Trouble With the Law (20 page)

“
Pass the road.  There’s another short dirt road on the opposite side a mile or so down, where you can pull off and hide the van.  That’s where I hid my bike the night I followed Ray out here.”

Dave
turned the van sharply and Ronnie slid into Trace’s side on the bench seat.  She gritted her teeth as the van bounced over the rutted road.  A moment later she was engulfed in blackness as he drove further into the woods.

“How the hell are we going to see out here?” Ronnie asked.

“You don’t need to see, because you’re staying in the van,” Trace replied firmly.

“Like hell I am.”  It was dark, and there were bad men around here.  She’d be safer with either Trace or Dave.  Even if they were in the woods with all kinds of creepy crawlies and wild animals.
  “You’re not leaving me out here alone.”

“We’ll leave you a gun,” Trace said.

“I can’t shoot.”  Ronnie didn’t want to learn how either.  Guns scared her almost as much as the animals she knew were out there in the woods.

“I have a taser I’ll leave with you
.  It’s point and shoot,” Dave said.

“No thank you.  I’d probably shoot myself with it,” Ronnie grumped.  “I’ll just go with ya’ll.”

“No!” both men shouted at once then looked at each other, as Dave killed the engine.  Trace reached over and slid open the side door of the van.  Before he could stop her, Ronnie scrambled outside and stood beside the van.  A mosquito immediately bit her neck, and she slapped it.

“Get back in the van, Red,” Trace growled as he got out.  Caleb came out behind him, then both men stood there staring at her.  Once her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could clearly see that he was pissed.  And determined.

Well she could be just as determined.  And obstinate. 

Ronnie
folded her arms over her chest.  “No,” she replied.

“Get your stubborn ass back in the van, Red,”
Trace gritted out through his teeth.

“You’re not leaving me here
,” Ronnie said flatly lifting her chin.  “I’ll be safer if I’m with ya’ll.”  And she wouldn’t have to be sitting out here wondering what the heck was going on out there in the woods.

Dave walked around the front of the van and Jamie got out of the passenger side, then all the men stood there staring at her. 
The air around her practically hummed with testosterone and alpha male attitude.  Ronnie took her ski mask out of her pocket, removed her hat, then pulled the black knit cap down over her head.  She tucked her hair into the collar of her shirt, and shoved the other hat into the pocket of her pants. 

Ronnie
heard a collective growl, but ignored it.  The knit cap was itchy on her face, and hot, but she wasn’t about to let them know she was uncomfortable.  “Stop wasting time and let’s get going,” she grumbled folding her arms over her chest.  “I can argue til the cows come home, ask Dave.  I don’t give a damn if you miss that Coyote or not.”

Dave gave it one more try.  He stepped forward and handed her a weapon.  “This is a taser.  Just point the tip where you want the leads to go and push this button.  I guarantee you this thing will bring down an elephant.  You don’t need to be scared.”

“I’m
not
scared,” Ronnie said pinching her lips.  She tucked the device into her pocket, folded her arms over her chest and met Dave’s eyes.  “Because I’m going with you.”

It wasn’t up for negotiation. 
If something happened out there in the woods, like the tingles at the back of her neck and the dread in her stomach told her it was, Ronnie wanted to be there.  Even if they didn’t have another set of capable hands by bringing her, at least they’d have a logical brain among them. 

And she wouldn’t be alone.

The men looked at each other, Dave shrugged then Trace growled, “Fine, you’re with me then.  And you better not cause me trouble or I’ll shoot you myself.”

“Not if I tase you in the balls, you won’t.”

“Fuck,” Trace spat looking at Dave. 

Dave shook his head, and she thought she heard a chuckle as he walked past her to lead them down the narrow dirt road toward the street.

By the time they reached the drop off point across the street, they had walked about two miles into the woods.  Ronnie was sweating profusely under the ski mask.  Her face itched, and the temperature under the mask had to be at least three hundred degrees.  Sweat trickled down the back of her neck and slid between her shoulder blades.  The size-too-small boots she found in the closet felt a size smaller even.  The men with her didn’t seem to be bothered though, and she wasn’t going to let them know she was either.

“I’m taking Caleb and we’re going to work around to the other side of the clearing,” Dave whispered.  “Jamie, you set up at the end behind those rocks
.  Trace you and Ronnie cover this side.  Once you get settled put on your com device and night vision, but try to keep radio silence as much as possible.”

Dave
outlined the plan, then instructed them on hand signals they would use to communicate different scenarios, situations and actions.  Ronnie paid rapt attention, but her head was spinning when he finished.  Trace just nodded as if he understood perfectly, like this were an everyday thing to him. 

Ronnie would just have to make sure she stayed close to him, because she sure wasn’t going to remember all that.  And she didn’t know what the hell night vision was.  They had given her a taser, but nothing else
, and this cloak and dagger stuff definitely wasn’t her forte.  Give her a courtroom and a convict and she was a superstar.  A commando-type nighttime rescue mission?  Not so much.

“We shouldn’t even be out here,” Ronnie
said in a rushed whisper as Trace led her to the edge of the trees so they could watch the big clearing.

“Don’t give me grief, Red.  Just keep your head down and keep quiet!” Trace hissed back
, as he fell to his knees behind a tangle of brush. 

He unzipped the backpack he brought with him and pulled out heavy-looking goggles and slid them over the ski mask
fitting them over the eye holes.  He pulled out an earpiece with a skinny wire attached then shoved it under his mask, and arranged the wire by the mouth hole in the mask.

“I want one of those,”
Ronnie said sitting beside him.

“Too bad, we don’t have a spare.
  You’re with me, so you won’t need it anyway.  Now, shut the hell up.  They should be here in a few minutes.”

Ronnie watched with interest, as Trace inspected his weapon, sighted it into the clearing, then rested it across his lap.
  After a few minutes, she heard the hum of an engine.  Every muscle in her body tensed as bright headlights suddenly lit up the clearing.  Trace tensed beside her too when a long, black, windowless van slowly rolled into the clearing and stopped by the rocks where Jamie was hidden. 

After a minute, the driver’s door opened and a dark shadow moved around the front of the van. 
He walked into the beam of the headlights, and Ronnie saw a very rough-looking Latino man, dressed in combat fatigues with a huge weapon strapped over his chest.  He leaned negligently back against the van and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.  He lit a cigarette and it glowed red.  The smoke as he exhaled filtered into the headlights in ghostly fingers.  Another man got out of the passenger side and joined him, lighting a cigarette too. 

The
two men didn’t seem to be tense at all.  Considering the size of the weapons they had, Ronnie could understand that.  Unease worked its way through her body, and she glanced at Trace.  The seriousness of this situation suddenly became clear to her.  One of them could die tonight.  This wasn’t a simple grab and run.  If they wanted the women who were probably trapped in the back of that van, they were going to have to fight these men to take them.  And Ronnie was going to be in the middle of that fight.  Maybe she should have listened and stayed in the van. 

Tense silence settled around them, as Trace stared intently at the two men talking and laughing at the front of the van.  Their animated waves were punctuated by the glow at the end of their cigarettes.  Except for the agitated chirp of the crickets and night creatures in the woods, nothing broke the silence in their hiding place, until Trace suddenly whispered, “Copy.”  He eased up to his feet and Ronnie’s stomach danced as she stood too.  His large hand dropped on her shoulder and he shoved her back down.  “Stay here,” he
said quietly.

“Like hell,” she whispered back as fear shot through her.  Ronnie got her balance and tried to stand again.

“Stay
here
!” he hissed, shoving her back down. 

Ronnie would have protested, but he took off too quickly and disappeared through the trees.  A chill skated down her spine, and she hugged herself.  She looked back into the clearing and squinted to see that the men were stubbing out their smokes.  They shifted their guns to their backs, then walked together to the back of the van and opened the doors. 

A few minutes later small shadows moved at the back of the van and there was a flurry of activity.  The night sounds in the woods went quiet.  Ronnie’s ears honed in on whimpers that echoed across the clearing.  They sounded almost like sounds agitated kittens might make and were followed by stern shouts in Spanish. 

Ronnie could hear the angry male voices echoing across the clearing. 
Move bitch
. 
On your knees over there, or I’ll shoot you whore
.

Shoulders hunched, the poorly dressed women walked single file into the clearing then dropped to their knees.  It was dark, but Ronnie quickly figured out why the ten or so women had walked single-file when she heard chains clinking.  They were chained together like slaves.  The mission here tonight suddenly didn’t seem so unnecessary to her.

Those women
were
slaves.  And they were chained just like she had been at the Diamond Bar ranch.  She wouldn’t doubt they were drugged too.  All of the other shackles around that room suddenly made sense now.  This was how women who were trafficked were treated.  Like animals. Chattel.  Disposable property.  And that pissed her off. 

No wonder Trace had been so adamant about coming out here tonight.  Any human being with even half a heart would find it abhorrent.
  If regular people were aware of exactly what human trafficking meant, she was sure they would be doing more to stop it.

Trace had seen this for six months at that ranch and couldn’t do a damned thing to help these women.  It had to have driven him crazy.  Ronnie had just been exposed to it for six minutes now, and she was feeling that way.
  Hearing about human slavery was one thing.  Actually seeing it firsthand was quite another.  Whatever she had to do, she was going to help Trace help these women.  Ronnie was just glad Dave was here, because other than helping him communicate with them, she didn’t know what she could do.

Something moved out of the shadows across the clearing and darted toward the rocks then disappeared.  Another shadow followed, and Ronnie figured out that must be Dave and Jamie getting into position.  Something was about to happen
.  She wished she knew what that was.  If they had given her a damned radio she might know.

Suddenly the two men’s attention swung to the trees on Ronnie’s side of the clearing
.  Adrenaline shot through her veins and her heart kicked hard in her chest.  The men stiffened, then grabbed for their weapons.  Trace’s stern voice stopped them.  In broken Spanish, he shouted, “We have you surrounded  Throw down your guns and put your hands up.”  They jerked their weapons up and he cautioned tersely, “ Easy, or you’re dead.”

Both
men slid the strap of their weapons over their head then bent over and laid them at their feet.  “Kick them away,” Trace ordered. 

The
y toed the big guns, but didn’t kick them as Trace instructed.  Ronnie heard a metallic click resonate on the night air from somewhere behind the van.  The men jumped and quickly shoved the weapons away from them with the toe of their boots.  Trace moved out of the woods and into the beam of the headlights.  Jamie scrambled down the rocks on his butt, then edged around the van to stand beside him.  Both had their weapons pointed at the men.

A twig snapped behind her, and before Ronnie could scream a beefy hand clamped down over her mouth
and a strong arm closed around her waist.  Ronnie struggled but couldn’t break his iron grip that was holding her arms at her sides.  She heard a sound like the sound she’d heard behind the van and a chill left goosebumps on her skin as it skated along her nerves.  Someone had cocked a gun and she had no doubt they would use it if she kept resisting.  Her body stilled, and her captor removed his hand and stepped back from her.  Ronnie spun around and saw there were three men, not one there.  All of them were heavily armed, and none had covered their dark-skinned faces. 

“
Make a sound, puta, and I’ll kill you,” the man with his gun pointed at her said in Spanish.  She swallowed hard and nodded.  Nonchalantly, she slid her hand into her pocket to assure herself the taser Dave had given her was still there.  What she was going to do with the piddly weapon against three armed brute-like men, Ronnie didn’t know.  But she felt just a little better knowing she could do
something
to try and help herself.  If they didn’t shoot her before she had a chance.