by Sandra Owens
Keys in hand, she found the small car. Setting the directions she had printed the night before to FCI prison in Marianna on the passenger seat, she drove the twenty-three miles that would put her face-to-face with the man who had destroyed so many lives.
Getting in to see him involved showing a photo ID, having her picture taken, and watching as her fingers were rolled over a pad of ink. Although she expected some kind of search of her person, she was relieved that all she had to do was walk through a security scanner. Before she was ready, she was sitting in a chair, a phone to her right with only a sheet of Plexiglas that would separate her from the man she hated.
Her stomach rolled, and she wondered where the closest toilet was. Before she could find someone to ask, Roger Whitmore walked into view, a guard following behind him. Charlie squeezed her eyes shut. A few seconds passed before she could force her eyes open to see he held the phone on his side of the glass to his ear as he watched her.
Don’t let him get to you, Charlie.
She pulled the black handset from its cradle and slammed it so hard against her ear that it took all of her willpower not to grimace.
“Hello, daughter.”
A rage consumed her—one she had only known once before when she had learned Shannon had put a rope around her neck and stepped off the stool under her feet because of the man now smiling at her. The guard standing a few feet behind him scratched his nose, his boredom obvious by the blank look in his eyes.
She wanted to scream at the man to look, to see the evil in her stepfather’s smile.
Don’t smile at me like that. Please don’t. Needing to find the strength to face the man on the other side of the glass, she thought of Ryan. He was such a good, honorable man, one her stepfather couldn’t hold a candle to. If he were sitting next to her, he would put his hand on her knee and give it a reassuring squeeze. “You can do this, Charlie,” he would say.
She looked right into the eyes of the man who had caused an innocent girl to take her life and had destroyed a family. Charlie’s family. “I’m not your daughter. I’m here to ask you a question.”
“You’re doubting what you thought you saw and want to know if I really did what you claimed. I’ve been expecting this, Charlene, and I want you to know that I don’t hold a grudge against you. Jesus said to turn the other cheek, and that is what I’m doing. I forgive you.”
“I know what I saw.” A black rage burned its way through her blood. If there wasn’t a barrier between them, she would have clawed his lying eyes out. She forced herself to take a calming breath. If she wasn’t careful, he would get up and walk away.
He was still a handsome man, more so than when he’d first gone to prison. Silver dusted the hair over his ears, giving him a distinguished look. His body was more muscled than it had been, most likely from prison workouts. As much as he tried to affect a kindly demeanor, his nature was there in those cold blue eyes. Sick eyes.
“You were a child, daughter, prone to hysterics. All you have to do is tell them you were confused because of your friend’s death.” The smile he gave her was inappropriate to the conversation. It was a sly one. “As her best friend, I imagine she talked to you, gave you hints she was depressed. Why didn’t you try to stop her? At the very least tell someone you were worried about her?”
The son of a bitch was cunning. He had shot his arrow through the middle of the bull’s-eye. The guilt of not anticipating that Shannon would take her life still rested heavy in Charlie’s heart. But it was one thing for her to lay a guilt trip on herself. She’d be damned if she would let the man who held the blame for causing so much heartbreak point his finger at her.
“I’m not interested in listening to your lies. I heard a rumor that you’ve hired someone to kill me. Obviously cutting the brake lines on my car didn’t work since I’m sitting here in front of you.”
She had considered how to approach him, and if he were responsible, that should take him by surprise since no one had cut the brake lines on her Corvette. Her hope was that he would slip up and ask about her plane. Instead, there was genuine shock on his face. Either that or he was a damned good actor. Still, she thought his reaction was real.
“As I have written you in my letters, I’ve found Jesus and murder would be a sin. Besides, Charlene, why would I want you dead? I need you to recant your testimony, and you would be no use to me as a corpse.”
The way he referred to her as a corpse chilled her blood. “Never going to happen,” she shouted, unable to rein in her fury. He tapped on the Plexiglas when she put the receiver back onto its cradle and turned away, but she didn’t look back. Once outside, she sucked in the fresh air in great gulps. All she wanted was to get in her plane and forget she had ever known the man sitting behind prison walls. When she got back to Ryan’s, she was going to take a long, scalding shower so she would feel clean again.
She made one stop at a grocery store on her way back to the airport, grabbing the first package of cookie assortments she saw. After turning in the courtesy car and leaving the box of cookies on the counter as a thanks for the loan of the car, she walked out onto the hot pavement, and made her—lately—extracareful walk around the plane. The bright afternoon sun glinted off the metal frame of the windshield, and she put on her sunglasses. Still rattled by facing her stepfather, she realized she wasn’t in the right frame of mind to practice. Instead of heading out over the gulf, she turned for home.
Two miles from Pensacola Aviation Center, the engine sputtered.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The night was overcast, perfect for hiding in the shadows. As the almost-impossible-to-hear—unless you knew to listen for it—hum of the stealth boat faded away, Ryan followed Jake up to the tree line.
“He loves that boat, but it was killing him to drop us off without him hiding behind a rock or hanging out of a fucking tree, giving us cover,” Ryan said as he moved up beside Jake for the one-mile jog to where a nondescript Russian car awaited them. They hoped.
“Dog’s killed enough bad guys. It’ll be awhile before Kincaid puts him behind the sights of a sniper rifle again.”
Ryan got what was unsaid. Cody hadn’t been joking when he’d said he was having trouble adjusting. Who could blame him? More times than they could count, the man had saved their asses by killing someone. A lot of someones.
They came to a dirt road and stopped without either of them saying a word. The black, older-model Volga coupe—a common Russian car—tucked away in the trees on the other side seemed safe enough. One never knew, though, what was watched and what wasn’t. The nearby call of a nightjar sounded, then was answered by another. The tension in Ryan’s shoulders eased a little. If the birds were talking, likely there was no one in the bushes or behind a tree with a rifle sight centered on the middle of their chests.
“You go around to the left; I’ll take the right,” Jake said.
They both had their guns down by their sides. Like smoke, Jake faded away. On silent feet, Ryan made his way to the back of the car, he and Jake reaching their half circle at the same time. “Seems abandoned,” he said.
Jake let out a quiet breath. “Seems so. I’m driving.”
“Says who?” Ryan said.
A key dangled in front of his face. “Says me, the one with the key.”
“Not fair. You’re taking advantage of your status as brother-in-law to the boss.”
Jake snorted as he pulled on a thin pair of gloves. “Fucking A.”
“Then after you, oh fearless leader,” Ryan said with a bow and the wave of his hand. He slid onto the passenger’s seat after putting on his own latex gloves to keep from leaving his fingerprints behind.
On the bench seat next to him was a map that had been left for them. Not that they didn’t have one of their own, but verification never hurt. He reached to the back, snagging the pack he’d tossed there, and pulled out their map, a penlight, and the GPS already programed for their destination. Setting the GPS on the dash where they could both see
it, he turned to compare the two maps.
“We’ve got almost two klicks of dirt road before we come to pavement,” he said. “Let’s just hope we don’t meet anyone before we get on the highway. Hard to explain what we’re doing out in the middle of nowhere.”
“Since neither one of us speaks Russian, we’ll just have to shoot them.”
Ryan curled his middle fingers and stretched out his thumb and pinky, imitating a phone. “Yo, boss, would you do that magic thing you do and poof us some shovels? Got a few bodies to bury.” He thumped Jake on the side of the head. “You’re a bloodthirsty bastard.”
“Dammit, my head’s already caved in from Kincaid doing that all the time.”
“Cause you’re just so thumpable.”
“You mean loveable.”
“No, I actually meant thumpable. You never answered Dog’s question. How did you manage to snag Maria without the boss killing you?”
Jake grunted. “Oh, he wanted to, but Maria made him promise not to hurt me.”
“Lucky you.”
“Because I’m not dead or because I got Maria?”
“Both.”
“Yeah, I am.”
There was a softness in his friend’s voice that had never been there before he fell in love. Ryan tried not to envy him. He had loved being married, being half of a whole. It was hard not to be depressed knowing he might never have that again because his ability to trust had been destroyed. As he kept an alert eye on the road ahead and their surroundings, he wondered if Charlie would still be around in a year. Probably not. Women wanted commitment, and he was no longer capable of forevers.
She would eventually get tired of girlfriend status and want more from him. When she learned he could offer no more than that, she would move on. As she should. The thought of not having her in his life, though, made him want to punch something.
“Heads up,” Jake said.
He’d also seen a car pass by ahead of them as they were coming up to the two-lane road. “Shouldn’t be much traffic this late at night.” That was good and bad. Hopefully most everyone was in bed asleep at that time of night, but it also made them stand out. Two men out and about at two in the morning in Russia would no doubt be considered up to no good.
They had deliberated about the possibility of being stopped, and after considering several options, a decision was made on how to handle the situation. Their cover story was that Jake was a British citizen by the name of Jason Beaumont, and Ryan was Rory O’Neil, Irish businessman. They were partners in a sporting goods company hoping to export Russian telescopes. They had picked that because one of the largest companies in St. Petersburg made first-rate telescopes, among other things.
The Russian company was large enough that it would take time to verify that the two foreign businessmen didn’t have an appointment there. If stopped, they would claim to have gone out for dinner and drinks and then gotten terribly lost. Jake could imitate a perfect British accent, and Ryan could easily speak with an Irish brogue. Of course, Kincaid had performed his magic, and they both had papers proving the lie. They carried no other identification other than their forged documents.
Should their cover not pass muster, both he and Jake had Tasers in a pocket of their black cargo pants. If they had to, they would subdue anyone who tried to arrest them, then Ryan would give them an M9 shot to put them out for anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour. Depending on the circumstances, they would either make a run for it, or hog-tie their captives and stash them somewhere they’d be found the following day. Ryan just hoped it didn’t come to that.
At the paved road, they turned northeast toward St. Petersburg. It would take about an hour to reach the location where they would hide the car and continue on foot. Using the penlight, Ryan took the time to go through his pack, double-checking the contents. He had ten syringes filled with the M9 serum, a dart gun also filled with the tranquilizer, and four small-animal tranquilizer syringes, along with a small bottle of Valium in a child’s dosage.
Each man had guns with silencers, and knives sporting wicked blades hidden on their bodies. When he came to the shrink-wrapped, sterilized scissors and the baby blanket, he sent up a prayer that he wouldn’t need to use them.
As he stared down at the little blue wrap, Ryan wondered what the sex of Kathleen’s child had been. If it had been included on the autopsy report, he’d missed it. Of course, after reading the part stating she was pregnant, he hadn’t comprehended much past that. His dream of having a family, of loving Kathleen forever, had come to a crashing end, with no time to prepare for the train wreck he hadn’t seen coming.
“Your biological clock ticking or something?”
Ryan jerked his head up. “What?”
“You’re fondling that blanket like it was a baby’s cheek.”
He glanced down to see that his fingers were, in fact, caressing the velvety material. “No, just hoping we don’t end up delivering a baby before this is over.”
After a few seconds of silence, Jake said, “When are you going to tell me what’s eating at you?”
Never. “Don’t know what you mean, man.”
“Have it your way, but when you’re ready, I’m here for you.”
“I know,” he said, also knowing he had just confirmed Jake’s suspicion. Eyes burning, Ryan turned his face to the window. Houses were starting to appear, telling him they were getting close to their destination.
He glanced at the GPS. “One klick to where we hide the car.” A little under a mile walk to the house. Fortunately, the Akulovs were being held outside the city limits in a quiet neighborhood where there shouldn’t be any Russian police patrolling the area at that time of night.
They found the used car lot easily enough, and Jake parked the Volga in a spot between two other cars for sale. For a few minutes, they sat in the dark with the windows down, listening to the sounds, eyes surveying the area around them.
“Ready to rock?” Jake asked, easing the door open without waiting for an answer.
How the boss got such detailed intel was sometimes a mystery, but the For Sale sign Jake stuck on the windshield perfectly matched the other cars. As they slipped into the night, Ryan knew the vibes he sensed coming from his friend were excitement. He felt it, too. It was what men like them lived for. The training, the drills, the planning—all prepared them to look danger in the face and survive it. Nothing compared to the thrill of walking on the edge and living to tell about it.
No one but those who lived it would understand. Whether a warrior or a stunt plane pilot, they were a society unto themselves. He had known Charlie was like him in that way, it just hadn’t hit home before then how alike they were.
He missed her.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.” After her little temper tantrum, Charlie took several deep breaths.
The engine smoothed out, but she still listened to the raspy voice that had taught her everything she knew about airplanes and being a pilot. She was now approaching a mile before she could land. The checklist in hand, she calculated the glide speed necessary to reach the runway. Hopefully, she wouldn’t need it, but she’d be damned if she would disappoint Captain Shafer.
A half mile to go, the engine quit.
Past the panic stage, she just aimed for the runway, knowing she was close enough to make it. After she landed, she sat in her plane and considered that she had told both David and Gary she planned to fly to Marianna for an appointment, and that on her way back she was going to make some practice runs to get ready for the air show. What if she had been in the middle of a stunt and lost her engine?
A shudder rippled through her. Of all the people on that list, those two would know how best to sabotage her plane. But why? What had she done to either one to cause them to want to see her dead? As for Gary, she couldn’t think of a single thing. He was the best mechanic she’d ever known, and the man loved his planes. Sometimes he even spoke lovingly to them when he worked on them. Maybe he wouldn’t think twice about losing a pil
ot, but he would mourn the loss of one of his planes, and the Citabria was on his list of favorites. It couldn’t be him.
Although a pilot, David only logged enough hours in the air to keep the FBO brass happy. She thought she’d once heard they required him to fly in one of their aircraft at least three hours a month, but she wasn’t sure about that. What she did know was that he grumbled about it whenever he took up a plane. So he wouldn’t care about the loss of an aircraft, probably. His focus was on the FBO and bringing in the bucks.
There were all kinds of ways to do that—flight school tuition; fueling planes; rent fees for the planes, both on the tarmac and in the hangar—and that was all he seemed to care about. He wasn’t a bad guy to work for, and she had always gotten along with him. The only time it had been awkward between them was when he had asked her out. Aaron had just broken up with her, and the last thing she wanted at the time was to jump right back into another relationship.
Even when she was ready to date again, David would have been a no-go. He was her boss for one thing, and she just wasn’t attracted to him for another. For a week, he’d tried to get her to go to dinner, go for drinks, go for coffee. “Whatever you want,” he’d said. Once he seemed to understand she wasn’t interested, he’d stopped asking and she hadn’t given it much thought since. That he had posted her picture on a website claiming she was his girlfriend was, to say the least, disturbing.
Should she confront him? She sighed as she scrubbed at her face in frustration, wishing Ryan wasn’t away so she could talk to him about it. No answers were coming from sitting in her plane, so she started on the shut-down procedures. When she finished, she climbed out and spied Gary walking toward one of the flight school planes.
Trusting her instincts, she decided to talk to him, see if he had an opinion about what was going on. “Hey,” she said, catching up with him.
“Hi.” He kept on walking.
That was Gary, no interest in friendly conversations. “Listen, can I talk to you in confidence? I mean . . . what I mean is, I don’t want you repeating anything to David.”
