“These are just precautions, in case things go bad. Now you got it?”
“Oh, I got it all right. But watch out after my car, man.”
As Ian pulled the man away, I climbed out of the car with Will following after me.
“Where do you two think you’re going?” Ian snapped over his shoulder.
“I’m not going to be someplace I can’t see what’s going on,” I insisted. I didn’t like the idea of being caged in a box with only one exit.
“Get back inside, both of you,” he snapped. “You’ll be able to see well enough, a fair trade for them not knowing you’re here. I need you to be there when they bring Cara and Patrice out. You keep them inside the limo, and like I said, keep your heads down.”
Ian looked at his watch. “They should be landing in about ten minutes. I expect two men in addition to James, one for each woman. And don’t, under any circumstances, leave the car.” He tossed Will the keys. “If things get really bad, get her out of here, no matter what she says.”
“Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, oh, Lord,” the driver repeated as Ian escorted him to the office.
Ian was back in less than five minutes, leaning casually against the front passenger door with us safely inside. His arms were crossed, his gun in the crook of his elbow. I could see the barrel peeking out against his side.
We didn’t have to wait long. The Lear jet flew in low, skipped to a landing, and circled the runway. Just as it came to a stop, we heard Ian’s tap against the window.
“Are you still sure we’re working for the right side?” Will asked.
“I’m on whatever side keeps my daughter safe,” I said.
Through the dark glass I could see Ian pull his cap farther down over his face. That only left his nose and his jawline to be recognized. As careful as James would be, I somehow doubted he’d notice.
The side door of the Lear jet opened and a stair folded down. The pilot remained clearly visible at the controls in the cockpit. He must have been planning a takeoff as soon as his passengers disembarked.
My heart caught in my throat as I saw Patrice appear in the doorway with some shaved-headed man close behind. She looked fine, healthy, nothing on her wrists. I let out a sigh of relief and craned my neck for a glimpse of Cara.
James was next onto the platform, but he turned and went back inside. He reappeared in the cockpit window, talking to the pilot.
Then Cara emerged from the plane, and my heart pounded. Her foot caught on the wire mesh of the first step, tripping her, and my whole body strained forward to catch her. A man wearing a baseball cap, who was following close behind, grabbed her elbow and steadied her.
Ian reacted, too, pushing off from the side of the limo. His arms remained crossed as he came down the side and put his left hand on the back door. He must have been hiding his gun behind him because I couldn’t see it.
He had called it just right. Their three to our three, not counting the pilot. Only, I suspected Ian put the odds at one to three. He had no intention of Will or me becoming involved.
Both Will and I crouched down as Patrice, Cara and their escorts approached. A good thirty feet separated the couples. No one could see us through the black of the glass until they were right upon us, at least I hoped they couldn’t. The door swung open, letting in bright sunshine. I heard Patrice’s voice and then saw Ian’s hand helping her. I lunged for her as soon as she was inside, holding a finger to her lips. A tiny “oh” escaped from her and she frowned at me, her eyes huge. I shook my head at her.
“You all right?” the man behind called after her.
The engine of the jet was still running so it made it hard to hear.
“Fine,” she managed, her eyes trained on me. Then she called out louder this time, “I tripped.”
Ian had blocked the man’s path and was saying something to him. Then he cleared the way, and, as the man leaned to climb inside, Ian turned behind him. Two quick thuds echoed, like the muffled sound of rivets being driven into something hard. A wheeze issued from the man’s mouth, and he crumpled forward onto the floor, blood issuing from his lips.
I covered Patrice’s mouth with my hand, stifling her scream, and she struggled against me as I fought my own terror.
“What the hell is going on?” she whispered loudly as soon as I let her free.
Ian, his body masking his actions from Cara and her guard, shoved the man inside. Will dragged him to the front end, leaving a bloody trail and a deepening red patch on the back of his jacket. If he wasn’t dead yet, he soon would be. The placement of the wounds and the amount of blood suggested the bullets had torn right through the heart.
“The men you’re with are killers,” I told Patrice, tasting bile in my throat. “James may have killed Stephen. They’re paid assassins.”
“You’re crazy,” she spat back at me. “That driver is the killer. He shot Jake, and you’re just sitting there letting—”
“Your Jake worked for Nicholas Ackerman,” I said.
I checked Jake’s neck for a pulse but felt nothing. When I looked up, Patrice’s face had gone white, and she was staring out the window.
“I don’t know about James, but I know that man,” Patrice choked out, pointing at Ian and studying his features. “He just murdered a man in cold blood. And he almost murdered Odin.”
It was true and the callousness of the act had not escaped me. Nor my own callous response. Was this what Stephen had become? Had he killed men as easily as Ian? Thinking was a luxury I could ill afford.
I motioned for Will to take a place next to Patrice. When Cara and her guard got close enough to see through the windows, they’d be expecting two shadows.
“You’re Will Donovan,” Patrice stated, obviously recognizing him from his photo. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Not yet, but I’m working on it.”
I shushed them. My precious Cara was at the limo door.
She took one step up. I dove toward her, but she let out a loud “Mom!” before I could stop her. Suddenly she was catapulted forward, her hands thrown out in front of her to break her fall, as the door slammed shut behind her.
“Get down,” I shouted, reaching behind me and pulling Patrice down with me. Cara let out a shriek, raising her blood-covered hands from the floorboard. Will vaulted toward her, slamming her down as shots rang down the side of the limo, followed by the thuds that signaled Ian’s returned fire.
We were trapped, but I didn’t intend to stay that way. We could hear gunfire spit from the front fender area. And then Cara’s guard, still wearing his baseball cap, was quickly moving back along the limo. He tried the door, but it was locked and he couldn’t pull it open. I’d lost track of Ian. Then the man was back at the front of the car. The doors were locked there, too.
Another shot rang out, more distant this time. It sounded as though it was coming from the area near the hangars, the only other area that offered any kind of cover. Ian must have removed his silencer and was trying to draw the gunman away from us so he could get a better shot.
I chanced a look through the untinted windshield. I could see Ian’s arm stretched past the wheels of the blue and white Cessna. The man, the one who’d helped Cara on the stairs, was laying down a barrage of fire from his cover at the front fender. Ian would be loath to shoot back for fear of striking the limo, even if he could get off a shot in that hail of fire.
I looked toward the jet. James was making his way down the stairs. That explained the massive gunfire: cover for James. The odds against Ian were about to get much worse, and I was not about to let James kill Ian only to come finish us all off in that death trap of a limo.
“Take care of them,” I told Will and then climbed over the body and onto the leather seat directly in front of the opening that led to the driver’s seat. I squeezed through and fell headfirst, twisting and quickly dragging my legs after me. I didn’t have time to think how crazy I was. I could die trying to help Ian, or I could just wait to die.
Flipping the lock, I pushed open the driver-side door, and tumbled onto the ground on the opposite side from the gunman, pushing the door shut after me.
I scrambled to the protection of the rear tire, and, crouching on the ground, looked beneath the car. I could see the man’s legs and part of the rear of his jeans as he squatted and twisted. He knew I was out.
I aimed beneath the limo and squeezed the trigger. The gun snapped back, but the bullet must have hit home. The man let out a loud curse as he jumped and then moved just enough to better shelter his body behind the front tire, making himself more vulnerable to Ian. It was just enough to break the barrage.
He could come after me, but if he did, Ian would be right on top of him—if James didn’t stop Ian first. I drew farther back and heard a bullet whiz past me from under the car. Now the man in the baseball cap had two fronts to cover and a wound, however minor, in his leg. I’d bettered Ian’s odds, if only a little. By now James had to be in the mix.
Will tumbled out of the driver’s side door the same way I had.
“You’re nuts!” he declared, crawling back to join me.
“Must be contagious,” I suggested.
A second bullet whizzed beneath the limo. Will slid past me, on around to the trunk of the car. I followed, determined not to let him get killed after we’d gone to all the trouble of finding him.
The next bullet came from another direction entirely, somewhere behind us, and tore across Will’s calf. James, damn it.
Will let out a loud groan and I could see blood soaking the denim of his jeans. He dropped his gun and pressed his palm against his leg, blood seeping between his fingers. For the briefest moment, I put down my gun and grabbed Will under the shoulders, tugging him back around to the side opposite the gunman, hoping the tire would offer us enough protection. I stripped off my belt.
“Just apply enough pressure to stanch the bleeding,” I instructed, slipping it around his calf.
Before I could take up my gun again, I felt an arm across my shoulder and a hand slip around my throat. Breath was in my ear. I knew that aftershave.
“You don’t need that,” a man’s voice said.
My gun skittered beneath the car as it was kicked, and I looked out of the corner of my eye to see James. He hit Will on the head with the butt of a gun, knocking him cold. Then he pressed the gun into my ribs, and now I knew the truth—I was staring into the eyes of the man who had killed my husband and abducted my daughter and would, I had no doubt, kill us all.
Chapter 27
James crouched closer to me at the sound of more gunfire. I was repulsed at having him so near, and furious with myself for letting my gun out of my hand, if only for a few seconds.
“If you’re going to shoot me, get it over with. If not, get off me,” I growled.
“Listen to me, Elizabeth.” He loosened his grip around my neck. “If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. So would Donovan. Ian isn’t who you think he is. Why do you think he was in Denver? He killed Jayne Donovan, just like he did Stephen.”
“You’re lying,” I spat out.
“He only needed you to get to Will, and you led him straight to him. Ian’s been using you.”
Using me. The words drummed in my ears. Was that what this had all been about?
“Damn it, Elizabeth, he’s working for Ackerman. I saw Ian murder Stephen.”
He shook me, and my head swam. Could my instincts have been that wrong? Could James be telling the truth? I couldn’t think. Could I have let Stephen’s murderer touch me? Bullets cracked all around us. One of them was lying.
“You must have found the code,” James insisted. “That’s how you found Will. Cara told me you have the book.” He pulled a copy from his pants pocket and waved it in front of me. Cara had described it, and he’d found a copy, a copy of a pocket atlas more than twenty years old.
“I need that code,” James insisted.
“Why?” I asked. “You’ve got Will.”
The gunfire continued, and I wondered just how many cartridges one man could carry in his pockets.
“Never mind. Just give it to me,” James insisted.
“I don’t have it with me,” I lied. I was buying time. The checkbook ledger was in my back pocket. “But I can get it for you.”
“What’d he put it in? An address book? On a disk? What?”
He grabbed my shoulders and wrenched me forward.
Suddenly the shooting coming from the direction of the blue and white Cessna that had landed earlier stopped, and I heard a second engine kick in.
James pulled back to look over the roof of the limo. “Shit.” He raised his hand into the air and fired a single shot. I heard the Lear’s engine rev. The roar grew louder. The damn thing must be coming toward us.
And so, from the sound of it, was the Cessna.
Again James jerked on my arm, pulling me almost upright. The plane was only a few feet away. The Cessna was coming at an angle perpendicular to the jet. It looked as though it might ram it if they both didn’t run over the limo.
Will moaned and stirred.
“Come on,” James insisted. His arm moved around my waist, brushing the checkbook that had worked its way halfway out of my back pocket. “What the…” He looked at it, then at me, and reached for it.
I twisted back and shoved the ledger back down in my jeans.
“Is that it?” he asked. “Is that Stephen’s—”
“No!” I shouted over the roar. I could see a rope ladder draped from the cockpit of the jet. “What about the others?” I asked.
“There’s no time. Help me get Will up.”
That was when I realized exactly what he was doing. He wanted to take Will and me with him, leaving Cara and Patrice behind—at the mercy of the man he’d just called a killer.
My hand found the front pocket of my jeans, and I pulled the canister of pepper spray into my palm and let James have it. One full spray in the face. He choked, his eyes tearing and swelling shut, his face flaming red. I grabbed his gun, pushed him away hard and reached for Will, who was already on his feet, favoring his injured leg.
Ian was shooting at the jet from the window of the Cessna, as the little plane neared. But the jet was already upon us. Bullets were skidding off its side, and I was afraid one might ricochet in our direction.
I left James struggling for breath and pulled Will around the side of the limo after me. Somehow I managed to get the driver’s door open, and shove Will inside. The thug in the ball cap reared up, and I shot right through the passenger-side window, shattering it. He ducked and rolled.
Half on and half off the seat, Will tossed me the keys. I cranked the engine, threw the limo into gear, and floored the gas as I swung it wide in front of the hangar, away from the Cessna and away from the jet.
“Hey, what about Ian?” Will asked, pulling himself up to where he could grab on to the door to steady himself and see what was going on.
I didn’t answer. I just got the limo back onto the road and headed straight for the gate as fast as that monster of an automobile would go.
“Cara, Patrice, get ready,” I called over my shoulder, praying they were both all right back there. “As soon as we stop, I want you out of that door.”
At the gate I swung a hard left, pulled right up behind the SUV and stomped on the brakes. “Out,” I shouted, and then came around the front to help Will. He leaned on my shoulder as I struggled to get him over to the car. Cara came up behind and took his other arm. I opened the back door and we managed to get him inside. Then she ran around to the other side, while Patrice slipped into the front passenger seat.
I had one more thing to do before joining them. Back inside the limo, I searched frantically for a lever and then popped the hood. Then I was out and around to the front of the car where I propped up the hood and searched the engine for the distributor cap. I had no idea where it was on that motor. I grabbed at the hoses, pulling two loose and ripping off a third. Then I climbed back into the SUV, tos
sing the hose over my shoulder into the backseat.
“What’s this?” Cara asked.
“Consider it a souvenir.”
“We don’t have any keys,” Will pointed out.
“Not to worry,” Patrice assured him as I pulled the wires down from the steering column.
Gunfire still echoed across the runway, but we could see the Lear jet turning, readying for a takeoff. I tried not to look, concentrating instead on getting the SUV started. The wires sparked and the engine turned over. I threw the thing in gear and we took off down the road.
“What if Ian manages to repair the limo and come after us?” Patrice asked.
“I doubt that will happen,” I said, tossing the limo keys out the window.
“He’ll have a corpse and a bloody mess in the back,” Cara pointed out.
“I don’t care what he’ll have as long as we have a fifteen-minute head start. Just give us that,” I prayed. “Who do you trust?” I asked as I glanced at Will’s reflection in the rearview mirror. We were on Will’s turf. He had to know someone.
I pulled the SUV off a dirt road and under a bank of trees just north of Denver. No one passing by on the main road could see us, and the trees were thick enough that we’d be difficult to spot from the air.
“We need help,” I added.
“Depends on what kind of help you have in mind,” Will said. “The kind we’ve been getting—”
I jerked on the parking brake and climbed out, slamming the door behind me, and paced up and down the side of the car, trying to shake off some of my anger. I was furious with myself. I’d let my guard down with Ian. I’d even welcomed his touch. What was I thinking? That was the problem. I hadn’t been thinking. I’d let my feelings cloud my judgment. I had to think clearly. I had to get Cara, Patrice and Will to safety.
“We need a phone,” I stated. “A safe one that they can’t trace.”
“Mom, settle down,” Cara admonished, following me out of the car.
Patrice got out, too, and placed a hand on Cara’s arm. “Let her be. She got us away from the airport, which is more than you or I could have done.”
No Safe Place Page 17
