He examined the photo of the handsome little boy. His blond hair was neatly cut and his features were those of his mother. He had a bright smile and green eyes that looked eager to explore whatever lay ahead.
He needed to be with his mother and his brother. It was obvious that Olivia was the kind of mother Micah hadn’t had, a woman with the need to protect her children, and Ethan belonged here with her.
“I don’t feel good about this,” she said as she also handed him a note with her address written down and a key to the door.
Micah fought the impulse to reach out and smooth the tiny furrow that had appeared between her brows. “I’m not doing anything different than I have every night since I’ve been here. I’m getting to be an expert at skulking around houses, trying to catch snatches of conversations, identifying the people who are with Samuel and those who are secretly working against him.”
“Just be safe,” she said, the words both surprising and oddly touching to him.
At that moment Sam leaned forward in his mother’s arm and with his chubby hand grabbed Micah’s ear. “Ear,” he pronounced proudly.
An unaccustomed smile stretched Micah’s lips. “Yeah, buddy, that’s my ear.” He gently disengaged Sam’s little fingers and stepped back. “And I’m hoping the next time I see you I’ll still have both my ears.”
“Don’t even joke like that,” Olivia protested.
Suddenly he wanted to see her smile. “If I can’t manage to get him diapers then we’ll figure out a way to fashion waterproof leaf covers that will make him look like a baby Tarzan.”
He was rewarded by a smile that whispered an evocative warmth through him. “I’m not at all sure that I’m ready to raise a jungle boy.”
Just as quickly as he’d wanted her smile, he now wanted to escape it, escape her and the little boy who cast him a wide, slightly drooling grin. He’d chosen to live his life alone, trusting nobody, caring for nobody and nothing was going to change that, especially now in the midst of his battle with his brother.
“I need to prep to get out of here.” He moved past her, wanting to forget the beauty of her smile, the fact that just by looking into her soft green eyes, she got to him some way that made him both uncomfortable and just a little bit excited.
An hour later he stepped out into the deepening shadows of twilight. He had an empty rucksack on his back that could carry anything Olivia might need from her home.
As he made his way soundlessly through the woods, his mind focused only on the tasks at hand. His first was to get into Olivia’s house, retrieve the items she needed and then leave as quickly as possible.
He’d hide the filled rucksack and then return to town to try to find the secret rooms that had been rumored to hide the people, including the children, not fit for Samuel’s vision of perfection.
Micah knew tunnels had been found and some secret rooms discovered beneath the Community Center and under the hospital clinic, but there had been no sign in those places of the children or some of the other townspeople who had vanished.
He knew that none of the FBI agents working the area had been able to get close to Samuel’s house. The stately home was guarded by armed men at all times. The general consensus was that Samuel would be a fool to have any evidence inside his private abode that tied him to anything, but Micah knew how perverse his brother could be and it would be just like him to be arrogant enough to hide evidence in plain sight.
Sooner or later he intended to get into Samuel’s home. It wouldn’t be tonight, it might not be tomorrow, but Micah would breach the security if for no other reason than to prove that he could.
As much as Micah would like to find Olivia and Rafe’s children, he’d also like to get some concrete evidence that Samuel was behind the murders of the five women, one who had once owned Micah’s heart.
He couldn’t get sidetracked by Olivia’s soft green eyes and need for her son. He couldn’t afford to forget the reason he was here: to bring down Samuel and avenge the death of the only woman he’d ever loved.
He emptied his mind as he made his way down the mountain. The crisp night air surrounded him, adding to the adrenaline pump that had begun the moment he’d left the safe house.
By the time he’d reached the outskirts of town, complete darkness had fallen. When evening came and the nightly workshop that Samuel gave was over, most people vacated the streets of Cold Plains quickly, except the men on Samuel’s payroll, men seeking those who worked against Samuel.
At this time of night, Main Street looked almost magical. Even in the bright light of day, there was sheen to the storefronts and they weren’t the kind of stores you’d see in most average small Wyoming towns.
In most little towns, you’d expect to see a well-worn café with mismatched glasses and silverware, a general store where items were slightly dusty on the shelves and maybe a gas station where you could still get your windows washed by a friendly attendant.
Cold Plains was a different animal altogether, thanks to Samuel. There was a health club, a book store, a fancy vegetarian restaurant and the large Community Center. The facades were clean and colorful, breathing of a prosperity that was both inviting and insidiously seductive.
Micah knew that his brother used cult psychology not only to control those who were already under his influence, but also to recruit and bring in new members who could serve him.
He demanded a zealous commitment to his beliefs, dictated how these people should think and act, plus taught that his people in Cold Plains were the special ones, chosen to build something nobody had done before him—the perfect town with a healthy, happy community.
As he entered town he clung to the deep shadows near homes. According to the address Olivia had given him, her home was located a block off what had once been called Main Street. Samuel had renamed the streets to reflect his new society with ridiculous names like Prosperity and Tranquility.
He had no idea how long Olivia had been in Cold Plains or how she could afford to rent or take out a mortgage for her own house on a secretary’s salary. He wished he’d asked her more questions about her time in Cold Plains and made a mental note of ones he would ask when he eventually got back to the safe house.
He approached her small, neat beige house from the rear. She’d told him the key worked in both the front and the rear doors. There was a nice shade tree in the center of the backyard and he stood behind it, watching the house for any signs of life.
The house was dark, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t somebody waiting inside. Surely Samuel was curious about her disappearance. Micah wouldn’t be surprised if he’d stationed a man within to either await her return or see who else might enter the premises.
He remained behind the tree trunk for several long minutes. Nothing moved, there was no indication of anyone being inside. Finally deciding to take the chance, he darted for the back door.
The key slid in smoothly and with a faint click the knob turned easily in his hand. He opened the door slowly, his gun clutched firmly in his other hand, and waited—listening for any hint of movement, a whisper of breath that would indicate anyone was in the house.
The interior held the kind of dead silence that made him believe he was all alone. He closed the door and relocked it behind him and then pulled a small flashlight from his pocket.
He knew he was in the kitchen and smelled the odor of overcooked meat. The flashlight beam caught the white Crock-Pot on the counter and a lift of the lid let him know it was the source of the smell. Somebody had unplugged it which let him know that someone had been in the house since Olivia’s disappearance.
He flashed the light around the kitchen, unsurprised to find the front of the refrigerator cluttered with displayed artwork that could only belong to a fanciful, happy three-year-old. There were landscapes with bright yellow suns and big green trees. A four-legged
creature Micah suspected was a dog smiled in front of a bright red little house.
Not willing to spend more time than necessary inside, he quickly moved to the living room. It was a nice-sized room, with a beige sofa covered in multicolored throw pillows. A rug matching the colors of the pillows sat beneath a wooden coffee table and an entertainment center held a small television and an array of children’s books and puzzles.
There were three bedrooms. The first one belonged to the missing Ethan. It was decorated in navy blue. Games, more puzzles and books were neatly stacked on a bookcase. Micah opened several drawers and pulled out underpants, jeans and a couple T-shirts then thrust them into his rucksack. If he managed to get the kid back, then Ethan would need some clothing besides whatever he might be wearing.
From there he moved to the next room, which was Sam’s. He found the big box of diapers in the closet and jammed them all into his bag, along with a couple of tiny long-sleeved shirts and long pants.
Finally he went into Olivia’s room. Although she had asked for nothing for herself, he knew she’d come to the safe house with only the clothes on her back. And there was a part of him that recognized if he had to see her in those too-tight borrowed T-shirts any longer he’d go mad.
Her room was distinctly female with a pale pink bedspread and a vase full of fake flowers in light and dark pinks on one of the nightstands.
Inside one drawer he found a stack of multicolored bikini panties and he tossed a half-dozen pair into his rucksack, trying not to think of how they might fit across her slender hips and rounded butt. He then moved to her closet where he pulled T-shirts off hangers and grabbed an extra pair of jeans.
By this time the rucksack was full and he knew it was time to get out of the house before somebody inadvertently caught the shine of his flashlight and came to investigate.
At the last minute as he was about to walk out of her bedroom, he spied a bottle of perfume on the top of the dresser. He picked it up and sniffed it, recognizing it as the faint scent he’d noticed on her the night he’d found her. On impulse he threw it into his bag, not wanting to examine the reason for his action.
He left the house the way he’d entered, through the back door. With the weight of the rucksack tugging on his shoulders, he headed for the woods. He’d drop the baggage in a safe location to be retrieved later and then head again into town to see what he could find.
He picked a huge bush in the backyard of a house nearest his escape route into the mountains to hide the bag and then went to the streets.
He knew there was a long tunnel that ran beneath the Community Center and eventually led into a utility closet inside the building. The story was that the tunnel had been built over a hundred years ago to avoid Indian raids. Micah had wondered if perhaps this would be Samuel’s escape route if he found himself boxed in.
As far as he knew Samuel didn’t know that the
tunnel had been found by the agents, but he couldn’t be sure what Samuel knew and didn’t know.
But finding that tunnel had led Micah to wonder what else might lay underground—and all things seemed to start and stop at the Community Center, Samuel’s magnificent building in honor of himself. Was it possible they had missed a second tunnel?
The building was a huge structure of concrete and marble with thick columns rising up and darkened windows that allowed people to see out but nobody to see inside.
An old church bell hung high above, rung to announce unexpected town meetings and the nightly workshops that Samuel insisted his people attend.
His people. Micah frowned as he clung to the shadows and worked his way around the back of the building. The Devotees got the tattoo on the hip to mark them as his own. But Micah also knew that Samuel had to know he could no longer trust his own tattoos, that some of the people who sported them had turned on Samuel, or were working undercover.
The Community Center was the true lair of the beast, the place where Samuel brainwashed people. This is where he brought the outcasts and made them feel a sense of belonging. This is where he preyed upon their weaknesses to make them his and he was good at taking the disenfranchised and giving them hope and a false sense of power.
Micah couldn’t help but believe, if there were more secret rooms, then they existed in this place, in the very heart of Samuel’s work.
There were no building plans on file anywhere in the town, no way to know exactly what secrets the building might contain. But, knowing his brother, Micah had a feeling that Samuel would take a perverse pleasure in holding meetings in the large room inside, throwing parties in the basement and having captive children and ill people in secret rooms right below.
Unfortunately, those working undercover in town and those working covertly on the fringes of town had been unable to find a way in or out that might hint of any other secret rooms.
Samuel’s henchmen made sure that nobody wandered around in the building that was considered the very heart of the community.
If anyone would know anything about secret passageways or rooms, surely Olivia would have heard something considering the fact that she’d worked in the building five days a week as a secretary. He definitely needed to pick her brain when he got back to the cave. And maybe it would be easier if she was wearing one of her own T-shirts and hadn’t sprayed on the fragrance that dizzied his senses just a bit.
If he listened closely, he could hear the sound of the bubbling creek that ran just beyond the Center. The creek was what had brought Samuel to Cold Plains, the creek with its rumored mysterious properties that healed all kinds of ailments. According to what he’d heard, Samuel had more than a cottage industry going in bottling and selling the water.
He’d begun by forcing his Devotees to buy the liquid at twenty-five dollars a pop and the latest rumors had it that Samuel was expanding the business and exporting the bottles to distributors out of town. Selling miracles from creek water, that’s what Samuel did. He was like an illusionist who could take the ugly and make it magical.
Micah moved around the side of the building but stopped and froze, slamming his back against the cool concrete as he spied Chief of Police Bo Fargo and Dax Roberts talking beneath a nearby streetlamp.
Micah hated the tall, muscular, dark-haired man who had put a bullet through his head, but he also held a pure disgust for the balding, husky man who had taken an oath to protect the town and who had become one of the most dangerous men in the area. Hell had a special place for Chief of Police Bo Fargo.
Micah also knew that if either of them caught sight of him, they’d shoot to kill. Of course it might take Dax Roberts a minute to get over the fact that Micah wasn’t a ghost, considering he believed he’d killed Micah months ago.
He wished he could get close enough to hear what they were saying, what plot they might be hatching on Samuel’s behalf, but they were too far away for him to make out their actual words. But he was also afraid that any movement at all on his part might draw their attention to him.
As long as they remained where they were, Micah was trapped with his back against the building, hoping neither one of them happened to glance his way.
He should have looked before he moved around the corner but now he was helpless until they moved away. He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe that he could take out both of them without being shot himself.
Minutes ticked by and still the two men lingered, occasionally laughing. The sound of Dax’s laughter drove a stake through Micah’s heart and his finger itched to kill the man who had tried and nearly succeeded in killing him.
But he couldn’t take care of that particular piece of unfinished business right now. There were too many other things that needed to be done before he could pay back Dax for what he’d done and moving a single muscle now would be a deadly mistake. He had to sit tight and wait.
His tension increased and a sense of panic s
tarted to sweep over him as bright spots began to dance before his eyes. He closed his eyes in an attempt to banish them, but when he opened his eyes again they reappeared. Auras.
A bad sign.
A very bad sign.
Crap, not now. He closed his eyes once again, attempting to will away what he knew would follow. The migraines had been a curse left behind by the bullet to his head and the last thing he needed was for one to appear at this moment.
However, the flashing-light auras continued and always preceded a particularly bad one. He figured he had about thirty minutes before he’d be brought to his knees with the most excruciating pain he’d ever experienced.
Already he felt the side of his head starting to throb. If he didn’t manage to get out of this situation soon there was no way they wouldn’t know of his presence.
There was no way he wouldn’t be dead.
CHAPTER 4
Olivia paced between her room and the kitchen as she waited for Micah to return. She’d put Sam down for the night hours ago and it had been that long since Micah had left to go into town. With each minute that passed, Olivia got more and more nervous, although June tried to allay her fears by reminding her that Micah was an intelligent man, a skilled mercenary who wouldn’t take unnecessary risks with his life for a couple diapers.
Still, she would never forgive herself if something happened to Micah because of her. She didn’t want to be responsible for his safety. She just wanted him to get back here safe and sound, with or without diapers.
Olivia had no idea what the dynamics were between Samuel and Micah but wondered how two brothers who were fraternal twins could be so different, could be at such odds. It was obvious that Micah’s goal was to take down his brother and it was just as obvious that Samuel needed to be taken down. How had two brothers become so different at the very core? What had the Grayson family dynamics been like that had produced the two men?
Perfect Wyoming Complete Collection: Special Agent's Perfect Cover ; Rancher's Perfect Baby Rescue ; A Daughter's Perfect Secret ; Lawman's Perfect Surrender ; The Perfect Outsider ; Mercenary's Perfect Mission Page 96
