“Not on the phone. I haven’t been able to charge mine and the battery is going.” He coughed again in a distinct wheeze. “And Blackwell can take me in. Running failed.”
Lauren turned her head so she could look into Chris’s face. She expected to see triumph, anticipation. She read nothing in his chiseled features. He had schooled them into impassivity.
“How can we find you?” Lauren asked.
“Do you remember our cousin Marcus’s fishing cabin?”
“No.”
“It’s near Grayling, on the Manistee, not the Au Sable.”
He gave her directions. She repeated them in the hope that, between the two of them, Chris and she would remember every detail.
“That’s nearly fifty miles,” Chris said.
“I’ll be here.” He emitted a sound, half cough, half laugh. “I hope. And, Lauren?”
Chilled by his wheezing coughs, Lauren could barely manage to say, “I’m still here.”
“Don’t send the law ahead of you. It’ll help them find me faster and I need to tell you...things.”
He was gone.
Lauren’s hand, holding the phone, dropped to her side. She stared at Chris, speechless, hollow as though someone had taken a spoon and scooped out her heart and lungs, leaving her too numb to feel, to breathe.
“You heard all that?” she asked.
“All of it.” Chris removed the phone from her nerveless fingers. “I’ll go. You stay here.”
“He requested me.”
“It’s a risk. It could be a trap.”
“So you think I want to be safe and warm while my brother kills the man I—while he kills you?” Her voice rose. “There’s no way I’ll do that. There’s no way I’ll sit here imagining my worst nightmare being fulfilled.”
Chris arched one brow. “And what is that?”
“A member of my family killing you.”
“Lauren—” He cleared his throat. “I shouldn’t take a civilian along.”
“Then I’ll find a way to get there myself.”
Chris studied her face for a moment, then nodded. “I’m afraid you would. No doubt Davis has a snowmobile in his garage and you’re determined enough to drive it fifty miles.”
Heels clacked in the great room and Donna appeared in the kitchen doorway. Her face was white and stiffer than usual. “Don’t hurt my son.”
“I’ll do my best not to, Donna.” Chris spoke to the distraught mother with a gentleness that brought Lauren’s heart slamming back into her chest.
She. Must. Not. Love. Him.
But she did.
“How did you know?” Lauren asked.
“He called me and asked if I had Chris’s number. Then he hung up before I could just give Chris the phone. A good thing he didn’t want your number since you haven’t bothered to give me yours.”
“I’ll give it to you now.”
Lauren found a whiteboard hanging beside an old-fashioned landline telephone and wrote down her number. Then she wrote the directions to the cabin where Ryan had holed up.
“Will you be all right here alone?” Chris asked Donna.
“No, but not because I’m afraid of bogeymen coming after me. I’m losing my only son.” A single tear rolled down her artificially smooth cheek, then another followed and another. A sob escaped her throat. “My son. If I’d been allowed to raise him, this wouldn’t have happened.”
Or if Lauren’s mother hadn’t stolen Richard Delaney from Donna, or a thousand other things beyond their control. If her father hadn’t gone to prison and her grandmother hadn’t raised Lauren at the lake house, she might have grown up differently as well, been on the wrong side of the law by now, hacking computers instead of saving computers from being hacked.
Compassion for Donna’s wounded heart rising within her, Lauren crossed the room to wrap her arms around the older woman. She expected to be rebuffed. Instead, Donna held on, her body shaking with silent weeping for several minutes. Then she pulled away, patted Lauren on the cheek and walked into the powder room, closing and locking the door behind her.
Lauren wiped her own eyes on her sleeve. “We better get going.”
Chris nodded. “Bundle up. I’ll be back in shortly.”
Lauren complied, pulling sweatpants over her jeans, layering a sweater over her T-shirt, then her coat, scarf and boots over two pairs of thin socks. She knew how to dress for the cold. As she pulled her knit cap over her hair and donned gloves, wishing she could afford the lack of dexterity in mittens, which were warmer, she caught sight of a weather report.
“Chris, look.” She gestured to the TV.
They would be driving into a snowstorm.
“Lake effect. They always get more snow there than we get here closer to Lake Michigan.”
“Can the SUV handle it?”
“It’ll have to.” He called to Donna, still in the powder room, that they were on their way, then led Lauren into the night.
Beyond the outdoor security lights, the sky was so clear each star shone like heaven’s Christmas light display. They should be in church with candles and “Silent Night” and hot chocolate afterward. Not slipping through the darkness to meet her brother before he returned to prison—meeting him because he had given up on running.
And they could be headed into a trap. They could die. She could die without telling Chris she had never stopped loving him.
She would tell him later. Not now, not at the beginning of their journey. In silence, she climbed into the icy SUV. Cold from the vinyl seats seeped through her layered clothing. Her breaths showed like fog, steaming up the windows. A blanket still lay on the back seat. She took it and began to wipe the condensation off the insides of the windows while Chris scraped frost from the outside. Cold air blowing from the heater vents helped the foggy windows. It didn’t help her maintain the warmth she had gained inside the house.
Cold poured straight through to her marrow. At that moment, she doubted she would ever find warmth again in her heart.
Over the past five years, she had imagined moments like this. The quarry had been her father, not Ryan. The situation had been the same—her family member, her flesh and blood, caught by the man she had intended to marry. If he felt badly about it, any form of guilt, he would question his suitability for his job. If he didn’t feel guilty, he would question his suitability to be her husband. She knew him—had known him.
No, she knew him now. He hadn’t changed. He was taking far too long to scrape off the minor layer of frost on the windows. The procrastination said he didn’t want to meet her brother face-to-face and take him into custody while she watched.
Because he still loved her?
Fortunately, he climbed into the SUV and sent them shooting out of the driveway before she pursued that line of thought. The instant they hit the main road, he turned on the radio and located a station playing Christmas music. The strains of “O Holy Night” filled the cab of the SUV.
Nothing about what was to happen in an hour or so was going to be holy. But after, maybe as early as tomorrow, she could go to church and thank God that she was still alive. For now, she huddled beneath the blanket and wished the heater would begin to work.
“Doesn’t the government extend heaters to their vehicles?” she asked to break the silence between them.
“It’s working just fine, Lauren.” He turned the vent so it poured hot air onto her face.
“I’m still cold.”
“Are you running a fever?” He pulled off his glove and touched the back of his hand to her forehead. “It wouldn’t surprise me after what you’ve been through.”
“Maybe.”
But she knew she wasn’t sick and so did he. She suspected he knew as well as she did her cold stemmed from fear.
“Do you think Ryan would sell us to these men to spare his
life and escape?” Chris asked after another quarter hour of celebratory music on the radio and silence between them.
“I don’t think so. Ryan has spent too much of his life trying to protect me from anything bad.” She sighed. “But he did run from custody and lead those men to my house and to Donna’s. Who knows what a man will do to save his own skin when push comes to shove.”
Another shiver racked her body.
“You don’t need to go, Lauren. I can leave you someplace like a police station and go on my own. It’s what I’m supposed to do.”
“I told you. I’ll just follow somehow.”
“Then I think we shouldn’t drive in all the way.”
She shot him a questioning glance. “What do you mean?”
“Do you still cross-country ski?”
“Of course. But where will we get skis?”
“Davis had a pair of cross-country skis and snowshoes in his garage.”
No wonder he had taken so long to ready the SUV. He hadn’t been reluctant to go. He had been loading up equipment to get there with as little commotion as possible.
She most definitely wouldn’t tell him she still loved him. If he was this eager to catch her brother, he was thinking of his job, his duty and not of her. Admitting love for him now would simply be too humiliating to bear. She had to protect her heart.
So she didn’t accidentally look at him, Lauren kept her gaze on the side window. The view mostly consisted of dark trees and white snow, the occasional flash of a headlight in the side mirror or a house set back from the road, some lit with colorful holiday lights. Watching the passing scenery so closely gave her the first view of snowflakes. Initially, they drifted in lazy spirals like feathers from a pillow shaken too hard. The farther east Chris drove, the heavier the snow became.
“Good old lake-effect snow,” Lauren murmured.
Chris cut their speed to a crawl. “This will take us longer. Do you want to call Ryan?”
Lauren picked up Chris’s phone and keyed in the password he gave her. She found the last received number and tapped it, noting Chris had made a phone call after Ryan’s. It rang four times, then went to voice mail.
“No answer.” She returned the phone to the console. “Did you call backup?”
“I did.”
Chris didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask.
Lauren returned to staring out the side window. The snow was so heavy she could barely see the trees along the way. No headlights met them coming from the east and none from behind. They lost their radio station, and Chris found another, distant, staticky.
Then suddenly, headlights blazed into the SUV, glaring off the mirrors, a vehicle twice their size or so it seemed, speeding too fast for the slippery conditions, growing closer... Closer...
Chris spun the wheel, driving them into the opposite lane. The SUV fishtailed, engine roaring. Then the tires caught pavement beneath the layer of snow and they sped east, passing the oncoming traffic with mere inches to spare. Behind them, the truck charged ahead, a black vehicle with oversize tires.
“They’re following us.” Lauren grasped her knees to hold herself steady.
She would not panic. This was a time for cool heads, for calm.
Beside her, Chris’s profile was grim. “Do you think they know where to go?”
“I have no idea. I didn’t know my cousin had a fishing cabin out here. I haven’t seen him in at least ten years and didn’t have much to do with him when I did see him.”
“Part of the family business?”
She listened for the edge, the hardness in his tone, but didn’t hear it.
She inclined her head. “I expect so. Since I stayed out of the family business, I have no idea who is or is not involved. But you don’t have to believe me. It’s irrelevant right now.”
“It is, but I believe you.”
She felt like a starving dog just tossed a slice of stale bread. It was the nicest thing anyone had said to her in too long. Or so she felt, besotted fool that she was.
“Then do you believe me about your gun?”
“I do.” He set their speed to a crawl long enough to squeeze her hand. “I’m sorry I doubted you.”
Now, that was an entire meal’s worth of kindness, a balm for her aching heart for weeks to come.
“Thank you.” Her voice was rough. She cleared her throat. “So what do we do now?”
“I think I saw a turnoff up here. Maybe we can go in a back way, especially if those men don’t know where we’re going exactly.”
“We could end up in unplowed territory.”
“I think we have to risk it.”
So they did. They couldn’t stay on the main road with the men in the truck so close.
On the side road, their cell phones lost signal. The radio station turned to static hissing like a taunt. Snow encased their vehicle like a shroud, and ahead the narrow lane ended at a cabin so dark and piled with snow no one could have been there for days. The river ran beyond it, a complete barricade.
“The cabin shouldn’t be more than a mile or two from here.” Tone full of forced cheerfulness, Lauren rested her hand on the door. “Time to strap on those skis.”
Chris donned snowshoes that would have been too large for Lauren. She strapped her feet into the cross-country skis and accepted the flashlight Chris pulled from the back of the SUV. She wouldn’t be able to handle it while skiing, but he had another one.
He held up something else, barely visible in the snow-luminous night. “Flares. Ready?”
“I’m ready.”
The snow was wet and heavy, making going difficult. She hadn’t been on skis yet that year and needed a few minutes to regain her rhythm of gliding steps. Difficult as it was, walking would have been worse.
They followed the line of the river, the gurgle of the water, not yet frozen, guiding them along the way. They didn’t talk as they listened for signs of other people in the woods. They turned off the flashlight from time to time to let their eyes adjust to the dark and seek other lights.
They smelled the smoke before they saw or heard anything else. Lauren lifted her head, nostrils flaring at the same time Chris stopped and flicked off the flashlight. “I think we’re close. Proceed with caution.”
They edged forward, two snow-encrusted figures making no more sound than the wind in the trees and the current of the river. And they reached the cabin—a house, really—with light shining through slits in drapes over a sliding glass door.
Though she stood motionless, Lauren’s heart raced ahead of her. If they were right, Ryan was inside. The question was, who else might be there?
“I’m going in,” Chris said. “Wait here. If I don’t signal you that all’s clear, take off and drive for population as fast as you can.” Keys jingled, and he handed her the ring. “The SUV keys.”
“But he asked for me. I should go in.”
“Not with that truck on our tail earlier.”
“But, Chris, it’s dangerous, isn’t it?”
“Which is why I need to go alone. It’s my job.”
Tell him. Tell him. Tell him.
Now was the time to tell him she loved him, before he stepped into what could be an ambush.
She said nothing. Chris kicked off the snowshoes and headed across the yard. His footfalls made no sound on snow-clad steps and deck. He reached the door and knocked. Lauren held her breath, waiting for a blast of gunfire.
* * *
Chris kept out of the direct line of sight to the door or window. He heard nothing from inside the house. From outside, he heard nothing human other than his own breaths and the whisper of his boots through the snow.
He reached the door and knocked. “Ryan, it’s Chris Blackwell.”
Instinct told him to approach Ryan as a person, not as Deputy US Marshal Chris Blackwell. Doing s
o might work or might get him killed anyway.
He thought he heard the scrape of chair legs on a wood floor.
“Ryan?”
The door sprang open to the end of a security chain. “Where’s Lauren?”
“Around. Are you alone?”
“Are you?”
“For now.”
“Bring Lauren up and you can come in.” Ryan’s voice sounded breathless, weak.
“Let me see if you’re alone.” Chris would protect Lauren first.
Ryan closed the door. Rattling suggested he was removing the security chain. The door opened again, wide this time, to a living room and dining room combination with a kitchen on the other side of a breakfast bar. Two rooms opened off the great room, both doors open. Men could be hiding behind the doors of those rooms or the breakfast bar, but Chris didn’t think so.
“Hurry,” Ryan said. “The light will show for miles out here.”
Chris turned to call to Lauren, but she was already racing across the yard, slipping and sliding and rushing up the steps to fling herself at her brother.
“You idiot! You shouldn’t have run away. Are you sick?”
Ryan extracted himself from her embrace, though he smiled down at her. “I’m sick. I think I have an infection in my leg and maybe pneumonia. I can’t keep running.” He dropped onto a dining chair, his face white with dark circles like bruises beneath his eyes. “The point of running is done anyway.”
Chris closed and locked the door. “What was the point of running, other than making you look guilty before being proved so?”
“They were going to kill me.” Ryan rested his elbows on the table and supported his head in his hands. “They’re still going to kill me. But I don’t have the strength to go on.”
“Someone is trying to kill us too. Who is it, Ryan?” Lauren sat beside her brother and rested one hand on his shoulder.
Chris crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the wall beside the door, loving Lauren for her compassion to her brother despite all he had put her through.
“Why did you drag Lauren into danger, Delaney?” Chris demanded.
Perilous Christmas Reunion Page 17
