The Lies That Save Us (The Broken Heart Series) (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-One

Cayman and the others laid out a plan to cover as many possibilities as they possibly could.  The bulk of the team would head into the north end of the building, allowing Cayman to get to Alexa and get her out, hopefully before the shooting started.  They positioned themselves along the back of the warehouse in question and listened as voices inside the warehouse began to rise. 

It sounded like accusations against Dixon from what they could make out.  There were shouts he
’d put the whole operation in jeopardy; that he wasn’t who he said he was.  He could hear Dixon yelling back at them, asking where they were getting their information.  The anger continued to escalate.

“That’s not good,” whispered Patrick.

“Stay focused,” said Cayman into his radio. 

“Heads up everyone,” came the voice of Winston, “We’ve got company.”

The transmission was immediately followed by, “What the--what’s
he
doing here?”

“Who, Winston?  Who’s here?”  asked Cayman.

“It’s Grantham!  I say again, Grantham is on site. Oh, no…no…”

In that instant Cayman’s phone vibrated in his pocket, but there was no time to answer it. 

A gunshot rang out and everything went silent.  Agent Jason Barnes had been the unlucky one paired with Grantham.

“Agent down! Agent down!” Winston was trying his best to keep his voice quiet.  “He got out of the car after Grantham and Grantham turned and shot him in the head!”

Cayman leaned back against the building.  He knew Barnes.  They all knew Barnes.  Was this really happening?  How could he do this? 

Inside the warehouse the level of voices reached a peak, and it was clear when Grantham entered, the commotion
suddenly ceased. 

Cayman had a gut feeling this was going to escalate to an all out war within the drug organization itself.  He motioned for the signal to be given just as gunfire broke out inside the building.

“Go! Go! Go!” 

It was the needed sign to rush the warehouse, and they did just that.  Cayman bolted around to the south entrance and worked his way to the door leading into the room where he saw Alexa taped to the chair.  He gasped when he saw her face and all the blood on her clothing.  He leaned against the wall outside the room, anger boiling inside of him, so much so it was hard to see through it.

There was someone kneeling beside her.  Who was that?  What was he saying to her?  Cayman looked frantically to see if the man had a gun, if he was threatening her in any way.  He wasn’t.  Cayman had no more asked himself the question, when the man leaned forward and kissed Alexa on the forehead.  Who
was
this guy?

***

Alexa felt the emotions rising in the other room.  She feared their anger would be turned on her, that she wouldn’t be able to give them any more ‘useful’ information because she’d given them all she had.

Suddenly she felt someone kneel in front of her, though she’d heard no one moving toward her.  Was she imagining it?  Who was it?  She tried not to panic as she waited for the gunshot that would end her life
, but it never came. 

“Cayman?  Is that you?” 

She could barely make her mouth form the words.

“Hey Princess.  Sorry it took me so long to get here.  You’re as beautiful as ever.”

“Daddy…” 

Alexa saw stars dancing in her head.  She tried so hard to open her eyes so she could see her father kneeling before her, but they were far too swollen.  Instead she saw more stars, many, many more stars fading gradually to darkness.  Her head fell to her chest and she heard nothing else.

***

When the shooting started in the other room, Cayman ran to Alexa, ready to fight whoever it was beside her.  To his surprise, the man that stood and turned to Cayman, gun at the ready was her father.  Her
father
, who was supposed to be
dead
. 

“Max…you’re…”  Cayman said, stunned and stopping in his tracks so he didn’t get shot.

He couldn’t think about her father, couldn’t think about the bullets in the other room.  He could only think about getting to Alexa.  He gave Max a nervous glance, walked quickly to Alexa and knelt down.

“Is she…” his voice trailed off.

“No, son, she’s not dead,” came the pressing reply.  “But if we don’t get her out of here, we all will be.”

Max was frantically cutting the duct tape, but there was so much it was taking too long.

“Grab a side, let’s move her away from here and call an ambulance,” called Cayman over the gunshots.

As they were about to pick up the chair, Dixon ran into the room.  Cayman spun and aimed his gun at Dixon’s head, ready to shoot.  Suddenly he didn’t care if they ever found out what turned him.  He wanted him dead for what he’d done to Alexa.

Max was at his side in an instant, lowering Cayman’s arm with his hand.

“Don’t do it, Cayman.  He’s one of the good guys. Now, come on!  We’ve got to get her to a safe place.”

“What? He’s one of the what?”  Cayman thought he hadn’t heard correctly.

“MOVE!” 

Cayman didn’t question.  He needed to get Alexa out of the warehouse, safely away from the chaos.  With a brief glance at Dixon, he turned to Alexa and together he and Max grabbed the chair and ran for the door.  They hurried to the side of the neighboring warehouse and Max was immediately on the phone calling for back up and an ambulance.

“He’s a plant, Cayman,”
said Max when Cayman hung up his phone.  “He was planted two years ago to try and determine who it was that was getting these guys off, who was leaking information to them and making every one of our advances too late.  Guess we found out who that was.” 

Cayman was frantically working on the tape and Max was right beside him.  Eventually, as they heard the sirens blaring, Alexa came free of her bonds and fell into Cayman’s arms.  Tears of anger quickly turning to rage filled his eyes. 

“Who did this to her?” he said, glaring at Dixon who’d run with them from the building.  “
WHO DID THIS TO HER!!?”

“His name is Hunter,” said Dixon, clearly ashamed.  “I didn’t know he would do something like this.  Had I known I would never have left him guarding her.”  Dixon looked drawn and tired.

“Get her to the hospital, Max.  Take care of her.  I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Max pulled Alexa into his arms, holding her to him.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Son.  She loves you.  Heaven help her, but she does.  You come back for her.  Do you hear me?  You come back for her.”

There were dozens of police and FBI cars coming into the compound.  Cayman nodded to Max and ran into the warehouse, gun drawn.

The gunfight was going strong, and trying to find cover in an otherwise empty space was a big problem.  His team had hidden behind an overturned metal sheet, but it was the only thing in the room, and it was obviously not going to fit another person behind it.  Cayman hid beside the open door, glancing quickly around the door frame every now and then to see where the cartel members were.  Once he got his bearings, he ran back out the door and around to the back of the building, staying low to avoid stray bullets.  

As he rounded the corner, a bullet came through the metal wall, hitting him near the hip and traveled on to a fuel tanker parked nearby.  The bullet hit the fuel tank dead center.  The  explosion was deafening.  Cayman was thrown to the ground holding his hip, ears ringing.  He struggled to his feet, grabbing the wall and limped to the back entrance of the warehouse.

Anger pushed him forward.  He couldn’t think of anything but Alexa, of what they had done to her.  He wanted to kill them all in the worst way, but first, he was going to find out who this ‘Hunter’ was and make him pay.

The fire from the tanker had caught onto several other buildings.  The whole area to the north of the warehouse was in flames.  Cayman found the back entrance and slowly opened the door.  There was one of him and six of the cartel members.  If he shouted for them to drop their weapons, he’d be a goner.  He had to take some of them out before they knew he was there. 

Quickly he checked the chamber of his gun.  He had four bullets left.  He threw the door open and emptied his gun into the backs of the drug runners.  Every shot found its target, and when he finished there were two of them left.  The firing stopped with a “hold your fire” command from the agents across the room.  The two members not hit by Cayman’s bullets turned in surprise and seeing they were outnumbered, dropped their guns and raised their hands.  Cayman kept his gun on them as the others ran forward and shoved them to the ground, cuffing them. They were immediately pulled back up into a kneeling position.

Cayman limped to the two on the ground.  Grantham couldn’t look him in the eye.  Cayman would have spit in his face if he had.  He couldn’t even ask Grantham why, it was like looking at no one of any importance at all.  He was filth, the lowest form of scum.

Cayman leaned over with a snide smile on his face and whispered in the traitor’s ear.

“I’ll bet your son is
so
proud of you right now.”

He stood up and glared at the two prisoners.

“Which one is Hunter,” he demanded, pointing to the men he’d shot.  There was no answer from either of them.  He cocked his gun and held it to the traitor’s head.  “
WHICH ONE IS HUNTER?
  Give me a reason to pull this trigger, Grantham, just one reason.  It would be so easy for me.”

Grantham nodded to the man beside him.

Cayman leaned over and picked Hunter up by the hair, cranking his head back so hard he yelped.  Hunter quickly obeyed the command in an effort to keep his head where it was.

“You get a kick out of beating up women who can’t fight back, do you?” he hissed at him.  “Here’s a present from the little lady next door.”  Cayman winced as he lifted his knee planting it soundly in the man’s groin.  Hunter collapsed on the floor in agony and Cayman grabbed his shirt with one hand and pulled him off the floor, ignoring the pain screaming from his hip.  Forming a fist with the other hand, he pulled back and punched the man soundly in the face.  He pulled his fist back again, ready to plant it one more time. 

Immediately there were three men behind him, pulling him off Hunter.

“You’re hurt, Cayman,” said Winston.  “Let’s not waste perfectly good blood on losers like these.  I say we get you to the hospital.”

Cayman wiped his upper lip with the back of his hand still holding the empty gun.  He tried to steady himself, leaning against Winston for support.

“Sounds good to me,” he said breathlessly.

Hunter was writhing in pain, his face bloodied as a steady stream of blood dripped from his face onto his shirt.

Cayman still had a fist full of Hunter’s shirt and he let him loose with a shove.  He groaned as he hit hard cement, and Cayman smiled sardonically.

With a fellow agent on either side of him, he put an arm around each of their shoulders for support.  Together they started for the door.

“Let’s get outta here,” he said with disgust.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Cayman was wheeled into the ER asking after Alexa with every breath.

“Where is she?  I need to know where she is.  Where is she?”

The
nurse gave Winston a quick look while holding up a syringe.  It contained a mixture of sedative and painkiller.  She looked back down at her anxious patient and said flatly, “He leaves me no alternative.” 

She was joking, but still she pushed the needle into
his IV and emptied the syringe so he would relax…and relax he did.

The bullet just grazed Cayman’s hip and required only a few stitches.  He wasn’t admitted as a patient,
but the hospital wouldn’t release him until he could put together a coherent sentence.  Once he was released, he went straight to Alexa’s room. Using the crutches he’d gotten in the emergency room, he walked in, went right to Max and hugged him.  He shook Keith’s hand and said, “Good to see you, Keith.”

Cayman looked at Alexa from the end of the bed with the other two men.

“She kept telling me you were alive,” he said to Max, “and I just knew someone was playing a joke on her,” he shook his head.  “Why didn’t you just show yourself...let her know it was you?”

“I couldn’t,” said Max, sadly.  “I didn’t think she’d see me, but she’s faster than a rabbit and several times I didn’t make it out of sight soon enough. 
Had I come out of hiding, it would have been worse for her, if that’s possible.  The cartel would have been all over her as soon as they found out I was alive.  They would have used her to get to me.

“I just needed to know she was okay.  I had to see her, but it was stupid of me.   I knew the cartel had found her and I was worried they’d try to get information out of her she didn’t have.  When I saw you were with her, I breathed a little easier.”

Cayman smiled.  “I can’t even tell you how good it is to see you.”

Max smiled and looked at Alexa, his smile fading to sadness and concern.

Alexa looked much better than the last time he saw her.  Though her face was still black and blue, the swelling was going down.  She’d been placed in a medically induced coma to allow them to get the internal wounds checked and bleeding stopped.  She looked peaceful.

“When will they wake her up, did they say?”  Cayman asked, walking around the bed to her side.

“A couple days at most,” replied Max.  “I’m sure her body needs the rest anyway.  Knowing her, she probably did everything she could to listen in on their conversations.  She’s a strong one, always has been.”

“Well,” began Cayman, “from what I’ve heard, she was well trained.  She’d make a great agent, if we could find a way to control
that stubborn side.”  Cayman laughed and Max chuckled.

“Yeah, she’s that, for sure.”

“Hey, Max,” said Cayman hesitantly, “you…you said she loved me.  How do you know that?  I thought she wanted to get as far away from me as she could.”

“When I found her and knelt beside her in the warehouse, she thought I was you.  The way she said your name was filled with relief and sadness.  A
Dad can hear these things.  Her voice told me she was in love with you, that’s how I know.”

Cayman grinned at Max.  He grabbed a chair from the side of the room and pulled it to the bed.  His hip complained a little and he grimaced as he sat down beside her.  He took her hand and held it gently, moving the hair from her face with the other.  He felt like he’d le
t her down in the worst possible way.  He’d allowed her to be taken, by not going into that shop with her, he’d been careless and thoughtless.  Every blow she took was his fault.  Every broken bone, every drop of blood was because of him.  The guilt weighed heavily on him and he wondered if he could ever get past it.  He wondered if his guilt would destroy the love he felt for her, wondered if she could ever really love him knowing how he had caused her this pain.

He felt a hand on his shoulder.  It was Keith, silent until now.

“I know what you’re thinking, Cayman,” said Keith softly, “and you couldn’t be more wrong.  You didn’t hit her, not one time.  Put the guilt where it belongs, on the people that did this to her.  You could never hurt her like this, you know that.”

Cayman whispered, “Thanks.” 

He knew Keith was right, it was just hard to let go of things like that.  He swallowed hard and turned to Max.

“You’ve been in witness protection…for a year?”

“Yes, sort of,” said Max, “not really witness protection, but the cartel knew I had something on them so it became necessary to go into hiding.  What I think is, they saw us that day in the desert and figured I had seen them, as well.  I did see them, and I took the photo, not knowing there was anyone in the back seat at the time.  When I got it home and printed out the picture, I enlarged it and did see someone in the backseat.  I destroyed the enlargement right away until I could get the information to the Bureau and I planted the code, hoping you could get it to Truseau in time.”

“Yeah, thanks to Grantham, that didn’t happen.  He never sent the backpack on to the office
in D.C., so by the time Truseau got it figured out, Gratham had already shot Barnes.”

Max shook his head.

“It wasn’t Dixon in that backseat, it was Grantham.  That’s why I needed the photo to get to Truseau.  I knew he could be trusted.  But when you didn’t make it out of Phoenix, Grantham was the most likely person to get the picture and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.”  Max rubbed his chin with, disgusted with the way that went down.

“How’d you find that out?” asked Cayman.

“Never mind…I just found it out.  But I had no proof, and Barnes paid the price for that.”

“How’s Dixon doing?  Ha
ve you been talked to him?”  Cayman asked.

“He’s fine.  I guess he left Hunter not knowing the history between him and Alexa.”

Cayman turned to him with eyes of thunder.

“What history.”  His voice was suddenly cold.

“Oh, well, apparently she kneed him pretty soundly in the groin in a motel room somewhere when he tried to get--”

“--the album…” said Cayman, finishing his sentence and laughing out loud.  “That’s hilarious, because I kneed him in the groin at the warehouse and told him it was a present from Alexa.”   He chuckled as he said, “Was it ever!” 

They all laughed softly, enjoying the moment.

“Poor Dixon,” said Cayman sadly.  “I almost killed him, and would’ve if you hadn’t been there Max.”

The nurse came in and injected something into the IV.  She explained they were going to bring Alexa slowly out of the coma and check for any brain damage or permanent sight issues. She told them it would be good for someone to talk to her as she comes out of it.  She explained it’s comforting to the patient and might bring her out of the coma a little sooner.  She smiled at the group of men and walked from the room.

“Brain damage?”  Cayman asked incredulously.  “Sight issues?” 

He looked to the others and they said nothing.  Cayman, still holding Alexa’s hand, looked determined.

“Doesn’t change a thing.”  He said firmly, staring into Alexa’s face.

“She’s too ornery for any of that,” smiled Keith.  “She’s going to be just fine.  Wait and see.  She’ll be cussing us all for standing around like she’s incapable of caring for herself.”

“She’ll be fine, Cayman.  She’s a tough one, my girl.  She’s going to be fine.”  He glanced at Cayman and then to Alexa.  “You two are both going to be fine.”

Max and Keith left Cayman with Alexa and headed to their motel rooms to get some sleep.  It had been a long couple of days and everyone was exhausted.

Cayman snagged a nurse and asked her if he could get a copy of Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham.  She looked at him kind of funny, but said they would probably have it on the Pediatric floor.  Within minutes she had the book and delivered it to Cayman.

He gazed at the book and smiled.  This was one of her favorites, he remembered her telling him.  He glanced at Alexa and walked around the bed to sit on his chair.  Slowly he leafed through the pages trying to imagine her as a little girl on her father’s lap, listening to him read these lines.  He smiled again.

Scooting his chair closer to the bed, he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, holding the book before him.  Clearing his throat and feeling just a tad silly, he began.

“
I am Sam.  Sam I am.  Do you like green eggs and ham…?”

His voice continued on smooth and soft.  When he finished the book, he looked over at Alexa.  She remained asleep so he opened to the front page and began again. 

Ever so gradually, Cayman began to feel sleep overtake him.  He shook his head and continued reading, placing the open book on the bed and scooting a little closer to it.  Still, his head began to lower onto the blankets as his eyes closed. 

In minutes he was sound asleep, his head resting on the bed beside the sleeping body of the woman he loved.