“I’ve explained some of this to you already,” Cole said, “but this makes it official. You’ll come on as a ‘consultant.’ After we finish with the dragons and remove the threat to ourselves, you’ll be able to keep doing the parts of the job you love most—the investigating, the puzzle and mystery solving. We’ll keep the danger to a minimum.”
Madalina’s brows arched when realization set in. She would be lying to herself if she denied the excited thrill that shot down her spine. Working for Cole’s father’s company. Special dispensation. She thought back to all the times when she’d felt as if her time at the clothing boutique had become almost mundane, had entertained the idea of accompanying Cole on one of his less deadly jobs. The adrenaline rush of the chase was addictive. The danger, however, could be incapacitating. Granted, she reminded herself, she’d been the target. If she “consulted” on other jobs, if she concentrated more behind the scenes, it would still allow her to be involved but not be in the line of fire.
“This doesn’t mean you have to give up the boutique or anything,” Cole said, as if he’d taken her silence to mean she had to make a decision between one job and another.
“Oh, I know. Although we’ve talked before about how different working there feels for me now,” she admitted, glancing up from the paper. Cole nodded. She said, “I can shift more responsibility to my co-owner and really sink my teeth into this.”
“It’s no secret that you’ve been torn,” Cole said. “You’ve made your interest in this life pretty clear. From the nonstop questions while I’m in my office to offering your help. I think it was only a matter of time before you outright asked to take on a bigger role.”
Madalina realized that Cole was right. It had been slowly building, this transfer of interest from fashion to intrigue. She’d lain awake some nights, thinking relentlessly about Cole’s missions and how she might contribute. This new venture did not mean she had to give up everything overnight—and she loved Cole for understanding she needed a gradual shift. If nothing else, signing on would give her the same benefits the brothers had for the duration of their particular situation.
Skin tingling with anticipation, she took the paper to the kitchenette counter and signed. “Done.”
“Excellent. We’ll get you fitted for a shoulder holster and your own gun when we have time,” Cole said. “For those instances when we might get unexpectedly caught in volatile circumstances.” He handed the paper to Brandon, who walked it into the back room, where office equipment waited.
“Do a lot of women work for your company?” she asked. She would need more lessons at the shooting range, she thought. Her aim was okay, but needed improvement.
“A handful, yes. Mostly ex-military,” Damon said.
“We’ll go over everything after we get this resolved,” Cole said. “I’ll take you to headquarters, too, so you can see the whole operation.”
Madalina perked. “Really?”
“Yes, really. For now, we need to study the maps around the address we’re headed to and make a plan in case Lance shows up while we’re still in the vicinity.” Cole gestured to an open laptop on a coffee table.
Madalina followed the brothers to the seating arrangement, anxious to start plotting.
Cole checked his pockets and weapons one more time before leading the others down the stairs to the tarmac. It was dark in Nepal, and sprinkling. Lights from the city of Pokhara glimmered off the surface of a large lake that, from this perspective, resembled a slab of obsidian. He knew from studying maps that the terrain here was hilly, with the majestic, snowcapped Himalayas as a backdrop. During the day, the views would be nothing short of spectacular. The air was clean, fresh, and invigorating and helped with clarity of mind.
Climbing into a waiting Jeep, he glanced over his shoulder as Madalina pulled herself into the backseat with Brandon. The Jeep had no top, only roll bars, and was built for rugged terrain. She settled in without complaint, despite the rain, and met his eyes briefly. He encouraged her determination with a smile, a smile she returned.
“All right. We ready?” Cole started the engine and sped away from the private airstrip, wheels spinning.
“Let’s do it,” Brandon said.
Cole navigated the roads and streets by memory. He’d studied the maps intently, locating the safest routes leading in and out of the city. The Jeep had nothing as sophisticated as a GPS, and although Damon tracked their progress on his phone, Cole needed no help with directions. He cut around the main sections of town, sticking to the less-trafficked back roads, and parked a full quarter mile from the address Walcot had left for Madalina. They were on a low sloping hill, with a decent view of the valley and lake. Housing was sporadic, with clusters sitting together and the random farm apart from the rest.
Exiting the vehicle, he sent Brandon ahead while he hung back with Damon and Madalina.
“Okay, just like we planned. Brandon will scout the structure and let us know if it’s clear. Then we’ll circle around the back of the building or house or whatever it is and attempt to enter through any rear door we find. Brandon’s going to remain outside as a lookout.” Cole watched Brandon jog toward a curve in the road and disappear in the dark. He didn’t like that he couldn’t see the structure, couldn’t see Brandon, but sometimes this was the job.
“And since we’ve done this a few times now, I’ll have a better idea what to look for in there,” Madalina said. She scooped her drooping, damp hair and resecured it into a knot.
“He likes to put things in obscure places, that’s for sure,” Cole said of Madalina’s grandfather. He liked the gleam of anticipation in her eyes and could tell that she was thinking ahead to what they might find.
Cole looked away from the glistening droplets of rain on her cheeks and waited for Brandon’s text.
“I wish I could see the city,” Madalina whispered, proving she wasn’t thinking only about Walcot’s note.
“Maybe one day we’ll come back. When we can spend more time,” Cole said.
Damon checked his watch, then peered into the gloom.
Cole followed Damon’s gaze. Brandon should be there by now. He waited impatiently for news.
Minutes ticked by. Wind rustled leaves of tropical-looking plants to the right of the road, while a stray bird chirped in a nearby tree. Somewhere, a dog barked.
The rain eased to a fine mist, then ceased altogether.
“What’s taking him so long?” Damon muttered.
“It would have helped if we’d been able to tell what kind of building the address is located in. Residential, commercial—although out here at the edge of the city, I don’t see it being commercial,” Cole admitted. This specific stretch of road had no other houses or buildings in sight.
“Me either,” Damon said.
“What the hell is he doing?” Cole said when another ten minutes had passed and there was no text, no sign of Brandon. “If he’s not back or doesn’t text in five minutes, we’re going in.” Cole paced in front of the Jeep, glancing back along the road, then ahead to the curve. He was starting to get an uncomfortable feeling across his shoulders, a creeping tension accompanied by a tickle across his nape. All signs that something wasn’t right.
“Madalina, I want you to wait in the Jeep,” Cole said, stalking back to the vehicle to open the door and gesture her inside.
“But I need to go with you—”
“I’ll come back and get you. Wait here.” He ignored her frown and gestured again.
“You think something’s wrong?” Damon asked, sliding a gun free from its holster.
“I do. Come on, Madalina.” Cole closed the door after she climbed in and said, “If you hear gunshots and we don’t come back right after, take the Jeep down into the city and call Thaddeus with the burner phone I gave you. You know his number.”
“I’d rather be with you—”
Cole cut her off. Leaning in the open window, he kissed her mouth. “I know. Stay here.” He pressed his secondary gun into h
er hand. “Use this if necessary.”
Madalina accepted the kiss and the weapon with no further protest. She performed a cursory check of the gun, then met his eyes.
Retreating after a lingering look, he thumbed the safety off his own weapon and joined Damon at the head of the vehicle. They’d worked together so often that they didn’t need to trade words or make plans; each knew what the other was thinking, what the other would do in a confrontation. Cole appreciated having brothers who were so intuitive in battle.
Starting off at a jog, he paced Damon, sticking close to the foliage at the curve of the road. Unsure what to expect, Cole kept his mind open for anything.
A row of four homes came into view. The low, squat buildings appeared old in the gloom, and probably appeared much older than in broad daylight. Attached to one another along one common wall, the modest residences sat on a hard-packed dirt lane that had gone soft with rain. Shimmering puddles dotted the road, creating a hopscotch pattern that disappeared around another curve several hundred yards away. Cole marked footprints leading up to and around the puddles; he found Brandon’s easily enough. His brother had kept to the side of the road, then crossed beyond the bend. The tracks looked fresh compared to the spare impressions of prints that might have been there days or weeks.
Unable to tell if any of the connecting units were occupied or not, Cole paused next to a lush palm tree and scoped the scene from there. Damon stopped at his flank and joined him in silent surveillance. Cole picked out faded metal numbers above the doors of the duplexes and recognized 18 as Walcot’s. The end unit closest to his position.
“The only tracks that look new are Brandon’s,” Damon whispered.
“I know. And I don’t see Brandon anywhere,” Cole replied. He spoke only loud enough for Damon to hear. “I can’t pinpoint what feels wrong, but something is.”
“Yes. Do you think Brandon’s inside?” Damon asked.
“I think he would have come back or texted before going in.” Cole scanned the area across from the houses, then behind the structure. A sloping hill rose gently away from the residences, which eventually led to a sharper cliffside, and beyond that, the snowcapped mountains. On the opposite side of the road from the homes stood a thatch of short trees and flowering plants that did not obscure the view of the city. He saw no shadows that stood out from the others, none that took the shape of lurking bodies.
“We can’t call out. Best to go forward and check the back of all the houses,” Damon said. “Brandon’s not out front.”
“Let’s go.” Cole fell in at Damon’s flank, preferring to hang back and cover their rear this time. The tingle on the back of his neck intensified. He felt like he was being watched.
Nothing but small plots of land, once used as garden areas and now grown over with weeds, waited behind the residences. Cole tracked Brandon’s steps to this exact spot, then lost the trail where the mud turned to grass. The ground was too mixed with debris—rocks, dead grass, new grass, weeds—to tell whether the mashed areas were Brandon’s footprints or someone else’s. Maybe a resident had been here recently.
“Too hard to follow any prints now,” Damon said, as if plucking the thought out of his brother’s head.
“Can’t make heads or tails of where Brandon went from here. There is a thin slab of concrete right before Walcot’s back door, and I don’t see any fresh mud or dirt. Brandon didn’t go inside—unless he stepped completely over the threshold,” Cole replied.
“Where the hell did he go? He should be right here somewhere,” Damon said.
Cole tested the back door of Walcot’s unit. Locked. “He’s not inside. Brandon wouldn’t have locked the door behind him. Not under these circumstances. I don’t want to test the others in case there are people sleeping.”
Damon shifted his attention to the gloomy landscape behind the residences as if he thought he might find answers to Brandon’s disappearance there. Cole followed suit, surveying the trees and foliage beyond the old gardens, looking for movement among the leaves. Something out there felt wrong. Off. Not what it should be.
A moment later he met Damon’s gaze. Cole didn’t have to be told that Damon felt the same wrongness in the air. Unable to put his finger on it, Cole returned his focus to a more immediate problem: finding Brandon.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Madalina shifted in the driver’s seat for the tenth time. The rugged Jeep was comfortable enough, but she was antsy and unable to sit still. She’d rolled the window up, then down, thinking it better if she allowed herself to hear every crack and snap of twigs in the night. What was taking so long? She hated not being able to see around the curve. All three men were out of sight, doing who knew what.
A flicker from the corner of her eye caused her to glance to the right. Brush and trees lined the road, sloping up into a low hill some distance back. Something—probably a bird—had caught her gaze in front of the hill. Peering into the darkness, and tempted to get out of the Jeep so she wouldn’t have to look through the rain-dotted windshield, she stilled in her seat to listen for clues. The heart of the small city seemed more quiet than she was used to. Southern California bustled with business even at night: cars, hotels, fast-food shops. She couldn’t stand on her front lawn without hearing multiple signs of life. Here, halfway around the world, she detected the bored bark of a dog, the bang of a door, and not much else.
A bird trilled in a tree on the opposite side of the road, the same side where she’d seen a flicker. So it had been a visitor of the avian variety after all. Tilting her head back against the seat, she stared ahead, watching for Cole, for Damon. For Brandon. For a flash of light or some other sign that the men were on their way back.
Restless, her knee started to bounce. She couldn’t help herself. Next she shifted in the seat again, seeking a different angle for her spine. The debate over whether to leave the vehicle and go search for the men lasted all of five seconds. As impatient and frustrated as she was, Cole would have her hide if she went against his request to stay with the car. If only someone would return with a quick update, it wouldn’t be so hard to wait.
There. Another flicker. She leaned partway across the Jeep and rolled down the passenger window. A cool breeze drifted in, bringing with it scents of wildflowers and rain-dampened greenery.
This time her gaze locked onto movement through the brush beyond a cluster of broad-leafed plants. There was no mistaking the thicker shadows, the heavier mass of not one but three objects.
That was no bird.
Sitting straighter, on alert for new sounds, she tried to make out whether or not that was Cole, Damon, and Brandon. She couldn’t figure out why they were wandering in the brush rather than taking the road, though, which made her a little wary. Perhaps they’d decided to take a roundabout route back to the Jeep.
When the shapes continued past, Madalina knew instinctively it wasn’t the brothers. Cole would have come back to check on her, not keep going without giving her some kind of notice.
Checking the safety on the gun, she slid out of the Jeep. Leaving the door cracked so it wouldn’t make noise when she closed it, she crept to the rear of the vehicle and crouched next to the bumper. This low, she didn’t have as great a vantage as when she’d been higher in the Jeep, which meant she struggled a little to pick up the flicker of movement again.
There. Five yards behind the Jeep now. She doubted residents of the city would be wandering through the brush this late at night, not after the rain. Compelled to act, she darted from behind the Jeep, keeping low, and found a place to enter the foliage. Leaves whispered and rustled, forcing her to go slower. To pick her footing more carefully. Gripping the gun with one hand, holding it down at her side, she found her way to a skinny deer path or some other animal trail that meandered along the base of the sloping hill. This must be the path the others were following.
Just who “the others” were, she didn’t know.
Glancing back, all she could see was part of the Jeep’s roo
f and sections of the curve in the road. Cole and his brothers were nowhere in sight. He would be furious if he came back to find her skulking through the underbrush, trailing unknown people. Yet she was driven to go forward and see why these folks had taken a much less visible route away from the area. Some people call it gut instinct; Madalina decided it was women’s intuition that propelled her into a quick-paced but quiet walk along the path. The ground at the edge of the trail was more sturdy, drier after the rain. Less noisy.
Voices drifted back on the breeze. Men’s voices. Hushed, urgent.
You better hope you haven’t stumbled upon drug runners or something. You might wind up in a shallow grave on the roadside. The thought gave her only a moment’s pause. What were the odds of that? Probably astronomical. No, she was sure it had something to do with all this, with Walcot’s address, with the dragons. The timing and isolation of the surroundings lent to the obvious answer—these men were here for nefarious purposes all right, but of a different nature.
Coming up to a plant as tall as she was, Madalina peered around the fronds. Ahead, in the middle of the path, were two men hunched at the shoulders. Between them they carried what appeared to be an unconscious man, feet dragging in the mud behind. Even in the low light, she knew that the man being dragged was Brandon. His height, breadth, and physique gave him away. Cole West and his brothers were distinctive in their size and athleticism.
The men doing the dragging were shorter, stockier.
Somehow these men had been there ahead and ambushed Brandon before he had time to warn her and the others. Now the men were making off with Brandon to parts unknown. Shouting for Cole and Damon was out of the question. The men would shoot her and Brandon, and it would give Cole and Damon’s position away, wherever they were. Maybe even make the brothers targets.
A Dangerous Tryst (The Inheritance Book 3) Page 12
