“Concur. I'll reroute assets.”
“Agreed. What is the status of Two?”
Three grabbed a bottle of water and took a drink before she responded, “Two was not at any of the locations we identified.”
“This is unacceptable.”
“Noted. I'm working it.”
One stared at Three through the computer screen. The woman failed to meet her eyes for several long seconds. “She won't break.”
“She might not have a choice. The drugs are very effective.”
“I'm using all my assets.”
“Are you?”
“It isn't time for that play.”
“If she isn't located in the next twenty-four hours, you will use all means necessary to locate her.”
“I understand.” Three nodded to herself and cleared her throat. “We have several updates to go through.” The woman's Slavic accent became pronounced. One lifted an eyebrow as she lowered her eyes to the agenda. To see cracks in Three’s facade was not good. Not good at all.
Chapter 12
Ryan heard Dog coming down the incline. That meant Ethan wasn't far behind. The two had been inseparable all day yesterday, and the dog had never spent so much time in the house. Granted, there was at least forty inches of new snow, but still, Dog preferred to be outside. The only thing that had changed was the addition of Bethanie and Ethan. Dog had adopted the kid. No doubt about it.
“You can come in. Do you want some breakfast?”
Ethan rounded the corner. Dog padded forward and sat down beside him. “Yes, please.”
He nodded at the carton of eggs on the counter. “Eggs?”
“Scrambled?”
“Sure. Add a couple pieces of toast to the toaster.” Ryan cracked three more into the frying pan and stirred the fuck out of the over easy eggs he'd been making. Whatever. Eggs were eggs.
“Mom said not to bother you.” Ethan got a knife out of the silverware drawer and fished the butter out of the refrigerator.
“Did she? When was that?”
“Yesterday. Am I bothering you?”
“Nope. Where's your mom?”
“Sleeping. She's really tired.”
“I would imagine. She had a rough go of it in the snow the other night.” Ryan took the eggs off the burner and grabbed two plates while Ethan buttered the toast.
Ethan fell on his food like a starving animal. Growing boy. He'd always been hungry growing up. Shit. He got up and grabbed the milk out of the refrigerator. He snagged a plastic tumbler and filled it up for the kid.
“Drink that. After we square up the kitchen, I'm going out to remove the snow from the solar panels and clear it away from equipment on top of the mountain. You can help.”
The boy stopped with his final corner of toast halfway to his mouth. “I can?”
“Yep. Plenty of work to do.”
“Can Dog come?”
“Dog goes where he wants, but you'll need to listen to me. There is shit up there you can't touch, or you'll get fried.” The storage batteries and inverters were off limits. He'd make sure the kid didn't go anywhere near them.
“You cuss a lot.” Ethan scooped up his plate and fork and took it to the sink.
“No shit? I hadn't noticed. Rinse those and put them in the dishwasher.”
Ethan's eyes got big before a belly laugh echoed around the cavern. “Yeah, you do. Mom doesn't like me to cuss.”
“Listen to your mom, at least until you’re an adult. Then you can make your own decisions,” Ryan said as he finished his eggs.
“Yeah, like having soda instead of milk,” the kid groaned the words like having milk was torture.
“You like soda?”
“I do. Hey, where's the dishwasher?”
“See those two big drawers? Pull the top one out.” He'd opted for the pull-out drawer version. It was smaller, took less water to run, and for one person, it was perfect. He'd installed two on the off chance the shit with Moriah worked out, but he'd been building this house for almost fifteen years. When he'd planned the kitchen, she'd been in the picture. Then she wasn't.
“That's cool.” Ethan carefully placed his plate and fork in the dishwasher and shut it.
Ryan took care of his own plate and threw the frypan and spatula in the dish drawer. He wiped down the stove and headed toward the storage area. Shit, they should probably leave a note so Bethanie didn't worry.
“Ethan, run up to my office. On my desk, there are pens and sticky notes. Write your mom a note and tell her we will be back after we get done clearing snow.”
“Okay.”
He watched the kid tear across the open space with Dog loping beside him. He hadn't actually meant the kid needed to run. Note to self, the boy functions at a literal level. He turned to the clothes he'd bought for them and picked through the garments until he had suitable layers for the kid.
He'd just pulled on his outer jacket when Ethan slid to a sock-footed stop in front of him. “Done.”
“Where did you put the note?”
“On the bathroom mirror.” Ethan grabbed a pair of snow pants that Ryan handed him and hopped around on one foot as he pushed one leg through the material. Talk about comic relief.
“Good call on the location. She'll be sure to see it there.”
Ethan smiled. “Thanks.” He put on the outer clothes Ryan handed him and finally the boots, gloves and stocking cap. “Crap, it's really hot in all these.”
“You'll cool off soon enough.” He hit the code on the back door and opened it. Dog bounced out the door, activating his own doggie door as he passed. The rear approach was clear until about three feet from the entrance of the tunnel Ryan had expanded and reinforced.
“Wow, that's a lot of snow!”
Snowdrifts crested in brilliant white caps consuming trees and leaving only the tops peeking out of the glittering virgin expanse. Light puffy clouds dotted a clear blue sky. The grey folds of the stormfront no longer hung low over the mountain. Unfortunately, the good weather wasn't forecasted to last.
“Okay, I'm going to lead the way up. You stay in my tracks. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Ryan broke a path through the waist-deep snow, not concerned about exposing his location, but cautious nonetheless. One set of footprints, minus whatever tracks Dog made, would be hard to pick out. Hell, in order for anyone to see the tracks, they needed to be on top of the mountain or have an aerial view. With drone technology, that could happen, but with the snow forecast for tomorrow morning, the chance of exposing his home was slim to none. Not that anyone was looking for him, but he had no idea what the actual danger was to Bethanie and Ethan. Whatever it was, Guardian considered it sufficient to send them to him. Bengal's woman had called them “family”. Repeated it, actually.
Twenty-seven minutes later, he broke through the last snow drift and drew a deep breath. The camouflage netting had collapsed under the weight of the snow. He gripped the end of the tarp and pulled. It didn’t budge. They’d need to dig it out.
He heard heavy breathing behind him and glanced back over his shoulder. “You going to live there, kid?”
“Yeah, sheesh this stuff is hard to walk in.”
“You didn't play in the snow in New York?” Ryan grabbed the kid under the armpits and sat him on top of the drift at the face of his equipment mesa.
“Crap you’re strong. I’m heavy. The snow in the city isn't like this snow. It’s all gray and gross, and the cars splash you when you go outside to play.”
“No parks?”
“Some. We made a snowman once. Me and James.”
“James your friend?”
“Yep. Mom let us use her scarf, and we found rocks for his eyes and mouth. He was really ugly, but it was fun.”
“Sounds like it. Okay, here's what's going to happen. You are going to sit right here for a couple minutes. I need to go get my snow blower out of the back cave. When I get it out and started, I'm going to make my way over here, and then I'll let you run it while
I dig out the buildings. We'll get this all cleared and then slide the snow off the solar panels. Sound like a plan?”
“You're going to let me use a snow blower?”
“Yeah, after I explain how to run it. It isn't hard to do.”
“But you mean by myself, right?”
“Yes. Why? Is that a problem?”
“No, sir! I'll do it.”
“Good. We all need to pull our weight around here. Right?”
“Right!”
Bethanie checked the oven timer and stirred the pot of stew she'd made from last night's leftovers. Her bread had finished proofing—thank you very much, Ryan, for having a warming drawer with a ‘proof’ setting on it— and it was almost finished baking.
While she waited for the oven's timer to ring, she ventured out the back door and stood in awe of the snow drifts that feathered out like waves down the mountain. The way Ryan and Ethan had gone was obvious. She craned her neck and shielded her eyes against the glare coming off the snow. Standing in the shadow cast by the cave opening, she didn't linger in the cold.
Galloping paws echoed around her. Bethanie turned and laughed as a canine snowball punctuated with a lolling pink tongue, black eyes, and a black nose, hurled down the entrance. The animal skidded to a stop at the door, its tail flailing wildly, before he scrambled and darted out of the cave again. Three more times the dog sprinted from snowbank to the door acting like a puppy, frolicking and writhing in happiness. Her laughter seemed only to incite his craziness. When she opened the door to go inside, the dog shot through it and skidded to a stop. She grabbed a towel from the shelf she'd discovered yesterday and rubbed the animal down, making sure to wipe its paws.
A wet tongue plastered against her cheek and pulled upward. Cringing at the slide of saliva, she leaned away from the animal. If a dog could smile, the animal was doing his best Colgate impression. “You look fierce, but you're just an ole marshmallow, aren't you?”
The animal's tail swung back and forth, leaving a wet arc on the flooring. “Yeah, between you and Ethan, I'm going to be mopping a lot, aren't I?”
The animal tried to lick her again. Thankfully, she managed to avoid the bath. After draping the wet towel on a hook, she headed back to the kitchen and her meal. She had no idea how long they'd been gone, but it was well past lunchtime. She took out the bread to cool and would keep the stew warm until they came back. Having nothing else to do, she wandered the confines of the cavern. The skill and effort it took to enclose, heat, and power this remarkable house was awe inspiring. If it was like the little cabin, it was solar powered. She'd seen the panels on one of her many excursions with Ethan last week.
The entire home was a construction marvel. She had no idea how to measure the effort it would have taken to haul all the materials up the mountain and plan, plumb, wire, install, build, and weatherproof the cave. The thoughts were mind-boggling.
She wandered over to the huge sectional. The fireplace had hot coals in the bottom that danced with small yellow flames at irregular intervals. She'd never put wood on a fire before, but how hard could it be? The log she grabbed weighed enough that she needed to use two hands to pick it up, and it was the smallest piece in the stack. With careful, slow movements, she sidled closer to the fire and set the log on the coals. Heat instantly flared. She backed away from the fire and watched as the flames started to lick up the side of the wood.
Thinking was a byproduct of having time on her hands. The last hours without Ethan had been the first time she'd had time to herself since she'd dropped Ethan off at school that Monday morning—the Monday the women from Guardian had reached out to her. So much had changed. She sat down and pulled her feet under her as she watched the fire consume the fuel she'd placed on it.
Her life was upside down. Her son's father was gone. That was a fact. Even if she discounted the hovering possibility of some unknown specter of danger that loomed over her and Ethan, she had mountains of obstacles to scale. How would she support Ethan? New York City was impossibly expensive. Everything they had needed, Harvey had provided. He’d purchased clothes, paid the rent, arranged for food deliveries, paid Ethan's insurance and tuition. He’d controlled everything. She had no idea how much money she'd need to pay the rent on their midtown apartment. None.
She had no marketable skills. She did have her GED, as Harvey had required it. She knew how to count and make change. Computers were easy, so maybe she could find a job in a coffee shop, or a local market. She had two green thumbs, but no land to grow crops. She'd need to be off when Ethan was out of school, and he'd have to enroll in a public school. Private education was off the table. She could look for a place around here. The Smoky Mountains were beautiful, and the prices of gas were half what she paid in the city, so one could assume the cost of living was cheaper here. But smaller communities meant fewer job opportunities, too.
Dog walked in and plopped down in front of the fire with a groan. Bethanie's eyes floated from the dog to the fire, to the expanse of the cavern. Every detail of the home screamed wealth. The fixtures, lights, flooring, furniture, everything was well cared for and maintained. Ryan Wolf was an extraordinary man. What he'd created was incredible. She shivered a bit and chuckled. He was incredibly sexy, although it was only last night as she lay down with Ethan that she'd allowed herself to admit that fact.
His dark brown eyes flashed when he was angry. She'd seen that first hand. His hair was a bit too long and curled at his neck. At times he spoke like a trucker, and then he confused her with words of deep concern and caring. Thank goodness he'd given her some port last night, otherwise she might have suffered whiplash from the different tones and feelings of their conversation. In the end, she remained confused. Their conversation while they cleaned up after dinner had drifted from her circumstances to the house he'd built. He'd retired to his office while she took turns playing a game with Ethan. When they went to their bedrooms, she'd had enough nerve to say goodnight as they passed. His surprised smile made her daring worthwhile.
Dog lifted, instantly alert. He darted to the back of the cavern. The whir of the doggie door told her he'd let himself out again and then she understood why. She heard Ethan long before she could see him. His excited voice chattered a mile a minute. She pulled herself out of the warm corner of the couch and headed to the back door to help with wet clothes and wet werewolves.
“Then it stores in the batteries, right, until we turn on something down here?”
“If we are using electricity during the day, the power pulls straight from the panels, and after it converts into electricity, we use it. When we aren't using power, it stores in the batteries so we can use it when it is cloudy, or the panels are obscured.”
“Like by snow.”
“Right, or darkness.”
“That is so cool. Mom! Ryan told me all about solar energy. He showed me everything, but I can't go inside the battery and hook up shelter without him. It was amazing. I got to run the snow blower. I did good, didn't I, Ryan?”
“Damn straight. One hell of a little worker you got there.”
Bethanie blinked at the cuss words, falling a little speechless at the easy way Ethan was talking to Ryan. Admiration shone from the boy's eyes. She helped Ethan hang up his jacket but swiveled her attention to Ryan. “What were you doing?”
“Busy work. I had to clear the solar panels, and make sure the pump house was working. I've wrapped the exposed water lines and insulated the ones close to the surface. This is the first big snow of the season, so I needed to make sure everything was okay. Plus, my satellite uplink is up there. Had to ensure there was no snow on top of it so I can raise and open it. It is my only link to the outside world.
“What about a cell phone?”
“They don't work in a cave. I have voice over IP so I can call out when I have the antenna expanded. I'll show you how to do that so you can call out if you ever have a need.”
“Mom, you gotta go up there with us. You can see forever! And we're goi
ng to build a sled! You should see the slope, and the snow was so deep. After today there's going to be an ice crust–”
“Ice cap, the crust that is formed is called a cap.” Ryan corrected as he slipped out of his snow boots.
“Right, ice cap on the snow so the sled will fly down the hill.” Ethan held his hand flat and swept it rapidly in a downward motion.
“Really? Is that safe?” She glanced from her son's animated face back to Ryan.
“Sledding? Perfectly safe.”
“Yeah, but we need to make a sled this afternoon. Can I, Mom? Please?”
She sat back on her heels and stared at her son. The absolute joy on his face mesmerized her. “Sure, if it’s okay with Ryan.”
“It's okay. He's the one who thought it up. I've never been sledding, so he's going to show me what to do.”
She turned to confirm that was actually what transpired. Ryan winked at her and smiled.
“Well okay, then. That sounds like a plan. Why don't you go get into some dry jeans and wash your hands? I have lunch ready.”
“Okay, c'mon Dog!” Ethan started to run.
“Walk in the house.” She called after him.
“Okay!” Ethan slowed down until he hit the incline then raced up the slope.
His feet started pounding against the flooring, and she winced. “Sorry.”
Ryan looked up from hanging up his wet clothes. “For what? He's having a blast.”
“Yeah, but he can get really wound up.”
“He's fine.”
Ethan's laughter echoed down from upstairs.
“Thank you for that, by the way. I mean taking him with you. He could have stayed inside.”
Ryan ran his hands through his thick brown hair as he smiled. “He's great company, and he worked hard. I figure once we get some food in him, he'll realize he's on empty and pass out. Did you bake bread? It smells delicious.”
“Ahh... yeah, I did. I took what you said last night as gospel. I rummaged around and made bread and something out of the leftovers for lunch.”
“Perfect, I could seriously eat. That snow's damn heavy.”
Lycos (Guardian Security Shadow World Book 3) Page 11
