulder. “Why didn’t you give us an earlier warning? Why didn’t you see them coming sooner?”

“They came in from the woods along the side of your property. I didn’t see them until they were swarming the front of the house.”

“And Joss? Did you get her out of the house? Where is she? Where’s my daughter?”

David glanced at Kirkland. “You didn’t tell him?”

Kirkland shrugged, slinking off to the kitchen to grab himself a beer from the fridge. Some operative he was.

“Where are they?”

David’s eyes were kind as he regarded me. “There were some…complications,” he said, as though it was a patient undergoing surgery rather than an almost militaristic operation. “One of the intruders had a gun and he shot at them as they crossed the backyard.”

Those cold fingers were back. My heart sank as I watched the expression stay carefully neutral on his face.

“Ash was able to extract your daughter and Joss, but Joss was injured. They’re at the hospital as we speak—”

“For what? Which of them is injured?”

“Joss.”

I shook my head, refusing to believe it. “She was shot?”

David nodded. “But Ash says it’s not a bad wound. She should be okay.”

“And Ash would know.” I dragged my fingers through my hair, a nightmare I thought I’d put behind me suddenly unraveling all around me. I began to pace, putting all my frustration in a place I could handle, a place that wouldn’t bring up things I really didn’t want to face right now. “I paid you people to protect my daughter and you let a group of thugs into my house in the middle of the night. Is it not enough that I gave up my privacy to allow you to put cameras in every nook and cranny in my house? You couldn’t watch those damn screens close enough to see them coming? Couldn’t tear yourself away from your soap operas long enough to see the danger coming into my house? What if it had been my daughter who’d taken a bullet? What if my daughter was the one lying in the hospital right now? What would you do? Give me a fucking discount on your services?”

I shoved my finger against his shoulder, pushing him back several steps. “It’s not bad enough that you people blew me off four months ago because you were having some sort of surgery. You had to go and fuck up and leave my daughter in the same danger you were supposed to help us avoid.”

“Hey, asshole,” Kirkland said, slamming his beer bottle so hard on the kitchen table that a few drops slopped over the lip and landed on his hand, “our friend was shot tonight. Do you really think we give a fuck about you and your daughter?”

I charged across the room like a bull seeing red. I’d had enough of Kirkland’s lip, and it felt damn good when my fist collided with his jaw. Didn’t feel quite as good when his fist landed on my lip. I went in for a second punch, but someone grabbed my wrist before I could land it. Suddenly I was being wrenched back, strong arms wrapped around my torso. I twisted, trying to get free even as I watched David grab Kirkland and keep him off of me.

“Cut it out!”

I twisted free of the man holding me, a tall, dangerous-looking man I’d never seen in my life, as I spotted Ash standing at the front of the room. The room was suddenly overrun with people. Ash and an attractive young woman who instantly moved up against the side of the man who’d pulled me off of Kirkland. And McKelty.

“Daddy!” she cried, running across the room, nearly tripping in the oversized scrub shirt she was wearing. I dropped to one knee and threw my arms open wide, pulling her against my chest, my hands instantly moving over her scalp, her back, making sure she was real.

“I was so scared, Daddy,” she said, her words falling over each other. “But Joss kept me safe. She carried me and ran really fast. She didn’t let the bad man get me.”

“That’s good, baby,” I said, my words heavy with emotion.

“She thought I fell down, Daddy, into that big cliff at the bottom of the canyon. But I didn’t. I walked around it, but she thought I fell and she called to me.”

I just nodded, still taking in the beauty of her face, still wrapping my mind around the fact that she was safe. And then I saw her, standing across the room with tears in her eyes, watching us. She was also wearing hospital scrubs, her left arm in a sling. There were scratches on her face and bandages on her shoulder and another place lower on her arm. Her face was pale, too pale for her light coloring. However, she was standing there, and she was one of the most beautiful things I’d seen in a long time.

She held out her hand to me.

God, what was I doing?

I couldn’t think; I couldn’t comprehend the world around me. I knew there was a reason why I shouldn’t accept that invitation, but I couldn’t help myself. I stood, McKelty tucked tightly against my side. I took her hand and followed her as she led the way out of the building. McKelty was asleep before we even reached the tiny cottage Joss led us to. I laid her carefully on the couch and covered her with the blanket Joss handed me. Then she took my hand again and led the way into her bedroom.