by Linda Howard
She wanted him to hold her, wanted to feel his arms around her. When he’d held her and Neenah after the frightening episode with Mellor, for the first time in a long while Cate had felt…safe. Not just because Cal had protected them, though she was bemused to realize that was indeed part of her response; some primitive reactions evidently didn’t go away. The biggest part of it, though, was that suddenly she hadn’t felt so alone.
The words asking him to hold her trembled on the verge of being spoken, but she held them back. If he held her, if he put his hands on her body, she suspected more than just holding would occur. He was a man, and he wanted her. A thrill of delight went through her as she fully acknowledged that startling fact. He might be shy—no, she wasn’t even certain of that anymore, because a shy man wouldn’t have dressed in front of everyone the way he’d done. He was definitely considerate, in the way he was keeping his back to her. They were surrounded by people, and while the arrangement of boxes and the curtain might give them a little privacy, it certainly wasn’t enough to have any sexual intimacy. Their feet protruded beyond the boxes, and if Cal suddenly moved behind her, she knew the speculation that would go on. Others in this basement were awake, too, listening to rustlings and murmurs.
Public sex—or even semipublic sex—wasn’t her thing, so she was grateful for his circumspection. She wanted to feel him behind her, to feel his arms around her, but she knew that if he held her, his hand would soon be sliding down the front of her pajama bottoms.
The thought sent her nerve endings into a spasm of delight, making her jerk against him. Oh, God, she wanted him to touch her, wanted to feel his long fingers sliding into her, wanted it so intensely she had to bite back a whimper.
He reached back once again, gently patting her butt.
The agony of desire instantly morphed into a choked-back laugh. He couldn’t know what she’d been thinking, what she’d been feeling, but that gentle pat had almost seemed to say, “Hold on. We’ll get to it.”
Then she remembered that telltale jerk, and her cheeks heated. Maybe he knew after all. A little bloom of contentment unfolded inside her, and she was smiling as she drifted back to sleep.
Goss watched the sky to the east slowly begin to lighten. He was tired but not yet sleepy; he figured the sleepiness would hit at some point.
Last night had been pretty damn impressive, and intense. These boys were deadly. To a man, none of them gave a rat’s ass whether someone lived or died. He could see it in their eyes, and he recognized the expression because it was the same one he saw whenever he looked in a mirror.
Teague had looked pretty bad last night, but he’d been on his feet, so it must have looked worse than it was. What interested Goss was the shotgun; that had taken Toxtel’s interest, too. Teague had been certain this guy Creed was the shooter, but he hadn’t seen him, so what it came down to was that Teague was guessing—and Goss’s gut said that Teague was guessing wrong.
This Creed was supposedly pretty good, but Teague admittedly knew nothing about the handyman or how good he was. Goss and Toxtel both had had firsthand experience with the bastard, though. Goss knew his limits, knew he was no outdoorsman, but at the same time, he was damn good at what he did and he had excellent hearing. No one—no one—had ever successfully sneaked up behind him before, especially when he was already alert and on watch. Yet that damn handyman had done it. Goss couldn’t remember anything, not the slightest sound or warning, no sense of the air moving; it was as if he’d been attacked by a ghost.
Toxtel was just as spooked. Granted, he’d been occupied with the two women, but his instincts were as well developed as Goss’s. He hadn’t heard the handyman moving up a flight of old creaky stairs, just turned around and found himself looking down the barrel of a shotgun. In a very un-Toxtel-like admission, he’d said, “You’re a cold bastard, Goss, but this guy…this guy makes you look like the Easter Bunny.”
Shotgun…the shooter being where he wasn’t supposed to be…What were the odds that Creed and the handyman would have those things in common? He’d been out there last night, closer than Goss liked to think. He wanted the guy close, because he owed him for that knock on the head, but he wanted to know he was close. Thinking of him sitting out there, somehow invisible to Teague’s precious thermal scopes, gave Goss an uneasy feeling. Teague had been fixated on Creed, like Creed was some sort of bogeyman, but this other guy was the wild card in the deck, someone Teague hadn’t factored into the equation.
All in all, though, Goss was pleased with the way things had kicked off. Some people over there were dead, enough that a huge furor was going to be raised over this. Sooner or later someone or several someones from the surrounding ranches would need something from the hardware store, and while they might buy the “bridge out” excuse for a little while, eventually they would say something to someone, and word would get out, and next thing they knew the real state highway department would be stopping by. Then everything would go to hell. The only way that wouldn’t happen would be if the Nightingale woman gave up right away and gave them the flash drive.
Regardless of what happened, Yuell Faulkner was going down. The killings last night had guaranteed that. By losing his perspective and letting things go so far, Toxtel had set in motion a chain of events that couldn’t be halted or deflected. To give him credit, even though Toxtel’s plan was overkill, he had every expectation of winning and getting away clean, since their real names weren’t known and they would be long gone before the locals could go on foot to get help. The credit card Faulkner had used for the B and B was a dead end; Goss knew that much. He also knew that he himself was the reason this would blow up in Faulkner’s face; a crucial piece of evidence “accidentally” left behind, an anonymous phone call to the authorities, would guarantee that. He didn’t see any way Toxtel wouldn’t go down, too, and while he had nothing against Hugh, he wasn’t sentimental about him, either. Toxtel could be sacrificed. And Kennon Goss would disappear forever; it was time for another name, another identity.
The first thing Cal did when he woke was lace on his boots. “It’s almost daylight,” he said to Cate, who had sat up when he left their makeshift bed. Several other people in the basement were stirring, too.
Maureen moved to turn up the oil lamp so they could have more light.
“I’m going out to look around, see if I can find anyone else,” Cal said
Creed was awake, propping himself up on his elbows. He had dark circles under his eyes, but they were clear. “I’ve been thinking,” he said to Cal. “We’ll work on the plan when you get back.”
Cal nodded and slipped out the basement door. Outside he nodded to Perry Richardson, who was sitting in a corner of the retaining wall, a deer rifle cradled in his arms. “Seen anything?” he asked, though he knew damn well there hadn’t been any trouble.
Perry shook his head. “I was hoping some of the others would make their way here, but so far it’s been quiet.” His worried expression said that he was afraid no one had shown up because the rest of the inhabitants were dead.
“It’s bad enough,” Cal said grimly, “but it isn’t that bad. People will have gone to ground wherever they could rather than take the risk of getting out in the open.” His task this morning was to find those people, and safely get them here.
“How many—?” Perry couldn’t complete the question, but Cal knew what he was asking.
“I saw five last night. I hope that’s all.” Five friends, lying where they’d fallen. He hadn’t been able to get to them last night, didn’t know who they were, but regardless of their identities, they had been friends. He’d be able to tell more in the daylight, though he might not be able to get to them until tonight.
“Five,” Perry murmured, shaking his head as grief entered his eyes. “What in God’s name is going on?”
“I don’t know, but my guess is it has something to do with those two sons of bitches who roughed up Cate and Neenah.” If it was them, they’d brought in help. Cal had coun
ted four different firing positions, including the one beside Neenah’s house.
“But what do they want?”
Cal shook his head. Cate had given them Layton’s belongings, so the only thing left was revenge, which, as far as he was concerned, was a piss-poor reason for attacking an entire community. Come after him if they felt they had to prove their balls were bigger than his; he was the one who’d gotten the better of them, not those poor people lying on the ground. This whole thing was so over the top it didn’t make sense.
And if those two guys had nothing to do with this, then it really didn’t make sense and he was completely in the dark.
23
CAL WORKED HIS WAY UNDER THE CONTRERASES’ HOUSE, crawling on his belly through mud, debris, and spiderwebs. All sorts of bugs love the dark, damp protected spaces under a house, and this one was no different from most, in that it offered lots of darkness and dampness. Good thing he wasn’t bothered by bugs and spiders.
He paused at every ventilation grate, cautiously peering through with quick movements of his head, in case one of the shooters was scanning with a thermal scope and just happened to notice that one of the grates in the foundation was glowing brighter than the others. Catching him looking would be nothing more than luck—bad on his part, good on theirs. Scopes didn’t have a wide field of vision, so they couldn’t get a good overall view; the shooters would be scanning, constantly moving, which upped the odds in Cal’s favor. A fixed thermal-image camera would have been much more difficult to evade.
The shooters were still firing off the occasional shot to make the inhabitants keep their heads down, keep them from moving around. Head games. At some point, though, they would have to stop shooting and try to make contact, establish what it was they wanted, otherwise there was no point that he could see to this whole damn disaster.
Coming in from behind the house, he’d caught a glimpse of Mario Contreras lying half on, half off the front porch, on the left side. What he hadn’t been able to see was any sign of Gena and little Angelina, nor had they answered when he called their names. Now he was trying to see if they, too, were lying on the porch, out of his previous field of vision.
He felt sick—sick and furious. Mario’s brought the number of bodies he’d visually identified up to seven. Norman Box was dead, and so was Lanora Corbett. Mouse Williams would never again rattle on and on in the squeaky voice that had given him his nickname. Jim Beasley had died with a rifle in his hand, trying to fight back. Same with Andy Chapman. Maery Last, a sweet little woman in her seventies, was lying in the road in front of her house. Slowed by arthritis, she hadn’t been able to move as fast as the others. Friends, all of them, and he was afraid he’d find more. Where were Gena and Angelina? God, if that cute little girl was dead—
He pushed the thought away, not wanting to anticipate the worst. Thank God the twins had gone home with Cate’s mom. If they’d been here, if anything had happened to those two little imps, he’d have gone nuts.
He continued crawling from grate to grate, but he couldn’t see anyone else in the yard. No Gena, no Angelina. That didn’t mean they were okay; they could be in the house, dead, or lying on the porch where he couldn’t see them.
He’d found several people alive; terrified, bewildered, but alive. Two people here, four there, a few who were alone—he hadn’t bothered to keep count of how many, because that would come later. He’d sent them all toward the Richardsons’ house, telling them the safest way, and how to get across the clear areas. Everyone needed to be in one place, so they could get organized. Several plans were formulating in the back of his mind, and he knew Creed was working on a course of action; when they knew exactly where they stood, then they’d decide what to do.
He worked his way out from under the house and tried to brush the worst of the mud off his clothes. He was wet and cold again, though the sun was now working its magic and the day promised to be considerably warmer than the day before. His boots were still wet from his soaking in the stream, and his feet were freezing. He could make do with whatever clothing the Richardsons could find for him, but he needed to get to his place if possible for another pair of boots. First, though, he had to finish locating everyone.
He picked up his shotgun, which he’d left propped against the house next to the crawlspace opening, and eased up the back steps, taking care to stay low in case one of those random shots came his way. Testing the back door, he wasn’t surprised when the handle turned easily; most people in Trail Stop didn’t bother locking their doors. Cate was one of the few who did, but she had adventurous young children and she was careful they didn’t get it into their heads to wander at night.
He was in the eat-in kitchen, a room he knew well because he’d helped Mario install Gena’s new cabinets and countertop. She’d been as excited as a child at having more storage room, at having the kitchen looking nice. “Gena,” he called softly. “It’s Cal.” Again, there was no answer.
A belly crawl was safest, so he dropped to the floor and cradled the shotgun in his arms as he moved into the living room. He’d half expected to find their bodies there, but the room was empty. The windows had been shot out, and he had to be careful not to slice himself to ribbons on the shards as he looked for blood on the floor. None. He checked the front porch. It was empty.
Next he checked the bedrooms. Mario and Gena had slept in the front one, Angelina in the smaller back bedroom. Both were empty. Again, in the front room, the windows were out. Between the two bedrooms was the bathroom, and he found himself hoping he’d find them huddled in the bathtub or something. No luck there, either.
Where in hell could they be? The only place he hadn’t looked was the attic. He hoped to hell they weren’t up there, because it was so damn dangerous, but some people, when faced with danger, automatically went as far up as they could get. He studied the ceiling, and there it was, right above his head, in the little hall between the two bedrooms: the pull-down attic stairs. If they were up there, Gena had pulled the stairs back up after them.
The ceilings were just eight feet high, so he easily reached the cord and pulled the folding stairs down. “Gena?” he called up into the darkness. “Angelina? Are you up there? It’s Cal.”
The silence was broken by a little voice saying tremulously, “Daddy?”
He felt quick relief. Angelina was alive, at least. He cleared his throat. “No, sweetheart, it isn’t Daddy. It’s Cal. Is your mommy up there?”
“Uh-huh,” she said. There were scrambling noises; then her small tearstained face appeared at the top of the stairs. “But Mommy’s hurt, and I’m scared.”
Ah, shit. Grimly Cal started up the stairs, almost certain he’d find Gena lying in a pool of blood. If she’d been shot, it had happened while she was in the attic, because there was no blood anywhere downstairs that he’d seen.
Angelina scrambled back when he reached the top of the stairs, giving him room. She was wearing her pajamas and was barefoot, which alarmed Cal until he saw the pile of old clothing that had been dragged out of a box; she had been using the clothes as covers.
The attic wasn’t finished; plywood had been placed over the floor joists of about half the space, while the other was just bare joists with insulation batting laid between the two-by-sixes. The floored space was crammed with stuff: a neatly taped Christmas tree box, old toys, a dismantled baby bed, boxes of discards. Staying bent over, he picked his way through the clutter to where Gena was sitting propped against an old chest of drawers. Angelina scrambled to her mother’s side, and Gena put her arm around her, holding her close.
Gena was ghostly white, but as Cal went down on one knee beside her, he checked for blood and didn’t see any. The attic was dim, the only light filtering through the cracks in the ceiling and the vents, too dim for him to tell much. He took her wrist and checked her pulse; it was too fast, but strong, so she wasn’t shocky. “Where are you hurt?”
“My ankle.” Her voice was restricted, her tone almost soundless. “I sp
rained it.” She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Mario…?”
Cal gave a little shake of his head, and her face crumpled at having her worst fear confirmed. “He—he told us to hide up here while he found out what was going on. I waited for him all night, expecting him to c-come get us, but—”
“Which ankle?” Cal asked, cutting her off. She had a lifetime to mourn her husband, but he had a lot to do and a short time in which to do it.
She hesitated, her eyes filling with tears, then indicated her right ankle. Cal swiftly pushed up the leg of her jeans to see how bad the ankle was. The answer was: bad. Her ankle was so swollen her sock was tightly stretched, and dark bruising extended above the fabric. She hadn’t yet gotten ready for bed when the shooting started, so she was wearing jeans and sneakers, and because of the cold she hadn’t removed the shoe. That was good, because if she had, she wouldn’t have been able to get it back on. This would slow her down big-time.
“It was cold,” Angelina put in, her big dark eyes solemn as she rested her head against her mother. “And dark. Mommy had a flashlight, but it went out.”
“It lasted long enough for us to find that box of old clothes we used to keep warm,” said Gena, drawing a shuddering breath as she tried not to break down in front of her daughter.
Cal was wordless with dismay. She had turned on the flashlight and left it on? She was damn lucky both she and her daughter were alive, because if sunlight could get in through cracks, light from inside would show through those same cracks at night. The fact that the attic wasn’t shot full of holes confirmed for him that the shooters were using thermal instead of night-vision scopes; night vision would have magnified the faint light coming through those cracks, lighting up the attic like a neon sign saying, “Shoot Here!”
They had done everything wrong, but somehow they were still alive. Man. Sometimes it just worked that way.
