Badlands Beware

by Nicole Helm

  “You sure you know all of those?”

  “I installed them. I sure as hell should.” They finally got to the back door, which was next to a garage of sorts. “I’m going in. I imagine everyone knows I got the boot, but I’ve got stuff in there. So, I’m going in to collect my stuff. When no one’s watching, I’ll open this garage and the door inside. You’ll head straight for it. If I don’t have Duke waiting, you move back into the garage. Check at five-minute intervals. Once he’s there, you sneak him out the garage, go in the direct route we came and get to the car. Once you’re there, you’ll give me fifteen minutes. If I don’t show up with Rachel, you get Duke out. I’ll contact you or your brother with the next step once I’ve got Rachel. And whatever you do, don’t go all Wyatt on me.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Don’t play the hero. You may hear or see something you don’t like, but you focus on Duke. You’re going to want to barge back in here and get Rachel, but I’ve got it handled. You trust me and I trust you.”

  “That’s asking a lot.”

  “Yeah, it is,” she agreed. “For both of us. You up for the challenge?”

  He didn’t want to be. Trusting someone he barely knew was like tossing a coin with Rachel’s life on the line, but hadn’t he already done that? Besides, Shay didn’t strike him as a stupid woman and she was putting at least some of her safety in his hands. It was a risk they both had to take.

  “How long do I wait until I open the door?”

  “Minute the garage opens you’re in. You hear a whistle—I don’t mean a sharp whistle, I mean like me whistling a tune—you go back and hide in the garage. We’ll keep trying till it’s clear.”

  Tucker nodded. “All right.”

  Shay nodded in return, then she slid in the back door. Tucker stood in the corner next to the garage, doing his best to hide his body in the way Shay had instructed. When the garage door opened, almost soundlessly, he slipped inside. Then immediately located the door inside and headed for it.

  He turned the knob, eased it open and himself inside. He was in a basement that bizarrely looked like any house’s basement might. A TV room in a little finished alcove, a laundry area on the opposite side. The hallway was dark.

  Tucker remembered what Shay had said and went back to the garage, waited the aforementioned five minutes, then went inside again. He kept his mind blank. Thought of it like detective work—often boring and tedious...until it wasn’t.

  Fifteen minutes had passed, and finally Duke appeared. Duke studied him there at the end of the hallway and didn’t budge. That was when Tucker realized Shay was standing behind him, with a gun to his back, and he only moved forward toward Tuck when she poked it into his back again.

  “He’s being difficult,” she hissed. “Fix it. I’ve got maybe ten minutes before Parker comes back. Maybe.”

  Fix Duke Knight’s hard head? Yeah, in what world? Still, Tucker moved forward. “We have to get you out.”

  “Why should I trust you? I trusted Granger and look what happened. Now I’ve got two North Star operatives trying to sneak me out? That smells like a setup, boy.”

  “We’re trying to help you. It’s because of you, and what they want to do with your family, that we’re turning our back on North Star.”

  Duke didn’t respond to that. “Who’s watching the girls?”

  Tucker hesitated. “We’re all doing what we should be doing,” he said carefully, already knowing that wouldn’t fly. His hesitation spoke volumes.

  Duke narrowed his eyes. “You’ve always been a crap liar. Where’s Rachel?”

  “She’s...” Tucker couldn’t tell Duke under any circumstances. If he knew Rachel was upstairs, he’d charge up there like an angry bull.

  “She’s upstairs keeping them busy,” Shay said.

  Tucker nearly groaned, but he had to leap in front of Duke as he charged for the stairs. Though Tucker was taller, Duke was thicker, and he’d been a cowboy for thirty some years so he was no slouch. Still, Tucker had been trained to deal with threats bigger than him.

  Tucker managed to shove him a step back. “You don’t know what will happen to her or you if you barge in there. Trust that we’ve got this under control.”

  “That’s my daughter you’re risking,” Duke said, and though his voice was ruthlessly controlled in volume, his eyes bulged and the tendons in his neck stood out like he was about to explode.

  Tucker couldn’t blame him if he did.

  “She risked herself, buddy. For you. So maybe you make it easy on us so I can get her out without causing a storm where someone gets hurt,” Shay said with absolutely no finesse.

  Which was apparently what Duke needed to hear. He moved forward, though his scowl was still in place. Tucker passed him up to get to the door first. As he did, Duke he full-on sneered.

  “I’m holding you personally responsible.”

  “As if I’m not,” Tucker muttered. He glanced back at Shay.

  “Take him out, just like we said. I’ll go get her.”

  Tucker nodded. He led Duke into the garage quietly. Then out. Tucker had to hope Shay remembered to close it.

  “Shay will bring Rachel to us,” Tucker told him, moving in the same direction they’d come. Shay had disabled the cameras, but they could have come back on. Still, he had to trust she’d handle it.

  “I can’t believe you’d be this stupid,” Duke muttered, though he followed behind Tucker.

  Tucker looked over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow. “That’s really how you want to play this? When we found the weapon that blinded your daughter in Grandma Pauline’s safe? I had to beg your daughter to understand that you must have had a good reason for that. So—”

  Tucker’s phone vibrated. He shook his head and kept walking. When it vibrated again, he swore under his breath and pulled the phone out of his pocket. They were finally in some tree cover, but not to the car yet. Tucker saw it was Cody calling and answered.

  “Cody—”

  “Shay didn’t answer, but this is important. I got into North Star’s system to look up this Dymon guy. I managed a quick glimpse into the files before they figured out I was hacking in and kicked me right back out. This guy’s got connections to Vianni. I suppose he could be a double agent—helping out North Star. Sort of like us.”

  “Except we never worked for the Sons or our father.” Tucker thought about everything Shay had told him. About this whole lead up. “He’s working for Vianni. They’re so hung up on taking down the Sons, they don’t care who they go to bed with.”

  “Maybe,” Cody replied gravely. “Either way? I’d get Rachel out of there ASAP.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fear paralyzed Rachel, but all the man from her nightmares had done was drag her deeper into the building and then shove her into a chair. He was almost immediately followed by someone else, and once that person spoke, she knew it was the head guy. What had Shay called him? McMillan?

  At least she wasn’t alone with her nightmare—but would this man be just as bad?

  It didn’t matter. As long as she was in this building, she had a chance of survival. Dad was here. Shay was here. Tuck was here. She would survive.

  Rachel studied what she could of the room. She reached out and felt the table in front of her. So she was sitting on an uncomfortable chair at a table. The man across from her was McMillan. He had a big dark presence and he appeared to move in such a way that she figured it meant he was sitting down at the table, too. The other man was dressed all in dark colors, too, but not as broad as McMillan. Not as...still.

  She remembered that about him from her dream. A need to move. He stood next to McMillan, a vibrating presence. In the vague way she saw things, they appeared to be a unit.

  Did McMillan know? Was North Star actually in bed with Vianni? It was a horrible thought. If they were, she was dead.
Shay and Tucker were likely dead, too, and God knew her father was already dead.

  Except he wasn’t. They’d gone to rescue him. So, surely North Star didn’t know.

  Unless they needed that knife, and that was the only reason her father was still alive.

  Rachel swallowed. “I just want to see my father,” she said through a too-tight throat, terror making her feel like lead all the way through. But she couldn’t just lie down and die.

  She had to figure out a way to fight.

  “That’s understandable, Ms. Knight. Your father is here under our protection. Just how much do you know about that?”

  She didn’t let her eyes drift to the man standing. He had to know she knew who he was. Didn’t he? Or would he assume because she was blind that she didn’t? But he had to have felt how afraid she was. Her reaction to his voice.

  He had to know she knew.

  “Miss?”

  Rachel sucked in an audible breath. McMillan had asked her a question. “I’m sorry. I... I don’t know. I know Shay tried to kidnap me at the ranch. She and Tucker fought and Tucker got me away from her. She followed us, I guess. She...” Rachel had never been a good liar, but she let the genuine fear she felt consume her. Her voice shook. She shook. They’d believe it was a result of fear of the situation, not her lies. “She found me later. While Tucker was... Anyway, she said I could see and talk to my father if I came with her. That everything would be explained if I came with her.”

  “Our operative was sent to retrieve you because of the dream you’ve been having. Can you tell us about that?”

  “I...” Rachel trailed off. They likely knew everything at this point. God knew the man from her nightmare did. If they’d been listening to Tucker before Shay’s arrival, they had the full account of how her dream had morphed.

  “It was just a nightmare. Just a...memory of what happened to me.” She gestured at her face. “I don’t see what it has to do with anything.”

  “You never dream past the moment you were hurt?” McMillan asked.

  He made it all sound so clinical, but he couldn’t see the nightmare, the reality in his mind like she could. “I was three. A madman slashed my face up and I was saved by a dog. What more would I know than that?”

  “What about the knife?” It was the other man’s voice. The voice from that dream, and she couldn’t help but flinch at it.

  “What knife?” she managed to whisper.

  “Dymon.” It was a warning from the man. “You’re not involved in the questioning. If you can’t remember that, you can step outside.”

  She could all but feel the tamped-down energy humming off the nightmare man. Still, he didn’t say anything else.

  But he wanted to know about the knife. The knife in Grandma Pauline’s safe. One thing she knew for certain, she couldn’t tell them about that.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I told you about my dream, now I want to see my father.”

  “What do you know about your father’s past?”

  “None of your business,” Rachel snapped. She wouldn’t play the cowering victim anymore. Not when she couldn’t decide if the man in front of her was good or bad or some mix of the two. But, regardless, she didn’t have to be nice to him.

  “The group who’s after your father has aligned themselves with the Sons. You’ve got quite a few in-laws who are former Sons members, don’t you?”

  “If you think being held in that gang as a child against your will is being a former member, you’re a monster.”

  The man sighed, like a disappointed teacher or parent.

  “Miss, it’d be easier on you if you simply answer our questions. Once you tell us the truth, we’ll take you to your father. I understand you’re not part of this, but Duke Knight is in a very dangerous situation. He’s trying to protect you, but it’s not getting us anywhere. It seems this knife might be the answer to some of our...problems. I’m sure you want to help him, don’t you?”

  She thought about what one of her more smart-mouthed sisters might say in this situation. She managed a sneer and did her best impersonation of Liza. “Go to hell.”

  She thought about laying her cards out on the table. Lifting her chin and saying, Is that why you’ve got someone associated with the Viannis in this room with us? To protect him and help him?

  But her father had gone willingly with this group. Shay and Cody, both people who’d helped her and other people, had worked for North Star believing in its mission. Tucker had helped them. Surely, they weren’t evil. They couldn’t be evil and fool so many good people.

  But the Viannis and the Sons were. Didn’t that mean someone could have infiltrated North Star without them knowing? Maybe North Star was smart, even good at helping people, but they hadn’t brought down the Sons fully yet—and how long had it taken them to put Ace in jail?

  They’d needed Jamison and Cody to do that. So it was plausible, especially by partnering with the Viannis who were more of an unknown, that the Viannis had in turn tricked North Star.

  She wanted to believe that—needed to—because the alternative was too bleak to bear.

  Rachel hitched in a breath. She had to find a way to tell the man across from her that the man standing beside him had been her would-be kidnapper—the man who’d blinded her. But she couldn’t write a note. And she couldn’t just come out and say it either, because if the man across from her truly didn’t know, he’d likely be killed, no matter what kind of operative he was.

  “Why don’t I go get you some water? Give you some time to think about what direction you want to go in. Dymon here will watch you until you’re ready to talk.”

  It wasn’t threatening exactly. Nor was it friendly. A mission. It was all about the mission.

  She could hear his chair scrape back as if he was going to get to his feet. As if he was about to leave her with her nightmare. She reached forward in a desperate attempt to grab him. She managed to do just that, both her hands clasping McMillan’s arm before he fully stood.

  “Please, wait.”

  Cody had taught her Morse code when they’d been in middle school. She’d been feeling bad about something—she couldn’t even remember what it was now. But he’d cheered her up by teaching her Morse code. They’d made a game of it that summer.

  She didn’t remember it all, and there wasn’t time to stumble. Still, she had to try. She had to.

  “Miss. Let go of my arm,” McMillan said, not totally unkindly.

  It gave her an awful hope, that glimmer of kindness.

  So she tapped what she could think of, in the most succinct terms she could manage.

  Danger.

  My face.

  Him.

  He didn’t say anything, but he also didn’t pull his arm away. He didn’t tell her to let go, so she tapped out the code again. The same code. The same words.

  He withdrew his arm, but instead of getting up or doing something dismissive, he laid his hand on top of hers and gave it a reassuring pat. “All right,” he said, his voice low and controlled. “Dymon, why don’t you go get the water? I’ll stay here with Ms. Knight.”

  “I’m sure you’ve got better things to do, boss.”

  “You’re still new. I wouldn’t push your luck,” McMillan warned.

  “I did pass all your tests. You hired me. You have to trust me to do this stuff when you’ve got more important things to do.”

  Rachel held her breath, but the one thing that steadied her the most was McMillan’s hand over hers. A reassuring weight that he’d gotten her message, and wasn’t going to leave her alone with this man.

  “You told me you hadn’t had any personal experience with the Knights,” McMillan said quietly. “That you were too low on the Vianni totem pole to know more than a few stories about Curtis Washington and his new life in South Dakota.”

  �
��That’s right,” the nightmare man agreed.

  “Is that the story you want to stick to right here and right now?”

  There was a long tense silence. McMillan’s hand was still atop hers, and he began to tap. It took Rachel the second time through to figure it out.

  Duck.

  And then a gunshot went off.

  There was a scuffle, a moan and then Rachel’s arm was jerked as she was pulled out from under the table. “Wrong move, little girl.”

  Her nightmare had her again.

  But this time—she would fight.

  * * *

  TUCKER SLID THE phone back into his pocket. He had to remain calm, because Duke was there and Duke wouldn’t remain any kind of calm.

  They had to head back to the house and get Rachel the hell out of there, even if he had to fight the entirety of North Star to do it.

  “How familiar are you with the area?” Tucker asked, careful to keep his voice calm.

  “Who was that on the phone?”

  “I need you to get to the car. It’s parked—”

  “Oh, hell no,” Duke snarled. “If you’re going back in for my daughter, I’m going with you.”

  “We can’t go in guns blazing. We can’t—”

  “I was a cop before you were born. I know a thing or two about what needs to be done, and I know what I’d do to keep my daughter safe.”

  At the end of his rope with indecision, Tucker snapped. “Like when a man tried to kidnap her and blinded her in the process?”

  “He would have killed her,” Duke said flatly. “But she’s alive, because of me. She was hurt because of me, I get it. I don’t know how to go back and change my life. I did what I thought was right, always. You perfect?”

  No, he couldn’t pretend to be that.

  “Now, you got another one of those?” Duke asked, nodding at the gun in his hand.

  “No.” Tucker considered giving it to Duke. Tucker could fight better with his hands than Duke would be able to. It would—