“Make for Dead, and I’ll call you back at this number—”
“No, Aurora!” shouted someone in the background. Dylan, she was certain, his voice strained as it was resolute. “Don’t come here! He’ll kill—”
There was a muffled grunt, followed by the sound of a struggle. And then the crack of gunfire before the line went dead.
Moments later, she walked out of the restroom, shrouding her panic in an icy calm as she insisted to the waiting men she was revoking her participation in the WITSEC program. And there wasn’t a damned thing they could tell her that would change her mind.
Chapter 17
Injured as he was, Dylan found strength enough to try to get up. But with his aching head spinning and what felt like several left ribs and his right wrist throbbing, his plan to pop to his feet and launch himself at the armed monster looming over him was hopeless from the start.
He told himself it didn’t matter, that if Aurora had heard him being shot, she’d have sense enough to call the sheriff in Dead—who might be able to use his cell phone to track his location—then run in the opposite direction, disappearing with the deputy marshals as she’d planned. As she must, if she were to live.
Because there was no way he was going to. Easy to see that, with the grinning Goliath bearing down on him as if he were going to particularly enjoy finishing what he’d started with the stolen pickup. But first, the son of a bitch swung at the side of Dylan’s head, his ham-sized fist wrapped around the gun.
Dylan lurched sideways to avoid the lethal blow and grunted with an explosion of agony when he slammed back down to earth, landing on a rock. With bursts of color cascading across his vision, he kicked out with both legs, his boots striking the larger man’s ankles and knocking him off his feet.
As the gun bounced from the big man’s hand, the weapon discharged, and before Dylan could wonder if he’d been hit, air hissed from the front tire of his already-wrecked truck. He lurched for the fallen pistol—which had landed closer to him than his attacker—but the effort sent another shock of agony through his torso, pain that would have had him screaming if he could have only drawn the breath to do it.
Then the big brute was scrambling on his hands and knees, lunging for the gun, bellowing like a bull moose in his fury. In that single, shattered moment Dylan knew that hurt as he was, there wasn’t a damned thing he could do to stop the maniac from finishing what he’d started. But that wasn’t going to stop him from fighting like hell.
Using his clumsier left hand, Dylan pulled the rock he’d fallen on from beneath him...and flung it at his attacker like the desperate hope it was.
* * *
By the time the car got up to fifty, it was shaking, but Aurora only pushed it harder, praying that the engine wouldn’t blow.
A glance down at the odometer she’d been too panicked to look at earlier gave her even worse news. The former police cruiser she had purchased from a fly-by-night “dealer” recommended by a sketchy-looking cabbie had over two hundred thousand miles. Though the tires were nearly bald, the fenders rusty and the former department markings hidden by primer gray patches, she’d had no choice and the grubby little woman knew it. After all, no reputable person would offer a four-carat diamond ring in trade for any running vehicle, as long as the deal came with no paperwork or questions.
So Aurora had said goodbye to her last illusion of security, exchanging a piece of jewelry easily worth a hundred times the cost of the old beater she’d been sold. Using nearly all the cash she had left from the airport taxi ride to fill the gas tank, she started racing, hell-for-leather, north toward the Wyoming state line.
She knew there was no way she was going to make Joey’s one-o’clock deadline without speeding, just as she knew that pushing the vehicle—which apparently had no heat—was likely to blow its rattled, lurching engine. And if she broke down now, dressed as she was in the clingy blue T-shirt and dark slacks she’d been wearing under the religious garb she’d stripped off in the taxi’s backseat, she’d probably freeze.
To her relief, the sedan’s shimmy settled once she pushed it beyond the posted speed. “A car after my own heart,” she murmured, eyeing the shoulders for any sign of a real police cruiser.
Seeing none, she nudged the accelerator just a bit more but held short of taking it to a level likely to attract unwanted attention or cause an accident. Reminding herself that either could cost Dylan his life, she leaned forward, her cold hands cramped around the colder wheel, her back aching with the tension in her muscles.
Dylan might be dead already. Hadn’t Joey said that he was hurt, unconscious? So if Dylan had roused enough to try something, as his shouted warning indicated, it was likely Joey would have shot him. Finished him, so his hostage wouldn’t cause more trouble.
At the thought, her stomach contents turned to ice water. Then she began to shiver, harder than the car had shaken, as she struggled to tell herself her fears could not be true.
She thought of the powerful arms that had held her, the muscled thighs and ripped abs of the cowboy she had taken for a lover. Dylan was not only tall, he was imposing, in peak condition from years of working with large livestock. In the prime of his life, he was probably close to a decade younger than Joey Santorini, too. But would any of that matter against The Jawbreaker, who was even bigger and more powerfully built? Besides, Joey was a stone-cold killer, nothing like the man who gentled wild or mistreated animals with his hands and voice....
The man she’d been so foolish as to endanger with her love.
How was it, she wondered, blinking back tears, that Joey had found out about him? Who could have told him that she and Dylan had grown close enough to make him a tempting hostage?
Trip Lowden, she suspected, remembering his vile assumptions when he’d pulled up beside them on the road. For if Joey had himself spotted her with Dylan, he would have grabbed and killed her on the spot. As it was, it was only pure, dumb luck that had her calling in time to keep him from finishing off his captive, just as another of her husband’s men must have killed her father.
As she continued driving, Dylan’s words kept coming back to her. Don’t come here! He’ll kill—
If they had been his last words, was she dishonoring him and what they’d had together by blindly racing back to her death? For surely, if she simply met Joey as directed, she would never have the chance to do anything but die. And even if Dylan had survived the gunshot she’d heard, there was no way Santorini would risk allowing him to walk away.
So both of them would be dead. And Renzo would have succeeded in destroying her, and destroying someone else she loved as well, from beyond the grave. Still, the idea of Dylan, being tortured for information on her whereabouts and then set ablaze, screamed inside her aching head, even louder than the voice of self-preservation.
Picking up the cell phone, she tried calling Joey back to beg him to be patient. Her stomach knotted as the line rang, and she prayed she wasn’t already too late. When Dylan’s voice-mail message started, she hung up and tried one more time, her heart thumping, but once again there was no answer, and all she could think to do was drive.
Or maybe... What if she called Amanda and explained to her what was happening? Would Amanda call the police—or mount a rescue effort on her own, possibly with some of the ranch hands? Aurora wanted to trust her friend, wanted to believe she wouldn’t get Dylan or possibly herself and others killed, but in the end, the memory of Joey’s threats, and his warnings to tell no one, kept her from calling Information for the ranch’s number.
By the time she crossed the state line, her feet were numb and her teeth were chattering with cold, and maybe shock, as well. Cursing herself for not keeping the abaya for whatever warmth it might have offered, she made a quick stop in Cheyenne for a convenience-store coffee, telling herself she’d never stand a chance in Dead if she grew too cold to think.
Hurrying to the cash register, she offered an older man wearing a Denver Broncos sweatshirt some sc
rounged coins for her coffee.
“You have any other sweatshirts here?” she asked, still shivering, despite the store’s warmth. “Anything for sale? My car’s heater’s broken, and I’m freezing.”
“Sorry. We don’t carry any clothing items—”
“What about that sweatshirt?” she said, nodding toward the one that he was wearing. “Would you sell it to me? Or trade, maybe? I don’t have much, but—”
Realizing that, more correctly, she had nothing, nothing but the cell phone she needed to call Joey, she felt hot tears sliding down her freezing face.
“Oh, dear, please don’t do that, miss,” the clerk said, his blue eyes softening as he handed her some napkins. “No, I won’t sell you the shirt off my back. But I can give you this jacket right here.” He reached under the counter and then handed her a fleece-lined, denim jacket that had clearly seen better days. “Fella left it here one day when he stopped by for some smokes, but he never came back for it. You look like you could use it more, anyway.”
“Thank you so much! You’re a lifesaver.” Gratefully, she pulled on the jacket, beyond caring that it smelled of old sweat and cigarette smoke. Sipping at the hot, black coffee, she waved goodbye and headed out.
But when she went back to the junker, the engine wouldn’t start.
* * *
The hand that grasped the phone was bloody. The eyes that peered down at its face were too bleary to read.
Still, he somehow found the list of frequently called numbers. And somehow found the strength to push one of them—he wasn’t sure which.
The phone rang twice, then three times before a woman’s voice came through on the line.
“Dylan? Are you all right?” asked a female voice. “I’ve been so worried about you—especially after what I heard happened with Trip this morning.”
His attempt to speak sent sharp pain arcing around his midsection. A pain that drenched his vision in swirling puddles of ink. Was he shot? Stabbed? There was no way to be certain of anything but the necessity of keeping absolutely still.
“Dylan? Dylan, speak up.” This time, she sounded frightened. “I need to know you’re okay. Do we have a bad connection?”
When he didn’t, couldn’t, answer, the woman begged, “Just tell me where you are, please. Tell me, and I’ll come for you. I’ll come for you right now.”
But as he heard the truck start up behind him, the man lying by the wrecked gate forgot all about calling anyone for help. Dropping the phone, he laid down his head and prayed as his lifeblood turned the dust to mud.
Chapter 18
Aurora’s gaze darted to the rearview mirror, her heart pounding so hard it felt as if it might explode in her chest. But the flashing red lights she was expecting hadn’t yet come—and with any luck she’d reach the turnoff to the ranch before they did.
She still could not believe what she’d done, stripping off the jacket and thrusting out her breasts as she batted her baby blues—the contacts had come off, too—at the middle-aged man in a truck-stop gimme cap who’d pulled his pickup into the convenience store beside her. As his door swung open, he was stopped dead by her imitation of a porn-film damsel in distress—though she was still so cold, she felt more like a slut-sicle.
“I’m having a little trouble with my car,” she said through pouty—and probably blue—lips. “You look like you might know your way around an engine. Think you might be able to take a look under my hood?”
He could, he vowed, and did, leaving his nearly new truck running to tinker with the junker’s engine while doing his best to make conversation.
“Not sure if there’s anything to be done here,” he said, speaking mostly to her breasts, “but if you’ll grab that tool kit out of the backseat of my truck, for me, I’ll show you what I can do with my spanner—”
Feigning a ditzy giggle, Aurora bounced into the front seat, then put the truck in gear and took off in a flash, thanking her lucky stars that testosterone so often trumped men’s good sense. If she survived, she swore she’d find a way to return the pickup unharmed and pay the poor guy for his trouble, but for now, her total focus must remain on saving Dylan.
Once more, she tried his cell phone, her pulse roaring in her ears as it began to ring. “Please answer me, please answer,” she whispered, her eyes welling as the call once more rolled over to voice mail. This time, she left a message, crying, “I’m almost there! Please call me! Please don’t hurt him, Joey. I have money hidden offshore, and I swear I’ll give you every penny. It’s enough for you to go somewhere and start a new life anywhere you want, for you to be the boss this time, with servants and a private island.”
Exaggerated as the claim was, she cursed herself for not thinking of it sooner. Joey might be loyal to her husband’s family—she was pretty sure, in fact, that he was somehow distantly related—but the thought of running off and living like royalty in some tropical wonderland was a lot of people’s fantasy. If she’d only offered it to him sooner, maybe Dylan would still be alive.
No, she couldn’t think it. Couldn’t allow herself to give up hope. But as she sped toward the ranch, the sharp crack of the gunshot she’d heard echoed through her mind, and the dashboard clock glowed an accusation—12:58 p.m.
As fast as she’d been driving, she wasn’t going to make it, but even if she had, what good would it do her, with no one answering the phone?
Since she had no other choice, she finally reached out for help, calling the ranch’s main phone line. When a woman answered, she was too upset to recognize the voice, but it didn’t matter. She was weeping, begging to be put through to Amanda.
“Who is this?” the woman demanded.
“Hope Woods,” she had just enough presence of mind remaining to say. “I’m almost there, but I need to talk to Aman—to Miss Amanda now. Hurry, please! It’s urgent.”
The seconds passed with glacial slowness, but finally there was a click, followed by Amanda’s worried voice. “Aurora? What is it? What’s happened? I thought you were gone for good.”
“He’s taken Dylan!”
“Who has?” Alarm sliced through Amanda’s voice, but somehow she managed to pull herself together. “Take a deep breath and explain.”
“It’s Joey Santorini, one of the men who was posing as an electrician. When I called Dylan’s cell to see how he was doing this morning, Joey answered, and he said he had hurt Dylan, said he’d kill him if I didn’t keep my mouth shut and get back by— It’s after one already.”
“I knew there must be something wrong! I just had a call from Dylan’s number, but he didn’t say a word, and finally, the call went dead. I radioed the hands and asked them to look for him, but— Do you have any idea where they are?”
“Only that they must be close by. But, Amanda, he might’ve— When I was on the line with him before, there was some kind of a struggle, and I heard a gunshot. So Dylan could be—”
“We’ll find him. We have to.”
Aurora blinked back tears, her voice shaking as she asked, “But will we find him alive?”
* * *
This close to achieving her goals, the mastermind saw red when she spotted that little bitch jumping out of a blue pickup near the stable. Back again, to cause more trouble—or at least to draw back the former partner and ruin everything.
Not for the first time, she regretted panicking when Aurora had struggled free of her grasp in the darkness of the women’s showers. One moment, she’d been squeezing the maid’s throat, the next, Aurora was kicking her away and fighting back.
Who would have guessed that such a pretty thing had so much strength to her? If she’d stayed and fought, the mastermind could have been injured, or even worse, caught. Caught and put away for all her crimes.
She wasn’t about to take the risk, she impulsively decided. Only this time, she was going to take care of her problem the right way, with a gun.
* * *
Dylan passed out twice behind the wheel, the second time dropping the
ranch truck down into a gully. When the pain of a splitting headache and his other injuries finally woke him, he stared into the brittle, brown-gold grasses surrounding the hood and, out of habit, reached for his phone.
That was when he remembered the rock striking his attacker’s hand, making him drop the gun he was holding. Cursing, the huge man had grabbed for it, only Dylan reached it first.
Awkward, with his raw and bloody right arm, he had gotten off only a single shot at close range before his opponent wrenched it from him. But as he aimed the barrel at Dylan’s chest, the man swayed once and dropped to his knees, his free hand clutching at his bloody gut.
Staggering out of range, Dylan had climbed into the still-running ranch truck. Thanks to the grille guard that had crushed the side of his own pickup, he found the big Ford undamaged and quickly drove away. Unfortunately, his escape had left him without a gun to defend himself or a phone to call help—and no way to know whether the assassin was lying dead or simply lying in wait, believing that Hope might still come.
Not Hope, Dylan remembered, but Aurora. What if he’d left the gunman still alive to reel her in with another threatening phone call?
No way was he about to sit here freezing in this truck cab and let that happen. He managed to restart the engine, which must have died at some point, but the truck remained stuck fast, and he knew there was no way he would be able to get it out without help.
So he would have to walk, then make his way back to the main ranch road and pray that he could flag down a passerby for help. If there was a passerby along this rarely traveled road.
Pain shot through his damaged ribs as he forced the passenger door open, then climbed with agonizing slowness from the gully. With a backward glance at the truck, he thought, The old man’ll be sure to give me hell about this, before remembering with a shock that the old man in question was his father, a father far too sick to answer all the questions, or work out any of the emotions, that discovery dredged up.
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