The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 2

by Maegan Beaumont

  “I know,” Maddox sat back in his chair, watching her carefully. “I’m the one who suggested this place when Benjamin was looking for somewhere to stash the two of you.” He looked around again, taking in the dull, dark gray of the canyon’s walls. “This place seemed just as good as any—” His eyes sparkled with something that looked like mischief. “and better than most.” They were made almost entirely of iron—so densely packed with metals and minerals that drilling into them proved nearly impossible. They’d been abandoned over a century ago by miners for their impregnability. Sold to the government for pennies on the dollar and preserved as national forest under President Roosevelt’s land conservation act. During the late nineties, a house had been built—one nearly as impregnable as the canyon that surrounded it—so that the president at the time, who’d fancied himself a frontiersman, could play homesteader in peace.

  It was the Camp David no one knew about, abandoned as soon as the presidential frontiersman left office. Forgotten until Leon, who, as representative of the state that housed it, had been one of its only frequent visitors, remembered it and mentioned it and its unique properties to Ben.

  Brokering the sale of a few hundred acres of inaccessible national forest on the US/Canadian border to an equally private buyer had hardly garnered notice. It had been requesting the sale of this land that had been Leon Maddox’s last acts as a US senator and it’d gone off without a hitch.

  “The message…” she said, her gaze drifting downward again. She let it settle on the envelope. “Is it about Val? Jason or Riley? Are they—” She couldn’t even bring herself to think it, let alone say it.

  The old man leaned across the table and took her hand. “Far as I know, everyone is okay.” He gave it a squeeze. He understood where she was. He’d been there. Not knowing. Wondering if something you’d done or said had caused the hurt of someone you care for. He let go of her hand and sat back in his chair. “The message—he said it was for your ears only.” Leon raised his gaze to the back door that was cracked open behind her. The sound of the broom being dragged across the plank floor never stopped.

  A message from Ben. One, for whatever reason, he didn’t want Michael to hear. At least not right away.

  “Well, Leon,” she said as she stood. “Let’s take a walk by the river so you can give me this message and then you can be on your way—you’ve got a long drive home.”

  5

  Michael could hear them talking quietly on the porch, their voices barely above a whisper but he didn’t need to listen. He discerned everything he needed to know the moment he recognized Leon Maddox through that sun-beaten windshield.

  Sabrina was leaving.

  He’d known it would come—that she’d leave him eventually. He’d known. Even if she hadn’t. He’d called them all orphans but that was a lie. She had a family. People who loved and needed her. A life—a real life. One he never had a place in. One he couldn’t compete with. He knew that. Understood it. Accepted it, even. But accepting it didn’t make it any easier to take.

  He dragged the broom across the wood, carefully catching shards of glass and bits of congealed cheese sandwich in its bristles. He extended the handle, reaching underneath the converted larder to make sure he picked up everything he’d broke. Inside the cabinet, loose bullets rattled and rolled across its bottom. He’d have to re-organize it after the kids went to bed. He didn’t like them to watch him handle guns unless it was absolutely necessary.

  The creak of the porch steps brought his head up and he watched as Leon and Sabrina stepped down into the yard, heading for the river. Most men would’ve fixed that step to stop its creaking by now, but not him. The back step leading to his home creaked on purpose. So he’d be able to hear someone approaching the back door. Someone who meant to kill them. It would give away their position so he could kill them first.

  That’s the kind of life he had to offer her.

  He stooped, carefully sweeping the pile of debris on the floor into the waiting dustpan before dumping it in the trash. He stood there longer than he should’ve watching Sabrina and the old man stroll along the water. For a moment, he was able to convince himself the message he’d brought was a good one. That Val and her cop husband had had another baby. That Sabrina’s old partner, Strickland had gotten married. That her old homicide captain, the one who hated her, had been hit by a bus.

  “She’s leaving us, isn’t she?”

  He turned to see Christina standing in the doorway. She looked the same way he felt. Powerless. Resigned.

  He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He moved toward the pantry to store the broom and dustpan. “I hope not,” he said looking at her for a moment.

  “You’re lying.” She cast her glance farther, out the window to where Sabrina stood talking with Maddox near the hood of his truck.

  “Have I ever lied to you?” he said, hanging the broom and dustpan from their respective hooks before closing the pantry door. Come to think of it, Christina was the only person in his life he hadn’t lied to at some point or another.

  “No,” she said, her tone hard and quiet. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

  “I promised you a long time ago that I would never lie to you. I don’t plan on starting now.” He closed the closet door and turned toward her. “How do you feel about pancakes for dinner?”

  Instead of answering she rushed him, throwing her arms around his waist to bury her face in his shirt. “I don’t want her to leave, Michael.” She looked up at him, her chin digging into his sternum. “Don’t let her.”

  He passed a hand over her dark hair and shook his head. She’d lost so much because of him. Her mother. Her father. And now this. Another loss he was powerless to stop.

  He wanted to lie to her. Tell her he’d do as she asked. Make her believe he had the power to make Sabrina stay. Instead, he smoothed his palms over her shoulders, gripping them before setting her away.

  “What if her family needs her?” he said, hunkering down to look her in the eye. It was his worst nightmare—that Sabrina’s association with him could bring her family to harm. “Maybe her brother or her sister is in trouble. Maybe she’s the only one who can help them.”

  “I don’t care. She chose us.” Christina set her jaw and glared up at him. “She doesn’t get to take it back.”

  “I wish it were that easy… but if we love her—really love her—then we should want her to do the right thing, even if that thing hurts us.” He dropped his hands away from her shoulders and straightened his stance to look down at her. “That’s who she is. She’s the person who does the right thing, no matter what. It’s one of the reasons we love her so much.”

  Behind him, he could hear the engine in Leon’s truck turn over and catch, rumbling to life under its worn hood. The porch step creaked again, a moment before the screen door wheezed on its hinges. “Go play with Alex,” he said to Christina, his tone telling her there was no room for argument.

  “I want chocolate chips in my pancakes,” she said, a small act of defiance before she turned and stomped from the room, each footfall so heavy the dishes in the larder’s matching hutch rattled with every step. Sabrina was a purist. She hated chocolate chips in her pancakes.

  “I’m not going.”

  He turned to find Sabrina standing just inside the kitchen, her back pressed against the doorframe. The manila envelope in her hand, unopened.

  Behind her he could see Leon’s tailgate bumping across the bridge. He had the insane urge to blow it up. To kill the old man for what he’d done. For taking her away from him.

  She took a step toward him, moving to the side so she could shut the door, blocking his view of Leon’s retreat. Like she could read his mind. Like she could see murder on his face. She tossed the envelope onto the counter like it didn’t matter.

  “Did you hear me? I said I’m not—”

  “Christina wants chocolate chips in her pancakes.” He moved toward the refrigerator, pulling it open to retrieve eggs and
butter. It was still too early to make dinner but he needed to move. Needed to do something so he didn’t grab her and lock her away to make her stay. “Any objections?”

  Her mouth closed and she shook her head. “No. Chocolate chips are fine.” She dug her hands into the front pockets of her cargos—a sure sign he was making her nervous. That she had more to say but was keeping it to herself because she knew he didn’t want to hear it. Not yet anyway.

  He watched her hands for a moment, the way they twisted in her pockets, before turning away from her. It’s funny, how people who love each other pick up one another’s habits. He wondered how long it would take her to break his after she was gone.

  6

  As promised, Michael made her pancakes for dinner.

  The kids set the table, Christina plunking each plate down with a resounding thud while Alex followed her around the table with knives and forks. Neither of them would look at her. For Alex that was normal—he never looked at her—but Christina’s unwillingness to acknowledge her spoke volumes. Somehow, she knew what was going on. Judging from her sullen glares and stubborn silence, Christina had already made up her mind she was leaving and she hated her for it.

  Sabrina’s gaze strayed from her plate, over Michael’s shoulder to the manila envelope sitting on the counter by the backdoor. Maddox had handed it to her before he left. “I’m supposed to give these to you,” he said grudgingly, slapping the thick packet into her hand. “For what it’s worth, you and him—” he jerked his head toward the porch. “You earned the right to be selfish. You earned the right to want something for yourselves—a life, here, together.”

  She closed her hand around the envelope and pulled it from his grip. “Are you telling me not to open it?”

  Sharp brown eyes peered at her from the shadow cast by the wide brim of his hat. “I’m telling you that if you took that envelope and tossed it into your fireplace the second I left,” Maddox said before climbing into his truck and turning it over. “I’d be a happy man.”

  She hadn’t tossed it in the fireplace. Hadn’t opened it either. She had an idea of what was in it and didn’t particularly want to see it but she’d couldn’t force herself to walk away from it either.

  “May I be excused?”

  Christina’s stiff request, a throwback to her nightly formal dinners with her sociopathic, drug lord father, brought her back to the present. Michael nodded, wiping his mouth on his napkin, gaze locked onto her face. He knew her better than anyone. Sometimes it made her uncomfortable, the way he could read her. She dropped her gaze and focused on her pancakes.

  “Yes,” he said. Before she could even blink, Christina bolted, Alex on her heels. They finished their dinner in silence, Michael chewing each bite like he had a mouthful of nails. Her trying to find a way to convince him he was wrong. That she wasn’t going anywhere. Finally finished, he lifted his plate from the table and carried it to the sink. He hadn’t said a word to her in hours.

  Sabrina stood, clearing the table of the remaining dishes and carrying them to the sink. She scraped them clean before filling the sink with hot water and adding soap. Washing dishes, she watched Michael in the reflection of the kitchen window as he re-organized the gun cabinet, stacking boxes of ammo and making sure each rifle and handgun were in their proper place as if their lives depended on it. From the living room, Alex’s voice came in stops and starts as he cautiously read The Mouse and the Motorcycle to Christina, his heavily accented words coming in stops and starts, while she offered quiet words of encouragement. It reminded her of how she’d been with Leo Maddox. Offering him friendship and compassion in defiance of her father.

  “She’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?” she said, still watching Michael in the refection of the window. Behind her he stopped what he was doing for a moment and listened.

  “She is,” he answered quietly, his attention refocused on the task at hand.

  “She must take after Lydia,” she said. They’d never really talked about Christina’s mother. What had happened to her. Sabrina knew Christina’s father had killed her and that Michael blamed himself but they’d never talked about her. The kind of person she was. How he’d felt about her.

  “Not really,” he said while he re-fit .50 caliber bullets into their carton. “Lydia was softer. Quicker to see and believe the best in people. Christina’s been through too much to allow herself to be fooled.” Carton filled, he stacked it on top of the others inside the larder and shut the door. In the black of the window, she watched as he checked his watch. “I’m going out to the barn.”

  It wasn’t what he said, he went the barn every night after dinner—it was his tone that bothered her. Removed. Controlled. Like her mind had already been made up. Like she was already gone.

  Sabrina turned away from his reflection, toward him. “Michael—”

  That was as far as she got before he passed through the door, pulling it shut behind him. She wanted to follow him. Force him to talk to her. To listen to her, make him believe her when she said she wasn’t going anywhere.

  Instead, she finished the dishes, carefully washing each plate and fork before drying it and putting it away in the cupboard. Next she wiped out the cast iron skillet with a paper towel before hanging it back on its hook above the stove.

  In the living room, Alex finished reading and Christina praised him before asking if he wanted to watch a movie. It was their routine. Afterward, they’d go to bed and tomorrow, they’d do it all over again. The same, everyday…

  Sabrina looked at the envelope. Its tab and the string that wound it closed as red as blood. She’d been wiping the counter around it for a while now. Circling. Stalling. Making it impossible for her to pretend nothing had changed.

  Drying her hands on the seat of her cargos, she finally picked it up, carrying it to the table. She sat down, unwinding the string that closed it, and opened Pandora’s Box

  7

  The barn wasn’t really a barn. Not anymore anyway. Its fifteen hundred square feet had been converted into a multi-purpose workspace long before they’d gotten here. Mechanic bays held the classic cars he’d inherited from his father—the ’71 Challenger and his dad’s Roadster had been waiting for him when they’d arrived. Tinkering on them, even if he couldn’t drive them, staved off the restlessness that crept in. He strode past the cars without sparing them a glance. Grabbing a tire iron as he went, he headed for the long work table stretched along the back wall.

  Right now, he wasn’t thinking about spark plugs or oil changes. Right now he was thinking of one thing and one thing only.

  Yanking the canvas drop cloth off the table, he stared at what was underneath. His fingers flexed around the hard length of metal in his hand, gripping it so tight he could feel the pull of it across his shoulders. He wanted to smash it, swing the iron into it again and again until it was nothing but a useless pile of plastic and wires.

  Instead, he tossed the tire iron onto the table beside it and switched it on.

  Like his cars, the ham radio had been here when they arrived. It was their contingency plan—his and Ben’s. A low-tech way to communicate if things went bad. A way that wouldn’t inadvertently trigger the microchip Ben’s father had grafted to his spine and kill him.

  Michael was to turn his radio on every night at 7PM and leave it on for thirty minutes. That was the window—if there was a problem, Ben was supposed to use it to let him know. Warn him so he could get his family to safety in time. For a year, he’d tuned into the dedicated channel and listened to nothing but static.

  Last week, everything changed.

  “I’m sorry, man.” Ben’s voice reached through the speaker, confirming Michael’s suspicions. That Maddox had been sent here by him.

  “Only you would use a US Senator as an errand boy.”

  “I tried to do it the easy way but you ignored me… and he’s retired now.”

  A week ago, Ben’s voice had come through the speaker of his radio—Michael, I need to talk to Sabrina.
It’s important. He’d listened for a few seconds, waiting for Ben to elaborate. To tell him what it was about. Why he needed to talk to her. When he didn’t, Michael switched off the radio and went back into the house. He hadn’t turned it on since.

  “Retired or not, I almost killed him,” he ground out. He could still see Maddox, caught in the crosshairs of his scope. Feel the way his finger ached to squeeze the trigger when he realized who it was. What his being here meant.

  “But you didn’t—gold star for you,” Ben said. “Playing house must suit you.” Michael could tell from his tone he was only half joking. He was also right. Being here, filling his days with making grilled cheese sandwiches for dogs and rotating the tires on a car he hadn’t driven in years had made him soft. A year and a half ago, he would’ve pulled the trigger without a second thought.

  “It was touch and go there for a minute.”

  “You wouldn’t kill the messenger, Michael” Ben said, his tone confident. “It’s not your style.”

  “Don’t be so sure, kid. I’ve done a lot worse for a lot less.”

  “You haven’t been that guy for a long time,” Ben said, trying to convince himself he hadn’t miscalculated.

  Michael felt the weight of him—Cartero—the man he used to be, settle across his shoulders. The heaviness of him, the things he’d done, seeped into his bones. He almost welcomed the feeling. “You’d be surprised how easy he is to find, given the right circumstances.”

  Ben made a sound, like he was suddenly uneasy with the turn the conversation had taken. “Like I said, I’m sorry but—”

  “I don’t want an apology. Whatever it is, whatever you want her for…” His hands cranked tight, fisting themselves against his thighs. “I want you to make it go away.”