Mountain Shelter

by Cassie Miles

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

  He didn’t lift his gaze, didn’t look into her eyes, and he realized that he was scared about how she’d respond. Ironic! They faced real-life bullets, the kind that can kill, and he was afraid of what she’d say to him, how she could hurt him.

  “What is it, Dylan?”

  “I quit.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “You picked a real bad time to tell me you’re not going to be my bodyguard.”

  “Not what I meant.” He pivoted to face her. “I quit because I don’t want to work for you. We need to be equals...as much as we can be.”

  “I haven’t been treating you like an employee,” she huffed. “I don’t sleep with my employees.”

  “Not what I meant...again.”

  The pop-pop-pop of gunfire became clearer. It seemed like the shooters were just outside the recovery unit. And they were looking for her. Jayne was the object of their search.

  He had to get her to safety. Adrenaline flooded his brain and gave him clarity. He grasped her hand and gave a light tug. As they went forward, he spoke in a calm voice.

  “Equals,” he said, “in terms of what we both bring to the table. We both have money. We’re both successful. The sex is good.”

  “Yes, the sex is very good.”

  He admitted, “I’m fairly sure that you’re smarter than I am, but that can’t be helped.”

  Determining their route purely by instinct, he went left at one corner, then right at the next. Much of their time together had been spent chasing through corridors and staircases. He was beginning to feel like a rat in a maze or one of those cartoon characters in early video games that hopped from one area to another. He’d spent hours playing those games. Given all that time, he ought to be better at this.

  She stopped to catch her breath and looked up at him. “I can’t believe we’re having a relationship discussion right now.”

  “This might be the perfect time.” Most guys, like him, believed that gunfire made appropriate background noise for a talk about their relationship.

  “Well, you’re right. You and I are very well matched.”

  “Live with me, Jayne. At my house in Denver.”

  “Until the danger is over?”

  “I was thinking of something more permanent.”

  It was too soon to make this kind of commitment. But in a flash of adrenaline-fueled intelligence, he saw himself standing beside her with two small children—their children—playing in the yard. They were such a perfect fit.

  “We agree on one thing,” she said. “I don’t want you to be my bodyguard.” She twisted her head, looking toward the door. “I want you out of the bodyguard business, entirely.”

  “What? Why?”

  She gestured angrily in the direction of the gunfire. “Danger, I don’t want you to be in danger.”

  “What about my brother? What about Mason? I can’t just leave TST Security in the lurch.”

  “They’re big boys. They can take care of themselves. You don’t need this job. You’ve already made a fortune with your computer games and designs. That’s where your real interest lies.”

  She had a point, but there was no way he’d abandon his brother and his best friend. He could work something out, figure a way around her demand. A demand? Where did she get off making demands on him?

  A loud burst of gunfire outside the door alerted him. They needed to change position. Exiting through the other door into this area, they charged down a narrow corridor that ended at a door. Other doors along the way were closed.

  He jiggled the handle; it was locked. The sign outside the door indicated that this was an entrance to the pharmacy. Dylan picked the lock and they slipped into the darkened room, carefully walking past shelves stocked with all manner of bottles and containers. The front wall of the pharmacy was reinforced windows from the waist to ceiling with the blinds drawn. At the far left was a windowed door with a wide counter for picking up prescriptions.

  He peered over the edge of the counter and lifted the blind so he could see. He was looking into the main entrance lobby and waiting area.

  They ducked beneath the counter. In the shadows, he could see only a faint outline of her face and her long hair. He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Will you move in with me, Jayne?”

  “I have a house, and I’m only halfway through renovations.”

  “You’ll like my place. I have a home gym, a couple of offices, outdoor barbecue...” He stopped himself before he got into square footage and number of bathrooms. He sounded like a real estate agent. “This isn’t about where we live. Only that we’re together.”

  Her fingers clenched around his. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

  He’d been trying to avoid using that specific term. “Not really... This is more about living together.”

  “Oh, Dylan, I don’t know. I can’t say.”

  “If you want to be together, we can work out the details.”

  “Details first,” she said. “I won’t let you railroad me. I still have a lot I want to do in my career.”

  “I won’t stop you. I’m proud of you.”

  He heard a disturbance in the area outside the pharmacy window. Peeking over the ledge, he saw several people dressed in scrubs racing across the lobby. Evacuation was under way.

  Moments later, he saw two men in camouflage fatigues. Their boots pounded on the smooth vinyl flooring. They were jogging in formation. How many were there? Had Koslov recruited an army?

  Through his earbud, he communicated with Sean. “We need an exit strategy.”

  His brother replied immediately, “I got separated from the vehicle. I suggest you try to get a ride with somebody else.”

  “Got it,” Dylan said.

  She gave him a puzzled look. “What?”

  “I was talking to my brother on the earbud.”

  She reached for her own ear. “I don’t know how you keep those things straight with me in one ear and your brother in the other.”

  When she started to remove her earbud, he stopped her. “Keep it in. Might come in handy to be able to hear you when you’re three hundred yards away.”

  “Why? I have it turned off.”

  “But I can still hear you, and I like being inside your ear.” He cupped her chin, leaned forward and kissed her. After all they’d been through tonight, she still smelled good, and her lips were as soft as rose petals.

  He separated from her and sat with his back against the door under the counter. “My timing sucks.”

  “Yeah, it kind of does.”

  He frowned. “By the by, there’s no way in hell I’d quit my job just because you tell me to.”

  “And I refuse to leave my house until I’m ready.” A tiny smile lifted the corner of her mouth. “It’s always going to be like this between us. We’ve both got busy lives, full lives with very little extra time.”

  He heard someone approaching and peeked over the window ledge. “It’s your dad and Javier. I’m going to call them over.”

  “Why?” She groaned. “I don’t want to go with them.”

  “Sean can’t get to our SUV. Your dad might be your best way out of here.”

  “Let me stay with you.”

  “Too dangerous.” He stood, pulled up the blinds that had been covering the window and rapped on the glass. When he had Javier’s attention, he got the lock on the door unfastened.

  Javier caught hold of Jayne’s upper arm. “Come with us. We have a vehicle.”

  That was all Dylan needed to hear. He stepped back into the shadows and watched as she was pulled away from him.

  She turned back toward him. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Count on it.”

 
Chapter Twenty-One

  Held between her father and Javier Flores, Jayne ran for the exit. She wished that Dylan was here. Without him, she felt unprotected. Had Javier checked to make sure none of Koslov’s army were waiting for them in the lobby? Was he armed? She knew her dad had a pistol in his pocket. Years ago, he’d gotten a “concealed carry” permit.

  They ran down a short sidewalk and jumped into a vehicle. Javi and her father got in back. She was in the passenger seat. The driver had his jacket collar turned up and wore his baseball cap low on his forehead.

  Not much of a disguise. She recognized him. “Koslov.”

  Panic flared behind her eyelids. Her nervous systems went on high alert. Her brain told her to leap from the moving vehicle and run to safety. But she was paralyzed, every muscle clenched.

  She turned and looked into the backseat. Her father had passed out and slumped unconscious against the door. Javier Flores had a gun aimed in her direction.

  “What did you do to him?”

  “I administered an injection to make him sleep,” Javi said. “I have no intention of harming your father though he has profited greatly from dealings with my family. It’s just business. I’ve taken my share from him.”

  She’d thought it was odd for him to be tagging along throughout their cat-and-mouse game, running here and running there. A bulwark of anger rose up and blocked her fear and the panicky feelings of helplessness. Javier Flores had betrayed her father and led him into the hands of his enemies. “What are you after?”

  “I want you to perform your miracle surgery and bring back the memory of Diego Romero.”

  “Why?”

  “Somewhere in those lost memories are people and places and numbers for bank accounts that are important to certain members of my family.”

  If she hadn’t been so furious, she would have laughed. Among the details the old man had forgotten were the pieces needed to access the ill-gotten gains of Javier’s family...locations of safe-deposit boxes, account numbers, portfolio information. It would serve Javier right if the old man never recalled that particular data.

  Turning in the seat, she stared through the windshield. She knew who was really in charge here—the man driving the car. “You finally have me, Koslov. What do you want me to do?”

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said in his oddly accented voice. “I could have killed you and your boyfriend several times, but I didn’t. I could have killed the hacker, Sherman. But that didn’t happen. All I ask of you is to heal my father.”

  “Diego Romero is your father?”

  “Yes, and my mother was Elena Petrovski, an exotic Russian beauty. I am named Koslov after an uncle.”

  A strange way to talk about his mother, but she guessed Koslov had a lot of psychotic, weird problems when it came to family and relationships. “Your accent,” she said. “Is it partly Russian?”

  “My mother’s influence. Her photograph, taken in the nightclub where she worked, still makes my father smile. After his stroke, he lost memory of almost everything else. I want you to operate on him.”

  “You asked me this before,” she said, half-remembering their conversation in the parking structure.

  “And you agreed to operate. You said that you are a doctor, and doctors are obligated to help whenever they can. You will cure him.”

  She wasn’t sure what would happen, but she was afraid that Dylan had called it correctly when he’d said that Koslov would kill her—and now her father, too—when he no longer had a use for her.

  “I’ll do my best,” she said.

  * * *

  AT TEN MINUTES past three o’clock in the morning, the conference room in the Buena Vista sheriff’s office was filled with law-enforcement personnel: cops, feds and deputies. Dylan had taken a position near a table at the rear exit where a forty-two-cup stainless-steel coffeemaker belched steam and squirted a dark, slightly filmy liquid into disposable cups. He stared toward the front of the room, where Jayne’s father leaned his elbows on a podium.

  Peter the Great looked like hell. He’d aged twenty years in twenty minutes. The collar on his shirt was open. His necktie hung loose. His suit was rumpled, and his perfectly trimmed hair stood out in messy clumps. His eyes looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks. According to Sheriff Swanson, Peter had stumbled onto a porch at the north end of town and hammered at the door until the family inside responded. They called the police and a patrol car picked him up.

  Swanson introduced him and asked for questions.

  One of the officers called out, “You were in the vehicle with Koslov. Did he say where he was going?”

  “I was drugged,” Shackleford said wearily. “I don’t remember much.”

  “Who is Javier Flores?”

  “I thought he was my friend. I knew him and his family because we’re all involved in the Venezuelan oil business.” His mouth tensed as he fought back tears. “I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think Javi gave me an injection in the thigh. Everything went blank.”

  Sheriff Swanson added, “We are operating under the theory that Javier Flores is working with Koslov.”

  “They have my daughter.” Shackleford’s voice cracked. “The only thing I can tell you that might be useful is that she agreed to do neurosurgery on Diego Romero. The operation takes five hours. That’s all the time we have to find her.”

  “Unless Koslov has already taken her out of town,” the sheriff said as he took the podium and gestured for Peter to sit. “The airports, including private facilities for small planes, were immediately shut down.”

  Dylan hoped they’d acted in time. If Jayne was in the air, on her way to Caracas, there wasn’t much he could do to find her. The sheriff and his men had verified that the local hospitals and clinics were not being used for the surgery on Romero. Highway surveillance cameras had been activated.

  In three hours, it would be dawn. That was when Agent Woody and the feds could start helicopter sweeps of the area. Dylan figured the overhead surveillance would be their best chance. Koslov must have set up a clinic in a house or cabin. But how would he know that they’d be in this area? Koslov didn’t know about RSQ Ranch. Why would he establish his operating theater nearby?

  Sean nudged his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here before somebody gives us a time-wasting assignment.”

  “The way I figure,” Dylan said, “Koslov assembled the operating room in a motorhome or in the rear of a semitrailer. That way, he wasn’t tied to a location.”

  “You need coffee,” his brother said. “Real coffee, not this swill.”

  “I need Jayne. How could I have let her go?”

  “You got played, little brother. It happens. Even to geniuses like you and Jayne. That Javier guy probably had Jayne’s dad running all over the hospital, looking for her. When they found her, you did what you thought was best.”

  Dylan hated being wrong. He went into an adjoining room to check on the network of computer surveillance that was searching for any sign of Jayne, such as using a credit card or a phone. A deputy and a fed were assigned to that job. Both were competent. They weren’t Tank, but they’d do okay.

  Sean gave him a shove. “We’re going. Now.”

  “But what if...”

  “Leave this end of the search to the sheriff and Woody. They’re bureaucrats. They know how to do this stuff.”

  “You’re right.” Pacing up and down these corridors was making him crazy.

  * * *

  IN THE CAR, Sean drove. He headed back toward Denver, which was the opposite direction of most of the other searchers. The night began to thin. Stars faded, and the half-moon disappeared.

  “When you interrogated that guy,” Dylan said, “how could you be sure he was telling the truth?”

  Woody had taken advantage of Sean’s FBI traini
ng in profiling and questioning suspects. He used Sean to interview one of Koslov’s men who had been injured and hadn’t escaped with the others.

  Without bragging, Sean said, “I’m pretty good at interrogation. And I only had one thing I needed to find out—if they were going to take Jayne on a plane.”

  “How did you get him to talk?”

  “He’s a paid mercenary and doesn’t have any grand ideals he’s hanging on to. I didn’t hurt him. Torture isn’t my style. But I didn’t give him the pain meds, either. And I might have hinted about how he was going to lose his leg if I didn’t let the doctor see him.”

  “Sounds like the way you’d question me when we were kids.”

  “Natural talent,” his brother said. “Anyway, this guy babbled and doubled back and made a lot of mistakes. Taking her away on an airplane wasn’t part of the plan. I guarantee that the old man—Diego Romero himself—is here in Colorado.”

  “Waiting for Jayne.”

  The search for a decent cup of coffee led them to one of the more expensive lodges in town. Sean drove down a winding road, then another, then another. He tried to find areas with wide overlooks where they could stop and scan the valley.

  The sun was up, and the minutes were ticking down. Dylan figured they only had an hour and a half before she’d be done with the surgery.

  Sean asked, “Are you in love with her?”

  “I’m afraid so.” He scanned the landscape outside the windows, using the binoculars when something looked promising. “I asked her to move in with me. She said no.”

  “Are you going to let that stop you?”

  “Hell, no.”

  He would get her back. He had to bring her back to him. And he would never let her go. They rounded another curve and... Dylan heard a crackle in his ear. The bud was coming to life. He glanced at Sean. “Did you hear that?”

  “Jayne must have figured out how to turn it on.”

  “I think it’s been on all the time. We were too far away to pick up the signal. Transmissions in the mountains are tricky.”

  But the bud was transmitting now.