Toxin Alert

by Tyler Anne Snell

  That’s what it was.

  That was who he was.

  Standing there Carly finally saw it, clear as day.

  Dylan wasn’t a punisher. He was a seeker of justice. Too bad it was the wrong kind.

  “You wanted to use what the community loved against them, just like you used what Rodney and the Lapps loved most against them.” She looked at Thomas. “Just like you’re using Thomas against me, because of Noah.”

  His anger transformed into another awful, no-good grin.

  “We’ve been watching you since you got here, Agent Welsh. It’s been easy to see that the fastest way to get the team to pay attention is go for their lead agent. And since Rodney failed, twice at that, I realized an attack against your farmer would be the next best way.” He jabbed the gun into Thomas’s side. “Now, you’re going to go out there and tell them all to stand down and let me leave or, not only is Thomas here going to die, but somewhere out there a hospital is about to be in a really bad way.”

  Carly wanted to keep talking, wanted to get to know the mind behind the senseless and selfish acts of violence and destruction, but the truth was, sometimes the bad guy was one-dimensional. Sometimes they didn’t make sense. Some didn’t know why they did what they did, and others refused to ever say.

  No one knew exactly why Carly’s father had poisoned her mother. She probably never would. It was a fact that she’d struggled with since she was ten and would most likely still struggle with until it was her time to go into the great beyond.

  But there were just some things you had to learn to accept or they’d eat you up.

  Dylan, for whatever reason, had taken the curveball thrown at him and, instead of hitting it, had decided to blow up the stadium.

  And Carly was going to have to accept that she would never fully understand why.

  So there were no more questions left to ask of the case, of the man.

  They had their answers.

  Now it was time for the wrap-up.

  “Did you get all of that?” Carly put her hand to her ear. Axel’s voice came through the earpiece in a concise answer.

  “Yes. We’ll stand down. But, Carly? He’s not going to make that call, even if we let him go. You need to get Thomas away from him before he gets into that car.”

  Carly nodded to Dylan. He snorted, unaware of the Plan B the TCD team had already accounted for.

  “You’ve been on comms the entire time. Just like in the movies. That’s clever.”

  “More like efficient,” she said. “They’ve agreed to all stand down. The car you came in is still outside. You’re free to go to it, after you give us Thomas and make the call.”

  She knew it was a no-go, but she had to make the effort.

  Dylan shook his head.

  “He comes with me to the car, then I’ll call when I’m far enough away.” He flipped his watch back and shook his head again. “Take it or leave it, because now we’re down to three minutes.”

  “Fine, but if you hurt him, the deal is off.”

  “Deal. Now go ahead of us.”

  Carly put her hands back up and led Dylan and Thomas out. She had to hand it to the boy, he was quiet and calm. He definitely was a Miller.

  The world outside the barn was quiet. Local PD had the perimeter, but to her left she saw her team and then she saw Noah and his parents.

  Everyone was watching her.

  Then all eyes were on Dylan.

  Carly turned around to face him and the car that was parked at the corner of the building.

  “Now let him go,” she said, voice low.

  Dylan’s flare of confidence was starting to fray. His eyes were wide as he looked at his audience. The firm grip he’d had on the gun was wavering.

  All she needed was one opening.

  “Dylan. Let him go.”

  That’s when she heard it.

  Small, scared and set in his own plan.

  He’d done the math.

  He’d used all of the aces up his sleeve.

  He wasn’t going to make it far, if he made it out at all.

  “No.”

  He readjusted the gun and that’s when the world was destined to become loud and chaotic.

  Thomas might have been young, but he wasn’t defenseless. He threw his weight forward just as Carly lunged at him. Dylan stumbled at the shift and gave Carly her only opening.

  She met Thomas in the middle, grabbed his arms and used his momentum to spin him around so his back was to his family.

  Just in time for her to see Noah over his shoulder as Dylan shot her in the back.

  The force of the hit sent Carly and Thomas to the ground just as the yelling started. Then the gun shots over them.

  Carly couldn’t breathe, but she stayed on top of the boy as a shield while her team used their firepower to cover them.

  The sound of a car starting preceded the screeching of tires a few moments later.

  Thomas opened his eyes.

  Forest green. Just like his brother’s.

  “Carly!”

  The edge of her vision started to go black.

  Someone walked past her, calm and cool.

  Max.

  Their Plan B.

  She heard the shot he must have taken. Then the car crash.

  Then she heard Noah.

  But she couldn’t stay awake for him.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Noah spent Christmas morning making cookies. He made reindeer-shaped ones, though they didn’t look that great. Selena told him it didn’t matter as long as the icing was done well.

  So she took over that job, while Blanca chewed on a dog bone in front of the Christmas tree.

  While the rest of the team had gone back to the inn after a busy night, she’d accepted Noah’s offer for the guest bedroom.

  She hadn’t wanted to leave her friend and, after seeing what he had yesterday, he understood.

  Carly being shot was something he absolutely never wanted to see again.

  “I was going to say I don’t mind how they look, I’ll eat the cookies, but then I heard frosting, so I’m inclined to agree with Selena.”

  The woman of the hour walked slowly into the kitchen. She’d changed out of his T-shirt and into a simple red dress with boots. Noah couldn’t help but stare.

  She laughed, then winced.

  “I brought one good holiday-worthy outfit, just in case the holiday spirit found me. But, let me tell you, this look starts and stops with the dress.” She slid carefully onto a barstool across from them. “It hurts to breathe so I’m not about to do my hair or make-up.”

  Noah frowned, remembering the moment she’d been shot.

  After Carly had used herself as a human shield for his brother, he had felt like he couldn’t breathe, either. He’d started running for her before Max ever took his one shot that ended Dylan’s luck.

  When she’d gone slack before he could get to her?

  Breathing became the least of his worries.

  But then he’d seen the bulletproof vest beneath her jacket.

  It was only after they’d been discharged from the hospital with a few bruised ribs on her left side that he’d started breathing normally again.

  “You were shot yesterday,” Selena reminded her. “I would still be in my PJs and asleep if I were you.”

  Carly laughed then winced again.

  “The smell of cookies and coffee is a surprisingly strong motivator. Speaking of—” Carly turned to Noah, an expression he couldn’t read moved across her face. Then softened. “Do you mind making me a cup?”

  It was such a simple request, but Noah knew now what it meant to ask.

  It only cemented his plans for the yellow house on the hill.

  “It would be my pleasure.”

  He
went to the coffee maker and started as Selena updated Carly on everything she’d missed while she’d been in the hospital and then sleeping in his bed.

  “Aria said that Dylan is out of surgery and should make a full recovery. The doctor actually complimented Max on the precision of the shot. It was enough to get him to wreck but didn’t kill him.” Selena snorted. “Max said he’d never gotten complimented from a doctor before about shooting someone.”

  “Hey, given he did it while walking through a field while Dylan was in a car speeding away? Max deserves all the praise as far as I’m concerned.”

  “True dat.” Selena passed Noah a finished cookie while he went for a mug in the cabinet. Carly already had one in front of her, a bite missing, in the small window of time he’d turned his back to them.

  It made him happy.

  “And what about Aaron?” she asked after giving him a little smile. “Did he tell us anything we didn’t know?”

  After Max had taken the doctor-praised shot, he’d gone ahead and grabbed Dylan’s phone and dialed the most recent call in the phone’s log.

  Aaron had answered, but hadn’t believed Max until Noah’s brother, Aaron’s best friend, had told him that it was over.

  In fact, his mother, Willa, had just been admitted into the same hospital.

  Aaron had cooperated 100 percent after that. He’d stayed with the still-sealed bags of anthrax until hazmat had arrived.

  They’d been the ones to discover that the bags contained flour, not anthrax.

  Apparently Dylan’s seemingly endless supply had had an end.

  Selena nodded.

  “Well, more of ‘filled in some blanks.’ You know the creepy surveillance room? Apparently he was the one forced to install the cameras at the inn when we were out in the field and then his job was to watch them to see if there was anything Dylan could use to stay ahead of us. He was told if he didn’t do it then it was the same as killing his mother and brother. Pretty heavy for a fifteen-year-old who’s never really seen violence.”

  “That’d be pretty heavy to me, too,” Noah commented. Both women agreed.

  Then Carly was all about the threads she’d been trying to weave together since they found the chair in the basement.

  “Has David woken up yet?”

  Selena clapped her hands, just as Carly had done the day before in excitement at remembering something.

  “I meant for this to be my first bit of news to you but I got sidetracked by the cookies! Not only did David Lapp wake up, he became one of my favorite heroes.” Noah had finished making the coffee and came around the breakfast bar and took the seat next to Carly, also curious. Noah had missed out on a lot of what happened since he’d been with Carly from the moment the ambulance took her from the barn.

  “Turns out he met Talia in the city when he had to go in to get supplies for his father. He said it was lightning. Love at first sight. When he found out she was trapped in an abusive relationship with an older man who was clearly obsessed with her, he brought her to his family’s house and hid her the best he could. But when his father confronted him about how sketchy he’d been acting, he was afraid if he told the truth that word would spread and Rodney would find her.”

  “So he let himself be kicked out of the community to keep her secret,” Noah said, already impressed by David’s compassion.

  She nodded.

  “Yep. She gave him the money to help rent the house and stayed there with him. Their plan was to save more money and leave town, but then Dylan grabbed him. David said he woke up in his own basement and in front of a very angry Rodney Lee.” A flash of anger burned through Selena’s words. “He effectively tortured David, trying to find out where Talia had gone. But that boy refused to give her up. Then, when Rodney left, that’s when Dylan came back for him and took him out to the Ferry estate where he treated him like a prisoner and motivation for Willa to help Dylan. He also said that, he wasn’t sure, but he thought Dylan kept feeding Rodney fake information about seeing or hearing of David around town. That’s why we think Rodney stayed after he disappeared.”

  Carly wrapped her hand around the coffee mug. When she took a sip, Noah couldn’t help but smile a little.

  “Where was Talia? Was she not at David’s house?”

  “Get this. David was so worried about her that they came up with a safe place for her to go if she ever felt unsafe or something happened. A place that she’d be safe until he could come get her. She went there when she saw Rodney in town and had no idea David had been taken. Once she realized something was wrong, David was already missing, so she went back to wait to see if he showed up. Guess where that safe place was?”

  Selena leaned in and actually cackled.

  Noah was leaning in, too.

  “Where?” he asked, completely invested.

  “We have no idea.”

  “What?” Carly asked around a mouthful of coffee.

  Selena laughed and straightened.

  “Once the news broke yesterday afternoon, Talia Jones showed up at the foot of David’s hospital bed late last night and hasn’t left since. Aria said that Talia was the first person David saw when he woke up. They wouldn’t tell us where she’d been and since the case is closed, we didn’t care to keep asking.” She touched her chest and made a dramatic sigh. “I know I don’t know them but, damn, what a love story. I hope they make it.”

  Noah’s father, who had asked Gina to take him to the hospital to personally thank Carly and the team, had already given him a piece of gossip that he didn’t think the other two knew yet. Apparently, during their limited interactions in his captivity, David had told his mother that he loved Talia with all of his heart and planned to marry her when it was all over. Willa had in turn told her husband who had, in turn, reached out to Noah’s father.

  “He asked me advice on how to deal with a child who chooses to leave,” his father had said.

  “And what did you say?”

  His father, a devout man who was as quiet as he was stubborn, had softened. It hadn’t been a lot, but enough to notice.

  “I told him he should learn to accept that we all walk our own paths and that’s not always a bad thing. Just different.”

  He’d clapped Noah on the shoulder after that and then Gina had taken him home.

  It wasn’t a brand-new beginning for them, but it wasn’t an ending, either.

  Now Carly turned to him.

  “Do you think he’ll try to go back since he left under extraordinary circumstances?”

  Noah was quick to answer.

  “No. I think he’s going to stick with his lightning, his love.”

  At that, she smiled.

  The rest of the conversation bounced back and forth between the more technical details of what happened next and, Carly cringed as she said it, paperwork. They ate cookies and welcomed Gina. She was the beginning of a long line of guests, including the entire TCD team and Noah’s staff. The morning turned to afternoon and, for the first time since he owned the farm, the house was filled with talking, laughter and actual cheer.

  Christmas day at his house came and went. Those who couldn’t get out to their families video-chatted and made promises to see them the next day, while Alana and Opaline joined in through FaceTime.

  Before dessert was ready, Noah felt it was time to finally tell Carly the truth.

  And ask her a question he never thought he’d ask anyone.

  After making sure she felt up for it, he drove her to a part of the property she hadn’t yet seen.

  “Too much holiday spirit and needed a break?” she teased him after he set her up on the tailgate of the truck.

  He laughed and sat next to her.

  “It was just enough to show me I wouldn’t mind something like this every year.”

  Carly smiled.

  She was beautiful. />
  “I have to admit, it’s turning me around on the whole holiday season.”

  He wanted to keep bantering with her, but knew it was now or never.

  Noah let every wall he had down and finally told someone the truth.

  “It was a yellow house.”

  “A yellow house?” Her tone had gone soft. She’d caught on to the change in him. He’d known her a week and she could read him better than anyone he knew.

  He nodded and pointed in the distance. There was nothing but open field and sky.

  “There used to be a yellow house there, owned by the Tucketts, until it burned down about ten years ago. It was originally for the full-time staff but had been empty for twenty years before that. The first time I saw it, I was twelve. I was crossing through the farm to go home after sneaking out to fish.” He let out a breath and shook his head, still unable to understand why the feeling that had followed next had happened. “One second I was a kid without any doubts in my future and then, the moment after I saw that house, everything changed. I wanted more. I wanted different.

  “Then I left on Rumspringa and never went back home,” he continued. “I was lucky enough to find a place on the farm to work and sleep and try to figure out what it was that I did want. I even thought about leaving for good, went on a few trips to see how I felt about it, but nothing ever struck me like when I first saw that yellow house.”

  Noah met her gaze.

  “The yellow house is why I left, and then why I stayed. I don’t know if it makes sense to anyone but me but, when I’m sure about something, I think of that house and know with all of my heart it’s true. For David Lapp, it was lightning, for me it was a sunflower-yellow farmhouse, and up until last week I hadn’t thought about that house in a long time. That is until I saw you.”

  Like the epiphany he’d had when he was twelve, what he did might not have made sense to anyone else, but that wasn’t going to stop him.

  He’d lived a guarded, quiet life.