by Cindy Dees
A clearing came into sight ahead. Assuming she hadn’t lost all of her CIA field skills, that would be the backyard of the Ward house. Hopefully, Nick would be paying this place a visit soon. And if she was lucky, she just might spot him and hook up with him. At least that was the plan. It was admittedly a sketchy plan, but better than having no plan at all. Given that Nick hadn’t used any of his credit cards and still had not withdrawn any funds from their checking accounts, she could only assume he was using cash and an assumed name. It was what she’d do in the same situation. And Nick was nothing if not highly intelligent.
She cursed under her breath as a branch whapped her in the face, showering her with wet, cold dew. She hadn’t snuck around in the woods for years, and she abruptly remembered why she’d never liked this sort of work. She’d always been more at ease in urban environments and had gravitated to assignments in major metropolitan areas. Like Paris.
Ellie made an unhappy noise as some of the cold dew sprinkled her. Laura reached awkwardly to pat her. “Hush, sweetie. Mommy’s trying to be sneaky.”
Although how on God’s green earth she was going to pull that off with an infant in tow, she had no idea. It was pure insanity to try it. But for now, Ellie was stuck in the woods playing spy with Mommy.
Laura pushed forward a few more yards and the baby bag caught on a bush. Of course, it spilled. Swearing under her breath, she crouched and picked up miscellaneous baby gear and stuffed it all back in the bag.
She rose to her feet and continued forward.
If William Ward’s killers had broken into his house to kill him instead of in a simple mugging or drive-by shooting, that meant his killers also had orders to search for something. Something in this house.
She stopped in the shadow of a huge tree as Ward’s “cottage” came into view. The house had to have at least five bedrooms, if not more. If that was a cottage, then it was a cottage on serious steroids. The sound and smell of the ocean were unmistakable as Laura reached the edge of the woods crowding the rear of the structure. No wonder the killers had gotten away last night. This forest made for a perfect escape route.
She hunkered down to wait for someone to show up and prayed it would be Nick and not the killers coming back to finish their search. Time passed, and Ellie snoozed happily at her back. The baby was like having her own personal heater snuggled up against her. Laura’s legs got stiff, and she moved through the trees until she could see the front of the house. The front porch was brick with tall white pillars and looked strangely out of place on the otherwise Craftsman-style home.
“How tacky,” she muttered to Ellie.
Ellie stirred long enough to burble her disapproval of the architectural faux pas as headlights came into view on the road in front of the house. Laura plastered herself against a tree trunk as a sedan pulled up in front of the house. A tall form unfolded from the driver’s seat and Laura gasped in spite of herself. He might be wearing a gray wig and be hunching over as if he were decades older, but there was no mistaking Nick.
His head came up sharply, almost as if he’d heard her. But surely that wasn’t possible over the roar of the ocean behind him. She didn’t put it past him to sense her presence, however. In her experience, people often became incredibly intuitive in high-threat situations. And there was no denying that the connection between them had always been electric.
She watched tensely as Nick approached the house. He had the good sense to walk around the house and approach it from the back, out of sight of the road. She drifted along beside him, maintaining her cover in the trees. How was he going to get in? As far as she knew, he had no particular skills in breaking and entering. She was startled when he merely stepped up to the alarm pad by the back door and entered a series of numbers. He reached for the back door and slipped inside.
Her spy within was indignant at how easily he’d gained entrance. She’d have been forced to go through a lengthy and difficult process to bypass the security system and pick the door lock. But the woman within who worried about Nick was incredibly relieved that he was safely inside.
She was just stepping clear of the woods when a quiet sound in the dark threw Laura onto full battle alert. It was a car. Coming down the road with its headlights off. Nobody with honest intentions drove around on a cloudy night on an isolated road like this with no lights. Crud. She had to let Nick know he was about to have company. She eyed the open expanse of lawn between her and the house warily.
If she was going to go, it had to be right now before the darkened car turned into the drive. She took off running as fast as she could. God bless her personal trainer for the misery he’d put her through this past month. She wasn’t in the best shape of her entire life, but at least she wasn’t a complete marshmallow.
She darted onto the back porch as Ellie roused, complaining about being jostled around so hard in the baby carrier.
“It’s okay, sweetie. Go back to sleep,” Laura soothed as she pushed open the already partially ajar door. She closed it behind her and somewhere nearby, the house’s security system beeped, reactivating.
She slipped into the deep shadows of a coat room and then into a kitchen. She had to hurry. The bad guys would be here in a minute or so. “Nick!” she called out. She moved into a long hallway that led toward the front of the house. “Nick!”
He emerged from what looked like an office, looking thunderstruck. “Laura? What are you doing here?”
“Later,” she bit out. “We’re about to have company. The kind with guns.”
Nick darted to a window to look outside. “I don’t see anyone.”
“They’ve pulled around back, then. Can we open the front door without setting off the alarm system?” she asked urgently.
“Who cares? Let’s set it off. The police will be here in a few minutes and it’ll chase off these bastards in the meantime.”
She nodded and they stepped forward. That was when he spotted Ellie.
“You brought the baby with you?” he exclaimed incredulously.
“I’m a nursing mother, and I wasn’t exactly expecting armed men to threaten us,” she snapped. “Let’s go. They’ll be inside any second.”
Nick nodded.
She nodded back and he opened the front door. A piercing alarm screeched deafeningly as they raced across the front porch. Ellie lurched against Laura’s back and immediately commenced screaming at the top of her lungs. It was that special, baby-in-mortal-danger wail that absolutely demanded an instant response, and it was all Laura could do to keep running across the front yard toward Nick’s car and not stop to comfort her.
A bang behind her and a simultaneous metallic ping in front of her did get an immediate reaction out of Laura, however. Someone was shooting at them! Ducking instinctively, she looked over her shoulder. A dark figure was coming around the corner of the house.
Out of her peripheral vision, she caught sight of a second figure coming around the other side of the house. Plus a third man entering the house…she swore mentally. She and Nick were outnumbered, which meant they were also outgunned.
The two men advanced cautiously, not shooting any more after that first volley of shots aimed at Nick’s car. Then it hit her. The shooters must have disabled the vehicle so she and Nick couldn’t escape. Which meant they wanted to capture Nick.
No! Not again! He couldn’t disappear again. This time it would undoubtedly be for good. They’d capture him over her dead body. Super Mommy roared to the fore, and Laura fumbled frantically in the baby bag banging around at her side as she ran after Nick.
“Your car’s dead,” she panted. “Mine’s that way.”
He veered in the direction she pointed and sprinted for the woods with her on his heels.
Her fingers frantically identified objects inside the baby bag. Bottle. Diaper ointment. Pacifier. Dammit, where was her gun? Finally, she felt its cold weight and yanked it clear of the fabric bag. She and Nick gained the edge of the woods and slowed down to navigate the heavy under
brush. Thankfully, Ellie had fallen mostly silent. Nick held back a jumble of vines for her and she slipped past him. She turned to face their pursuers. The pair of men were advancing slowly, now, weapons held out in front of them in grips that looked entirely too competent for Laura’s comfort.
“My car’s through the woods,” she whispered urgently. “That way.”
Nick whispered back, “You go first. I’ll go behind you. That way if they shoot at us they’ll hit me and not Ellie.”
“Take my pistol.”
He reached under his coat. “I have one. Keep yours.”
Where in the heck had he gotten a hold of a gun? Did he even know how to use the thing? She eyed him in dismay but was relieved to see him holding it in a reasonable grip. They might just get out of this alive, after all. If they could keep Ellie quiet so she wouldn’t give their position away.
Nick moved close as they crept forward cautiously. He crooned to Ellie, “Hush, sweetheart. Be an angel for Daddy.”
How he could be so cool with armed men chasing them, she had no idea. Shockingly, his calm tone seemed to mollify the baby and she quieted completely.
“That’s my brave girl,” Nick continued to murmur.
Laura looked back over her shoulder. The pair of men had been joined by a third and they were moving cautiously in this direction. She and Nick needed a diversion. Something dramatic. She dug around in the baby bag until she felt the steel cylinder of a silencer. She screwed it onto her weapon, assumed a shooter’s stance, took careful aim and fired at the gaudy chandelier on the front porch. It exploded spectacularly, glass shattering in all directions, and the three men ducked at the abrupt noise behind them.
Laura sprinted like a madwoman through the woods with Nick panting right on her heels as they dodged left and right around trees. Shots rang out behind them. Thankfully, in the real world, most people couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn when they were running themselves and aiming at another fast-moving target.
Bark flew nearby. Uh-oh. It didn’t look like their pursuers were shooting to take out tires anymore. That looked like a shot aimed to kill.
Waaaaaah! Ellie let out a renewed scream.
Laura fumbled through the contents of the bag desperately, as she ran, seeking the familiar shape of the pacifier. Ammo clip. Bottle. Diapers. No pacifier!
Bingo. A soft rubber nipple. Laura yanked it out as she ducked under a low branch. She stumbled as her foot slid off a half-rotted log buried in the leaves, staggered left and barely managed to right herself. But she’d dropped the all-important pacifier. She paused a precious second to look around. Thank God. White plastic caught her eye. Laura pounced on it and took off running once more.
The men behind them were close enough for her to hear their heavy breathing. At this range, they might actually hit a moving target. She put on a terrified burst of speed, zigzagging like a rabbit fleeing for its life.
Ellie’s screaming took on a rhythmic quality as the baby was jostled by Laura’s steps. No way were they going to escape their pursuers until the child quit giving away their position like this. They needed to turn this into a stealth exercise.
More gunshots rang out behind them. Nick swore behind Laura. “Hurry,” he grunted. “That was close.”
Desperate, she wiped the pacifier on her shirt and stabbed backward over her shoulder. She was so going to mommy hell already for putting her child in the line of fire, she supposed giving her a dirty pacifier wouldn’t make matters much worse. But what choice did she have? It was that or die.
Miraculously, she hit Ellie’s mouth, and even more miraculously, the infant took the pacifier, sucking it angrily. Laura slowed, ducking into an area of thick brush. Nick followed closely, helping her lift brambles aside as they crept forward. Male voices called back and forth behind them. Apparently, their pursuers had lost sight of them. Hallelujah.
She pointed off to their left in the direction she thought the car was, assuming she wasn’t completely disoriented out here in the pitch-black night and bewildering tangle of trees and undergrowth, and Nick veered that direction.
They burst out of the trees as a dirt road opened up before them. “This way,” she gasped. The car’s blessed bulk came into sight and she nearly sobbed in relief. Nick hung back a little, still protecting Ellie with his body as Laura used the last of her strength to tear toward the vehicle.
“I’ll drive,” Nick called out low behind her.
Like any good field operative, she’d left the doors unlocked and the key fob inside the vehicle. She dived for the passenger door and flung herself inside awkwardly, half-lying across the front seat so she wouldn’t crush Ellie, while Nick leaped into the driver’s seat and punched the ignition button. He wasted no time throwing the vehicle into gear and stomping on the gas. The car jumped forward.
Shots behind them announced that the bad guys had reached the road. The car squealed around a curve and the shooting behind them stopped.
“They’ll follow us,” Nick announced.
“Then drive like a bat out of hell,” she panted back.
While he commenced doing just that, she wriggled out of the backpack and half-climbed over the backseat to strap Ellie, red-faced and furious, into her car seat. Laura wiped the pacifier off as best she could, and offered it to the baby once more. Yup. Mommy hell for her. But sometimes a mommy had to do what a mommy had to do. And given that they were careening along a twisting dirt road at something like seventy miles per hour, she wasn’t about to unstrap the infant and try to nurse her.
Nick muttered, white knuckled, “Mother of God, Laura, what are you doing here with Ellie?”
“Saving your life, apparently. Where did you learn to drive like this?”
“I’m told I did some Formula One racing in my previous life.”
“Had a death wish, did you?”
“Something like that.”
“Have you got more ammunition?” he asked.
Right. Because every prepared mommy hauled around extra ammunition along with spare diapers and a change of clothes for baby. She dug into the bottom of the baby bag for spare clips. She came up with two full fourteen-shot clips and counted back fast to the firefight in her head. “I’ve got nine shots in my weapon now and twenty-eight more here.”
He nodded tersely. “I’ve got five shots left. I don’t have spare clips. It was all I could do to buy an unregistered gun without getting arrested, let alone acquiring extra clips for it.”
Ellie was finally subsiding. Laura smiled at the vigorous sucking noises coming from the car seat. It was good to know her daughter had spunk when provoked.
“Where does this road go?” Nick asked.
“I have no idea. There’s not a straight road on the entire Cape. My suggestion is we keep driving until we get to some road the GPS recognizes.”
He nodded tersely. “How did you find me?”
“Carter Tatum found out William Ward was your attorney. When we discovered he’d been killed, I figured it couldn’t be a coincidence. Clearly, he had something the people out to get you want. Which meant you were bound to come looking for it, too. So, I staked out Ward’s house and waited for you to show up.”
“You know me too well.”
She shrugged. “Lucky guess.”
Nick smiled wryly. “Luck had nothing to do with it. I always knew you were brilliant.”
“Are you going to let me use that brilliance to help you, now?”
He sighed. “I wanted to keep you out of this. I knew it could get dangerous, and I didn’t want you or the kids to get hurt.”
She winced at the faint note of reproach in his voice. He was right. She’d been an idiot to put Ellie in danger. But she’d only expected a nice, quiet stake-out. As soon as they were safe, she’d make other arrangements for the baby.
“I appreciate the sentiment, Nick, but it’s time to let me help you. I’m good at this sort of thing, and I want my children’s father alive.” She carefully avoided adding that
she wanted her lover alive, too. She had no idea whether or not he planned to remain with her now that his true identity was out in the open.
The dirt road abruptly intersected a paved road. Nick turned west and in a moment the GPS popped up a road map. They followed the residential street for a mile or so and turned onto a larger road. As Nick accelerated into the desultory traffic, she watched carefully in the rearview mirror for any sign of followers. No lights or cars were hanging behind them acting like tails.
They’d made it.
Her hands started to shake, and then her whole body got into the act. Nick glanced over at her in concern. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“No, I’m not okay. Would you care to tell me why those men just tried to kidnap you again?”
Nick frowned. “It looked to me like they were trying to kill us.”
She shook her head in the negative. “They didn’t shoot at you when you were running across the lawn. They only fired at your car. They didn’t want you to leave, but they didn’t want you dead. In the woods, only a few of the shots came anywhere near us, and I think those were mistakes. They were trying to scare us into surrendering but definitely weren’t trying to kill you. Which means someone wants you alive. I can only infer that means someone wants something from you.”
Her declaration put a heavy frown on Nick’s handsome features.
She continued, “Why weren’t you killed six years ago? Why the elaborate kidnapping instead? I’ll bet that’s the same reason those men weren’t trying to kill you tonight.” Lord, it felt good to finally ask the question. “What’s going on, Nick?”
Chapter 7
Nick sighed. Laura, of all people, deserved answers. Answers he was far from having, however. “I truly don’t remember anything of those five years. I swear,” he stated.
Laura nodded and crossed her arms expectantly, announcing silently that she wasn’t going to back off this time. Her child had just been put in mortal danger, and she was at the end of her prodigious patience. Not that he blamed her. He just hoped she’d forgive him when she heard the entire, sordid tale. Although, it wasn’t like he forgave himself.
