Evie was crying quietly in his arms. She wasn’t hearing any of the conversation going on around her.
“Thank fuck!” Drake said. “Now we just have to pick him off before he sets the explosive. Where is he?”
Lydia rattled off an address.
“That’s Trenda’s house,” Maddie said. She crouched down to where Evie was huddled in Aiden’s arms. “Evie, you did great. Trenda and Bella are going to be okay. They’re at Trenda’s house. They’re going to rescue them.”
Aiden helped Evie lift her head, gratified to see her focus on her sister.
“It’s true, Kitten. We’re going to get them. You did it.”
“Come on Evie. Time to pick up the bat,” Lydia said.
***
Clint and Aiden were in the front seat of the truck, with Evie and Lydia in the back seat of the cab. Mason and Drake were following right on their tail. For a hot second, Maddie had wanted to go with them, but Drake had said she needed to stay with Chloe and she quickly agreed.
“Left,” Lydia said pointing towards a gravel road.
Aiden veered right.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she cried.
“He isn’t baby, look.” They all saw the main road ahead.
“Shit, I was going off memory, I should have been looking at the phone’s navigation,” Lydia said disgustedly.
Now that they were on a paved road, Aiden hit the gas. The landscape blurred by.
“What do we do, since we don’t have the passports,” Evie asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” Aiden answered. “We know where they’re at. We’re going to go get him. Tell us the terrain near Trenda’s house.”
“It’s at the end of the road. The nearest house is probably two hundred yards away, it is surrounded by an empty field on three sides.”
“Flat?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean is the field flat? Does it have trees? Hills? Is there a way to get to the house from the field without being detected?”
Evie thought about it. “About two miles away is Johnson’s Dairy Farm. But it’s just grassy fields and a couple of fences, there’s no rocks or hills.” Evie’s voice rose with panic. Aiden and Clint looked at one another and grinned.
“It’s going to be okay, Evie.”
Clint’s phone rang and he put it on speaker. Drake’s voice filled the cab.
“Did Evie tell you what we’re dealing with on the house?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Clint answered. “Did you know about the dairy farm?”
“Yes. What’s the status on our targets?” Drake asked.
“Don’t call them targets,” Evie cried out. “That’s Trenda and Bella.”
“Evie, it’s also the kidnapper and whoever else might be there. It’s who we’re targeting at the house. Your brother isn’t being heartless,” Aiden soothed, his eyes met hers in the rearview mirror.
Lydia grasped her hand and held it tight.
“Baby Girl, I swear to you, I know who is at that house. I’m going to get them,” Drake said.
“I’m sorry, Drake.”
“No need. Lydia?” he asked again.
“Dex put Trenda’s phone icon in my phone. It’s still showing at the same address. As long as he holds onto that, we’ll have him.”
“That’s a big if,” Clint said. “I don’t like it. He’s got to know we’d be tracking that shit.”
“That’s my take too, Clint.” Mason said.
The bottom fell out of Evie’s stomach. “If he knows that we know where he is, then what’s going on?”
None of the men responded.
“Aiden?” Evie asked.
“It’s probably a trap.”
“But he wants the passports. I don’t understand.”
“We’ll see what number he calls you from. That’ll answer our questions.”
***
They were on the outskirts of Jasper Creek when Evie got a call from an unknown number. She held it out for Lydia to see.
“Answer it, Evie. You can do this.”
“Hello?”
“There’s an abandoned Igloo Hut Creamery on Martin Street. I want you to put the passports underneath the ice cream cone near the drive thru in a half hour. If it is anybody else but you delivering the passports, the deal is off.”
“How do I know you’re going to keep your promise and not harm Bella and Trenda?”
“The timer goes off in ninety minutes. Once I have the passports, I’ll tell you where they are. I’m sure your erstwhile band of soldiers can disarm the bomb.”
Her hand was slick with sweat, and fear permeated her body.
“I want to see them. I want to make sure you haven’t hurt them.”
He hung up.
Evie burst into tears. Lydia pulled her close.
“You did good, Eva.”
“We don’t have the passports,” she said her voice quaking. “He didn’t call from Trenda’s phone.”
“Evie, we didn’t expect him to call from Trenda’s phone,” Mason said. She’d forgotten they’d been listening in on Clint’s phone. God, everything was so confusing. She looked out the window. They were ten minutes away from Trenda’s house.
“I’m taking the lead. Follow me,” Drake said. Soon both trucks were in the parking lot of the LeeHy motel. All six of them got out. Drake pulled Evie into his arms. “It’s going to be okay Baby Girl, we’re going to get Trenda and Bella.”
Mason was trotting back from the dilapidated lobby carrying an armful of newspapers. Evie watched as he upended his duffle bag, and then pulled out a small gym bag. He yanked out sneakers and gym clothes, then stuffed in the newspapers. Her brain finally kicked in and she realized he had just created something that looked like a bag filled with passports.
“Two-pronged approach?” Aiden asked.
Mason nodded.
“I know the terrain, I’ll go to the dairy farm. Clint, you’re the ordnance guy, so you’re with me. Do we have anything to disarm a bomb?” Drake asked.
Clint’s eyes flickered to the duffle bag in the back of the truck. “I have my Swiss Army knife.”
Evie didn’t moan. Lydia must have seen her expression. She leaned in and whispered in her ear. “That’s more than good enough. You’ll see.”
“Aiden, that leaves you and me for the drop off at the Igloo Hut. We know there’s going to be more than just one guy,” Mason said.
“I’m looking forward to it. Evie can you tell us about it?”
“It’s been closed for over three years, but the drive-thru is still open, kids use it as an obstacle course. It’s surrounded by parking spaces, there is no good hiding spots.”
“Then it is the perfect place to put on some performance theater,” Aiden grinned. He turned to the other men. “Hand me your passports and let’s get over to the hardware store.”
All four men handed over their passports, and Mason put them into the gym bag.
***
Everybody had to play their position. That was the rule of a SEAL team. Aiden knew that Drake and Clint could take care of Trenda and Bella, so now it was up to him and Mason to keep Evie safe. He just hated what he was asking her to do. He watched her through the binoculars. Aiden was hidden up on some crates in the back of a large home goods parking lot a half a block away. Mason had taken point on the other side of the abandoned ice cream shop, in someone’s backyard.
Evie drove into the parking lot and got out of the car. She walked up to the Igloo Hut, and sat down cross-legged at the entrance of the drive-thru. She placed the gym bag and a can of gasoline onto the ground beside her.
“She’s amazing,” Mason breathed through Aiden’s earbuds. Aiden kept his phone clipped to his jacket, his binoculars trained on Evie and his gun in his hand.
“Show me the passports,” a man yelled out.
“He yelled from my side,” Mason said. Aiden knew his lieutenant would run the asshole to ground, but there would probably be more than o
ne.
“These might be your passports, they might not,” she yelled out. She then proceeded to pour miniscule amounts of gas onto the gym bag, not enough to totally douse the contents, but enough for the bag to catch fire, it if were to be touched by flame.
“Stop that!” the voice yelled.
Mason went off at a run
She pulled a passport out of the bag and lifted it high above her. She then took a barbeque grill lighter and snapped it on, the flame burned bright in the late afternoon light. She set the flame against the passport and grinned as it burst into flames. She tossed it onto the ground.
She yelled out, “I’ll burn them all if you don’t show yourself and tell me where my sister and niece are.”
“Step away from the passports.”
Evie pulled out another passport and touched the flame to it.
A shot rang out, Evie ducked, but was she hit? Aiden was on the run towards her.
As Aiden crossed the street to get to her, he saw Evie get up and grab the gym bag. What the fuck? She started running to the back of the restaurant. That’s when Aiden saw a man coming from behind the truck that Evie had driven. He veered towards him, and caught him in a flying tackle as he raised his gun.
“I yield,” the man said immediately. Aiden straddled him, listening to the man with the English accent saying that he yielded. He hit him in the jaw. There was no way he was going to get out of this without a great deal of pain.
“I yield.”
“I heard you,” Aiden said through gritted teeth. He grabbed the man by the hair and knocked his head into the cement.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw the man fumbling with something in his left hand. It wasn’t a gun, because that was now in Evie’s hands as she held it trained on the asshole.
“I’ll kill them right now. I’ll blow them to bits.”
Aiden stopped mid-thunk. He released the man’s head. “What are you talking about?”
“I have the detonator. Give me the passports, or I’ll press this button and blow them sky high.”
Aiden looked at the tiny remote control in the man’s hands. He was almost one hundred percent sure it wasn’t an issue. Drake and Clint would have had enough time to rescue Trend and Bella, but he couldn’t risk it. He got up off Khalid.
The man pushed himself off the cement and lunged for the bag that was hanging off Evie’s shoulder. It fell to the ground, and newspaper began to fly out of the bag.
“No!” he screamed in anguish. “No! No! No!”
“All of our plans!” Aiden saw the man’s thumb move to push the button, but before he could Aiden tried to stop him. He aimed for his head and squeezed the trigger, the man’s head exploded. Evie followed him to the ground. Her finger’s clawed at his hand.
“Aiden? Aiden? Did he press the button?”
***
It seemed like forever before she heard Drake’s voice come over Aiden’s phone.
“Baby Girl, they’re fine. They’re alive.”
As she wiped away her tears of joy, she realized her fingers were covered in blood. Khalid’s blood, maybe even blood from the man she’d killed at the cabin. She held up her hand to show Aiden. He pulled up the hem of his shirt and immediately started to wipe away the blood and tears from her face.
“I need to see them.”
“We’ll get you there,” Mason assured her. Aiden helped to her feet. If it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have made it the few yards to the truck.
“He’s dead? He’s really dead?”
“Yes,” Aiden murmured into her hair.
“They’re safe?”
“Yes, Bella and Trenda are safe.”
Her brain kicked in. “Where’s Zoe?”
“I don’t know. We’ll find out,” Aiden assured her.
On the way to Trenda’s house, Mason’s phone rang, and Mason put it on speaker. It was Clint.
“Apparently, Bella answered Trenda’s phone. She told Khalid they were at a motel and he was able to figure out where they were,” Clint explained.
Evie rested her head against Aiden’s shoulder and sighed. All of this because Bella had liked to play with her mother’s phone.
“Mase, the mission went like clockwork. We were able to disarm the device, and get the C-4 out of the house.”
“How are they?” Evie asked as she lifted her head.
Clint took a long moment before he answered. “I’m not going to lie. It’s going to take a while for them to get over this. They need to see you, Evie. You’ll be able to help them.”
Aiden squeezed her hand.
As soon as they were at her sister’s house, he had the truck door open for her, and she flew up the steps to be with her sister. He was at her side. She pushed at the screen door, and she heard Bella’s frantic screams. What was going on?
“My hair. My hair. My hair.”
She skidded to a halt to the scene in the kitchen, Aiden and Mason not far behind her. Drake was holding a struggling Bella. Trenda looked like she was in a trance. Evie saw that there was silver duct tape still hanging from the two kitchen chairs, and Clint was finishing the job of cutting Trenda’s feet free. Bella had been taped to the chair with the booster seat, and it was clear that some of her hair had been cut away with the tape since the long locks were dangling from the chair.
“Evie!” Bella screeched. “My hair!” She almost twisted out of Drake’s arms. Evie held out her hands and Drake transferred her.
“It’s okay, Baby, you look beautiful.”
“I want my hair back,” she sobbed.
“You’ll look beautiful like the Owies do,” Evie’s reassured her. Bella sniffed.
Drake cupped the back of the toddler’s head. “It’ll grow back,” he crooned. It was the wrong thing to say, she started to sob again. As soon as she mentioned the ‘Owies’ Evie wanted to know where Zoe was. She looked frantically around the room and her eyes lit on Lydia.
“Where’s Zoe?” Lydia came up to her with a concerned expression.
“I’m sorry, I should have said something immediately.” Aiden, who had his arm around Evie, looked up at the same time she did. Drake took Bella. “It’s okay, Baby Girl, it’s good news,” her brother said as he took Bella back.
“Zoe was with a guy named Clive. She got to the cabin when the ambulance arrived for Chloe. They’re at the hospital with Maddie, right now.”
“Chloe’s in the hospital?” Trenda asked.
Evie looked over and saw Trenda was still sitting in the chair. Mason was crouching beside her, he had his arm around her, trying to help her to her feet. Trenda stumbled upwards. “Take it slow,” he murmured.
“We have to get to the hospital,” Evie looked up to Aiden.
“Yes, we do,” he said as he glanced down at her, and then over to Trenda and Bella.
“My hair,” Bella whimpered one last time.
Evie looked at Trenda and saw that she still wasn’t in any shape to cope with her daughter, so she held out her arms for Drake to give her the little girl.
“I want my hair, Auntie Evie.” She looked up at her with tears in her eyes.
“Do you know what I want?” Evie asked.
“No,” Bella said, her lip trembling.
“I want you to smile. How about we both go get haircuts tomorrow, and we’ll look like the Owies.”
Bella fingered Evie’s long hair. “We’ll be pretty?”
“You’ll be the most gorgeous women imaginable,” Aiden promised.
Epilogue
Aiden watched Evie hang up her phone, and then trace the face of it with her fingers. She did this every time she was done with her nightly calls to Tennessee. He wondered if the other women did something similar. It had been three weeks since that harrowing afternoon. She still wasn’t remembering things the way everybody else did, and he was determined to put a stop to it tonight.
He slid open the door to the deck, and sat down behind her on the oversized deck chair. She leaned back agai
nst him, her short hair skimming her jaw.
“I thought you were going to be late,” she murmured.
“I had a vision of you out here alone, at dusk, and decided to come home sooner.” He brushed a kiss against her temple. “How are the girls?” He flicked his fingers toward the phone.
“Maddie and Zoe are fine. Chloe’s lying to me and saying she’s fine, but Zoe’s ratting her out. Maddie and Zoe are going to double team her and get her into counselling.”
That was a new and welcome piece of information. “And Trenda?”
“Bella’s night terrors are getting worse. She’s taken her to a child psychologist, but nothing has helped.”
“Is Trenda talking to Bella about how she feels?”
Evie twisted around in the chair so she could look at Aiden. Even in the dim light he could see the anguish in her face. “Trenda’s blocked most of it. When I ask her about that day, she can’t seem to recollect it. She says it’s like a bad dream. She uses words like hazy and blurry. Sometimes, I think we Avery girls bury stuff we can’t handle.”
Aiden snorted. But it wasn’t funny. “She’s got to get that shit sorted out for Bella’s sake.”
“She knows that. She’s talking about seeing a hypnotherapist if necessary. She’d give up her life for Bella.”
He kissed the top of Evie’s head. “I know that, Kitten.”
He took a deep breath and blew it out.
“What?”
“You don’t talk about that day either.”
Evie went stiff in his arms. “Sure, I do. I fell apart. I screamed, and cried, and threw up. I was a fucking mess.”
“You killed a man.”
“It was a lucky swing.” She tried to get off the chair.
“According to Lydia, that guy would have ended up killing her if it hadn’t been for you.”
“Yeah, yeah. She’s said that before. That’s bullshit.” Evie wiggled more. She was damn near struggling to get out of Aiden’s arms, but he wouldn’t let her go.
“Here are the facts, Evie. Are you ready to listen?”
“Because of me one sister got beaten, and my other sister and niece almost got blown up. I know the facts.” She wrenched out of his arms and scrambled off the chair and lunged into the house. He followed her.
Her Relentless SEAL (Midnight Delta Book 10) Page 19
