by Paula Graves
“The question is, do they have a bigger agenda?” Quinn fell silent on his end of the line for a few seconds, causing Hunter to wonder if he’d lost the phone connection. But a second later, Quinn added, “What are you doing now?”
“Holding a rope,” Hunter answered, not hiding his frustration.
* * *
THE DARK SPACE beyond the door turned out to be the conference-room kitchen, as they’d hoped. Painting the dark space with the narrow beam of the penlight, Susannah mapped the long narrow room in her mind, then shut off the small light and navigated in the darkness.
There was a large, stainless-steel refrigerator in one corner. She eased the door open, the automatic light inside the refrigerator casting a glow across the immediate area. It gave her enough illumination to make out the rest of the long, narrow room—large commercial cooking ranges, double ovens, a pair of high-powered microwave ovens and what looked to be a large double-door pantry barely visible from this end of the kitchen.
After a quick look in the refrigerator revealed it to be empty, she closed the door and flicked her penlight on again, crossing to take a look inside the pantry.
Unlike the refrigerator, the pantry seemed to be stocked with basic cooking staples. Cans of chicken, beef and vegetable broth sat on one shelf, along with canned evaporated milk and several cans of tomato paste. Standard herbs and spices took up space on the shelf below. The bottom two shelves were occupied by flour, sugar and cornmeal in carefully labeled canisters.
Susannah scanned the pantry contents again, trying to think logically. The canned items seemed to be unlikely potential sources of a poisoning, sealed as they were. The spices might be better bets, but it would probably take a lab days to work out what the ingredients of those bottles really were.
Being quick about it, she looked into the canisters and confirmed that the contents did seem to be sugar, flour and cornmeal. There was also a large cylindrical carton of basic table salt and, near that, three pepper mills containing three different colors of peppercorns.
In other words, she was looking at a fairly standard kitchen pantry. With any number of herbs and spices that might look like those leaves in Marcus’s desk.
If those leaves had anything to do with the plot at all.
Focus. If Marcus wanted to poison the food, how would he go about it?
Marcus was dating the woman from the catering company, but removing him from acting as a liaison with the caterer had seemed to be a sufficient change to waylay any possible questions of ethics.
Little had she known just how bloody unethical Marcus Lemonde could be when he put his mind to it.
Based on her discussions with the catering company, and the notes she’d made in her files, Ballard’s Catering was supplying all of the primary ingredients for the dishes they were preparing, but they had asked for the hotel to supply the cooking facility and basic staples. Susannah imagined they’d probably include salt and pepper as basic staples. What about other herbs? Could Marcus have tainted the herbs in the pantry in some way? Maybe with those leaves they’d found in his desk?
She looked over the possibilities. If those leaves were a plant poison, such as belladonna or maybe hemlock, he could pretty easily mix them into aromatics like oregano or basil, couldn’t he? She grabbed those spice bottles as well as the ground thyme and the small bottle of bay leaves. Maybe Alexander Quinn could test these herbs for toxins before the conference started tomorrow—
As she turned away from the pantry shelves, she heard a quiet click, followed by a slow, steady cadence of tapping, moving inexorably closer. Footsteps, she realized, shoving down a sudden spike of panic.
Padding across the narrow kitchen floor as quietly as possible, she hurried back to the dumbwaiter and folded herself inside, wincing as the heel of one foot caught the edge of the steel cage, making a soft thunking noise. Closing the door behind her, she gave the pulley rope four sharp tugs. The dumbwaiter lurched briefly and began a shuddering descent.
It was making too much noise, she thought, her heart rate climbing until her pulse seemed to hammer in her head like a piston.
Suddenly, the dumbwaiter seemed to drop precipitously, stopping with a loud clang that made her teeth crack together. It didn’t move again.
“Hunter?” Keeping her voice to a whisper, she extended her hand in the dark, expecting to find the cool steel of the dumbwaiter chute. Instead, she felt solid wood.
It was the door in the basement. But why wasn’t it open?
“Hunter?” she whispered again, sliding her hand to the right in search of the doorknob.
There. She gave it a turn, suddenly terrified she would find it locked, trapping her in the dark. But the knob turned easily enough, and she shoved the door open, already halfway out of the dumbwaiter by the time she realized it wasn’t Hunter standing on the other side of the door.
“Hello, Susan. Nice to see you again after such a long time.”
Ice flooding her veins, Susannah stared into the feral smile of Asa Bradbury.
Chapter Fifteen
Hunter had never lost consciousness, only the ability to move with any coordination until the thumping pain in his head subsided to a dull throb. But those few seconds had been enough time for the four men who’d ambushed him to strip away his Glock and the folding knife he kept in his jeans pocket.
Unarmed and outnumbered, he had few options. Better to let them think he was unconscious. It wasn’t as if he’d be able to do much to thwart them with his head pounding and his limbs currently feeling like wet noodles.
But he had to keep his mind alert. Because whoever these guys were, they weren’t Billy Dawson’s BRI thugs. Which meant—
He heard the door of the dumbwaiter open, the scrambling sound of someone—Susannah—crawling out. Her footsteps faltered, and for a second, the whole room seemed to grow utterly still.
Then one of the men who’d wrestled him to the floor spoke in a hill country drawl. “Hello, Susan. Nice to see you again after such a long time.”
Panic clawed at Hunter’s gut, clanged along his nerves and pushed through the misty half fog in his brain. Lying perfectly still while his mind was whirling like a tornado took every ounce of control he had.
“Asa Bradbury.” Susannah’s voice was low and remarkably calm, considering she was apparently facing the man who’d driven her into exile nearly a decade ago. “It saddens me to see you here. I really thought you were the rare Bradbury who had a lick of sense.”
“I’m chock-full of sense, sugar.” From the tone of the man’s voice, Hunter suspected he was smiling. “Primarily a sense of justice.”
“Justice. Really.”
The man she’d called Asa sighed. “You killed a kinsman, Susie. You know it’s not something a Bradbury can just let go.”
“Even though your kinsman was trying to rape a sixteen-year-old girl in her own bedroom?”
“Sadly, even then.”
“And so, what? Summary execution? Shall we just get it over with right here and now?”
Hunter’s pulse stuttered in his ears, escalating the ache in his head. He sneaked a look at the scene through his eyelashes, taking in the four men circling Susannah, guns drawn. Her gaze slanted toward him, and for an electric second, he thought she could see through his ruse.
But she looked back at the tallest of the four men, the one she’d called Asa. “What’s it going to be, Asa?”
“There will be a tribunal tomorrow morning at ten. Your crimes against our family will be aired, and you can defend yourself.” Asa Bradbury’s tone was almost formal, as if he really did believe he was behaving according to some code of honor, however twisted.
“And if my defense is found wanting?” Her voice was deep and raspy.
“An eye for an eye,” Asa answered. He nodded his head toward the others, and they moved even closer to Susannah.
“Wait,” she said, her gaze slanting toward Hunter again. He closed his eyes, in case anyone followed her gaze. “Is
he—”
“He’s alive. He isn’t our concern.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Incapacitated him so that he couldn’t try to keep us from doing what we came here to do.” Asa’s tone was dismissive, as if Hunter was no more significant to him than a door that had had to be unlocked to reach Susannah.
“I have to leave something for him,” Susannah said.
Hunter heard the shuffle of feet and risked a quick peek through his eyelashes. She was trying to move past the three men who’d surrounded her, but they held her in place. “Please, Asa. I get that you’re going to take me out of here no matter what I have to say about it, but we were trying to stop a mass murder from taking place. That’s why he and I are here.”
Asa glanced toward Hunter, forcing him to close his eyes again. “Also not our concern.”
“I never realized you were a monster, Asa.”
“I’m not.”
“Then let me give him these.”
Hunter heard more shuffling noises, but he didn’t dare open his eyes.
“What are these?” Asa asked.
“Herbs. We think someone’s planning to poison people at a conference tomorrow, and Hunter will need to get these herbs tested. Time is essential. Please let me leave these for him.”
For a long moment, there was no sound at all beyond the soft whisper of breathing. Then Hunter heard footsteps moving toward him. Heavy footsteps, so definitely not Susannah’s. He heard the soft click of something hard thudding against the floor near his head.
“I need to leave a note,” Susannah said, her voice still a few feet away.
“Unnecessary. I’m sure your friend will figure it out.” Asa’s voice moved away from Hunter as the man joined his companions where they held Susannah captive. “It’s time for us to go.”
“I don’t know why you pretend this is going to be justice, Asa,” Susannah said as he and the other three men pushed her toward the exit door. “There’s nobody on Laurel Bald who’ll choose my word over yours. You know that. Why not just get this over with here and now?”
What was she doing, trying to goad them into killing her right now? Had she lost her mind?
Then, as the door closed behind them, he realized what she’d said.
Laurel Bald.
Brilliant, beautiful woman. She’d just given him somewhere to start looking for her.
* * *
HE’D BEEN CONSCIOUS, hadn’t he? All Susannah had seen was the slightest flicker of his eyelids, but there had been a tension in his stillness that convinced her Hunter had been conscious, at least for the last few minutes of her confrontation with the Bradburys.
But had he picked up on the clue she’d given him?
“I know you think this is unfair.” Beside her, Asa Bradbury shifted in his seat, the movement tugging the handcuffs that chained her to Asa’s wrist.
“How on earth did you figure that out?” she responded in a tone as dry as desert sand.
“Do you think I’m unaware of my brother’s more venal pursuits?” Asa asked softly, his head turned to look at her.
She made herself meet his gaze, unsurprised to find a hint of sympathy in the man’s dark eyes. She hadn’t been lying when she’d said she’d always thought Asa had more sense than most of the Bradburys. He hadn’t been part of the family’s meth business, at least not back when she’d still been living in Boneyard Ridge.
But she supposed things might have changed.
“Our family is in a battle for its life,” Asa added more quietly. He sounded genuinely regretful, and Susannah supposed he might be, at that. Being the titular head of a mountain crime family had to be stressful for a man like Asa, who’d once dreamed about leaving the mountains to see the world outside. He’d wanted to go to college, maybe come back with a business degree and the chance to build a different sort of reputation for the Bradbury name.
But most of the other Bradburys had liked their name just the way it was. Synonymous with brute power and fast, dirty money.
“What happened to you, Asa?” she asked softly. “You had such plans for your life.”
He didn’t answer, but the tense set of his profile suggested she’d found a sore spot.
“You could let me go. Just end this madness here, once and for all. You know I didn’t do anything that wasn’t my God-given right. I had a right to protect myself from Clinton. I had a right to choose what to do with my own body.”
“I can’t stop them,” he said quietly. “I can barely control them as it is, and if I were to show any sign of softness—”
“They’d destroy you,” she finished for him, overwhelmed with hopelessness.
“I am sorry.” Asa looked at her then, his brown eyes surprisingly sympathetic. “I always liked you, Susie McKenzie. You had fire.”
She looked away, her gaze settling on the back of Kenny Bradbury’s shaggy head where he sat in the driver’s seat of the panel van carrying her inexorably toward her fate.
Please, she thought, please let Hunter have been conscious. Please let him figure out what I was trying to tell him.
* * *
“THESE NEED TO be tested for toxins,” Hunter said without preamble, handing Alexander Quinn the four bottles of herbs Susannah had taken from the hotel kitchen before she’d been ambushed by the Bradburys. Quinn had met him on the road at the place where Hunter and Susannah had stashed their extra supplies. “And if there’s anything in them, the cops need to get a warrant for Marcus Lemonde’s desk in the Event Planning office.”
Hunter bent to pick up both packs and slung them over one shoulder, already headed back to the borrowed SUV.
Quinn followed at a brisk pace. “Where are you going?”
“Boneyard Ridge. There’s a place there called Laurel Bald. That’s where they’re taking her.”
“The Bradburys?” Quinn asked.
Hunter stopped midstep, turning to look at his boss. “You knew about the Bradburys?” All he’d told Quinn on the phone was that their plans had gone sideways and now Susannah had been kidnapped. He hadn’t mentioned the Bradburys. Of that, he was certain.
“I know her real name is Susan McKenzie and that she killed a man named Clinton Bradbury when she was sixteen years old.”
Hunter stared at Quinn in silence before he breathed out a stream of profanities. “Of course you knew. You know every damn thing there is to know about everybody, don’t you? You probably even knew that if you assigned me to watch her, I’d end up willing to take a bullet for her. Because I’m that sort of guy, aren’t I?”
“Yes, you are. I just didn’t have any idea you’d be willing to do it because you’d fallen in love with her.”
Hunter started to protest, but the words never got past the back of his throat. What was the point of arguing? If he wasn’t already in love with her, he was awfully close, wasn’t he? Even now, the thought that he might not reach her in time to stop the Bradburys from doing whatever they planned to do to her was enough to make him feel weak-kneed and sick.
But it was also enough to make him ignore the pain still throbbing in his head, because he didn’t have time to worry about whether or not he had a concussion. He couldn’t afford to wait for a CAT scan or to get checked out by the paramedics.
Susannah needed him. And she’d given him a way to find her.
“You’re going after her.” It wasn’t a question.
“I am,” Hunter said, already moving toward the SUV again.
“You’ll need backup.”
“I probably will,” he conceded, opening the driver’s-side door.
“I’ll get these samples to a lab. And I’ll put some agents on call. Will six be enough? They can be in Boneyard Ridge in half an hour. Siege protocol?”
Hunter thought about it. He wasn’t sure how many Bradburys there were in Boneyard Ridge, but unless they were all commando-trained warriors, they wouldn’t be any match for seven well-trained agents from The Gates.
“Six should d
o it. Siege protocol,” he agreed as he slid behind the steering wheel and put the keys in the ignition. “If there aren’t toxins in those herbs, then get back to that hotel and figure out what Billy Dawson’s up to, even if you have to call in a fake bomb threat to get the cops involved. Because I’ve got something else to do.”
Hunter put the SUV in Drive and pulled away from Quinn, heading north toward Boneyard Ridge.
* * *
DAWN WAS STILL several hours away when the panel van carrying Susannah and her captors chugged its way up the winding mountain road to Laurel Bald near the top of Boneyard Ridge. Next to her, Asa Bradbury released an audible sigh, as if reaching his home territory came as a physical relief.
She herself felt nothing but sheer, gut-twisting panic. No matter how much she’d once loved this place, Boneyard Ridge had long since become a place of fear and loathing. Her grandmother was gone from this place, leaving only a mixed bag of memories and the ever-present threat of violence and retribution.
Retribution she was about to face, after so many years trying to run from the inevitable.
“Where do you plan to keep me?” she asked, trying not to let her fear show.
She could tell from the look in Asa’s eyes that she hadn’t been successful. “Jennalyn’s cabin. She’s made you up a place to rest in the cellar. It’ll be a mite cold, so I asked her to make sure you had extra blankets.”
“You’re keeping me prisoner in a root cellar. In October.”
“Did you expect a comfortable guest suite?” he asked in a flat tone, slanting another look her way. “You killed my brother.”
“In self-defense.”
“So you say.”
“You know it was self-defense. You as much as admitted it.”
“You’ll have your say at the tribunal.”
“Will I be provided with legal counsel?” she countered, deciding to play the game by Asa’s rules. If he wanted to pretend he was seeking justice, then she would humor him. But on her own terms.
“You can serve as your own counsel, just as we’ll serve as Clinton’s.”
“And the judge?”
