by Kylie Brant
Macy dropped the glasses to bounce against her chest and sprang forward, wrapping the blanket around the child so she was covered like a mummy. Then she shoved up her guard and face mask. She didn’t want to scare the girl even further.
Carefully Kell deposited Ellie in her outstretched arms. “Got her?”
“I’ve got her.” The weight didn’t seem enough for an eleven-year-old girl. Macy brought the child closer to her chest. And still the girl continued to cough. The flash bangs would have filled the interior with smoke.
She turned and began hurrying toward the trees as fast as the snowshoes would allow.
“Prisoner secured. Prisoner secured.” Calls and commands were still coming through her headset. “Structure clear.”
Blocking out the calls and commands coming through the headset, she murmured to the girl the whole way. “Ellie, you’re safe. We’re going to take you home now. Your parents are waiting for you at home.”
Macy thought she saw the girl’s eyelids flutter. “I understood your message,” she whispered to her as they moved rapidly away from the commotion behind them. “You’re the bravest girl I know. Much braver than I was. To escape from him and then send those clues. I wish I’d had half your guts at your age.”
Ellie’s eyes opened wide then and stared at Macy unflinchingly. Her voice was choked. “I wasn’t brave, I was scared.”
She gave the girl a quick hug. “It wouldn’t be brave if you weren’t scared.” Macy took a quick glance behind her. But the shanty was hidden by the dense trees. Straightening, she continued to head to the edge where they thinned. She could dimly hear the sound of the sleds as the rest of the team approached over the chatter on the radio. Macy staggered up to the first headlight she saw, grateful when the person on it jumped off to run into the trees toward the the rest of the team. She set the girl down on the seat and turned to lean against it and take a breath.
Then recoiled as an earsplitting boom shook the area. A huge fireball burst skyward. She draped herself over the girl protectively, her eyes riveted on the scene behind her. The flames surged upward, dancing and swaying in the heavy gusts of wind.
“What was that?”
Macy barely heard the girl. “Bomb?” It had to be. He’d had the cabin wired? Had he somehow detonated it after the team had staged the rescue? Or had the breach set off a trigger he’d had ready for just such an occasion?
“Man down. Where’s SAR?”
“All personnel check in!”
“Prisoner secured? Matthews, what’s your location?”
Man down. The words had her organs freezing. Kell. Where was Kell? Fingers scrambling for the glasses, she held them up to her eyes. She could see a few figures running. Tree-tops already torched from the flames, burning merrily in the wind. But the trees were too thick for her to make out much.
“Need a medic here!”
“Need a location check on Matthews.”
A vise was squeezing her heart. Her body was poised, ready to head back toward the inferno to check on Kell herself. Then the girl on the snowmobile moved.
And Macy was abruptly reminded of her primary duty. “Scooch up. You’ll have to side saddle.” She couldn’t afford to unwrap the girl. She’d be hypothermic before she got her back to the base. So they’d ride slowly to be sure she didn’t fall off. Macy got on behind her and goosed the motor. They started to move.
In the meantime, she strained to hear more details from the radio.
“Matthew’s down. Need a medic!”
“Get me a visual on Crosby.”
“Prisoner security, check in!”
She threw another look at the sky. The wind was spreading the fire quickly. Then she turned her focus to the semicircle of snowmobiles they’d left with headlights on in the distance as a beacon to find their way.
From the sounds of the radio chatter, there was more than one man down. And her heart was doing a fast gallop as she worried about Kell’s safety. The wind snapped and blew the snow at a slant in front of her, making it hard to see more than a few yards away at a time, even with the light on her helmet and the headlight on the sled. Some distance later, when a figure stumbled out of the woods she immediately slowed.
“Help!”
Assuming it was one of the team, she stopped and started to get off the sled to offer assistance. Belatedly, the details she’d heard earlier on the radio clicked into place.
Prisoner secured? Matthews, what’s your location?
Need a location check on Matthews.
Matthew’s down. Need a medic!
Prisoner security, check in!
Comprehension slammed into her. This man wasn’t wearing a white suit. Or a flak vest emblazoned with Summit County Sheriff.
And he was aiming a gun right at them.
“Get down!” Macy lunged to knock the girl off the sled as she drew her weapon. The man’s figure was hazed by the blowing snow. There, then gone and there again. It was like aiming for a ghost. She stood. Sited. Squeezed off three shots in quick succession. And then was spun completely around when one hit her in the shoulder. Another in the chest.
She fought to haul in a breath. Dimly she realized she was on her back. The radio was just a jumble of noise now. Cold. She was surrounded by it. The snow was in her face. On her lips. Rolling clouds of smoke lightened the dark sky overhead. And when she tried to move, agony rolled through her like a gleeful gnawing beast.
She didn’t know how long she lay there before she heard the girl’s voice in her ear. “You killed him but it’s all right.” The words danced through her head, through her mind as she struggled to fight the waves of unconsciousness that threatened to haul her under.
“He was already dead anyway.”
Chapter 18
Macy opened her eyes. She was still on her back. But the cold had been replaced by a furnacelike heat.
Disoriented, she blinked. Tried to move. Then whimpered like a baby when her efforts resulted in various aches awakening in an agonizing chorus.
“What’s the matter? Are you in pain? Do you need another pill?” The heat was abruptly gone.
Slowly, tentatively, she turned her head. Found that it might be the one part of her body that didn’t hurt. Kell was standing at her bedside, hauling jeans up his long muscled legs to cover the form-fitting boxer briefs. Which seemed a pity. The man did have a glorious bum.
Her eyes widened at the totally inappropriate thought. “Have you drugged me?”
“Well, yeah. Doctor’s orders.”
He came back from the bathroom carrying a glass of water. And sluggishly, a few of the cobwebs cleared from her foggy memory. “Last night. Forgot for a minute.”
He shook a pain pill from the bottle on the bedside table with a bit more force than was necessary. “Good for you. Wish it was that easy for the rest of us.”
Macy eyed him carefully. Was he always this grouchy in the mornings? Because by the light slanting in the windows, dawn had long passed. “Pain pills make me groggy.” But she took the pill and the glass of water he shoved at her because his expression didn’t look too tolerant. “How’s Ellie?”
His expression softened. “Fine. Thanks to you, she’s fine. Her parents . . .” He looked away for a moment. Cleared his throat. “They’re grateful.”
“He came out of nowhere.” Gingerly, she lay back on the pillow. Despite her dislike for medication, she willed for it to work so she could move without discomfort. “I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have to the radio chatter. I was just trying to get Ellie out of there. All I could think of when they said man down . . . I thought it was you.” His head swiveled toward her then. She took a deep breath. Winced when that hurt, too. “I was afraid it was you.”
Kell sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the glass she still held to set it on the table. “Two men lost,” he said quietly. “Matthews and Crosby. Several others were injured in the explosion.”
There was a quick hitch in her chest at th
e thought of the downed men. And the families they left behind. “So Matthews had Dodge secured after the entry?”
He nodded. “Matthews and Wilder. But the explosion sent them all flying. Wilder was thrown several yards away and when he got back to Matthews, Dodge must have already managed to get the key from the man’s pocket and unlock himself before stealing the man’s gun and taking off.”
A soft knock sounded at her door. She had the presence of mind to yank the sheets up to her chest, although someone had helped her into her pajamas last night. If she bothered to pursue the memory, she was certain she’d discover that someone had been Kell.
Adam entered. Stopped to give Kell’s bare chest and proximity a long look. “Was it a bomb?” She addressed the question to both of them, still trying to puzzle through it. The idea still didn’t make sense. “Did he have the place booby-trapped?”
“It’ll be days before we know for sure.” Her boss stopped a couple feet from her bedside and considered her gravely. “How do you feel?”
“Like an enthusiastic mule gave me a few good kicks.”
There was a flicker in his expression, there and gone too quickly to be identified. “Even with Kevlar, taking a bullet hurts like a son of a bitch. You took two.”
She gave a wry smile. “The impact packs a punch.” Macy stopped, her gaze going involuntarily to the scar on Kell’s chest. The one he’d had no vest to deflect. “I’m fine,” she said more strongly. “I’d like to get up.”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
“Not a chance.”
The two men glared at each other narrowly. “The doctor Mulder got to come out here said she should rest in bed a couple days,” Kell pointed out.
“Macy’s the best judge of how she feels.”
“Macy is going to try to prove how tough she is to you so you won’t follow through on your threat to fire her.”
“Macy is lying right here,” she felt compelled to point out. “And doesn’t need anyone telling her what to do.”
Raiker was glaring at Kell now. “When did she become your business?”
There was no way she wanted that discussion to spin out right here and now. So she distracted them the only way she knew how. “Ohhh,” she groaned in feigned pain. As expected, that shifted their attention. She smiled complacently. “That’s it, now, focus. I appreciate the doctor visit. I appreciate the meds, I think.” Although from what she could figure, she’d been given something that had had her sleeping close to twenty-four hours. “I also appreciate Kell stopping by this morning to see if I needed anything.” She raised her brows at him, and he snapped his mouth shut, obviously steamed, but discreet for once. Memory was filtering back through the drug-induced fog, and she knew he’d been at her side all night. She didn’t want to examine the warmth elicited by the knowledge.
To Raiker she said, “Nothing in Dodge’s MO would lead me to believe he was an explosives expert.”
“I didn’t see anything in my brief time inside that would have caused the explosion by other means.” Kell folded his arms over his chest. “There was a wood-burning stove. A battery-operated TV.”
Adam placed both hands on his cane and leaned his weight on it. “Dodge wouldn’t have had to be an explosives expert to place the bomb if its instructions were given to him. But why would he? He had a gun and a knife. And based on his file, he enjoys the close work. One theory would be that he was planning to detonate the place so the girl’s body wouldn’t be found.”
“Another would be that someone else was planning to destroy them both to get rid of a loose end.”
Raiker nodded at Kell. “Exactly. Plus once Dodge was secured, he had nothing on him to detonate the explosive. Given the fact that he didn’t appear to be awake when the cabin was breached, we can bet he wasn’t the one planning to torch the place.”
Macy shuddered. If the rescue had been staged just a quarter hour later, Ellie, as well as most of the team, would have been lost. “Let’s compare timelines. When did the money transfer take place? And what time was the explosive detonated?”
The approval in her boss’s glance was cheering. “The pain meds haven’t completely addled your thinking ability. The final ransom note came minutes after three and demanded that the money be transferred to a numbered account electronically.”
“With the time difference, that leaves dozens of countries as the possible destination,” Kell muttered.
“Paulie is still following the money. It’s bounced around to four different accounts so far, so whoever is pulling the strings knows what he’s doing. The transfer was complete—at least it looked that way—at three fifteen A.M. Preske said the detonation was at three twenty.”
“Remote detonation?” Macy moved restlessly against the pillows. The pain was receding to dull aches. Then she automatically corrected herself. “Not a cell phone trigger. Reception is too spotty in the area. A timer?”
“It’s doubtful.” Adam straightened. “Whoever set this up had to have complete control over the timing. Too many variables to take into consideration. No, I’ll guess he used a satellite phone as the trigger.”
“Doesn’t make sense.” Kell looked at his boss soberly. “Why hire an assassin if you’re planning to do the final kill yourself anyway?”
“This bastard is cagey.” Raiker gave a feral smile. “Covers all his bases. He hired Dodge because the man had a particular set of skills. He could prepare the hideaway and stalk the guard, force him to record that message before killing him and chopping off his thumb. Then he could be counted on to snatch the kid and kill her if Mulder didn’t cooperate. And we saw with that final scene with Dodge that he was compelled to see his job through to the end. But loose ends aren’t tolerated. Once the money was in hand and the girl was dead, Dodge became a loose end.”
“So not only does the mastermind want the girl dead, he doesn’t want Dodge around to talk either,” Kell noted.
“But there still may be a loose end,” Macy said slowly. She paused, trying to push aside the drug-induced haze fogging her mind. “Those security specs found at Hubbard’s. Where did they come from? And did Dodge have the talent to circumvent Mulder’s alarm system himself?” There had been another thing nagging at her and she searched her memory for a moment until she recalled it. “Then there were the ransom notes sent from local IP addresses. Someone’s moving all these people around like chess pieces, waiting for a ten-million-dollar payoff. And yet he’s driving around town in the middle of the night, looking for unsecured networks to send the ransom notes from?” Macy looked from one of them to the other. “Does that sound like the same person to you?”
“If you can think that clearly, you can make it to the briefing downstairs in another half hour.” Raiker turned to leave. “Burke, I’ll expect you to find a shirt.”
Kell waited for him to leave before bracing both hands on the bed, effectively caging her. “Just how the hell do you think you’re going to shower and get dressed by yourself?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage.” He could help, the way he’d helped get her to bed—her memory had cleared in that regard—but it was obious he wasn’t going to offer.
“Go ahead and try,” he invited, pushing away from the bed to rise. “Hope you got some return of strength to that arm.”
So did she. Because she was damned if she was going to allow him to dictate her actions. If he didn’t want to help so she could join the meeting, she’d do it on her own. She struggled to swing her feet over the side of the bed. Lay there a minute trying to figure out how she was going to get up.
When she finally managed to roll to the elbow of her uninjured arm, she pushed herself up, shot him a triumphant look.
He clapped derisively, made a point of looking at his watch. “Two minutes flat, Duchess. At that rate, you’ll make it downstairs in time to grab something for dinner tonight.”
She sailed by him to the bathroom, her resolve strengthened by his attitude. She wasn’t in that much pain. And she damn
ed well was going to that briefing, with or without his help. “You heard Raiker,” she snapped, right before she closed the door behind her. “Put a shirt on.”
Fifteen minutes later she was willing to admit that he might have had a point about the difficulty she was going to experience. Trying to use her left arm at all had her shoulder weeping. And her reflection in the bathroom mirror told the story. Her chest and shoulder were covered with wicked bruises that promised to turn a rainbow of colors in the coming days. There was also a good-sized one on the back of her thigh, which she could only attribute to her graceless first attempt at walking in snowshoes.
But the injuries weren’t disabling. She’d managed perfectly well washing her hair one-handed. After toweling her hair and patting herself dry as best she could, she was winded but feeling a bit triumphant. At least until she considered the process required to get dressed. Her door opened. And her mood soured to see Kell coming in, fully dressed, hair wet, as if mocking her with what he’d accomplished in the time it had taken her to shower. “Get out.”
He shut the door to lean against it. “Déjà vu. Except this time I’m not helping.”
“Who asked you to?” She yanked open a drawer, considered the contents. Clearly a bra wasn’t an option. And she wasn’t any too certain she could raise her arms up enough to put on a sweater. In the end, she dragged on a jogging suit in soft black velour with a front zipper on the top. Socks were the easiest part of the ensemble and then she checked the time again. She still had six minutes.
Brushing her hair quickly, she squirted some mousse in her left hand and then scooped it out with the fingers of her right, worked it into her hair. She was going to look ridiculous in a few hours. When it dried, the curls were going to make her look like a crazed Orphan Annie. And it suited her to blame that on the man leaning silently against the door.
Going to the closet, she shoved her feet in a pair of black slip-ons.
“I wasn’t trying to be a dick.”
“Practice must make perfect, then.”
She always forgot how fast he could move. One moment he was across the room. And when she closed the closet door and turned around, he was there in front of her.
