Traitorous Attraction (22 page)

The sound of chanting drifted in through the closed windows.
El presidente
turned to General Alva. “What is that?”

Connor inclined his head and feigned momentary confusion. “Oh, that noise? That’s the ten thousand people we invited along tonight to make sure you kept your word. Clearly, we made the right choice, seeing as you have every intention of killing my brother and me and Kate and Ariana. Turns out Bruno Feliz likes his sister and the AR wants her alive. And Kate? I’ve never known anyone who has more friends online and around the world prepared to help her with almost no notice.” That and the boost of support from Kate’s sister, Elise. As an A-list Hollywood actress, she held sway over newspapers and society. Once she’d begun speaking out about her sister being held against her will in Tumara, support for them had tumbled in, wave after wave of it.

El presidente
paled.

“They’ll break down every door in this building until they find you. They will find and release Ariana and Kate. Your only hope is that the women are not injured, because if they are, perhaps your death will not be merciful,” Connor said, relishing every word.

El presidente
appeared terrified. He turned to General Alva. “Don’t let anyone in here. Seal the gates and call for the National Emergency Reserves.” General Alva and the two guards at the door raced out of the room to do
el presidente
’s bidding.

The chanting grew stronger and the sound of C4 explosions boomed. Hyde had scrounged up some explosives to help with the night’s plans. Gates and doors would not keep out an angry mob.

Connor looked at Aiden. “How are you feeling, brother?” he asked.

Aiden grinned. “My arms are numb. I think it’s time to put my boot in someone’s backside.”

At the same moment, Connor and Aiden sprang into action. They had the element of surprise. Connor freed his hands and disarmed the men on either side of him, while Aiden did the same. He took their weapons, arming himself. He raced to the windows and opened them. Aiden joined him. Every window and door they opened made it easier for their reinforcements to get inside.

At the front window overlooking the entrance to the palace, Connor caught sight of the crowd coming to their aid. The view stirred his pride in the goodness of people and strengthened his new belief that, deep down, people wanted to help. Ten thousand people from Tumara and around the world had taken up the cause of the Armed Revolutionaries. They raced across the grounds, barreling through gardens, shoving guards out of the way. They arrived at the open windows and cheered.

Finn and Hyde were first to reach Aiden and Connor. Hyde handed Connor some C4. “As promised.” She grinned. “This is the most fun I have had in months. Let’s pound some dictator scum into nothing.”

“Did you find Kate and Ariana?” Finn asked.

“Not yet,” Connor said. “We will.”

As more people piled into the room, Connor noticed
el presidente
had fled. He couldn’t get far with the throngs of people forming a barrier around the palace, and Connor wouldn’t give chase. Not now. Kate came first.

He and Aiden raced through the halls, calling Kate’s and Ariana’s names. The chanting of “Power to the people!” was overwhelming. A dictator would be overthrown tonight and the history of Tumara forever changed.

Social media wasn’t Connor’s cup of tea, but he had newfound respect for it. He didn’t understand how it worked or why complete strangers got on board with the plans Aiden had posted to a website the AR ran. Though the messages were cryptic, Aiden had spread the word about what was happening at
el presidente
’s palace and people had arrived to lend a hand. Once Connor caught on about how to use it, he had spent hours at the keyboard, generating support for the release of Kate and Ariana and the overthrow of
el presidente.

Supporters had flown, driven and walked, spurred by patriotic messages of democracy and freedom and eager to end the rule of a tyrant.

“If you were hiding two women, where would you put them?” Aiden asked.

“The basement?” Connor asked.

Connor and Aiden took the stairs down. Connor grabbed a guard who was standing in the hallway, watching people rush by and appearing bewildered. Connor took both his guns, handed them to Aiden and held him by the collar of his shirt. “Tell me where you are holding the women.”

The man’s eyes grew wide. “
El presidente
will kill me.”

Connor shook his head. “You see these people? You think
el presidente
has a chance of surviving the night here? Think again. Do a favor for me, tell me where to find them, and I’ll spare your life when this is over.”

The man trembled from head to toe. “They are on the lower level. I will take you.” Perhaps the man assumed he was safer with Connor than braving the crowd alone.

The basement was dark, cold and damp. Anger stormed through Connor thinking of Kate and Ariana in these conditions. The guard led them to a locked steel door.

“Do you have a key?” Connor asked.

The man shook his head.

Connor kicked at the handle with his good leg and shouted to Kate and Ariana.

“Kate, are you and Ariana okay?” Connor asked.

“Connor! Yes, we’re okay.” The sound of Kate’s voice triggered relief, love and joy in Connor’s veins. She was alive. As long as he could hold her in his arms, everything would be okay.

“Stand back from the door. Cover your face and your ears. I’m blowing this door open.” Connor took a small amount of C4 and set it in the lock of the door and ignited it.

“Run!” he said to his brother.

They took cover, and the door blew clear off, slamming into the wall across the hall.

“You’re a crazy son of—” Aiden said.

His voice was lost as Kate appeared through the cloud of debris, stumbling over the rubble toward him. “Connor.”

They ran for each other and Connor took her in his arms. “Kate, are you okay? Let me look at you. Let me see if you’re okay.”

“What about you? What happened? Is Aiden with you?”

Connor turned her to see Ariana and Aiden locked in a passionate embrace.

“We got him,” Connor said.

“What is that chanting?” Kate asked.

“Ten thousand people storming the gates,” Connor said.

“Ten thousand people? What are you talking about?” Kate asked.

“I’m talking about the power of social media and your sister.”

“My sister? You mean Elise is involved in this?”

“She sure is,” Connor said. “She was devastated to learn you were here, and she put her A-list weight behind this effort.”

“I don’t know what’s more surprising—that she cared enough to speak out for me or that you used social media. You interacted with people online?” Kate asked.

He had. More in the past few days than in the rest of his life combined. “A man can change. This man has done a lot of changing. I made a mistake, Kate. I overreacted when you told me about Aiden and what happened when he went missing. I let one small thing get in the way of our future.”

Kate’s eyes welled with tears. “Then we have a future?”

“I hope we do. If you can forgive me.”

“Of course I can. I love you, Connor. That will never change.”

“I love you, too,” Connor said.

Connor kissed her lightly on the lips and let his forehead fall against hers. With Kate in the circle of his arms, his world felt good and right.

Epilogue

“I
s it strange for an American agency to have an Englishwoman answering the phones?” Connor asked.

Kate rolled her eyes. “Stop looking for a reason to fire her. America is the melting pot, remember? Your mom wanted to do this. She wanted a chance to be closer to you and get to know you, and this is it.”

After
el presidente
was overthrown, Bruno Feliz had been elected the new head of the Tumaran government and the media had printed the ugly details about the treatment the Armed Revolutionaries had received over the past several years. Worried about a scandal, Senator Allen and the congressional committee had disbanded Sphere and had approached Connor about starting an organization to handle the problems that Sphere once had. The congressional committee had given Connor wide leeway, a huge budget and time to find a headquarters and recruit his staff. His first hire had been Kate as his chief technology officer. He was bent on running the company with ethics and integrity that had gone missing at Sphere.

“Do you know my mother had dinner with my father the other night?” Connor asked.

“She told me,” Kate said, holding up a paint swatch against the white primer on Connor’s new office walls. He wouldn’t be spending much time behind a desk, but the head of the United States’ premier security consulting firm should have an office that suited the position.

“What do you think it means?” Connor asked.

Kate turned to face him. “I think it means that after being angry for too long, two people are willing to be friends for the sake of their children.”

“Maybe they want to show up to Aiden and Ariana’s wedding on good terms,” Connor said. “After all, a brawl at the Tumaran president’s sister’s wedding is the kind of publicity the new president is trying to avoid.”

“Could be. But I think the best gift for Aiden is to see the three of you getting along. Every time we talk about it, he swears I’m telling him stories.”

Connor’s relationship with his parents had improved since Kate had become part of his life. She had insisted on meeting them, and once she had, her regular calls and visits to his father had begun to heal some of the hurt Connor had carried all his life. Getting in touch with his mother had also been Kate’s idea. His mother had been so happy to hear from her long-lost son’s future wife, she had moved to Colorado to be near him.

Kate’s gratitude to Elise for what she had done while Kate was held prisoner in Tumara had opened lines of communication between them. Kate had had dinner with her sister for the first time in years.

“I have another story I want to tell him very soon,” Connor said, putting his arms around the woman he loved. “It involves you and me and a wedding and a dozen babies.”

Kate arched a brow. “A dozen babies? Let’s start with one and see how that goes.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Was that a proposal?”

Connor withdrew a ring from his pocket and held it out to her. She extended her hand and he slipped the ring onto it.

“Yes, it’s a most definite yes,” Kate said.

The healing power of love had touched them all.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from LATIMER’S LAW by Mel Sterling.

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Chapter 1

T
he last straw was a single, ridiculous button.

Abby shifted the paper grocery sack in her arms as she stepped out of the convenience store. The hard plastic cap of the orange juice nudged at just the wrong place, the curve under her biceps where the bruises had never quite faded in the past few months. No bruises where they couldn’t be covered. Long practice brought skill. She moved the sack again, and a button burst from her worn chambray shirt.

She followed the button’s freewheeling path across the concrete sidewalk until it plummeted off the curb. It bounced across the white stripe of a parking space and into the black shadow beneath a pickup truck. With a sigh, Abby went around the half-open driver’s door, looking apologetically into the cab. How to explain she needed the driver to move the truck so she could find a button? She couldn’t come home from the store with that particular button missing, right at the shadowed hollow between her breasts—well. It was unthinkable. Her mind raced ahead, picturing the scenario. She could drop the button on the floor when she put the sack on the kitchen counter, as if it had come loose at that very moment. The trick could work, but only if she had the button.

The pickup was empty.

Empty.

With the keys in the ignition, and the engine running.

The shimmering brilliance of an impossible, desperate solution forced all the air out of Abby’s lungs.

Escape.

Abby didn’t glance toward the store or look around for the truck’s driver. She dumped the grocery bag into the passenger seat and hoisted herself in behind the wheel, feeling the soreness in her arms and back. She yanked the door closed and settled into the seat.

Three pedals on the floor, gearshift in neutral on the column, parking brake set.

Her heart lurched. She couldn’t let herself think beyond the physical mechanics of making the truck go. She stretched her leg to stomp the clutch, studied the gearshift a moment and worked it into reverse. Maybe six years since she’d driven a manual transmission, and months since she’d driven at all. The bank repossessed the car when she couldn’t make the payments, but before that there’d been a series of repairs that consumed the meager savings she and her husband, Gary, had scraped together. What didn’t go into the adult day care business went to the mechanic.

Fate was kind. Abby managed not to stall as the truck groaned into reverse out of the parking space. She rode the crow-hopping lurches into first gear, pulling herself close to the steering wheel because the seat was too far back, but there was no time to adjust it. Something heavy fell over in the covered bed of the truck and Abby felt a gut-punch of guilt.

She was stealing a truck.

This wasn’t in the same league as keeping the change she found in the washing machine or behind sofa cushions, or filching a five from the grocery money when she thought Marsh wouldn’t notice. This was a felony.
Grand theft, auto,
her rap sheet would read.

Was she out of her mind?

How fast could she get out of sight? It wouldn’t be long before the truck’s owner called the police—minutes, maybe.

How bad could jail be, in comparison with her life?

Left turn from the parking lot. Left again at the four-way stop, hands jittering on the wheel, stomach churning. Then straight on to the interstate, heading north, grinding gears as her speed increased.

A few miles past the town line, still hunched over the steering wheel, Abby realized the roar she was hearing was the truck’s engine under strain. She was pushing ninety, screaming to be noticed by the highway patrol, followed by a ticket if she were very lucky, more likely arrested when she couldn’t produce insurance and registration. She stood out like a white gull on blacktop, in the red truck on the mostly empty road. She had to calm down, think about what came next.

She rolled down the window to catch the breeze, too stressed to decipher the air-conditioning controls. The Florida summer heat was making her dizzy. She needed to get her heart rate down. Try to still the shaking in her hands and stop jerking the truck all over the lane, another attention-getter she couldn’t afford.

First things first. Get off the interstate, travel the secondary roads. Keep moving. Head for Gainesville, maybe, a bigger town than Wildwood, where she could ditch the truck and use public transportation. She wondered if there was a map in the glove box. She was so overwhelmed by what she’d done that she couldn’t remember the names of towns in the county where she’d lived more than half her life.

Money would be an issue immediately. She didn’t dare use the credit card—it would give her away. In the hip pocket of her jeans there was only the envelope of fifty-odd dollars, whatever she’d managed to scrounge in the past fifteen months. She had the change from the two twenties Gary’s brother, Marsh, had given her for the market. Whenever she left the house, she always carried her stash with her. She knew Marsh went through her room. Any day he might find the loose baseboard molding in the back of the closet where she had cut a small hole in the drywall and hidden her hoard.

Marsh.

How did he know she needed the anchor of his touch when he tucked her hand in his elbow? The reality of his wool suit jacket. The faint humidity Abby could sense there at the bend of his arm, with her fingers gently covered by his free hand. She’d thought she was done with tears, until the motorized hoist began to lower Gary’s coffin into the earth. It seemed somehow sterile and impolite for a funeral to be such an automated and regulated event.

Marsh understood. She heard him draw a harsh breath as the casket’s top slipped below ground level. His hand tightened on hers. How could they just put Gary into the earth? How could they cover him up with foot after foot of dirt? She couldn’t breathe, thinking about it.

Thank God Marsh was here. She’d still be dithering uselessly about whether red or white satin should line the box where Gary would lie forever, never turning his too-hot pillow to the cooler side.

Marsh. Damn his rat-bastard-needed-to-be-shot hide.

And while she was at it, damn her own stupid hide for skidding down the slippery slope that had led to this moment, careening along the interstate in a stolen pickup, in the middle of the hottest summer she could remember, roasting in the long sleeves that covered the bruises. The only positive was that the tears, so quick to spring since Gary died, were nowhere to be found.

A green marker sign grew in the distance, and Abby recognized something at last: Micanopy, an even smaller, more backward town than Wildwood. She recalled a narrow road winding through pecan orchards, the occasional orange grove and state forestland. It would eventually lead to Gainesville. She eased her foot off the accelerator and signaled for the exit. Only a mile down the narrow road was an intersection with a numbered state forest road. She paused, checking for other cars, thinking hard. From a camping trip in the early days of her marriage to Gary, Abby recalled a campground several miles into the state forest. If nothing else, its location next to a tea-dark river would help calm her. Flowing water always did. She had to get control of herself before she did something even more stupid.

Abby downshifted and turned the truck off the paved road onto the graded gray marl of the forestry access. The tires raised clouds of silty dust in the heat, and she slowed even more to leave less of a trail, as if Marsh could see her from Wildwood. Best to get out of sight altogether while she took stock of her situation. And maybe, just maybe, leave the truck behind and make her way back to Micanopy. She could hitchhike into Gainesville. It wouldn’t be safe, but at least she wouldn’t be caught in a stolen truck.

The unpaved road was in poor condition. Summer downpours had rutted it from crown to edge, jouncing her, jarring her torso and tossing the heavy things in the bed of the truck around again. Twenty minutes later she located the loop drive of the tiny campground and circled it, glad to find the place completely empty. With a shuddering sigh of relief, Abby circled a second time and angle-parked the truck into the most secluded of the eight campsites to conceal its license plates. She turned off the engine. For a long moment she stared at the river flowing past thirty feet away, watching a water-darkened stick curl downstream. Then she put her head on the steering wheel and gave in to the shakes that had threatened to overtake her for the past hour and a half.

She, Abigail McMurray, former straight-A student and all-around good egg, had stolen a truck.

She’d run away from home, what little remained of it now that she’d given up so much to Marsh. A giant bubble of guilt welled and burst in her chest. Those poor people, the adults who came to the house for day care and respite for their own caregivers. Only Marsh was there now. She was horrified to think he might take out his ire on one of the sweet people who trusted her to shelter them, feed them healthy meals and make sure Rosemary didn’t hog the DVD remote during Movie Hour.

She should turn around,
now,
and go back.

She
couldn’t
turn around now and go back.

But she could. After dark she could go home, leave the truck in the drugstore parking lot a mile from the convenience store where she’d taken it and sneak away. After wiping down the interior to remove her fingerprints. She could leave a note of apology and money for gas. The police would find the truck soon enough. It could all go away. It would be as if it had never happened.

Except for Marsh’s anger. His anger, and his fists.

Abby’s stomach clenched. Her mouth was dry. She’d been gritting her teeth for miles and miles—a monstrous tension headache throbbed at her temples. Maybe some juice would help. She started to reach for the jug, but it only reminded her of the impetus for her flight.

She bit her lip and grabbed the jug anyway, wrenching it open with fierce determination, and downed several swallows of the juice. It was only orange juice, after all, not an enemy, not a symbol, not Marsh’s grip. When she had capped the jug again, she got out of the truck to stretch her legs and face what she’d done head-on. Time to be practical about it all.... If she wasn’t going to take the truck back, she might as well see if anything in the pickup bed could be of any use to her in her new life of crime.

The fork, covered with mayonnaise and bits of tuna, clattered into the sink with a noise that hurt her ears. Abby felt the familiar black wave of grief submerge her. It was all too much. Tuna. Peanut butter. Sandwiches. Tomato soup. Toast. Apple wedges. Cheese. Celery sticks. Wheelchairs. Adult diapers. Tantrums. Seizures. Without Gary, it was too much.

“What is it? What’s wrong, Abigail?”

“I can’t. I need Gary. I can’t do this.”

“You can.
We
can. Look, I’m here. Just tell me...how many tuna sandwiches?”

Abby slid down the cupboard doors by the sink and sat on the floor with her knees drawn up and her head pressed against them. “I don’t know.”

Marsh put a warm hand on her shoulder. “Then tell me who gets peanut butter. I can manage that, I know. Come on, Abigail. It’ll be all right. All we need is time.” His voice was serene and placid. When he spoke, she could think again. Maybe it would work. Maybe all it took was time. Maybe he was right. He smelled like Gary. She wiped her eyes against the knees of her jeans.

“Rosemary. Rosemary gets peanut butter. Joe gets tuna.”

“Good, good. The older guy, is his name Smith? What kind of sandwich does he get?”

The old red truck had a white camper shell over the bed of the pickup. Tinted windows prevented her from peering in, so she went to the back of the truck and turned the handle, lifting the hatch...

...and found herself staring into the unwavering barrel of a pistol, held beneath the grimmest, bluest gaze she’d ever seen, a blue gaze bracketed on one side by a starburst of corrugated scar tissue, and a smear of blood on the other. Standing at the shoulder of the man with the gun was a German shepherd, teeth bared and hackles raised.

* * *

When his pickup lurched into motion, Cade Latimer toppled from his crouch, striking his head on the big green toolbox. He had left the K-9 training facility outside Bushnell a few minutes ago and had pulled off the interstate at the Wildwood exit only to get a bad cup of convenience store coffee for the road and give Mort a snack and a drink of water. He’d climbed into the bed of the truck to tend to Mort before they got back on the road to head to the northeast corner of Alabama for some decent hill country hiking, fishing and camping.

His first reaction was to right himself and lunge for the back of the truck—he must have forgotten to set the parking brake, and the truck had slipped into reverse. He had a vision of his truck rolling slowly out of control and into the street, causing the sort of stupid accident he had always hated to see while on patrol duty in the sheriff’s department. Before his undercover days, how many times had he lectured drivers about putting on their thinking caps before getting behind the wheel of a two-ton killing machine? But then he got a glimpse of someone in the cab of his pickup, behind the wheel, and realized something else was going on. Something illegal.

For a moment Cade couldn’t believe it was happening. Surely no one in this Podunk, backwater, stuck-in-the-Depression town would steal a truck. Weren’t small-town folk supposed to be as honest as the day was long? A second lurching hop sent him flat again. Mort scrabbled uselessly, claws squealing against metal as the truck fishtailed onto the road. Cade reached out to steady his dog and spoke the command for the German shepherd to lie down. Warm wetness trickled down from Cade’s scalp. He’d cut himself on the metal toolbox.

One last bump, then the truck’s motion smoothed and Cade ventured to look out the side window.

Interstate. Passing swiftly.

Damn it.

He peered through the darkly tinted camper shell window into the cab of the truck and wished—not for the first time—that he’d had the cab’s window replaced with a slider. Most often he thought about that when he wanted to check on Mort while the truck was in motion, but now he wanted the slider so he could strangle the jerk who’d stolen his truck.