Behind the Lies (A Montgomery Justice Novel)

by Perini, Robin

  “An emergency kit,” he said.

  She’d lose it completely if he kept doing this. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

  He paused and took out a piece of paper with a phone number written down. “I can’t give you a number to reach me, but if you get in real trouble…this is my brother’s number. Seth. He has connections—”

  “No! I can’t risk involving your family.”

  “Call from a pay phone or a prepaid cell. He can help.”

  She nodded, knowing full well she’d never use it. Zach had done enough. He’d given her a new start. Now she had to learn to stand on her own two feet. She’d have to listen to the stories she told Sam. She’d have to be her own hero. Not rely on anyone else. It was the only way to protect them both.

  Zach folded the note into her hand. “I can see in your eyes you want to throw it away. Don’t. Keep it. You never know when you might need help. For you. Or for Sam.”

  Reluctantly, she shoved the paper into her pocket.

  With finality, Zach slammed closed the back of the vehicle. He stood, staring at her, silent, watchful. Then his control slipped just a tad. Sadness laced his expression.

  She wiped her hands on her jeans. “I guess this is it.”

  “I guess so.” Zach looked down at her and smiled. “You’ll be fine, Jenna. Don’t forget, eyes—”

  “Throat, groin.” She shoved her hands in her pockets, then leaned up and pecked him on the cheek. “Thank you, Dark Avenger,” she whispered. “You really are a hero.”

  She turned to the house, tears burning behind her eyes. Why couldn’t she have met Zach some other time, some other place?

  She glanced back, and his intense gaze followed her. Her steps faltered.

  Slowly she faced him. She couldn’t stop herself. She ran back to him and into his arms, hugging him tightly. “I wish…”

  “Things were different,” he finished.

  She gazed into his eyes and placed her hands on his shoulders. “I know I shouldn’t,” she said softly. “But I’ll always wonder…”

  She stood on her tiptoes and pressed her lips to his. He groaned, his mouth still against hers. Finally, with a harsh curse, he took her lips.

  His arms enfolded her and she felt safe. She wanted to burrow herself inside of him and just be warm and cared for and, dare she think it, loved. Zach pressed her mouth open and tasted her. A hint of coffee tingled on her tongue. Her belly flipped, her legs turned to noodles. She moaned under the welcome assault. He tasted of peppermint and something more, something that lit a fire deep inside her heart.

  She pressed closer. She wanted more. And she could never have it.

  He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, lifted his lips, and gently set her away from him.

  “You pack one hell of a wallop, Gennita McMann.”

  The blue depths of Zach’s eyes turned deep cobalt. Her breathing came fast. Her chest rose and fell. She wanted more.

  “Now I know how it feels,” she said softly.

  “Now we both know,” Zach agreed, his gaze hooded.

  “Maybe that’s not such a good thing.” An unarguable melancholy settled over her. Maybe it was better if she didn’t know what he tasted like, that they fit together, that he had the willpower to stop them from doing something they’d both regret.

  “You have to go,” he said, looking at the sky where the sun had dropped lower, just over the mountain range to the west.

  She touched his lips then disappeared inside the house. He was right. Jenna walked down the hall to Sam’s room. She knocked softly and opened the door. “Time to go, baby.”

  The bunk bed was empty. She tried the bathroom door. “Sam!”

  Nothing.

  “Sam. No more games. It’s time to leave.”

  Zach opened the screen door.

  “Sam’s not answering,” she said, frustration warring with an underlying fear. Where was he?

  “I’ll try the basement. He liked my communication center.”

  Zach bounded down the stairs, returning in less than a minute, his forehead creased in a worried frown. “He’s not there.”

  They searched from room to room.

  Nothing.

  Sam was gone.

  No one noticed Brad. That was his gift. Being invisible. It came in handy while waiting for the shift change at the Denver hospital. He’d make his way unobserved to the medical floor, take care of business, and leave, just as unnoticed.

  He sat in the institution’s coffee shop, his placement just out of sight of the surveillance cameras. He’d researched the security system. Amazing what information his FBI contact, Johansson, could provide. Once John Garrison was dead, the cops would pan through hours of footage, but they’d never see his face.

  His smart phone beeped. He stared at the results and fumed. No sign of Jenna. Not on planes, buses, trains. She’d simply vanished.

  He sipped the institutional coffee. He could’ve used a belt of whiskey to hide the bitterness. No more sour than the scent of failure.

  His fingers drummed the table until the doctor sitting next to him glared. Brad forced himself to silence the unusual fidgeting. He didn’t like the symptom. He refused to let his body’s nervous habits overcome his mind. The thing was, he just didn’t get it. Jenna wasn’t smart enough to completely disappear. Not without help.

  His phone rang. He glanced at the screen. An unknown number.

  “Walters,” he snapped.

  “Daddy?” Sam’s tentative voice filtered through the line.

  “Sam?” Brad made his voice sound worried and concerned. “Thank God. Are you all right?”

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday,” he said.

  Hell. Saturday. Not the kid’s birthday. Not Jenna’s birthday. What then?

  “I know. I miss you. When are you coming home?”

  Sam sniffed. “I don’t know. If I come home will you take me to the game? Please, Daddy?”

  The damned baseball game.

  Jenna had bought the tickets after he’d lost his temper a bit last week. He’d agreed in a moment of weakness, not because he wanted to go to the game with his son, of course. It looked good to see a father and son at the ballpark.

  “I’d love to. I want to take you with me, Sam. What if I come get you?”

  “Really?”

  “Promise.” Brad sucked in a deep breath. “Where are you, Sam?”

  “I don’t know. The Dark Avenger took us to his house. But now he’s making us leave. Even though the bad guys are after us.” Sam sniffed. “And he kissed Mommy. He’s not s’posed to do that. She belongs to us.”

  Montgomery. Brad squeezed the coffee cup so hard, he was surprised it didn’t shatter. Son of a bitch. He shifted toward the wall and lowered his voice. “Sam, I need you to look around. Where are you?”

  “In the woods, but I can still see the Dark Avenger’s cabin. I’m not lost.”

  “Good, good.”

  “The Dark Avenger had to beat up some bad guys. And they took his picture. He got really mad. I got scared.” Sam choked back. “I want to come home. I want my toys.”

  “You’ll have as many toys as you want,” Brad lied, “but you have to tell me where you are.”

  His knuckles whitened. Jenna was so dead. Then Brad smiled. This could work to his advantage. Perhaps a murder-suicide. Zach Montgomery and Jenna were lovers, she ran off on him, and the drunken actor killed her in a rage.

  No. It wouldn’t work. The story would put Brad on the news. Something he couldn’t afford. Damn, Jenna. Maybe a car wreck.

  “We’re in the mountains,” Sam said.

  Or Zach Montgomery could fall off a mountain. Brad would take Jenna home and the car accident would still work. No press.

  The plan fell into place.

  “Are you in California?”

  “No. Mommy said we’re in the Rock Mountains.”

  “The Rocky Mountains?” Brad asked.
<
br />   “Yeah,” Sam said, a smile of triumph in his voice.

  “Good, good. You’re doing great, buddy.”

  “Oops. I can hear Mommy yelling. I gotta go.”

  “Sam, don’t let them take you from that cabin. You run and hide. I’ll find you. I promise. I won’t let the bad guys get you.”

  “OK, Daddy,” Sam choked. “I gotta go. They’re coming this way.”

  The phone went dead.

  He dialed a number.

  “Zach Montgomery’s got a cabin in the Rocky Mountains. Find the location. I want it. Now. Check the news wires. Someone spotted him.”

  “There’s a wall around the man, sir. I can’t get past it.”

  Brad paused. “Security clearance?”

  “And then some. I’ll keep pushing, but it could take some time. Fallon is all over my case. He suspects something.”

  “That’s not my problem.”

  “You’re not the one risking his career.”

  “You made the choice, Johansson.”

  His mole sighed. “Montgomery is a nonstarter. His security clearance is untouchable. Which should tell you enough to leave the bastard alone.”

  A curse erupted from Brad. He wanted to slam the phone into the wall. The doctor next to him glared. Brad forced an apologetic smile, rose, and stalked out through the revolving door of the hospital. He breathed in the fresh air. At least he’d rid himself of the antiseptic smell.

  “Don’t fail me again, Johansson.”

  “Oh, I haven’t failed you. I have a bit of news you might just want to hear.”

  The man’s gloating tone made Brad’s trigger finger itch in the worst way. Johansson was another of those threads that would be cut. Soon. Another car accident, perhaps. The traffic in southern California could be deadly. Or perhaps a natural gas line explosion. More perfectly planned this time. Everyone liked to blame the gas company for tragedies.

  “You don’t want to mess with me right now, Johansson.”

  “Fine. Fallon’s beside himself. Your wife ran out on the investigation. Disappeared. Poof. And she refused to give them copies of the evidence until she and your kid were safe.”

  Brad burst out laughing. He hitched into his rental Jeep and turned the key.

  “Johansson, you may very well have just saved your life.”

  The man choked.

  “Find me Montgomery’s address, and we’ll know exactly where my lovely wife is hiding out.”

  * * *

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  ZACH CUPPED HIS hands. “Sam!” he shouted from the porch, shoving down the worry. He scanned between the pines and through a grove of aspens that quaked in the late June afternoon. Several thrushes scattered with angry shrieks.

  Jenna gripped the rough wooden post. “Sam!” she called, panic edging her voice.

  They stood quietly, listening. Sam wasn’t responding.

  Jenna wrapped her arms around her body. Zach pulled her against him, hugging her tight, though he knew his touch offered little comfort.

  “Where could he be?” she asked. “Sam!” she yelled again. “Do you think he’s hiding in the house?”

  “I can find out. Come on,” he said, lacing his fingers through hers. With one last studied gaze into the wilderness, he led her to his communications center. He sat down at the monitor and activated the live cameras.

  Jenna leaned forward when the high-definition pictures leapt onto the screen. She touched the monitor. “You used this to take our photos for the passports, didn’t you?”

  He nodded curtly and switched to views. “The playback will show us everything the cameras caught.” He pressed the reverse button. Images sped past backward.

  When their faces appeared near the car, Zach stopped and hit play. Jenna ran into Zach’s arms on the screen. Their lips met. The world fell away.

  The back of Zach’s neck heated at the passion. He couldn’t tell her how she’d felt so right in his arms that he never wanted to let her go.

  “Oh, Sam. No,” Jenna cried out. She gripped Zach’s shoulder hard. “He saw us,” she whispered.

  Zach squinted at the screen. Sure enough. The small boy’s face watched through the screen door as Zach kissed Jenna breathless. Hurt and anger twisted the boy’s expression.

  Sam spun around and ran toward the back entrance. Zach switched the camera view even as dread washed through him. Sam ran out the door, tears streaming down his face. The camera caught him disappearing on the north side of the cabin into the woods.

  Zach cupped Jenna’s devastated face. “It’s not your fault.”

  She pulled away from him. “Of course it is. I kissed a man who wasn’t my husband. No matter what’s Brad’s done, he’s still Sam’s father. Sam had every reason to feel betrayed.” She bowed her head. “How will I ever regain his trust?”

  “First, we find him,” Zach said. He glanced at his watch. “It’ll be dark before long.”

  Jenna’s face paled and with desperation she scanned the room. “Please tell me something in your high-tech lair can help us find him.”

  Zach grabbed his handheld thermal imager.

  “A video camera?” Jenna asked.

  “Not quite. This will pick up Sam’s heat signature. It’s more sensitive than most. I can even track footprints up to about thirty minutes.”

  Jenna didn’t pause. She rushed up the stairs, and Zach hurried behind her. He grabbed his emergency backpack from the closet and threw her a jacket before donning his own. He searched his pocket for his phone. Where had he left it? No time to look. He grabbed the last prepaid phone, stepped onto the porch, and scanned the sky, noting the sun sinking over Fools Peak. There wasn’t that much light left, and a lot of ground to cover.

  “The sun will set around eight thirty,” he said. He led Jenna to the small clearing they’d seen Sam disappear into. He looked through the thermal imager’s lens. A raccoon, a few birds, a couple of rabbits, but no footprints.

  “He’s so small the heat from his footprints dissipated too quickly.”

  Jenna glanced around and clutched at Zach’s arm, anxiety driving her fingernails into him. “Which way?”

  Zach scanned the ground, his vision catching some misplaced pine needles. “Over here,” he said. They followed the trail for a good half hour. Shadows darkened the forest’s floor. Fingerlike outlines clawed up the trees. A foreboding chill clung in the air.

  Every few minutes he scanned the surrounding areas with the imager.

  “Are you sure we’re going the right way? He could have veered off in any direction.”

  The fear in Jenna’s voice peppered Zach like a spray of bullets, but she had every reason to be frightened. Sam had been raised in California. He didn’t know the first rule of hiking in the mountains—never, ever hike at night. He could walk off into nothing and not even know it.

  Zach couldn’t imagine Jenna would recover if they didn’t find Sam alive and well. He paused, and Jenna halted behind him. He pulled her close and pointed to a tree. “See how the branch is bent. Sam walked this way.”

  “It could have been an animal.”

  Zach bent down near a bed of pine needles next to the tree. He outlined the edge of Sam’s shoe. “Do you see it now?”

  Jenna nodded, her eyes wide and wondering. “How did you learn how to do this?”

  “My dad. Unlike my brothers, I could take or leave baseball or football, but I loved skiing, mountain climbing, flying. My family has a cabin a ways north of here, near Kremmling. He took me hiking there. Said if I was going to be crazy enough to run up and down the Rocky Mountains, I better know how to survive in case I got lost.”

  “He sounds like an amazing dad. He must’ve been proud of you.”

  Her misplaced words grabbed, twisted, and tore at Zach’s heart. His father couldn’t have been proud. He shoved the memories away. “We better get a move on.”

  He could feel her gaze boring into his back, but she didn’t say anything. Thank good
ness. The light had dimmed. He paused and rescanned the terrain using the imager.

  Small footprints shone through the camera. “We got him,” he said to Jenna. He refocused and followed the footprints leading off toward…crap…Sam was heading directly toward a drop-off of over three thousand feet.

  He grabbed Jenna’s hand and picked up his pace.

  “What’s wrong,” she panted.

  “Sam’s heading toward a cliff.”

  “Sam!” Jenna called out, her voice frantic.

  The sound echoed through the woods. Zach slapped his hand over her mouth. “He’s hurt and angry. I don’t want him running. We need to get to him before he reaches the edge. He won’t see it coming. There’s a line of trees and then…nothing.”

  “Oh my God.” Jenna pressed the ball of her hand against her mouth.

  Zach echoed the prayer that they’d get to him in time.

  He stopped. Jenna plowed into his back, but Zach didn’t budge. He raised the camera to his eye. Sam’s footsteps had turned from a blue-yellow to yellow-red in color. “We’re gaining on him.”

  Jenna bit her lip hard. They both scanned the darkening horizon. A glint of orange and purple reflected over the mountaintop. The shadows grew deeper.

  Zach lifted the imager again. A faint shape ran away. A small figure. Sam.

  “I see him,” Zach said. “He’s running. He’s only a few hundred feet through those trees.”

  The yellow-red image glowed clearly then suddenly slipped out of sight.

  Sam had vanished.

  Anna Montgomery didn’t want to leave the darkness. The lack of light soothed her, made it easy to forget. She breathed in, then out. She knew that smell. Anna hated the scent of hospitals. This was where Patrick had died, where her son Gabe had almost slipped away.

  She opened her eyes and stared up at six sets of concerned gazes. She blinked. She should never have let the light in. It pummeled her mind. She squeezed her eyelids tight. Why did her head feel as if she’d been pounded with a meat tenderizer?

  Memories beat through her, swirling, circling, like lumpy cake batter, incomplete and confusing.