“You good?” Eric asked when the battle was done, keeping his pistol ready.
Jordan sank to the floor, his bloodied hands on his knees, nodding and wheezing. “Yeah. You?”
“Will be,” Eric muttered. It took a second to get to Shea, but the plastic restraints on her forearms were thick. A metal lock secured each Flexi-Cuff, but time was running out. Eric attacked the ones at her wrists with the tip of his knife, his ears tuned to any indication of more trouble headed his way.
Still in battle-mode, Jordan returned to Eric’s side. Stabbing his blade into the locks at Shea’s legs, he muttered, “Never met one of these I couldn’t break.” With a snap, both locks opened.
“Thanks, man.” Eric wiped his face, wishing his hands were clean for this next part. “Speak to me, Shea,” he coaxed as he pulled her off the chair and into his chest. Folding her fingers in his, he brought them to his mouth to warm them. No response. He might as well have been breathing on icicles.
Jordan secured Eric’s weapons and nodded at the hidden panel next to the steel door. “No wonder Abdul Fucking-What’s-His-Name got the jump on us. Look. A secret panel.”
Eric glanced at the dead poser who’d ambushed them. That Dog-guy hadn’t come running to assist the Brit meant one thing. With the door shut, this room was soundproof. The sure knowledge that she’d suffered in this concrete dungeon and done it alone nearly broke his soul. “Get us the hell out of here.”
“Stay close,” Jordan replied. “I’ll clear the way.”
Cradling Shea’s head under his chin, Eric climbed the stairs behind Jordan, his pistol still in his hand. At the top step, she huffed into his neck, his first sign of hope.
Jordan had barely opened the door when his left arm blocked Eric’s ascent. “Shh. Your friend’s still here.”
All Eric heard was Jordan taking the silenced shot, followed by glass crashing to the floor and a heavy thud. Eric wished he could’ve watched when Dog-guy went down. Just because.
“Cheyenne!” Shea screamed bloody murder all the way back to Murphy’s, ramming her head into Eric’s shoulder until he was sure his collarbone was broken. He’d already pinned her arms. She couldn’t hurt herself, but the terror in her voice wrecked him. Every time.
She was still cold by the time Murphy lowered his garage door. Jordan hustled and provided cover from there to the house in case they’d been followed. Elsa scrambled inside as Eric hurried Shea into the guest bedroom. While Elsa provided several blankets, he stripped Shea to her birthday suit and wrapped her as tight as he dared.
Elsa took over so he could grab a quick shower. “Go on with you,” she ordered. “I’ll try to get some tea into her. Hurry. You can’t have her seeing you like that.”
Tea. The Irish cure for everything.
Elsa was right. The man staring at him from the bathroom mirror looked pretty damned scary. Eric had a black eye he didn’t remember getting, a bloody path on the left side of his head from being shot, a purple, swollen nose that didn’t work so good anymore. The thin slice across his chest from the scimitar was the least of his worries.
By the time he’d showered, he could breathe through his nose—barely—but some. Rummaging through Murphy’s medicine cabinet, he found a first-aid kit. Six butterfly bandages took care of the scimitar slice across his chest. Two more closed the split over his left eye. His nose? Well, that was another story. Wincing, his eyes watering, he managed a single strip of flesh-toned adhesive tape over the top of it. At least it wasn’t bleeding.
“Poor, poor thing,” Elsa murmured when he returned with a towel wrapped around his waist. “Jordan brought a cup of tea for her, but she’s still incoherent. We may need to transport her to a clinic. There’s a fine one in Cashel.”
“No. I’ll take it from here.”
“But Mr. Reynolds—”
He shook his head. “Leave us alone. Please. She’ll be fine.”
Elsa had the good sense to close the door behind her.
Eric dropped the towel wearing just his boxers. What Shea needed couldn’t be found in a clinic. He climbed into bed with her and wrapped her up warm and tight, using his body heat to raise her temperature.
That was his first mistake. Shea bucked and kicked, thrashed and twisted, screaming “Cheyenne!” His baby girl’s ghost was suddenly present, if only to tear at her mother’s heart.
“I’ve got you,” he crooned, squeezing Shea just enough to let her know she was safe. That he was there. The same mistake-made-twice got him another head-butt. He shed real tears that time, but he wouldn’t let her go.
Rearing back, Shea struck his forehead with the back of her head, panting and fighting to get free. Frantically sucking in air as if her lungs weren’t working. As if those bastards were still water-boarding her. The single word kept pouring out of her mouth in one long, shrill wail to the universe, her terrified keening enough to wake the dead. “Chey—enne!”
A lot of guys would’ve gotten frustrated and slapped her at that point to snap her out of it. Not Eric. He understood where her need to fight came from. Instead of using force, he did what he should have done two years ago. He held on.
Murphy hovered in and out of the bedroom. “I’ve got a bad feeling. Soon as she’s warm, I want you kids down in that bunker. Something’s wrong. I can’t reach Mother. Alex, neither,” he grumbled. “Do you think she’ll take a little broth?”
“Not yet.” Eric gathered the blankets under her chin.
“I’m sure sorry, son,” Murphy said as he left.
Eric hadn’t the time to worry about Alex, because the man posing as Abdul-Mutaal had done what he’d set out to do. He’d broken Shea. But that feeling of impending doom? Eric had it since they’d left Grover’s place. He couldn’t shake it. They might have taken Berglund and Mikkelson’s murderer out of the picture and maybe a few bad guys, but the professor was still out there. With Bagani and Carlson eliminated, Grover had to be the one in control.
Shea lay quiet for the moment with her back to Eric’s front, but whining to be let loose, her fingers fisted beneath her chin. Still crying for her baby girl after all these years. Either she wanted Cheyenne to come back to life—or she wanted to join her.
“You’re not leaving me, baby. Not this time,” Eric told her in no uncertain terms. He couldn’t tell if she heard, so he began at the beginning.
Once upon a time there were three little pigs. Those rascals loved to play in the mud. All day long they built mud pies and mud castles. Mud mountains and mud rivers. If there was water and dirt to be had, there were three dirty little pigs smack dab in the middle of it.
But more than the mud, they loved the cinnamon bunnies from the baker. And strawberry shortcake. Sweetmeats. Cotton candy, and well, they loved everything as long as it was extra gooey and nutritionally bad for them.
Shea used to smirk at that extra long word in the middle of a child’s bedtime story, but work with me here, Eric had told her. Medics love to use extra-big and long words. It makes us look smart.
He paused. “Do you remember who Mama Pig was, Shea?”
No answer other than a huff through her nose, but at least she was quiet.
Okay, so one morning the three dirty little pigs woke up with a start. They heard someone in their dirty little-pig kitchen, and that person made a lot of noise. Whoever it was rattled pans and spoons and—hummed?
Eric pinched his nose and hummed a nonsensical ditty the same as he had for his daughter at this point in the story. Cheyenne used to giggle and squeal. Not Shea.
With their little piggy eyes squinting so they looked extra-scary, and with their little piggy ears cocked forward like tiny radar dishes, the three, dirty, little critters sneaked into the kitchen. Extra sneaky like. Piggy hoof by piggy hoof. Big pink piggy ears twitching. Curly little piggy tails extra curly.
Eric smoothed a palm over Shea’s shoulder, needing her to want to live.
What a surprise! A bigger than life Mama Pig was standing at their stove and…. and…she w
as using it!
“I didn’t know it worked,” said one little pig.
“Me neither,” said the second.
“What’s a stove?” asked the third silly little pig.
Then something magical happened. The most delicious aroma drifted up into their little pig snouts. Their little pig mouths watered. This wonderful mama pig was cooking!
Eric pressed a kiss behind Shea’s ear. “You always gave me such a dirty look at this part of the story. Honest, honey. I wasn’t assigning any gender specific roles for Cheyenne to live up to. It’s just a fairytale.”
No answer. Eric went on with the story. Suddenly, Mama Pig stopped humming. She spotted the dirty, little piglets. Her eyes grew extra large and round, and the funniest thing happened.
“Do you know what was so funny?” he whispered, his heart too tender to go on with the telling. “Do you remember?”
Cheyenne’s spirit seemed to have drawn nearer with very word of that often-repeated fairytale. If there was a heaven, she had to be leaning over the edge of it and listening to her favorite story right now. At least, Eric hoped, she was watching her father struggle to hold onto her mother. “Cheyenne still loves you, baby. I know she does, but so do I.”
Eric mashed his nose into the side of Shea’s head, no longer able to hold back the tears. At the end of all the stories and fairytales he’d told Cheyenne, he’d always made certain there was a happy ending. Children deserved to be innocent as long as they could. They deserved to believe in magic and Santa Claus, Rudolph and the Tooth Fairy—all those tender lies parents gave credence to for as long as they could. Children deserved to believe in the stability of their parents’ marriage, too.
He’d set the example in his house. If Shea was having a bad day when he came home, he fixed it. If she needed a break from a crying baby, if she simply needed a time-out and a bubble bath, he provided. That was his job and his rule. The prince and princess lived happily ever after in his kingdom. They went to bed together, they ate dinner at the table, and that was the way it was. For as long as they had Cheyenne in their lives, she’d believed in the magic of her parents’ love. He meant that vow he’d made at the foot of that altar; to love, honor, and serve.
But now... Eric wasn’t so sure how this story would end. He couldn’t make the one woman in the world whom he adored with every beat of his heart love him back. He couldn’t fix this.
It was up to Shea to decide whether she wanted to stay in this life or—leave.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Afraid to wake up, Shea floated. Her hysterical mind couldn’t wrap itself around her new reality, so she stayed suspended in this secret place where she was warm and safe. Until a soft baritone murmured in her ear, “I want you to make love with me again. Dance with me. Get silly with me. Just one more time. Please come back. Choose me too, Shea.” As if he knew exactly how to reach her, he began humming the Marine Corps anthem.
She stilled, not believing. Could it be possible? No. I saw him die. Shea turned in his arms, nuzzling his neck, needing the scent of his skin in her nose to be sure. She was that coke addict, desperate for a fix. “Eric?”
Warm kisses rained over her forehead, down her nose, and over her cheeks. “Oh, baby, you’re back at Murphy’s, and everyone’s worried about you, and…”
“S-s-save me.”
“You’re already saved,” he assured, breathing life into her even as she burrowed under his chin.
“Don’t let them get me,” she cried, frightened out of her wits that she’d never be free of Grover and his assassins again. That they would always hunt her. That she couldn’t run far enough or fast enough. Desperate to be sure, she twined her arms around Eric’s neck, her fingernails digging into his shoulder muscles.
“Deep breaths, Shea. Breathe with me. Slow and easy,” he soothed, his arms around her, one hand cupping the back of her head. “That Abdul-Mutaal wannabe is dead, so are the other guys who were with him.”
“G-Grover? C-Carlson, too?” She knew his answer by the way Eric’s hands pressed her against him in a suffocating squeeze. This thing wasn’t over.
“Not yet, but we’re flying out of here as soon as you can travel. Elsa’s made arrangements. Trust me, Shea. Someone else can clean up this mess. You need to be home.”
The tsunami of terror dissolved as she wept against his neck. “You came for me.”
“Always,” he promised with a growl that seemed to surround her. “Damn it, Shea. Always.”
A nine-millimeter round made a helluva noise.
“We’ve got company,” Jordan called out from the other room. “Grover’s here. Any word from Alex yet?”
“Not yet,” Murphy answered tersely. “He won’t pick up his phone. Mother, either. Something’s not right.”
Eric shifted his weight to one elbow and listened to the muffled exchange through the closed bedroom door. Shea lay with her back to him, one hand splayed to the pillow. She’d fallen into a fitful sleep from exhaustion and the extra-strength ibuprofen he’d given her to help her relax. The poor thing needed some serious downtime to decompress, a couple weeks of R&R at least. Instead, she’d soon wake to the sounds of battle, not good therapy for a person suffering from serious shellshock.
Murphy knocked softly as he opened the door. “How’s she doing?”
“She’s sleeping. Grover’s here?” Eric rolled his shoulder, ready to knock that SOB to kingdom come. “Give me five.”
“No, you stay here with your wife,” Murphy ordered. “I wish you two were in the bunker. You’d be safer there.”
“You know better. I’d like Shea down there, but I don’t hide. Besides, you’ll need my rifle.” There was no way to avoid this showdown. The professor wanted Shea, but he couldn’t have her. Simple as that.
Carefully, Eric eased his feet to the floor. A clean change of clothes lay folded on the end of the bed. Typical TEAM wear: Camouflage pants, a black T-shirt, black cotton socks, a tactical vest, and his holster, two SIGS already loaded and tucked in its pockets. Better yet, pre-loaded .308 caliber clips for the AR tipped barrel-up next to the door. Extra magazines. Good man.
Dressing quickly and quietly, Eric strapped on and ramped up his inner sniper. If Alex were in Ireland, now would be a good time for him to show up. Somehow, Eric doubted that would happen. Alex wasn’t the cavalry.
Shea mumbled in her sleep, and for once, she wasn’t crying. Eric dropped to one knee at her bedside and placed a kiss on her cheek. “I won’t be gone long,” he whispered. “Dream for me, baby.”
Aishling peered out from under the bed. As if she knew it was her turn, the crazy cat climbed up and curled her fluffy black body into Shea’s chest. Shea didn’t wake, just cradled the cat like a baby in one of those automatic motherly responses, and for that, Eric was glad.
Stretching one lazy arm, Aishling rested a paw on Shea’s chin, almost as if giving her stamp of approval. Or possession. Damned if she didn’t look like she belonged there.
“Take care of her while I’m gone,” he whispered, his fingers smoothing over Shea’s forehead. Of course the cat didn’t answer, but the same odd feeing he always got with Aishling, whispered around Eric. When he was a kid, he used to believe in guardian angels. This cat certainly fit the bill. All she needed was a pair of wings.
Eric strapped on his boots, shrugged into his holster, and steeled his heart, needing the dirty job ahead of him and his team done, once and for all. Another shot sounded. Then another.
Time to move.
Closing the bedroom door behind him, he unholstered his pistol and went in search of his guys. War might have come for Shea, but it was going home empty-handed.
“And I said get the hell off my property.” Murphy’s chin lifted, his rifle already targeting the gray-haired gent in a sweater standing at the end of the driveway, the one with ten or twelve beefy guys at his back, all sporting short stock rifles. Had to be Grover.
A hefty camouflaged six-by-six five-ton cargo truck blocked
the drive. “Take your boys and leave,” Murphy ordered. “You’re only going to find trouble here.”
Still standing out of sight at the corner of Murphy’s house, Eric scanned the yard. Jordan stood at Murphy’s left with his rifle to his cheek, but Elsa was missing. Not acceptable. As good as she was, Murphy needed her on his right. At least, on his six.
Before joining the standoff, Eric took stock of the immediate area. He scouted the stone fence that lined Murphy’s place, the opposite side of his cottage, and the stand of trees that shaded it. Eric spotted Elsa’s long barrel at the same time he spotted the sneaky bastard hiding in the shadows of the cargo truck.
Elsa had chosen well. Ornamental pampas grass made a fine sniper hide for a gal laying on her belly while lining up her next shot. But damned if that guy playing hide-and-seek wasn’t Hugh Carlson. Just as Eric had suspected all along.
Now that he knew where everyone was, Eric stepped out front and took position to Murphy’s right. He didn’t recognize the men willing to die for the professor, but mercenaries were like that. Once you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.
“That Grover?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.
“In person,” Jordan muttered from Murphy’s left. “That’s the rat bastard who tried to kill me at the hotel.”
“Grover was there?” Eric hadn’t known that, but it made sense. Birds of a feather, and all that shit.
“But neighbor…” Still standing at the edge of Murphy’s property, Grover waved one hand toward Murphy’s house and lawn in a magnanimous gesture. “Do you think I’d let you stay here now that I know you have the goose that lays the golden egg?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Murphy hissed. “The only thing I’ve got for you is the first round out of this muzzle, and trust me. It’s not made of gold. Come get some.”
Eric grunted in agreement. Didn’t matter what the braggart wanted or how many men he’d brought with him, Grover wasn’t leaving with anything but lead in his ass. Certainly not Shea.
Eric (In the Company of Snipers Book 15) Page 27
