Mother by Fate

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  “They’ve been following you to get to me. Now go.”

  No one moved.

  “You’re going to get yourselves killed,” Nicole rasped with the force of her whisper. “Go!”

  “We aren’t leaving without you,” Sara said. Because she couldn’t leave the vulnerable woman handcuffed out in the woods alone. But also because she knew Michael was not going anywhere without his jumper.

  Some things hadn’t changed.

  “Get up, Nicole, the jig’s up.” Michael prodded her with the butt of his gun.

  The woman still didn’t move. “Shoot me,” she said, with no emotion in her voice, or her face, either. “I don’t stand a chance out here with no weapon and my hands in cuffs anyway. And I don’t really care how I die. I care that my son is safe. And that Sara isn’t hurt because of me. Now, if you care for her at all, get her out of here.”

  Before Sara realized what Michael was doing, he’d hauled the smaller woman up, thrown her over his shoulder and headed back the way they’d come.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  HE COULD HEAR Sara right behind him. He’d known she would be. Picking up Nicole had guaranteed it.

  He didn’t believe anyone was after them. A pair of handcuffs wasn’t going to slow the woman down. She just wanted them gone so she could run again.

  But he took in the entire pier community at a glance as they stood at the edge of the clearing—looking specifically for Army Fatigues. He had to know all the players were in place; everyone was doing just what they’d been doing all night—or were sleeping, as was now the case with the card players.

  Army Fatigues was back. Sitting exactly in the same spot he’d been before. Staring out to sea again. The three teenagers were playing cards and sharing a bottle.

  Staying close to the cliff, away from the water and behind most of the area’s occupants, Michael passed beneath the pier, stooped to grab up the bag he’d left behind when he’d gone after Sara and Nicole and headed toward his predetermined exit route.

  * * *

  SHAKING, NEEDING TO send a group text to the High Risk Team so everyone was ready and waiting for them when they arrived at the station, Sara was relieved to the point of weakness when she saw Michael’s SUV come into sight.

  A hundred yards through the woods and this whole nightmare would be over.

  As soon as they’d reached the cement pier support, Michael had put Nicole down—keeping a grip on her handcuffed hands behind her back, and the other hand on the gun he’d slid into the pocket of his baggy pants—and instructed her to climb without saying a word. The other woman had complied without arguing. She kept up, didn’t stumble and made no noise.

  At Michael’s signal, Sara stayed right on Michael’s heels. The climb on this side of the pier wasn’t easy, but it was doable.

  “Slide your arm through mine,” he said as the path widened enough for them to walk side by side with Nicole slightly in front of them. It wasn’t until that moment that she realized she was still gripping the knife, with the blanket draped over her arm. Keeping the knife in her hand, she slid her other arm between his arm and his body and prayed.

  * * *

  MICHAEL SAW THE glint and shoved Sara into the woods lining the path before he’d even registered a need to do so.

  “Get down,” he said harshly, pushing Nicole into the woods just ahead of him.

  Crawling up to him and crouching beneath his body, she whispered, “What’s wrong?”

  “Someone’s at the top of the path. By the car. I saw a match light.”

  “Get deeper into the woods,” Nicole whispered harshly. “I found another path last night when I saw you two up there watching me. It leads to a cement shelter thing. I think it has something to do with the pier. If nothing else it’ll give us cover if they start to shoot.”

  Even with her hands cuffed behind her back, Nicole was quick. Efficient. And capable. Robert had told him about the survival training he’d insisted Nicole take before her tenth birthday. He’d made it sound more like a sport the two of them had shared—not a way of life.

  It wouldn’t be long before whoever was waiting for them at the top of the hill realized that they weren’t going to arrive.

  And then what?

  “Text your team,” he told Sara.

  “Already did.” She was putting her phone back in her pouch as she answered him, and didn’t seem to realize that she’d had to hike her dress up past her hip on one side to do so. The dress dropped back into place. And Michael swore to himself he’d make certain that Sara lived to show off to a man she loved, that slit of panty he’d just seen.

  * * *

  UNLIKE MICHAEL AND Nicole, Sara was completely out of breath by the time they reached the waist-high four-foot-wide block of cement with the wire mesh top. She had no idea what the thing was for and didn’t care. Sliding down to lean her back against it, she willed her pounding heart to slow down. And her mind to be strong enough to squeeze out the panic that had slowly started to take over.

  Michael sat beside her. Nicole was on her other side.

  “We’d stand a better chance if my hands were free and you gave me back my gun,” Nicole whispered. The woods were silent, except for the night sounds Sara had grown used to.

  But if Michael could move silently, so could whoever had been waiting for them.

  “Maybe it was just some couple parked up there and having a cigarette after sex.”

  “Then, I’m guessing you’ll be getting a text shortly to tell us so.”

  Right. “I told them where we parked,” she whispered now. “They don’t know where we are now.”

  “Give me your phone.” Michael held out his hand.

  And when he turned it on, he quickly enabled the GPS tracking. “Send another text. Tell them to track your phone.”

  If she’d been thinking clearly, she’d have known to do that.

  “It’s not a couple having sex.” Nicole kept her voice low, just above a whisper. And sounded as weary and vulnerable as she’d been the day Sara had first met her in her office at the Lemonade Stand.

  “I know you lied about your parents,” Sara said before Michael could get a word in. “And I know about the bombing.”

  “If I’d told you about my past, you might not have agreed to help me, and I couldn’t take that risk.”

  “Why don’t you tell us what’s really going on here.” Michael’s tone was harsh. “And if you value your life at all, I suggest you skip the lies.”

  “I have no more reason to lie.” Nicole stared straight ahead, toward the ocean, and sounded almost peaceful.

  Which was odd as hell considering that they were sitting ducks on a cliff side, waiting to be rescued from possible death.

  “We could try to make it back down to the beach,” Sara blurted.

  “They’ll have guys down there, waiting.” Nicole glanced at Sara. “I’m really sorry, Sara. I hoped what you were telling me was really true. That I could get help and my son would be safe. That I was safe. But I knew better. I never should have involved you, or the Lemonade Stand, in my troubles.”

  “Why did you?” It was a question she needed answered. Had she been completely duped? Used? Put the shelter and its residents at risk?

  Sara had her phone in her hand and kept checking for messages.

  “After I lost my daughter...life wasn’t ever going to be what I’d thought it was. Everything I told you—about my folks, about Trevor—it was all true. At first, I gave up. Lost myself in drugs. Because when I was high, I didn’t have to feel. And couldn’t think.

  “It didn’t take me long to realize, though, that Trevor wasn’t going to give up. He was going to have a son by me no matter what. If I didn’t stop the drugs, he’d keep me locked in a room where I couldn’t get them.
Two other things occurred to me. First, if I was going to be forced to get pregnant until I produced a male heir, I was going to at least be strong enough, prepared enough, to make certain that no baby of mine would ever be raised by Trevor Kramer, or by the Ivory Nation.

  “And second, I had a way to get back at Trevor for what he’d done to me. Vindication would make me strong enough, give me the courage, to endure Trevor’s touch, to have his child, because I knew that as soon as I did, I was going to take that child away from him.”

  Sara glanced at Michael. He gave her a slight nod. And continued to look around them. And to listen. To Nicole, she was sure. But to the night around them, too.

  Her phone vibrated. “They’re on their way,” she told her companions. “Shouldn’t be much longer now...”

  But all three of them knew that whoever had been waiting for them at the car was well aware that they had to be out here in the woods. They hadn’t made it to the top and they hadn’t returned to the beach, either.

  “Maybe we should keep moving,” Sara said. It had to be better than making themselves sitting targets.

  “More chance they’ll hear us, or see a flash of color,” Michael said.

  “If they approach from below, we’ll see them before they get a clear shot, and if they approach from behind, the cement wall will protect us,” Nicole added.

  “Who is it you think is following us?” Michael asked. “Somebody Trevor sent?”

  “Yes,” she said. “I saw a guy I recognized on the beach yesterday. He didn’t see me. But he followed hotshot here to the bathroom. He didn’t go in, but that’s when I knew they were on to you two.”

  “Trevor,” Michael said as the truth dawned on Sara. “He was using me to get information, so he could get to you. He must have thought he’d died and gone to heaven that morning I showed up on his doorstep asking about you...”

  Michael didn’t say any more. He just listened as Nicole continued.

  “When I lost that baby... Dr. Anderson’s report... Trevor had finally done something he wasn’t going to get away with. Or so I thought.” Her words were staccato. Mostly whispered and with an urgency that didn’t allow for forethought.

  “That’s when I first found out about Detective Miller’s association with the Ivory Nation. They pay the guy off. He gets protection in addition to more money than he’ll ever make on the city’s payroll. And they get help with police matters.

  “Miller spread his wealth among a select few of his own brotherhood—the LAPD. The report of the charges disappeared. My regular doctor, a supporter of the cause, was called in, and suddenly I’d aborted my child. But Dr. Anderson didn’t give up. She said she had pictures. So Trevor came to me. By that time my father had disowned me because Trevor told him I’d aborted the baby. Trevor told me that losing the baby had changed him, too, made him see the light in terms of sacrifice for the cause. That he didn’t want any part of that life anymore. He made a deal with me that if I dealt with Dr. Anderson, he’d leave the Ivory Nation.

  “I was stupid enough to believe him.”

  “So you really did leave?” Sara asked.

  “Yes. I’m not against standing up for what I believe in. I have no problem letting my voice be heard on social issues that matter, but I want nothing to do with a way of life that puts the cause before family. A way of life that supports turning on your own. That’s just wrong.”

  Sara believed her. But whether she did or not didn’t matter anymore. Something else did.

  “So how did you end up here?”

  “After Toby was born I heard Trevor took a hit out on me. At that point I didn’t know what to do, so I tried to take my son and run.”

  “And Miller arrested you?”

  “Yeah, for breaking and entering and kidnapping when I was taking my own son out of the home we both lived in.”

  “She didn’t use a gun, Michael.” Sara remembered that Michael didn’t know that part. “Trevor did. She recorded him on her cell phone one of the times he let her hold her son so she could breast-feed him. He had a gun to her head the entire time.” She knew now that the pictures were real.

  “After that I used that video to stay alive,” Nicole said. “I showed it to Trevor and told him I’d sent a copy to someone who would see that it got to the national board of the Ivory Nation if I died unexpectedly. That was why they want me so badly. And will kill to get me back.”

  “Shh. Someone’s coming...”

  Michael’s whisper was harsh. Reaching behind Sara, he unlocked Nicole’s handcuffs, handed her her gun and then turned to peer over the top of their makeshift blind.

  Sara was thinking that she still didn’t know what had really brought Nicole to the Lemonade Stand when all of the breath was knocked out of her body.

  * * *

  HE’D HEARD A gunshot and hurled himself on top of Sara. Michael didn’t think. His instinct was to protect Sara.

  The second shot came from right beside them.

  Nicole. She was aiming behind them. On the other side of the wall. He had no idea how close. And couldn’t risk distracting her attention for even a second to find out.

  But one thing he knew—she shouldn’t be shooting that gun. She had too much other explaining to do.

  “Stay down on the ground,” he ordered in Sara’s ear, and slid over behind Nicole, throwing his arms around her and grabbing her gun.

  “Cover her,” he said, motioning toward Sara, who was on the ground staring up with shock in her eyes. “I’ve got this.”

  He had a license to kill if he was shot at. She did not.

  Another shot pinged against the cement enclosure. And then another. From two different directions. They were being surrounded. He waited for movement. For a clear shot.

  Where were Sara’s people?

  He had to know what he was shooting at.

  A scream rent the air. Michael swung around just as Nicole disobeyed his order and ran out from behind the wall.

  She let out a banshee-type wail and followed it with the words, “It’s me you want. You got me!”

  A shot rang out and the woman dropped to the ground.

  “No!” Sara screamed this time. She’d jumped to her knees when Nicole darted away and had seen the whole thing.

  Michael couldn’t tell where Nicole had been hit. Or how badly. And didn’t have a chance to see her shooter, either, before another shot was fired, from above them, and suddenly a rush of bodies was coming toward them. He recognized the men in blue before he fully processed what was happening.

  And then he grabbed Sara in his arms, held her to his chest and rocked her as she cried.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  NICOLE WAS GOING to live. She’d been hit in the arm. The bullet had missed her heart by only two inches. Sara had a chance to speak with her before the ambulance took her away.

  “My parents,” she said, sweating, her face creased with pain. “After Toby was born, I called them.” She spoke in spurts, and Sara worried about the amount of blood she’d lost before a tourniquet had been applied. “We...mended our bridges... They wanted to help me get away from Trevor...”

  Lights flashed in the parking lot around them. There were no other cars on the road at two o’clock that morning, but it seemed as though the entire city was scurrying around them.

  After running a search of the woods, the police brought out the hoodlums with their hands cuffed behind them. She recognized one of the three teenagers on the beach. And only then realized just how much danger they’d all been in, not just in the past hour, but the whole night.

  The teenagers had been right there, armed and ready to kill, while she’d been lying on the ground with Michael’s hand up her dress.

  “They told me about the Lemonade Stand,” Nicole was saying. “Mom knew someone...
”

  Her voice faded. And then she said, “Please tell them...and Toby... We have to keep him safe...”

  There were things to figure out. Issues to resolve. But Sara said, “He’s going to be fine. You all will be. Tonight is the last night Trevor Kramer will ever have the power to bother any of you again.”

  She wanted the words to be true. But she knew Nicole didn’t believe them.

  Not yet anyway.

  Sara hoped that someday she’d have reason to.

  And that she’d have time to get to know the woman better. To help her as she tried to form a new life.

  One that wasn’t defined by fear, lies and survival.

  * * *

  AFTER SPEAKING WITH the police, Michael and Sara were free to go. The Santa Raquel police had custody of Nicole. The LAPD had already brought in Miller and were in the process of figuring out what other officers had been involved in taking money from the Ivory Nation in exchange for favors.

  There would be more arrests. Probably within the next twenty-four hours, as guys who were arrested that night made deals with prosecutors in exchange for names of Ivory Nation power holders. Trevor was still in the motel by the airport. And had Toby with him.

  “I hope they don’t tell Nicole until tomorrow,” Sara said as they drove through town on their way to her complex on the other side of Santa Raquel. “Maybe by then they’ll have Toby.”

  And Nicole wouldn’t have to know right away that she’d lied to her. She’d tell her, of course. If Nicole came back to her for help. She’d have to tell her to establish trust between them. But had a feeling that if Nicole had Toby when that time came, she’d understand why Sara had lied.

  “I’m looking forward to a hot shower,” she said, scarcely able to believe that the search was over.

  And fighting an irrational and lingering sadness at the thought.

  Michael didn’t say anything, and she turned her head to look at him. “What about you?”