She almost sighed in disappointment at him covering up his chest. He had a great chest. “Who will you call?” she asked, falling into step right behind him.
“Mick Flyte, back in Austin. He’s got to be wondering about us by now.”
“And you’re sure you can trust him?”
“He’s CIA. I know I can trust him.”
“You ever hear the term ‘oxymoron’?”
“You ever hear the term ‘stereotype’? Mick’s a good man. A good friend, but beyond that, he’s the most dedicated person I’ve ever met. His goal is to get Thomas and Katerina back, safe and sound. He wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“I do.”
He looked down at her, his eyes taking their time, skimming every part of her, taking note of the burlap skirt, the makeshift shoes. “How do you feel this morning?”
“Like I been ‘ate by a wolf and crapped off a cliff.’”
He widened his eyes at her, flashing that killer smile of his. “That’s got to be the most colorful answer I’ve ever heard.”
She lowered her eyes and cussed herself. Why didn’t she just scratch her backside and belch at him, while she was at it? Make a real impression?
Not that she wanted to make any kind of impression at all. In fact, she wanted him to see exactly who she really was.
And to want her anyway.
Man, she was pathetic.
Chapter 9
H ad anyone asked Alex what sort of action hero he was most like, he would have probably chosen someone well mannered, well dressed, well-bred but effective. He doubted very much, though, that Melusine Brand would give a man like that a second glance.
Alex had no clever devices, no chewing gum explosives or cuff links that shot poisoned gas. So, all things considered, he decided the best way to deal with things from now on was to ask himself what John Wayne would do in a given situation and then proceed to do it. Mel couldn’t very well realize how little confidence he had in his abilities to survive a trek through the desert if he acted like John Wayne, could she?
He’d seen the movies as a kid. How could he go wrong?
He was worried on several levels. He was worried about her injuries, things that might not show on the surface. He was worried about their lack of fresh water and the distance to the nearest speck of civilization. They couldn’t go back toward the river without the risk of running into those machine-gun-toting thugs. He was worried about the enemies they were, inevitably, going to have to face down, just the two of them. And somehow, in spite of all the practical, logical worries on his mind, there was an impractical, illogical one shouting too loudly to be ignored.
He was worried that she would start comparing him to her cowboy cousins, and that she would find him lacking. He didn’t want her thinking about how much better Wes or Garrett or any of the other Brands could handle themselves in the wilderness. How much better they could protect her.
In short, he wanted to impress the hell out of her with his raw, gritty toughness. The problem was, rawness and grit were not crops he’d spent much time cultivating.
No, the problem was that he was letting this kind of nonsense even enter his mind when they had practical things to worry about. Why did he care what the hell she thought of him, anyway?
He glanced down at her.
They’d been walking for two hours in silence. She was hurting, limping along in her rag-wrapped feet, and bone tired. It occurred to him that he knew exactly what John Wayne would do if he were the one walking along beside her.
Hell, why not? he thought.
He scooped her off her feet without so much as a word of warning, and he did it without even breaking his stride. She squeaked in alarm, lashed her arms around his neck and looked up at him as if he’d lost his mind.
“Uh, what do you think you’re doing, Alex?”
“Carrying you.”
“Yeah. I kind of picked up on that part. What I meant to ask is why are you carrying me?”
“Because you’re injured and tired and sore, and I’m…”
“And you’re what?”
“The guy. I’m the guy.”
She stared at him with the funniest look on her face—the way she might look at a book she’d been reading if the words suddenly changed into some other language.
“You’re the guy,” she repeated.
He nodded.
“Well, you’re going to be the crippled guy if you carry me that far. It’s got to be another ten miles, at least. Put me down, Alex.”
It was pretty ridiculous to think he could carry her all the way to the building he’d glimpsed. Now that the sun was up, it was getting damned hot. He stopped walking and set her on her feet, wondering just what in hell he was trying to prove.
She looked at him oddly, shook her head and started off again. “It was a really nice thought, though,” she said.
He thought she sounded like she was tossing a bone to a mongrel dog, but…whatever. He trudged along beside her, not picking her up or offering to carry her again, and for the life of him, he couldn’t guess what John Wayne might have done next.
They walked in silence, aside from the buzz of insects and the occasional cry of a hawk. It got hotter and hotter. It felt to Alex as if a flame thrower were aimed at them from above. It was more than two hours, probably closer to three, he thought, when they reached the road. Sticky bubbling tar stretched off into shimmering heat waves in either direction. They walked alongside it, not on it, because it was so much hotter than the baked, barren ground.
“You can carry me now, if you want,” Mel said. She smiled just a little, but he could see the misery in her face. Her hair was wet, sticking to her sunburned cheeks and forehead. Her lips were already chapping.
He thought about telling her to carry him, instead. He felt as if he would surely sink straight to his knees if he tried. God, it was hot. But instead, he reached for her.
She slipped her hand into his, though. “I was kidding. Hell, you’d really do it, wouldn’t you?”
“Try. Don’t know how successful I’d be.”
She shook her head and they walked on.
Finally they got closer to the weathered, brown, tinder-dry building that leaned slightly to one side. An ages-old gas pump sat in front. A fat man in overalls rocked in the shade, smoking a cigarette, a newspaper open on his lap. When he smiled at them, his face wrinkled like worn-out leather and was about the same color. Sun-browned to a shade of old copper.
“Well, now. You two get yourselves lost again, did ya?”
Alex frowned at him. Mel said, “You might say that. We had a little accident. Do you have a phone we could use?”
“Yep, in the back, don’t you remember?”
“What do you mean, ‘again’?” Alex asked.
Selene and Wes stepped into a limo from the private plane that had whisked them back to Houston. And for once Wes wasn’t driving. The man in the back seat with them was one Wes had spoken to several times by phone but had never met face-to-face. He introduced himself as Mick Flyte, shook Selene’s hand first, then Wes’s.
“As I told you on the phone last night, Mr. Brand, there was an incident at the ball.”
“Yeah, and that’s all you told me.”
“No,” Selene corrected. “He told you they were still alive. That’s important.”
The man’s gaze shifted just slightly, downward and to the left.
“Maybe it’s time you elaborated a bit on this ‘incident,’” Wes suggested.
Flyte nodded. “Gunmen stormed the ball in search of Katerina and Thomas. Alex is quick on his feet, though. He managed to get himself and Miss Brand out through a window, and they had a fairly decent head start before the gunmen realized they had left the party.”
“And then?” Wes prodded.
“There was water,” Selene said. “I know they were in the water. I knew it last night.”
Flyte blinked at her, his brows
going up. “How could you know that?” She only shook her head, so he went on. “There was a canoe missing from the dock. We surmised Alex and Miss Brand took it and headed southward on the Colorado River.”
He stopped there, again averting his eyes.
“Please, just spill it, Flyte. There’s no point in dragging this out. We need to know, and we need to know it all if we’re going to be any help to you.”
Sighing, Flyte nodded. “That stretch of the river gets pretty rough. Rapids, some falls. It wouldn’t have been an easy ride, even for an experienced person. We’re worried they may have lost it, wound up in the river themselves.”
“I think that’s exactly what happened,” Selene said softly. “I know they were in the water. I felt it, I felt the cold and the wetness, and terrible pounding. Rocks, I think.”
His brows pressing against each other, Mick Flyte glanced at Wes.
“She’s something of a psychic. Especially where her sisters are concerned.”
“Really. That could be very helpful in this.”
Selene narrowed her eyes on the man. “Don’t you dare patronize me, Mr. Flyte. I know things, and I really don’t care whether you believe it or not.”
“I wasn’t patronizing you, Ms. Brand. We have several people like you working for us in various agencies within the government. While we don’t advertise it to the general public, we are fully aware that there is a great deal more to psychic ability than formerly believed.”
She stared at him for a full minute as the car rolled onward, still unsure, Wes thought, if the man were serious or somehow teasing her.
Then he asked, “Do you get the feeling they’re still alive?”
“I don’t know. I get extremes, you know? When she was in the water, I felt the cold, the pain of the rocks. Then there was nothing. I don’t think I’ll get anything until she’s feeling another extreme.”
He nodded. “Let me know if you get anything. We can use any—” He broke off as his cell phone beeped, and he yanked it from his pocket to answer it. Speaking briefly, he glanced at Selene, then Wes, and tucked it back into his pocket. He pressed the intercom button and spoke to the driver. “Take us south, I’ll tell you where to turn off.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What is it? What was that call?” Wes asked.
Sighing, Flyte said, “They found the canoe. Or…what was left of it.”
The old man shrugged, getting to his feet as if it were an effort. He opened the rickety door and held it for Mel, who hurried inside, blinking in the dimness and scanning the place for a telephone.
Alex scanned it, too. The place was packed with inventory. Canned foods and cold drinks, a rack of sunglasses, even some clothes. Everything looked and smelled brand-new. Mel seemed to forget about the phone when she saw the merchandise. She went to the cooler first, grabbing a bottle of water, twisting off the cap and taking a long drink.
Alex watched her throat move as she swallowed. When her head came down again, she passed the bottle to him, turned and went to the clothing rack and started flipping through the blue jeans that hung from wire hangers.
“I guess you’d better start a tally,” he told the old fellow. Then he finished the bottle of water.
Mel took a pair of jeans, snagged herself a white T-shirt with an American flag on the front and dropped to her knees to examine the row of suede hiking shoes.
“Phone’s in there,” the old man said with a nod toward the back. “But if you’re gonna call them folks who picked you up the last time, you’d best tell ’em to bring some cash along. They left without paying for your meal last time.”
“Last time?”
“Sure. Oh, don’t tell me you don’t remember….” The old man squinted and looked more closely at Alex. “Maybe you don’t remember. You ain’t him. But she’s definitely her. I wouldn’t forget a face that pretty.”
Mel was already vanishing into the door marked Rest Room with the clothing and a bottle of sunburn remedy.
“You’re telling me she’s been in here before?” Alex asked. “With a man who looked something like me?”
“Just two days ago,” the old man said.
“And someone came and picked them up?”
“Yep. I was in the back, getting some more eats for ’em, and when I came out, they were leaving. There were two of them SUVs out front, and four or five men hustling ’em into the back of one. They took out of here spewing dust for a hundred yards and never even paid for their meal.”
“In what direction?” Alex asked.
The old man pointed.
Nodding slowly, Alex patted the old man’s arm. “Now, this is very important. Is there any place within walking distance that couple could have come from?”
The old man shrugged. “I figured their car broke down.”
“But what if it didn’t? What if they were holed up somewhere nearby? Where would the most likely place be?”
“There ain’t but one place, mister. Though I don’t know why you couldn’t just ask your lady friend. It’s fifteen miles into the desert, due west. Used to be a military base out there, but it’s been abandoned for years. It’s the only thing around for fifty miles.”
Mel stepped out of the rest room. “God, that’s so much better than burlap,” she said. Her hair was wet and smoothed back. She must have washed up back there. She wore jeans, a T-shirt, a pair of small-size men’s hiking boots and a khaki button-down shirt.
“So did you call someone?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because Jake here has been telling me that you’ve been here before and left without paying your tab, with four or five men in SUVs.”
She blinked, looking at him, then the old man.
“The name’s Sonny,” he said.
“You think it was…?” Mel asked softly, searching Alex’s face.
“Could be. Look, there’s an abandoned military base fifteen miles into the desert. If we could get to it, check it out…”
“We could save them.”
“Save who?” Sonny asked. “You tellin’ me you ain’t that pretty girl was here before?”
“No.”
“And she’s in some kinda trouble?”
“Yes,” Mel said. “And if you tell anyone we’ve been here, we’ll be in trouble, too. Can we trust you to keep quiet?”
“You bet.”
Alex met Mel’s eyes and nodded. “I’ll call Mick Flyte. You’ll stay here where it’s safe and wait for help to arrive. Meanwhile, I’ll hike out to this base and try to keep an eye on things until we have more help.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and tipped her head to one side. “Right. As if you have a chance in hell of going out there without me.”
“I’m perfectly capable of hiking through the desert.”
“So am I. What I’m incapable of is sitting on my hands while someone I care about risks his life.”
“Look there’s no sense in both of us risking… Someone you care about?”
She just shrugged and turned to the old man. “We’re gonna need some backpacks. Water. A couple of blankets and some matches in case we get stuck out there overnight. And food. God, I’m starving to death.”
“And bullets,” Alex said. “I don’t suppose you carry any ammo?”
“This is Texas, son. Everybody carries ammo.” He handed Alex a pad of paper and a pen. “Take what you need, get those packs put together and keep a tally. I’ll fix you some sandwiches to eat before you go.”
Alex placed the call, and the sense of relief that washed through him when he heard his friend’s voice on the other end nearly floored him.
“Alex? Thank God. Where the hell are you? What’s going on?”
“Is the line secure?” Alex asked.
“It’s my personal cell phone. Yes, Alex, it’s fine. Go ahead.”
“Look, we escaped the attack at the ball, took a wild ride down the Colorado—hell, I don’t know how far. We went ov
er some falls, and the canoe got smashed to bits.”
“We found the wreckage. Are you and the girl all right, Alex?”
“She took a hell of a beating. She seems to be all right. I can’t be sure….”
He heard Mick speaking to someone else. “They’re all right.” Then, to Alex again, “Tell me where you are. We’ll come and get you.”
“Who’s with you, Mick?”
“Two of the Brands. Wes, and the younger sister, Selene.”
“Keep them out of this,” Alex said.
“I’m not sure that’s going to be possible, but I’ll do my best. Now tell me what happened.”
“We hiked out of the desert—west, going by the position of the sun—maybe a dozen miles until we came to a road. Found a small general store here.” He turned toward the old man. “Where are we, Jake?”
“Closest town is Rock Island,” he said. “The road out front is 155.”
Alex repeated the words.
“We’ll find it.”
“Wait, Mick, there’s more. The owner, he said a couple who looked like us had been here before. Said the woman and the man she was with left without paying for their food, that they were hustled away by several men in SUVs. I think our couple may have managed to slip away from their captors and get this far, only to be retaken.”
Mick swore softly.
“The storekeep here, Sonny, says the only habitable place within fifty miles is an abandoned military base fifteen miles west, into the desert. We’re loading up on supplies and hiking out there.”
“No, Alex. You should wait for us.”
Alex shook his head even though he knew Mick couldn’t see him. “You need to put this together just right, Mick. Men on the ground, as quiet as possible. You can’t come in with choppers and Jeeps, or they’re liable to slip away again, or, worse yet, panic and kill the hostages. Take your time, do this right. We will head out there to keep an eye on things, assess the situation and try to keep our two lovebirds alive until you and the guys can get out here.”
“Are you sure about this?” Mick asked.
“Yeah. We’ve come this far. We’ll be fine.”
“All right. Be careful, Alex.”
He’d watched Mel work methodically the entire time he’d been on the phone with Mick. She’d gathered supplies and kept track of them all on the old man’s notepad. Then she laid everything out on a large table and proceeded to pack it into two matching backpacks. Just as Alex was hanging up the phone, she handed him a pair of jeans and a T-shirt like hers, along with a khaki button down much larger than the one she wore.
Secrets and Lies Page 12
