Secrets and Lies

by Maggie Shayne

  She looked stricken. “Then do it.”

  “I will. Don’t you doubt it.” He ran his palm over her face, cupping it, turning it up to his. “But when I do, you’re not going to be half in the bag from some drugged H2O, Melusine Brand. I want you at 100 percent. Aware, and completely involved.”

  She blinked, long, slow brush strokes of her lashes, trying valiantly to clear her unfocused eyes. “But if we die in the morning—”

  “Are you telling me you think there is still even so much as a speck of a chance that I’m going to let that happen?” He shook his head. “Maybe before that invitation, Mel, but not now. Now I’ve got too much to look forward to.”

  She laughed, and it was loud, and a little drunk; then she curled into his arms and kissed him again. Her palms pressed to either side of his face, and she went to work on his mouth as if there really were no tomorrow. Every bit the aggressor, she explored with her tongue and tasted and suckled, and he relished every second of it.

  Then she released his lips, lowered her head to his chest and went to sleep. Alex sat with his back against the wall, holding her cradled against him, her head on his shoulder, her arms locked around his waist. He stroked her hair, her skin, listened to her breathe. He didn’t think the water had been laced with anything deadly. Thank God, he thought. If he lost her now…but, no, if it were dangerous, she would be showing signs of trouble by now. It was probably just supposed to keep them relaxed and complacent—to reduce the chances they would fight for their lives or plot another escape. Clearly, Curnyn knew they wouldn’t give up easily. He knew they would fight to the bitter end, and Alex had no intention of disappointing the man.

  But until he was ready, he thought, maybe it would be best to let Curnyn and his men think they had both imbibed the drugged water.

  Chelsea was driving the SUV across the wasteland, so it was Selene who answered the cell phone when it rang.

  “This is Mick Flyte,” the voice on the other end said. “I need to speak with Wes or Garrett Brand.”

  Selene looked through the windshield at the cloud of dust and dirt illuminated by the SUV’s headlights. Beyond that cloud, the two men were riding ATVs over rough terrain at speeds that, quite frankly, scared the hell out of her. “This is Selene Brand, Mr. Flyte. Neither Wes nor Garrett is available right now,” she said. “But you can talk to me. I’ll pass the message along.”

  There was a sigh. “Tell them I think I know where they need to go. There’s an old government storage facility. It wasn’t on the map, God only knows why. Used to be used to store government surplus stuff back in the fifties, but it’s been abandoned since seventy-two.”

  “Where is it, exactly?” As she asked, she cradled the tiny phone between her ear and shoulder, and unfolded the topographical map on the seat. Mick Flyte spoke carefully, giving directions, and as he did, she traced the route from landmark to landmark with her finger. Finally she whispered, “My God, that’s so far. We’ll be lucky to make it there by daylight.”

  “You’d better,” Flyte said. “We’ve intercepted some of their communications. They made the mistake of using cell phones.”

  “And?” Selene was almost afraid to ask.

  “The radicals believe they have the real couple. And from what we’ve overheard, they, um…they plan to execute them by firing squad at dawn.”

  Selene blinked slowly. “Oh, my God.”

  “What? What is it?” Chelsea asked.

  “Then I suggest you find some way to meet their demands, Mr. Flyte. If my sister is executed at dawn, I can pretty much promise you, there will be hell to pay.”

  “Executed?” Chelsea repeated.

  “Executed?” Taylor asked, wide eyed.

  Selene covered up the mouthpiece. “Flyte says that’s what the lousy thugs plan to do. Shoot them at dawn.”

  Taylor turned to exchange a look with Chelsea. It was grim but determined. Then she faced Selene again. “We aren’t gonna let that happen, hon.”

  Selene nodded, but turned her focus back to the man on the phone.

  “There are no demands, Selene. Not yet,” he said slowly. “And even if there were, the government of Tantilla has its princess back, so they have very little interest in this matter. From here on, this is a U.S. operation. We’re not going to get any help from anyone. To them Alex and Melusine are just a pair of strangers.”

  “A pair of strangers who saved their precious princess’s life,” she snapped as fury worthy of her sister Mel rose up and heated her blood.

  “I know. Selene, believe me when I tell you that it wouldn’t matter if the demands were met or not. They’re going to kill them either way. The fact that they are acting so soon tells us that much. Mel and Alex are just too much trouble to keep alive.”

  “Bluff them, Mr. Flyte. Find some way to contact them and promise them anything they want. Just stall things, just a little. We’ll get there in time. We will.” She clicked the disconnect, set the phone down, looked at Taylor and Chelsea. “We need to go faster. Head toward this.” She pointed to a canyon that showed on the map.

  “Southwest from here. But it’s dark. Dammit, I can’t be sure we’re going in the right direction,” Chelsea said.

  “There’s a dried-up riverbed here somewhere. If we find that and follow it, it’ll take us almost to them. But we have to hurry, Chelsea. We have to hurry.”

  Chelsea nodded, stomped the accelerator and pulled up beside the men on the four-wheelers, then she flashed her lights to get their attention and signaled them to follow her.

  Chapter 14

  S he woke feeling groggy and hung over but warm. Of course she was warm; she was wrapped up tight in Alex’s arms.

  She lifted her head, stared up into his eyes, and saw in them a heat, a longing, right there in plain view. It was a look she had never seen quite so clearly in his eyes before. Oh, she had thought she might have glimpsed hints of it a few times, but never so clearly. There was no attempt to hide it, or disguise it, or even tone it down. He looked at her as if he could barely keep himself from ravaging her, right then and there.

  What the hell had brought about this change?

  “You’re awake,” he said, stroking her hair away from her face. “How do you feel?”

  She frowned, taking careful stock. “My head hurts, and my mouth is so dry I could drink a gallon of wa-water….”

  Water. Oh, God, she’d drunk the water, and it had been drugged, and she had been loopy. She remembered Alex carrying her across the cell, sitting down with her. But then what had happened?

  She closed her eyes, searching her mind.

  She remembered kissing him. Kissing him in a way that made the word kiss seem like a dramatic understatement. Had she really been sitting on his lap licking at his mouth as if it were the filling of an Oreo cookie?

  But it got worse as her memory gradually came back to her. She remembered it all now. She had asked him to make love to her.

  Worse yet, he hadn’t complied.

  She swallowed hard and couldn’t quite look him in the eye as his coarsely spoken, throaty reply played itself in her mind. She could hear it, and she could see the look in his eyes and feel the hardness of him.

  I will. Don’t you doubt it.

  Her stomach knotted, and her entire body warmed at the memory. But had he meant it? she wondered. Or had he just been trying to humor her so she would lie still and recover?

  She got out of the intimate embrace in which the two of them had apparently spent the past few hours. She got to her feet, hugging her outer arms and rubbing them against the sudden chill as she paced away from him across the cell.

  “Listen, they’ll be coming for us any minute. We don’t have a hell of a lot of time to talk about this, Mel, so it has to be now. Are you awake? Is your head clear enough so you’re going to retain any of this?”

  He wanted…to talk about it? She closed her eyes, her back to him, and her heart beat a little faster. They had only moments left to live, maybe, and a
ll Alex had on his mind was talking to her about what had happened between them last night. And making sure she would understand him and retain what he told her. Maybe he really had meant what he’d said to her last night. And maybe there was more that he still hadn’t said but felt he had to tell her now.

  “My suspicion is that the food and the water were both laced with that drug, whatever it was,” he said.

  She turned around slowly, blinking at him. “B-but Curnyn ate some. And he tasted the water, too. You were sure he did.”

  “The drug could have been in the cup. He drank from the other one. As for the food, I don’t know, there might have been a bite pushed off to one side. He scooped it up so fast I couldn’t really see if he got it from the main pile or not. Could you?”

  “No. I guess not.”

  Alex got to his feet, too. “And if that’s the case, it would have been enough to keep us out of it for hours. We need to let them think we downed every bit of it. That way they won’t be expecting us to try anything.”

  She nodded slowly, looking at the floor for a long moment before finally lifting her gaze to his. “So that’s what you want to talk about before they get here to take us to our execution? A plan?”

  He frowned at her. He didn’t say it, but she heard it clearly screaming from the deep furrows between his brows. What the hell else would I want to talk about?

  “If they try to tie your hands, hold them like this.” He clenched his fists, pressing them together. “Have your wrists crossed, but angling in opposite directions. Keep as much space between them as you can without being obvious. Here, try it.”

  She put her wrists out in front of her, her lips pressed tight, as she mimicked his demonstration. For some reason it was very easy to remember to clench her hands into fists right now.

  Alex put his hands around her wrists, pressing them together. “Resist, but try not to let me know you’re resisting. Hold them as far apart as you can, but make it look like they’re touching.”

  She did it, and he nodded. “Good. That’s good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “They’ll probably stand us up against a wall,” he went on, talking fast, pacing the room, not even looking at her. “When they start shooting, hit the dirt, then scramble right at them. That’s gonna throw them off more than anything else. They would expect us to run, not attack. That moment of surprise could save our lives. All right?”

  “That’s the plan? Run toward them as they shoot at us?”

  He lowered his head. “And turn down the blindfold.”

  She shook her head. She’d been in doubt before, but now she was certain his reasons for turning her down last night had been totally bogus. There was no way in hell they were going to live to mate another day.

  “How about we just beat their brains in when they come for us, take their guns and shoot our way out of here?”

  The door opened. Six armed men marched through, two by two. The leader came in last. “It is time. Come along.”

  Mel started forward, but Alex grabbed her and yanked her into his arms, holding her passionately against him. Even as she returned the embrace, nearly limp with relief, he whispered near her ear, “Remember to act as if we’re still drugged.”

  Even that, the final embrace, was just part of the plan. She nodded and pushed him away. Then she let her body slouch a bit, sniffled once, then twice, and faked a very nice, whiny-voiced, “I don’t wanna die….” drawing out the final word and making lots of crying, sobbing sounds.

  “Awww, come on, honey, they aren’t really gonna shoot us. Guys, come on, tell her,” Alex attempted. “It’s all just a joke, right? Right?”

  “Bind them!” Curnyn said.

  The nearest young soldier slung his gun over his shoulder and pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pockets. He strode forward, pulling Alex from the wall, turning him around and pulling his hands behind him.

  “Curnyn, please!” Mel cried.

  Curnyn held up a hand to stop the other men from moving. “What is it, Katerina? Anything I can do to make this less painful for you, I will gladly comply.”

  “Don’t handcuff us.”

  He lowered his head, pursed his lips. “You must be bound. You’re too clever to leave free.”

  “Then tie us with cloth or rope.” She held her wrists out. “The cuffs have rubbed my wrists raw.”

  Curnyn rubbed his chin, then nodded. “So be it. Bind their hands with rope.”

  One man scurried from the room and returned with lengths of what looked like twine. One guard twisted the rope around and around Alex’s wrists, pulling it tight and hard, knotting it firmly.

  God, it looked tight. He came to her next. She turned around, made her hands into fists and wept more loudly than before. She craned her neck to look over her shoulder at him, begged and pleaded with him, howled in his ears, and all the while kept all the pressure she could on the rope as he twisted it around her wrists and finally knotted it off. He hurried, probably to get away from all her wailing. She thought her wrists were probably much less tightly bound than Alex’s were. In fact, as soon as she turned back around, she relaxed her hands, pressed her wrists as close together as she could and felt the slack in the rope. My God, Alex was right. She was going to be able to get out of it.

  But when? And what the hell was she supposed to do once she did?

  “Come,” Curnyn said, his voice firm. “We go now.” Men pointed weapons at Alex and Mel, and they were marched side by side across the room, through the doorway, into the hall. Mel kept up her pretense of weeping, and Alex staggered drunkenly. Up a flight of stairs and out into the blaze-orange light of a tequila sunrise. She didn’t know when the dawn had seemed more beautiful. And she didn’t know if she would ever see another.

  The soldiers marched them to a cinder block wall that seemed to have been part of an unfinished building. Its highest point was just below Mel’s shoulder blades.

  They were stood against it. Then the soldiers marched away.

  A troop of men marched into position ten feet in front of them.

  “Alex, we’re not gonna make it,” she whispered. “My God, look at them all.”

  “Get your wrists free. Hold on to the rope so they don’t see it.”

  She obeyed, wriggling her hands out of the knots easily. “But, Alex, I—”

  The leader came toward them, lifting a blindfold toward Alex. He turned his head away. “No. No blindfold. None for my wife, either. She will die with courage.”

  Nodding, the man stepped away.

  “Alex, I can’t die without telling you—”

  “Mel, listen to me. What I have to say now is very important. I want you to forget about what I said before and just remember this.”

  She thought she knew. She thought she knew what he had to tell her. Finally. God, finally, now that they were only a heartbeat away from dying.

  “Yes, Alex? Tell me.”

  Curnyn shouted “Ready,” and the soldiers brought up their weapons.

  “Go over the wall, Mel.”

  “I love you, too,” she blurted, and only then realized what he had said.

  “Aim!”

  “Over the wall,” he repeated. “Now!”

  She spun around, hands pressed to the wall at chest level, and she launched herself over the top, landing hard on the other side as the man shouted, “Fire,” and bullets peppered the cinder blocks.

  “Alex!” She thought for one horrible moment that he hadn’t made it over. But he was there only a split second behind her. He gripped her arms, pulling her up and into motion. The soldiers gave chase, leaping the wall, running around it, firing at them.

  They ran behind one of the outermost buildings, pausing breathlessly to look back. “Oh, God, there’s nowhere to go!” Mel cried. “They’re coming! They’re coming, Alex.”

  “They’re coming from this way, too,” Alex said, peering around the other side of the building. Then he said, “Wait a minute. What the hell is that?”
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br />   Mel peeked around her corner again. The soldiers had all stopped racing toward them and were now looking back the way they had come. Then Mel heard what had caused them all to turn away. It was a sound, like…a roar. Like motors growling ever closer. And suddenly there were vehicles skidding into sight from a cloud of dust, people climbing off them and out of them, then scurrying for cover even while shouldering weapons. They began firing at Curnyn’s men without even a second’s hesitation.

  Men fell to the dirt, wounded and howling, while Curnyn shouted orders to return fire. Other men fell without a sound and never moved again. Some returned fire, while others ran for cover. But the distance was too far. They were out in the open, and the Brands were coming closer now, marching in line, a wall of blazing fire and the smoke of gunpowder. Soldiers started throwing their weapons down and putting their hands up, while those few who had managed to get a safe distance away made a run for it.

  “My God, look! It’s the family!” Mel felt warm all over. Her smile must have damn near split her face. “They came for us.”

  “Damned if they didn’t,” Alex said. “Will you look at them? Even Edie and Kara—”

  “Are they out of their minds? They gave Kara a loaded weapon?”

  The firing stopped. The Brand men rounded up those who had surrendered and herded them into the nearest building, then locked it up, while the others kept a careful watch around them for snipers. Selene, the only one without a weapon, called their names.

  “We’re here,” Mel called. She took Alex’s hand, and they stepped out from behind the building. “We’re okay. God, I’m so glad to see you.” Mel released Alex’s hand and opened her arms, trying very hard not to break down into a blubbering mass of teary relief.

  Selene raced toward her, crying openly, but suddenly Mel saw her little sister go chalk-white and stock-still, even before she sensed the presence at her own back. His hand slid around her neck, and a gun barrel pressed to her head. “If anyone moves, she’s dead.”

  Curnyn. The bastard had been hiding in the very building she and Alex had ducked behind for cover. Alex stood beside her, stiff and poker-faced.