Ruthless Game (9 page)

“I know. It’s just hard to think of his mother waiting for him to come home, knowing those horrible monsters took him from her for no reason other than their own amusement.”

Kane didn’t know how to comfort her, so instead, he took her hand and set a much slower pace, catering to her short legs and lack of physical fitness. The terrain changed from pure sand to patches of saw grass. A few hearty flowers tried to grow among the thick stalks. Rocks formed a rough terrace along several of the rolling hills of dirt and sand. This was barren country, without the natural beauty of the desert. The land was so stark, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to build a home in the middle of such a wasteland—unless they were in hiding.

“Who exactly was this man you befriended? To come out here, he must have a lot of enemies.”

She didn’t look up at him, but he caught her smile. “He was in his eighties, and let’s just say he lived a very full life opposing the government. He lost his children and his siblings to the fight and eventually his wife.”

Kane closed his eyes for a brief moment, trying to hold on to his sanity. “You befriended a rebel wanted by the government.”

“Well, yes,” she confirmed. “He was very adept at hiding his presence. I was on the run, he was on the run, it was sort of natural. And he needed help.”

She didn’t know it, but she damn well needed Kane. She didn’t have any sense in her pretty head. None.

“You do realize even a man in his eighties could kill you, Rose, if he thought you were a threat to him, especially one who spent an entire life killing those he perceived as enemies.”

She walked in silence beside him, choosing not to see his logic or answer his charge. He scowled down at the top of her head. She was so headstrong she just blazed a path straight to trouble. He was going to have to put a stop to it, that was all. She definitely needed looking after, whether she thought so or not. Satisfied that he wasn’t just being selfish, he walked up the sloping hill, noting the vegetation was thicker in the area than most of the surrounding dirt and sand.

“You’re about to walk right up the roof.”

He halted abruptly. “You’re kidding.”

She looked pleased—and a little smug. “Yes, it’s right there. Take a look around. The place is amazing. To get here, you have to know the GPS location. He was always careful to come in different ways and leave no tracks. There is a dune buggy, and he dragged a carpet behind it to cover the tire marks in the dirt and sand. That was how he would get his supplies. He has a truck parked in a garage in the village right on the edge of the desert. He drove the buggy across the sand and left it in the garage when he shopped with the truck.”

“Clever. And no one ever betrayed him?”

“According to him, everyone who knew about his desert retreat is dead.”

“Just who is this saintly man?”

“His name was Diego Jimenez.”

Kane felt something inside him go still. “And he just happened to tell you about the place?” Diego Jimenez led a shadowy group of rebels determined to overthrow the previous government. They did so by bombing oil and natural gas lines. They had a reputation for killing locals who didn’t agree with their policies. Jimenez had lived by the sword, betraying everything humanity stood for. He had an extensive family, and Kane doubted that they were all dead. He was evil, pure and simple, and Rose couldn’t see beyond a dying old man. Leopards didn’t change their spots, and snakes were snakes.

He took a careful look around, using night vision. The night seemed still, but what had been a place of refuge suddenly felt hostile.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I took care of him until he died. He gave me the location and the keys. He knew I needed a place to lay low until after the baby was born.”

She gestured toward the dirt- and grass-covered roofline. He could see the low rectangular stone structure was situated between the two sloping hills. The way the house had been built, it would catch natural light and crosswinds. From the front the structure looked like a half-buried ruin, which, he was certain, was the entire idea. The shrubs on the roof had been planted and carefully cultivated to look part of the natural surroundings. The dirt looked as if the wind had blown it there, again all natural. Kane walked up the slope to inspect the roof. He had to really look to find the portals that allowed light into the subterranean rooms below. The entire structure looked more like an ancient bridge built between the two slopes, now buried in soil and shrubbery and tall grass stalks.

They walked down the sloping ground to the front door. The walls showing were quite thick.

“The glass in the windows is bulletproof,” Rose said as she unlocked the door.

He caught her shoulder and shoved her none too gently behind him. She didn’t protest, but he heard her sigh overly loud. It didn’t matter. He knew she didn’t—couldn’t—see Jimenez as evil, but he knew better. He didn’t trust rebels, not even eighty-year-old dying rebels. It was just too generous a gesture to hand over the keys to the desert retreat. Something was going on here, something he didn’t trust or understand, but she wasn’t just walking into that house without him clearing every inch of it first.

He handed her back her gun and stepped inside. The interior of the house was cool without being cold. He moved easily in the dark, staying along the wall as he moved through the wide entryway that spilled into a large living room. The furniture was sparse, a couch and two chairs, but they appeared well made and in good condition. A low coffee table was cleared of any magazines or objects. The room held no ashtrays, and the air seemed clean.

He noted two separate arched doorways leading to other rooms and made his way to the nearest one in silence. The floors were hardwood with handwoven, very expensive rugs thrown artistically in front of the couch and chair. The room he entered was a single bedroom. A large double bed with a carved wooden frame came out from the center wall with a large, low chest at the end of it. Bookshelves surrounded the headboard, forming a bridge up around the wall. He could see beneath the bed that no one hid there. A closet drew his attention, and he slipped inside the room and moved to the side of the door. In one move he turned the knob and pulled it open. The space was empty of everything, even clothes.

Rose wouldn’t get the significance of that. Or of the fact that no paintings hung on the wall, and that there were no objects on shelves, no books. She had been raised in a military compound, a stark life that didn’t encourage owning art and beautiful things. This had been Diego Jimenez’s hideaway, supposedly his last line of retreat. This would be where he would keep his most prized possessions, and yet the entire residence was empty of everything but the starkest furniture, as if it had been prepared for Rose—or someone. This situation had all the warning signs of a trap.

He cleared the bathroom, a much more spacious room than he would have thought the underground living quarters would have, and moved on to the kitchen. Again, the room was large. A dining table and chairs for six sat beneath an ornate chandelier. That bothered him even more. If the chandelier was real, and it certainly looked like a work of art, this “rebel,” who should have been poor and on the run, was incredibly wealthy. This was no hovel, dug out in the middle of the desert. An architect had designed the home, taking into consideration light, space, and crosswinds. That took money.

A man on the run would have a secure room, a place he could go to hide if the law was closing in as well as an escape route. He went through the kitchen back into the living room and studied the layout. Not in the common room; it would have to be the bedroom where Jimenez and his wife slept.

“I’m coming in,” Rose declared and stepped inside the open foyer. “There’s a generator. It’s very quiet. It will heat the water, and we both can take a shower.”

She sounded so hopeful, it took effort not to sweep her into his arms. She looked exhausted, dried blood on her arms and scratches down one side of her face, a badge of courage, where she’d protected the baby instead of her own head. That made him mad all over again.

“Who the hell jumps out of a moving vehicle eight months pregnant?” he demanded.

“Someone who doesn’t want to get shot.” Her eyes flashed the most interesting little sparks there in the darkness. “And if you had taken care of the guard
before
he fired his weapon, we might not have had to jump.”

“Which I might have been able to do had you not interfered.” As excuses went, it was pretty damn lame and childish. She’d managed to be very helpful,
but
that wasn’t the damn point. She had no business going into combat pregnant. “You don’t have much sense, do you?”

If the furious sparks in her eyes could have found fuel, he would have been in trouble. As it was, he reached out and took the gun from her hand just to err on the side of caution.

“The
only
stupid thing I’ve done so far is to pick you as a partner. I’m tired and I want a shower. Get out of my way.”

“Not until I clear his safe room and the escape tunnel.”

She went still. Her tongue darted out to touch her lower lip, drawing his attention to the full, angel-like bow. “Safe room?” She pushed strands of hair away from her face. Her hand trembled. She put it behind her back.

She’d definitely recognized the significance of what he’d said.

“There isn’t a safe room.”

“Why? Because he would have told you?” Damn it all, was she going to believe him or some lying old man who had his own agenda? All Kane wanted to do was protect her ... Well, okay, that was a fucking lie. That wasn’t all he wanted from her, but his intentions were noble. Damn it, maybe they weren’t all that noble either. She was tying him up in knots. What the hell kind of woman did the things she did?

“Oh, Kane.” Her voice shook.

She looked as if she crumbled right in front of him. She sank into the chair, pressing her hand to her swollen belly, taking long, slow, deep breaths.

“There’s no need to hyperventilate,” he said as gently as possible. “We’ll be fine. I’ll check the room. Take your gun, and
don’t
shoot me.”

She sent him a wan smile as her fingers closed around the butt of the gun. “Tempting thought,” she murmured, her expression both rueful and apprehensive, “but I’ll restrain myself.”

That little smile turned his heart over. He touched her face with gentle fingers before he could stop himself. She didn’t jerk away. Her skin was soft, like the petals of a rose. His knuckles brushed the silk of her hair. Immediately the memory of her body beneath him filled his mind. His body reacted, hard and full and aching for her. He ignored the urgent needs as best as he could, brushing the pad of his thumb along her cheekbone and down her jaw, tracing the beautiful bone structure, oddly grateful she remained still beneath his exploration. He
needed
to touch her, and maybe she understood he really had no choice.

“Stay right here, Rose.” He gentled his voice. She really did look exhausted, and the walk in the desert had obviously taxed her endurance.
Unless ...
He frowned. “Did you get hurt when you jumped from the car?”

“Just go clear the room.”

“And the tunnel. He would have had an escape out of here. A man like Diego Jimenez would never have allowed himself to become trapped.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes as if her head were pounding. “I should have thought of that. I don’t know why I just accepted what he told me.”

He crouched down beside her, his fingers curling around the nape of her neck. “You needed to hear you had a safe place to go, Rose. That’s human nature.”

She looked directly into his eyes, and every cell in his body reacted to the pain he saw there.

“I’m responsible for our child. You trusted me to take care of her. I told you I would.”

The naked mixture of stark honesty, guilt, and exhaustion was nearly his undoing. He had to stop himself from pulling her into his arms and kissing her until they both were sated—which would probably be never for him. Instead he grinned at her. “I throw males. I’m damned sure of it. We’re having a boy. I’ll be right back.”

He heard her soft laughter as he swaggered away from her, back to the bedroom. He had to get this done, ensure they were safe for the night, and then they’d have to find somewhere else to hole up until he could get word to the GhostWalkers. He had no doubts that when the political bullshit was gone, Mack and the team would come looking for him. They wouldn’t stop until they found him alive or found his body. They wouldn’t believe the tracker in the ravine. With no evidence of bodies in the wreckage, they would know he had walked away alive with Rose.

Kane examined the walls carefully for any evidence of difference. With a subterranean structure, it wouldn’t be difficult to excavate enough dirt to provide a hidden room. There had to be an entrance, and one that was fairly easy to get to in an emergency. It wouldn’t be positioned where anyone bursting through the door could readily see. It wouldn’t be on the wall the bed was against. He ran his hands over the remaining two walls. Neither felt different. He couldn’t find a crack that might indicate a door. Puzzled, he stood in the center of the room, frowning.

He couldn’t be wrong. Diego Jimenez was notorious, and the bounty on him had been astounding, in a country where poverty often overcame good sense.
El presidente
would have sent the entire military at his disposal after the man if he knew his hideout. So there was a back door. He studied the room again, aware of Rose’s restless movements in the next room. He had to make certain there was no enemy in the panic room or waiting in the tunnel.

There were no cracks, so what did that mean? The door had to be there, so ... He stepped close to the wall he would have chosen. It was situated in the farthest end of the room that, if used, would take them deeper underground and away from the front opening that was aboveground. He ran his fingers along the actual corner seam of the room. It seemed to blend flawlessly, yet when he looked at the ceiling joint, he realized this had to be the door, cleverly blended. There was no heavy furniture to cover anything, just a solid wall.