Warrior Mine (7 page)

V
ail braced
his forehead against the tree and pulled a breath. His billowed exhale caught in the porch light’s dull glow, curling like smoke as it lifted and dissipated, shoved on by the sharp breeze. The cold had driven him to move far sooner than he should have. If he’d waited until the dim morning hours, she’d have been asleep, tucked safely in the bed and out of harm’s way. He held no delusions that the man wouldn’t have just as easily snatched her from sleep to cower, like the worthless wretch he was, behind the innocent girl. But later in the night the bastard would have been sleeping too, and wouldn’t have had the opportunity.

He pushed off the smooth bark. Crimson on his hands caught his attention. The dried crusty stuff on the left one was his. The slick fresh blood coating the right was not. Turning to the small shed, he shoved the arm dangling out of the narrow wood frame inside with his foot and shut the door. When the latch caught the thing flapped like a sheet of paper in the wind. He shook his head and headed up the hill to wash off. With any luck the door would hold until his team could get here and deal with the pile of bodies inside.

None of the men, the few he’d left alive for the briefest of moments, had been able to tell him much he didn’t already know. Carlos had learned Carmen planned to leave the family, ordered her daughter—his niece—kidnapped and held until further notice.

“No harm! No harm to her! Senior!” Manuel Dominguez’s pathetic cries still rang in his ears.

How could they not see that taking a child from everything she knew and holding her captive for weeks on end wouldn’t harm her? He plainly saw that his actions, killing two men before her pure eyes, had hurt her. That thread combined with the others in his head, forming the world’s largest ball of yarn inside his skull.

Why did she have to be a little girl? A woman he could handle. But he wasn’t equipped to handle a child of any gender, most especially a girl.

Vail made his moves through the house deliberate, letting her track his progress. His earlier comings and goings he’d kept quiet. She didn't need to see him hauling dead men, cleaning up their blood—or the filth of their existence. The place made a pigsty seem inviting, and it had taken twice as many loads to clear out the trash as it had the burly bastards. He’d also stayed quiet to give her privacy. When he cried, which wasn’t often these days, he didn’t want an audience. She probably didn’t either.

No. That wasn’t quite true. She probably wanted her mother there. He imagined Carmen’s swollen curves in a whole new light, as a mother, pulling her daughter to her bosom. She’d hold Sophia with her entire body wrapped around the girl. Like the physical barrier could block out the bad. Like she’d protect her with her life.

She would. He’d seen it in Carmen’s eyes the moment she’d dropped into his office. He just hadn’t realized it. Vail liked to think his mother would have done the same for him. But she’d never been pushed to it. Ellie… Ellie had thrown her arms across her middle in a desperate attempt to keep the bullets from her baby.

Moisture that had nothing to do with the water pouring from the sink’s spout plopped onto his bare forearms. The fat tears spread across his skin and pooled in a muscled groove before sliding down to meet the water trapped in the basin.

“Damn it.”

He rinsed off the remaining soap and wiped the tears on the shoulders of his shirt. Set on holding his emotions in check and coaxing Sophia out of her room, he turned away from the dark window and darker thoughts. Slowly he ascended the stairs, giving Sophia time to adjust to the idea of him. She had to be scared out of her mind. At twelve he’d have shit himself if he’d witnessed what she had. And he had military parents who talked
Guns and Ammo
articles over the dinner table, war tactics while they went about the cleaning.

Knuckles at the door, he stilled. She had that kind of mother. They wouldn’t talk guns at the table, but ten to one odds Carmen had taught her daughter the slick moves she’d used on the steps. Never underestimate an opponent or a person frightened out of their wits. He’d learned the hard way in the beginning of his career and had a small scar on his bicep to prove it. Sidestepping, he placed the log wall between them, instead of the hollow door. Then he knocked.

Light footsteps shuffled across the floor, and then the lock
snicked.
One eye leveled about his sternum peered through a slit in the door. A wide circle, dark as semi-sweet chocolate, brimmed with lashes and nurtured a degree of sadness that shot him right in the heart. That gaze looked so much like her mother’s.

God, what a softie.

The door swung wide and she walked to the bed. Not backward exactly. Not forward facing either. No, both her eyes stayed planted on him. So he stayed put, watching her sneakers shuffle. Her gray sweatshirt with white polka dots kicked to the side. Its wide-cut neck revealed a red striped tank and a bit of her puny collarbone. Slim fitting dark jeans punctuated just how narrow she really was. When she came down the steps he hadn’t seen it. Her nerve and sneer had masked her fragility.

The gun snagged his attention the moment she opened the door, but he didn’t worry. If she’d wanted him dead she’d have shot through the door or as soon as she’d cracked it.

“Are you going to shoot me?” he queried.

“No.” She sat on the edge of the bed and catalogued him from head to foot. The muscles in her face didn’t move much, like they too were as exhausted as the set of her shoulders said she was. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“No.”

“Kidnap me?”

“No. I think you’ve had one too many kidnappings already.”

“Molest me?”

“God!” Vail head jerked back as though the little girl boasted a left hook Henry Cooper would envy. “No.” And boy did she. Direct. Watchful. Tiny. “Hell no,” he added for good measure. Too late he thought better of the curse and gnawed the inside of his cheek.

“Okay.” She nodded toward a small wooden chair just inside the doorway. The top of her curly ponytail flashed black in the room’s fluorescent light, but shaded brighter at the ends in natural highlights.

Vail stepped into the room and took the chair, leaving its back against the wall.

“You’re bigger than I expected,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“You were so quiet. When you snuck up on us…before, I thought you had to be small and skinny to move that way. Not that you’re fat or anything.”

He folded his hands in his lap and—trying to make her more comfortable—lowered his eyes. The gun and red-tinged knife handle sat snug in the holster and sheath.

Son of a bitch.

He’d cussed more in his head and aloud in the last day than he had in the last year. It never occurred to him. Just like it never occurred to him to remove the holster before talking to a frightened child.

“I’m…sorry. I…should have removed my sidearm. I didn’t mean for you to see what you saw. I’m sorry for scaring you then and now. That was never my intent.”

Her little fingers shoved beneath her lap on either side as she nodded. “What is your intent?”

“To return you to your mother.”

Her hands flew to her mouth and her head bobbed like his grandfather’s cork, frequent and unceasing. Tears welled. The breaths expanding her slight chest came faster and faster.

Vail’s instinct to run from the room as though it were on fire churned the blood in his veins. He shifted in the chair and, unaware, turned his feet toward the door.

“I’m sorry,” she cried.

“It’s okay,” he lied. Realizing his unease must be adding to her own, he settled. “Have you eaten? Could you eat anything, if I cooked it? Swear on my grampa’s prized pig it wouldn’t be poisoned.”

Her brow furrowed. She shook her ponytail. “If I ate, I’d probably hurl and make you that much more uncomfortable.”

Well, she was sharp. “Fair enough. I’ve cleaned the place up. So, you don’t have to worry about seeing anything.”

“That’s what took forever,” she said with a tremulous laugh. “I thought you’d left, but I knew you hadn’t because you said to wait for you. For some reason, I knew you weren’t lying.”

“I’ll never lie to you. The truth hurts sometimes, but at least it’s honest.”

“Yeah.” She swiped the backs of her hands under her eyes.

“I know you’ve been here for a while, but we’re going to stay a few more days. Until I figure a few things out, this is the safest place for you. Can you handle that?”

“What’s a few more days in this dump,” she shrugged.

“Okay.” He shifted to stand. Sophia’s eyes bugged and Vail was shocked they could get any bigger. The poor girl was obviously uncomfortable. He eased back into the chair. “It’s late and I have to make a phone call,” he said by way of explanation.

She blinked and shivered. Those big brown eyes darted this way and that while she thought. “I’d like to hear whatever call you have to make. You know, if you’re not going to lie about anything, you can talk in front of me.”

“True enough.” Vail pulled a small phone from his cargo pocket. Satellite phones sure had shrunk since his active duty days. He stared at the keypad for a minute trying to remember the number he never dialed because he was always on the other end of the phone. After a beat his fingers took over, pounding out the long series of digits. A chime rang and he spoke. “Whiskey. Oscar. Lima. Foxtrot. Mike. Alfa. November. Two. Zero. Zero. Two.” After a couple more beeps silence stretched so long every hair on the back of his neck stood on end. “Hello?”

A quavering female voice answered, “Commander?”

Shit.

He should’ve thought about this sooner. His poor secretary probably suspected he was calling from beyond the grave to remind her to file the bi-annual reports to the UN’s Audit Operations Committee. Everyone at the Base Branch office, except for Khani, thought he was compost. They’d had his funeral, buried him next to Ellie and Deanna. They didn’t know he’d been there for almost thirteen years already.

“Yes,” he said. He realized how terribly uneventful the single word was, but Sophia’s fastidious gaze unnerved him. At twelve years old, she had the eyes of a trained operative. She’d have to, living with the likes of Carlos Ruez and his men. He promised to tell the truth. Yet, he found the need to protect her from the ugliness of the world took precedence. He wouldn’t lie, but he wouldn’t give her more to deal with tonight than the maelstrom she’d already witnessed.

“Y… You’re alive? How? Oh my god,” Rhonda whispered, “I need to get Lieut—”

“Rhonda, you’re not new to this job. You’ve seen and heard the crazy stuff that happens every day. I’m just fine, but no one can know that yet. No one.”

“Oh…yes, sir. But you’re okay? I mean, I saw all the blood. I put a rose on your…” she broke off and gave a sniffle.

Great, he’d made two women cry today. Since he could rely on Khani to cuss a longshoreman into a belly-up position and not ever think about crying on him, he spoke quickly. “I need to speak with LT Slaughter. She already knows. She’s the only one besides you, now.”

“Yes, sir. I’m glad you’re all right, sir.” The line went quiet.

Vail chanced a look at Sophia. Her shoes lay askew at the side of the bed. The knobby ends of her knees pointed to either side of the room. Ankles knotted, she clutched a pillow in the X of her folded arms. A crease ridged the skin between her brows as she continued to study him.

“What the hell are you doing calling here? I thought you were smarter than that. Shit, I thought you were the smartest man I knew. And that’s saying something because the lot of you are hardly one step removed from apes to my way of thinking,” Khani rambled.

“I hate to drop the average down a notch, but I need clean up on aisle five,” he said.

“That’s not funny,” Khani growled. “If you’re bored, play solitaire. But you’re not getting out until I get some answers. And since you won’t let me question Ruez, I’m stuck going the long way around.”

“I am out,” he said simply.

A moment of silence hung in the quiet phone static while she tried to work things out. “Were you attacked?”

“I found a lead. I followed it,” he said by way of answer.

“By yourself? In your condition? Without getting my input or at least giving me a heads up?” Each question grew in volume.

Sophia’s brows rose with each raised pitch. “Are you in trouble?” she mouthed.

He thought about that for a moment, and then shook his head.

Her baby fat cheeks rounded as her mouth thinned in a look that said,
Yeah, sure you aren’t
.

“Hello,” Khani shouted, her irritation bringing the word straight from the top of Big Ben. “This is my job right now. Your only job was to heal.”

“I couldn’t just let it go,” he huffed. “Take a moment and put yourself in my shoes. Could you let it go?”

“Hell no,” she said with more than a hint of irritation. “Then you really do need clean up.”

“Yes,” he agreed.

“How many bodies? And do you want a team to stay with you?”

“Six and no. I may need one later, but not yet.”

“Why am I surprised?” Khani muttered to herself.

“I’ll send you the coordinates and be in touch.”

“Give us a ring, if you change your mind about back-up.”

“Will do.” He depressed the end button, sent a secure message with their location, and then slipped the phone into his pocket.

“Where are we?” Sophia had scooted back to the wall. Her small shoulders and the crown of her head rested on the dark wood. And still she surveyed him from the corner of her eyes.

“Northeast Kentucky.”

“Huh,” she muttered. “Even though my mom and I have dual citizenship, I’d never been out of Mexico. I don’t think she has either. She’s probably ripping the country apart looking for me, but she’d never think to look across the border. She’d never find me, if not for you.” She straightened her head from the wall. “Did she hire you?”

“Not exactly.”She opened her mouth to speak, but he spoke first. “I’ll tell you everything tomorrow. You’ve been through enough tonight. Sleep.” He stood and stepped to the doorway.

Sophia bolted from the wall. “Where are you going?”