by Dale Mayer
“Absolutely,” he said. “And I’m fine, or I will be.”
“Did he hurt you?”
There was a broken laugh. “Yes, he did. And you apparently took something very important to him.”
“Yes, he’s dealing in arms, Dad,” she said.
After a moment of silence, he said, “Wow. I never would have thought that of him. We really don’t need that going on under our noses.”
“Did you tell him what I had?”
“How could I? I didn’t know what you had. You told me that you had proof that he was dealing with criminal activities, but you didn’t tell me exactly what.”
“No,” she said. “I wasn’t really sure myself. It’s only when I stopped at a hotel overnight that I took a closer look.”
“Well, I hope you have it somewhere safe,” he said, “because he’s after you, and he’s after you in a big way.”
“I’m pretty sure he was responsible for the first kidnapping,” she said. “But, when I escaped on the ferry, another guy picked me up. I’m pretty damn sure he contacted Max too.”
“Max did say something about enough was enough, and it was time for you to be taught a lesson and to be silenced,” he said, his voice cracking. “So you need to stay safe.”
“Well, as you know, I’m here with somebody who’s looking after me.”
“But he’s coming for you, Stacey,” he said. “He’s coming for you. Don’t you ever think he’s not.”
At that, she looked over at Killian, who pulled the phone closer and said, “Not to worry, sir. We’re standing guard over her right now.”
“That won’t be enough,” her father said, panic in his voice. “You don’t understand what he’s like. He’s crazed to get that information and to silence her.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But I don’t silence that easily, and I’ve had enough of his bullshit.”
“Right,” her father said. “You had the courage to flee from the abuse, which I didn’t even understand. But I think he was just playing with you back then, compared to what he’ll do when he catches you now.”
Chapter 6
Stacey felt the chills running down her shoulders and arms, long after ending the phone call. She looked at the two men. “I have to get home.”
“Yeah, and why is that?” Killian asked, looking at her. He had been doing as much research on her husband as he could.
“My father’s still not out of danger.”
“Your father now has the Secret Service protecting him,” he said. “Which is a lot better than what he had before. Your husband doesn’t care about your father, beyond hurting or killing him to hurt you. I’m surprised Max didn’t take your father on a road trip to help flush you out.”
“That’s what I was wondering myself,” she said. “The bottom line is, you can’t trust what Max’ll do from any one day to the next.”
“Predators are like that,” Hatch repeated.
She glared at him. “That’s not helpful.”
“No,” he said, and he flipped his laptop around. “Is this his buddy?”
She looked at it and nodded. “Yeah, that’s James Dean.”
“Also known as Mark Leif, aka Lyon Hamilton.”
She stared at him.
“Interpol is very interested in his location. He’s from South America—Colombia, to be exact. And apparently he’s been a very bad boy.”
“But he’s living in Texas, near my husband, right down the block,” she protested.
“And that tells you something about the relationship between them.”
“I still don’t get it,” she said.
“Chances are, the weapons are going to Colombia.”
“But that’s not fair,” she said. “If they should be going anywhere, it should be to help the poor people get away from guys like him.”
“It doesn’t matter where they’re going. It’s illegal, and, chances are, he’s selling to the highest bidder—or playing one against another. And another government will either get wiped out or the poor people will get stomped into the ground,” he said. “It never seems that we fund the right side.”
“I … I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything to make me think that James Dean had any Colombian connections.”
“Does he travel a lot?”
“Yes,” she said. “I think so. He’s into import-export stuff, if …” The words slowly slipped out of her mouth, as she sagged back. “Oh, that makes so much more sense,” she said. “He was always telling me how he was going to South America. I just wasn’t thinking Colombia was his destination.”
“Yeah, definitely South America. So, now that we have somebody wanted on Interpol’s watch list,” he said, “this will ramp up in a big way.”
“Can you get more men then?”
Killian looked at her in astonishment. “Why would I want more men?”
She stared at him in shock. “Well, to help catch these two.”
“That’s not the way we typically work. See? The problem with more men is, then we have to coordinate with more men, and more men can mess up,” he said. “Much better we keep our operation small.”
“That’s two men to catch two men, if you’re trying to just get Max and James,” she said. “Max has the money to hire a dozen men. If it’s just you two against twelve plus Max and James, the odds are really good that none of us will survive.”
Killian shook his head, and the smile at the corner of his mouth made her heart ache. Ache for better things. Ache for a new life, a new relationship, and a time of peace and quiet, where she didn’t have to look over her shoulder or to be afraid, … afraid of that fist coming at her again. Though now a punch in the face was the least of her problems.
She gave herself a mental shake and turned her gaze to Hatch to see the same look on his face. “You’re both acting like I’m insulting you,” she said, facing Killian again.
“Well, you are actually,” Killian murmured. “But that’s okay.”
“Maybe it’s not okay,” she said. “But this is, … this is all just too unbelievable.”
“I hear you, but the fact of the matter is, we would much rather keep our main unit small and simple. That way we can control everything, and we don’t have as many ways to potentially screw up then. We have backup teams helping us already.”
She sagged back into the bed. “Well, I can help too,” she said. “Or I can once I’m back on my feet again.”
“No,” he said. “Not happening. You’ll rest, and we’ll run this op ourselves.”
“Dammit,” she said. “It’s hardly an operation. We’re just holed up in a hotel room.”
Killian grinned at her. “Don’t you worry,” he said. “We got this covered.”
“Okay,” she warned, “but I think you’re taking on too much, and, if I feel the need, I’ll call the police.”
“No,” he said in a firm voice. “You’re not. We have to trust that you trust us. Have we steered you wrong yet?”
She thought about the men who had found her, not only in a vehicle parked in the middle of the Canadian woods but found her in the brush afterward and then had saved her, yet again. “No,” she said quietly. “I trust you.”
“All the way, no matter what?” Killian asked.
Something more was in his tone of voice. Something they needed to hear. She nodded. “You haven’t steered me wrong yet,” she said.
“And we won’t,” he said. “We came to rescue you. That’s our job. But now that we realize the bigger picture is a further threat, it won’t be enough to just rescue you. We have to get your ex. We need to pick up James Dean, and we also need to find the second kidnapper.”
“What about the pair of men in my first kidnapping?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if Max hasn’t already killed them,” Killian said. When she gasped, he added, “Sorry. I’m used to working with my team, and we tend to be blunt.”
At that, Hatch spoke up. “Any chance that this second kidn
apper was already connected to Max or James?” he asked her.
“Well, the second kidnapper obviously contacted my ex—given my IDs in my purse. Oh, shit. Max is my contact person still, damn it. Forgot about that. Because the second kidnapper said that he was supposed to kill me, per Max, and that my ex would be pissed off if he didn’t do the job because he’d already accepted the money. He was trying to play it both ways and get paid by you too. He was scared enough of my ex not to let me go with you, but I don’t know if he was scared enough of Max to come back and take care of business or not.”
“You might be surprised,” he said. “Max could always sweeten the pot, by upping the money.”
“And that would probably work too because this guy was obviously motivated by money. I just don’t know why. And he’s bound to be really pissed that he didn’t get your ransom money.”
“A lot of people are motivated by money,” Hatch said. “What is there to question about it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I just didn’t think so many predators were out there, feeding on the innocent.”
“Well, we’ve already established that there are,” Killian said. “What we need to do is find a way to shake them out of the woodwork, so we can put this to rest, once and for all.”
“Is that even possible now, when, instead of my ex, it’s my ex plus others?” she asked.
“Your ex, plus his friend James Dean, plus whoever the second asshole is, yes,” Killian said, and then he rubbed his hands together and gave her a big grin. “We do love a challenge.”
She rolled her eyes. “You might like a challenge,” she said, “but I don’t want to be the spoils that go to the winner or to find out that I chose the wrong side in this war.”
“There are no sides,” he said. “There are just the winners. And that’s us.”
She laughed. “If nothing else,” she said, “you two are confident.”
“That comes from years of experience,” Killian said quietly. “Don’t worry. We’ll look after you.”
And she had to be satisfied with that.
He looked over at Hatch. “We need answers, and we need answers now.”
Just then came a knock on the door.
Immediately Killian stood, motioned to Stacey, and whispered, “Be quiet.”
She just raised an eyebrow.
He raced to the door and stood behind it, as Hatch got up and walked over.
Hatch pulled the door open and said, “Hey.”
“A parcel was delivered to the reception area,” said the man at the door.
“Oh, really? We’re not expecting anything,” Hatch said, keeping his hands down.
“Well, it came delivered by courier, for you.”
“A local courier?”
“Yeah, it’s not my deal. Here, you have it,” he said, and he shoved it into Hatch’s arms. There was exasperation in the other man’s voice.
Hatch took it, as the other man strode off, muttering, “Some people.”
“Hey,” Hatch called to the hotel clerk, “did you get an ID on the courier who delivered it?”
“I said it was the local courier.” Then he disappeared down the stairwell.
Hatch closed the door and turned toward Killian. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Me either. It also means that, like Stacey said, we’re compromised.”
She jerked upright. “We didn’t get the tracker out yet either.”
“Nope,” he said. “So we’ll do that right now.” Killian walked over, and she turned her back to him, still in bed. He pulled back her hair, and he said, “Hold your hair up here.”
“Okay, but it’ll hurt, won’t it?”
He pinched the skin just above where the tracker was. “Does that hurt?”
“That’s not too bad.”
He made a sharp clean slice. She yelped. He said, “It’s already done.”
“No,” she gasped, struggling to control her breathing. “It’s not done. You haven’t got it out yet.”
He pinched the space just below it and out slid the tracker. Holding it on the end of his thumbnail, he showed it to her, right under her nose.
“That’s it?” she asked, incredulous.
“That’s it,” he said. “Let me clean this up and put a bandage on your neck.” He walked to the table and dropped the tracker in front of Hatch, who was running a series of tests on the box just delivered to them. “Let me know if you find anything on this bug too,” Killian told Hatch.
“You’ll be the second one,” he said. “There’re are no explosives so that’s good.”
With that, Killian detoured into the bathroom, grabbed the disinfectant from the hotel’s standard medical kit, and, after swabbing her neck, he showed her a Mickey Mouse bandage. He chuckled. “Just what you want, kid bandages.” And he gently placed it over her newest wound.
“I don’t really care,” she said, “but we need to move and now.”
“It’s already been ordered,” Killian said. “I’m just waiting on a location.”
She looked at him and said, “I can’t run. You know that.”
“I know,” he said calmly. Then he added, “Go ahead and pack up your stuff.”
She looked at him, nodded, and slowly stood up. “That tracker has been in my neck for eighteen months,” she said.
“Yep,” he said. “But, the great news is, it’s out. So wherever we go from here, Max won’t have a clue. And I don’t think this has the range he was hoping for.”
“But it did. Max found us here. He delivered us that damn package,” Stacey said, pointing, her voice rising.
“Not Max necessarily,” Killian said. “Could be the second kidnapper or that guy in town I lost my tracker on.”
“See?” Stacey said. “That doesn’t mean that somebody else coming into town doesn’t have a tracker.”
“Would Max have traced your phone?”
“Probably.” She snorted. “With a tracker in my neck, hell yes, Max would have tracked my phone.”
“Regardless,” Killian said, “we’ll get you a new one.”
“And now that we have this tracker out of my neck, as soon as we move, we should be good, right?”
“Yes,” he said. He looked over at Hatch. “What’s in the box?”
Hatch had the delivery open now. He held up an electronic device. “It’s a recording.” He hit Play, and a video showed up. Hatch’s face turned grim. “It’s your father,” he said. “You don’t want to see this.”
“Do you think Max took it before my father was rescued, or is Dad in danger yet again?”
Hatch shook his head. “Don’t know. This was sent this morning.”
“But Dad’s safe now, right?” She looked from Killian to Hatch. “I need to talk to him.” She turned and looked at Killian. “I need to talk to my father again.” Immediately he held out his phone to her and said, “Just redial the last call on this phone.”
“Right.” She took a deep breath and then quickly phoned her father.
“I’m fine,” he reassured her. “Now you get out of there.”
“We’re going.”
She handed the phone back to Killian and said, “You need to deep-six that.”
“Oh, I will,” he said. “Come on. Let’s go.”
While she’d been talking to her father, Killian and Hatch had packed up the room. She quickly made her way to the door as fast as she could. Killian stepped out first. When she joined him in the hallway, she was relieved to see that it was empty, but she couldn’t get her anger and that feeling that this would all go badly out of her mind.
“Come on,” he said. And he led her to an elevator at the far end.
“Why couldn’t we have taken a closer one?” she asked, moving slowly.
“Because this is a service elevator, and it goes straight down to the parking level.”
“But we didn’t park down there.”
“No,” he said. “But that’s where our new vehicle is.”
>
She followed them, and the trio quickly made their way downstairs, where she was placed comfortably into a small van. Once she was seated, the two men stowed their bags, hopped into the front seat, and they pulled out.
“Jesus,” she said. “I still feel like we’re being tracked, like we’re being followed, and we’ll meet a boogeyman around every corner.”
“Listen. You’re reacting to the latest news, finding out that you’ve had a tracking device in your neck this whole time. That is incredibly intrusive when done without your knowledge. Now your father’s been introduced to the real Max. Here’s the thing. You won’t feel safe until you are. Until your dad is. Until we end this once and for all.”
“I can’t wait,” she whispered. “I just can’t wait.”
With all three in the new vehicle, the two guys keeping track of their surroundings, Killian quickly drove toward the exit in the underground parking lot. As he did, two other vehicles screeched to intersect his path. He swore, shifting into Reverse, and headed backward, swinging around again, looking for another exit. One vehicle seemed to follow him, but the other remained just inside the lot.
“What if there’s only one exit?” she cried out from the back seat.
“That’s fine,” Killian said. “I just need more room to ramp up, before I hit them.”
She gasped and said, “Are you talking about ramming them?”
“If they don’t move, yes.”
As it was, he made several quick sharp maneuvers and came out ahead of one, with another still blocking the exit. “Hold on, Stacey.” Killian quickly jumped the curb, leaving through the Do Not Enter lane and raced away from both.
“Who are they?” she asked, as she twisted in the back seat to look.
He studied the view behind him from the rearview mirror and said, “I’m not sure. I wish we had cameras that would give us an insight into what just happened.”
Beside him, Hatch said, “I’m on it.”
Killian drove hard and fast, taking a lot of corners and back alleys in order to avoid whatever pursuit might be happening behind him.
“How far away are we from our next spot?” she asked worriedly.
