by Harper Allen
He’d done this dozens of times before, Caro thought, fumblingly unlatching her own door and pushing it open, but this situation was as alien to her as if she’d suddenly been dropped into the middle of a bad movie. She stepped out of the car, the sticky night air wrapping around her like an extra skin and her sleeveless cotton blouse already wilting against her body, although the loose-fitting white shirt Gabe was wearing didn’t seem to be sticking to him.
A bad black-and-white movie, she qualified nervously as she took in the scene in front of her. Although the kidnappers’ vehicle—some kind of boxy delivery-type truck, she realized, and so readily identifiable by the name on its side, Dos Abejas Fruit Company, that it had to be stolen—no longer had its high-beams on, its headlights created a two-dimensional aspect to everything. The heavy rumbling of the idling motor provided a soundtrack to the transaction about to take place.
Within a few minutes a man’s life would be bartered for money. As horrible as such a concept was, that would be the best-case scenario. In a worst-case scenario, Jess would be—
There wasn’t going to be a worst-case scenario, Caro told herself, shutting her mind to the nightmarish images her thoughts had conjured up. Gabe was a professional. Except for the negotiation that Larry Kanin’s meddling had tragically derailed, he’d never yet failed to bring a hostage safely back. Jess had chosen well when he’d insisted that in such a situation he wanted his old friend handling his release.
“You are Riggs?”
The man who alighted from the passenger side of the truck was barrel-chested and dressed in rough, working-man’s attire. Even factoring in the filter that had distorted Leo’s conversation, he sounded nothing like the voice on the telephone. He had a strong accent, and instead of the arrogance that had been in Leo’s tone, there was a hair-trigger edge to his question.
“Gabriel Riggs,” Gabe confirmed, walking to within a few feet of his interrogator. He raised his voice enough to be heard over the truck’s motor. “Where’s the man who calls himself Leo? I thought I would be dealing with him.”
His counterpart stepped fully into the light, and Caro’s breath caught in her throat. He was an older man, about fifty or so, and the leathery skin of his face seemed to be a road map of all the dark alleys and shadowed hiding places he’d seen in those brutal fifty years. A knife scar ran from the corner of one eye to his mouth, pulling his cheek downward. He grinned, and the scar turned his grin into a grimace.
“Sorry, my friend. Leo, he arrange the job, phone you an’ everything, but he don’t come to the handover. He send me and my men, tell us what he want us to do.”
He shrugged, and without looking at the truck behind him, raised one fist and knocked twice on the vehicle’s panel side. The knock was seemingly a signal, because Caro heard the metal clang of a latch being released from inside the truck, and slowly the panel began to slide sideways.
“I hope Riggs is keeping an eye on the joker behind the wheel.”
Dixon’s nervous whisper beside her ear made her jump, and it was all she could do not to turn furiously on him. “Gabe knows what he’s doing, and if you and I are aware of the driver, I’m sure he is, too.” She barely moved her lips as she spoke—mainly because they felt too numb with fear to move properly. “Don’t worry about his end of things, worry about your own. Any minute now you’re going to have to step forward with that briefcase and open it up for their inspection. They’re going to want to check that the whole three million’s there before they release Jess.”
“Not that it’s going to do the bastards any good.”
At the odd note of satisfaction in Dixon’s tone she looked at him, and his scowl instantly rearranged itself into a smile.
“I just mean that the authorities are bound to hunt them down sooner or later,” he said quickly. “I don’t imagine the federales are going to use kid gloves when they catch up to—dear God!”
For a moment Caro didn’t understand what was behind his shocked exclamation, but then she looked past the fully opened side panel of the truck and the three rifle-toting men jumping from it to take their places by the scarred man. She felt the blood drain from her face as she saw what had prompted Dixon’s horrified words.
The SUV’s headlights flooded the interior of the truck. Dead center, as if pinned by a spotlight on a stage, was a man sitting on a wooden chair—no, not sitting, she thought faintly, but bound hand and foot to it by lengths of grease-stained rope. Two similarly stained rags served as a blindfold and a gag, but even the obscuring cloth couldn’t conceal the raw and bleeding gashes on his cheek and temple, the latter wound half hidden by a thick strand of chestnut hair.
Darn it, Jess, I told you to get a haircut before your business trip. The foolish thought popped unbidden into her mind even as the bile rose in her throat. And I distinctly remember saying that it wouldn’t hurt to take a suit and a decent pair of shoes for once, instead of those disreputable high-tops and that garish Hawaiian shirt you seem to think is acceptable garb for meetings—
“What the hell have you done to him?”
Gabe’s voice was a whiplash. The flimsy defenses Caro’s psyche had tried to erect came crashing down and the full horror of what she was looking at came rushing in on her. This was Jess, she thought sickly—a good man, a decent man, a man who was a sucker for stray dogs and lame ducks. He stuck by his friends. He made new ones at the drop of a hat. He told excruciatingly bad jokes and always forgot to tie his laces and could eat a whole carton of strawberry ice cream at one sitting.
None of that mattered to his abductors. They didn’t even see him as a person. They’d used him as a punching bag, had trussed him up with cruelly tight knots, and—her blurred vision caught the fugitive gleam of light on metal and she saw a fourth gunman, pistol at the ready, standing farther back in the shadowed interior of the truck—they were prepared to execute him if they didn’t get what they wanted. She felt hot tears spilling down her cheeks, and sank her teeth into her bottom lip.
“We had to slap him around a little, that’s all.” The speaker was one of the rifle-toting men, younger than his companions and with a razor-thin strip of beard bisecting his chin. He laughed, gesturing with his weapon toward Gabe. “Hey, compadre, you don’t look like no snowball to me. What do you care what happens to a rich gringo like this anyway? He get the chance, he put the damn boot on your neck—and you know it, man.”
“Basta, tonto!” The scarred man rounded on the speaker, and although Caro would have sworn he carried no weapon on his person, with shock she saw he was holding a massive revolver to the younger man’s head.
“Yes, I call you a fool,” he said as his opponent stiffened. “Only a fool would wave his gun around so he can’t use it when he needs it. And only a fool would forget who is supposed to be doing the talking here. The next time you open your mouth, I shut you up for good, understand?”
There was something badly wrong here, Caro thought apprehensively. She saw a slight frown cross Gabe’s features and knew he was thinking the same. He’d based his assessment of the kidnappers on the sophistication of the mysterious Leo’s equipment and manner, but these men weren’t acting professionally at all.
“It’s the amateurs and cowboys who make me nervous…” His earlier comment to Dixon came back to her, and her worry grew. Leo’s crew weren’t like him. They were a cutthroat band of thugs and criminals without any real organization, and as Gabe had said, that made them unpredictably dangerous. The scarred man was the only one who seemed to have any control of the situation, but for how long?
“Jefe—”
Gabe inclined his head at the scarred man, giving no attention at all to the others. Caro understood his tactic, both of dismissing the hired gunmen and of calling his opponent “leader.” He was attempting to bring some semblance of order to the proceedings.
“Jefe, we have the bearer bonds as arranged. I will ask the representative of Crawford Solutions to place the briefcase in front of you.”
; There was a formality to his speech, and that, she guessed, was also deliberately assumed to defuse the emotions that had nearly boiled over a moment ago. It worked. The scarred man took a breath and nodded.
“The fat businessman, yes?”
Caro saw Dixon frown beside her at this slighting reference to his portliness, and gave a silent prayer of thanks when he remained prudently silent.
“Tell the chica to come forward, too.”
Gabe shook his head, still with the same air of calm. Lowering his voice, he said something in rapid Spanish, and was met with a sharp answer in the same language, accompanied by a scowl on the knife-gullied face. Again he shook his head, this time less calmly.
Whatever rapport he’d created with the leader of the crew was swiftly disintegrating, Caro realized. And it was her fault. She’d insisted on coming, but with Leo not here, it was likely her absence wouldn’t have caused as much of a problem as Gabe’s refusal now to bring her forward. There was only one solution.
Dixon had already moved to Gabe’s side, briefcase in hand. Her legs feeling suddenly like rubber, she crossed in front of the SUV and took her place beside the Crawford Solutions’ vice president.
A muscle jumped in Gabe’s jaw. “Get back by the car.”
She stood her ground, her gaze taking in Jess and the gunman guarding him. “I came here to help, Gabe. Making these people angry isn’t the way to go about that.”
“The woman has better sense than you, Mr. Riggs,” the scarred man grunted. “You with the cartera—place it on the ground and open it.”
His order was directed at Dixon. With a tightening of his lips Gabe looked away from Caro and nodded at the vice president.
“Go ahead and do what the man says, Dixon.”
“Open the briefcase? Sure, Riggs.”
Again Caro thought she detected an odd note in Dixon’s tone, and despite his ready agreement he hesitated for a moment before setting the case on the ground and thumbing the latches. He flipped it open and took a step backward.
She was close enough to him to see his glance dart quickly past the SUV to the road behind them, as if fearful their transaction would be interrupted by a chance vehicle rounding the bend. But that was so unlikely as to be impossible. The road back led only to the villa, and although when Jess was in residence some of his household staff used it to come and go daily to their homes in the village a few miles ahead, right now only Larry and his men were—
A terrible suspicion suddenly filled Caro. Before her heart had a chance to take its next beat, suspicion solidified to icy certainty at the throaty rumble of a coasting vehicle’s motor roaring to life as it swung around the final hilly curve from the villa and raced up the road behind them. A split-second later, blinding headlights blazed across the distance between Larry Kanin’s approaching Hummer and the stationary SUV.
“Emboscada?” The scarred man’s face twisted in fury as he spat the word at Gabe. “You set up an ambush, negociar? Madre de Dios, you will pay for this insanity! All of you will pay—”
“Riggs had nothing to do with it, buddy,” Dixon said with triumphant bravado. “Me and Larry Kanin screwed up your dirty little scheme, and in about ten seconds you and your punks are going to be surrounded by trained Recoveries International shooters. Tell your man in the truck to untie Jess and—”
“Shut the hell up, Dixon,” Gabe snapped. He turned to the scarred man, raising his hands in a conciliatory gesture. “Jefe, take the bonds and go. When you get to a safe place, reassure yourself that the ransom’s all there and then release Crawford. I’ll wait for your phone call telling me where—”
“Forget it, negotiator.” The snarled rejoinder came from the younger man, and in one fluid motion he brought his rifle up, aiming it straight at Caro. “You double-crossed us. You’re going to see your woman die.”
“I don’t think so, gamberro.”
Gabe’s hands were already at shoulder height. Even as the gunman’s trigger finger started to move, with blurred speed he reached behind him to the back-holstered sawed-off shotgun concealed under his loose cotton shirt, pulled it up and over his shoulder, and fired it one-handed.
The blast caught the man full in the chest, driving him back with such force that he slammed against the body of the truck, his own weapon discharging as he fell. At the same time Caro felt herself falling, and for a confused moment thought she’d been hit. Then she saw the flash of silver on Gabe’s wrist as he clamped his left hand to his opposite biceps.
He’d pushed her down and taken the bullet meant for her, she realized numbly as she scrambled to her feet. He’d deliberately put himself between her and—
“Get out of the line of fire!” The hoarse command had barely left his lips before he swung the shotgun toward a second gunman who was aiming at a seemingly frozen Steve Dixon. Caro saw the spasm of effort that crossed Gabe’s carved features as he jacked another round into the shotgun’s chamber and pulled the trigger before the man had a chance to take Dixon down.
The briefcase under his arm, the scarred man had reached the cab of the truck where the driver was already gunning the motor. As the third gunman threw his weapon into the back of the truck and hoisted himself up, Caro ran to Gabe’s side.
“You’re hurt!” Her eyes widened as she took in the extent of the blood soaking his once-white shirt.
He rounded grimly on her. “I told you to get out of the line of fire, princess. Now go!”
“But—”
Her protest died in her throat. She’d assumed he’d meant out of the line of his fire, Caro thought. He hadn’t meant that at all.
Gravel spraying around it like water from a fountain, the Hummer braked only yards from the SUV. Before it had come to a complete stop, black-clad men began piling out, automatic weapons at the ready. One of them, his face smeared with greasy camouflage stripes but the crisp curl in his hair a clue to his identity, climbed onto the vehicle’s hood.
“Commence fir—”
“Dammit, Kanin, don’t give the order!” Gabe shouted the words over his shoulder as he spun Caro around and propelled her in the direction of the roadway’s verge.
She felt his hand leave her, and she glanced back to see him sprinting toward the truck as it began moving.
“You’ve got civilians here, for God’s sake, and I need to get Jess—”
Even as he reached the open panel door of the vehicle and started to pull himself onto its platform, the night exploded as Kanin’s men opened fire. In horror, Caro saw the sudden scarlet blotch that appeared on Gabe’s khaki pant leg, saw him lose his grip and fall to the ground, saw the truck’s right rear tire coming straight at him.
“Gabe, move!”
The scream was torn from her throat, but as she began running toward him she saw him rolling out of the way of the moving vehicle. She followed his agonized gaze to Jess’s trussed-up figure and the man guarding him, just as the shooter raised the automatic in his hand and fired it point-blank into Jess Crawford’s temple.
Chapter Five
“I didn’t mean for it to turn out this way. They weren’t supposed to kill Jess, they were supposed to surrender, for God’s sake!”
Steve Dixon’s litany was getting tired, Caro thought in numb detachment. She’d had to listen to it on the drive back to the villa, hadn’t been able to shut it out while she’d waited for the word on Gabe’s condition from the Recoveries International medic who’d extracted the bullet from his shoulder and tended to the flesh wound on his leg, and had endured it throughout the flight on the Crawford Solutions’ jet back to New Mexico and the Lazy J.
Only when she’d closeted herself in Emily’s nursery upon arrival at the ranch had she escaped his barrage of justifications, but after breaking the news of Jess’s death to a shaken Mrs. Percy and telling the grandmotherly baby-sitter what Caro needed her to do, unwillingly she’d made herself seek out Dixon to inform him of what she’d decided.
Steve would need to know where to contact her. Sh
e owed it to Jess—at the thought, tears filled her eyes again—not to allow the company he’d created to go into free fall over the coming weeks. The powers of attorney he’d recently signed effectively bound her and Dixon together to keep Crawford Solutions operating for the foreseeable future, at least.
“It doesn’t matter how you thought it would turn out, Steve,” she said tonelessly. “What matters is that Gabe warned you and Larry how dangerous it would be to interfere in this handover, and the two of you didn’t listen to him. Because of your greed and Larry’s recklessness, Jess is dead, Gabe came so close to being killed that he won’t be fit to travel back from Mexico for a few days, and my daughter’s life is in jeopardy.”
“Emily?” Confusion drove the self-pity from Steve’s voice. “How does she come into this?”
She gave him a disbelieving stare. “Have you forgotten what Leo threatened in his first phone call—that if anything went wrong, he’d come after me and my daughter?”
With some of his normal bluffness he waved his hand. “Kanin never took that threat seriously, and I—”
“Larry didn’t take it seriously?” Even to her own ears her voice sounded thin. “That’s supposed to reassure me?”
Anger flashed through her pain. “Listen to me, Steve, and listen good. I’m going to keep Emily safe, no matter what. And if either you or Larry Kanin interfere in any way at all with my plans, I’ll make you sorry you were ever born, do you understand?”
“Hey, sweetie, it’s me. Your ol’ pal Steve, remember?” He fixed a placating expression on his features. “No one’s going to stop you from taking precautions. You want to hire extra Recoveries International guards to post around the perimeter of the Lazy J, we’ll do it. I know you blame Larry for what happened tonight, but when you calm down—”
What little was left of her precarious self-control fled. “We saw a man murdered a few hours ago—a man we both cared for, a man who’d been a good friend to both of us! Why should I be calm, and who else should I blame besides you and Kanin?”
