Storm Force

by Meredith Fletcher

  Bryce! Kate hoped the prone figure wasn’t her ex. Maybe Bryce wasn’t really close to Steven and Hannah, but they loved him.

  More gunfire sounded out in the swamp. Evidently the reinforcements were still in pursuit of Shane. She just hoped he lived through the experience.

  Pushing those fears out of her mind, Kate crept closer. Aside from the body on the ground, no one else appeared to be around.

  Lightning flickered and she recognized the prone figure: Bryce!

  Circling the clearing, checking from several angles, Kate figured Jolly and the mystery woman were gone. Whatever they’d come for—presumably the ransom money—they’d evidently gotten it and departed.

  Kate eased out into the clearing, using her ears and her peripheral vision, knowing she was now more the hunted than the hunter. Step by step, she made her way to Bryce. Blood caked his head, looking black in the lightning. When she put her fingertips to the side of his throat, she found a pulse.

  She let out a breath of relief. Then, remembering the satellite phone Shane had found on the bodyguards, she searched her husband’s clothes and found a similar one.

  She opened it and dialed her father’s phone number. It made a strange sound and she at first thought the phone had dropped the signal. Then she heard it ring.

  “Hello,” her dad answered.

  “Dad,” Kate choked out, biting her lip to keep from crying.

  “Baby girl,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  Kate took a shallow breath. “I’m getting there. Things have been confusing.”

  “I know. Sheriff Brannock an’ me been lookin’ for you an’ the kids since Tyler Jordan got back. Somebody done took your kids—”

  “I know, Dad. I’ve got them. But we may need some help getting out of here.”

  “I’m with the sheriff now. Using this satellite phone of his. Had my home an’ business numbers forwarded to this one in case you called. I was hopin’.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “I am. But what about you?”

  “We’re okay,” Kate said. “So far. There’s a man looking for us. His name is Rollins. Hugh Rollins.” She had to lift her voice to be heard over the wind. “He kidnapped Steven and Hannah because Bryce stole money from him and left him exposed to the police. It’s a long story. But they’re here now, looking for us.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Butcher’s Hog Lagoon. I can take the kids and go to ground for a few hours. Maybe even a day. They won’t find us.”

  “Baby girl,” her dad said. “You can’t stay there. Not in Butcher’s Hog Lagoon. There’s another storm surge. That whole area’s right in the path of it. It’s all going to be underwater in just a few minutes.”

  Kate couldn’t believe it. She looked up at the dark sky swirling overhead, the jagged veins of lightning flashing through it, and felt the cannonade of thunder pounding through her.

  “There’s a boat here, Dad. We can get to the boat. It’s Bryce’s. Marine authorities somewhere ought to have a record of it. If we go back to the boat, we could be caught. But we don’t have a choice.”

  “We’ll get there soon as we can, Kate. I swear to you.”

  “I know. I love you.” Kate punched the phone off and stood up. Then, when lightning flashed overhead, she saw the bottom of the freshly dug hole. There was something there, something that sent primeval fear jarring along her nerves.

  It was the body of a woman.

  Chapter 16

  Frozen with horror, numb from everything she’d faced tonight, Kate stared at the body in the bottom of the shallow grave. It held the mortal remains of Desiree Martini.

  If Kate hadn’t already been drained by her recent experiences, if Steven and Hannah weren’t dependent on her to get them to safety, she might have felt more sorry for the dead woman. As it was now, she could only think of her children, and Genevieve. The hurricane was building again, summoning up another storm surge that would engulf the area where she and her children now were.

  Rainwater pooled in the grave, filling the hole with surprising speed. By the time the storm abated, the grave might well have been swallowed up.

  Seven months in the grave had left a barely recognizable corpse. If it hadn’t been for the dress, the one that Desiree Martini had been wearing in all the news footage of the nightclub she’d been at prior to the kidnapping, Kate wouldn’t have known the young woman at all. The twisted, ravaged features looked like something out of a horror movie.

  C’mon, Kate told herself. Shake it off. You don’t have time to fall apart. Not now. Steven and Hannah are depending on you. Genevieve isn’t going to wait until you’re ready for her.

  Through sheer force of will, Kate looked past the body, shifting the flashlight to the left where a waterproof ammunition case sat open, collecting rain. A handful of papers lay soaking on the ground.

  Kate played the flashlight beam over the paper and saw presidential faces and national buildings. Hypnotized, she reached down and plucked one of them from the mud. Andrew Jackson stared back at her from the twenty-dollar bill.

  We want ten million dollars, the disguised voice had announced on the recorded phone call. In small, non-sequential bills. Nothing smaller than twenty-dollar bills, nothing larger than one hundred dollars. Pay the ransom. You’ll get your daughter back in one piece.

  But they didn’t get her back, did they, you bastards?

  A moan sounded to the right.

  Kate flicked the light back to Bryce. His clothes and hands were covered in fresh, thick mud.

  Gunfire sounded out on the swamp, rolling in hard and loud, warring with the thunder.

  Then she thought about Rollins’s men somewhere in the brush behind her. Bryce might have been a selfish cheat and a greedy thief, but he wasn’t a killer. Rollins’s men were.

  And you left Shane out there with them. Kate pushed past the guilt. She had her kids to think of. Playing the light over her ex-husband again, she saw him turn away from the bright beam this time.

  Bryce was coming around. She flashed the beam over his scalp again. The tear was already starting to clot. The rain only made it look like there was more blood. A few stitches and he was going to be fine, other than a headache and a possible concussion or fracture.

  You’re not responsible for him, either. Kate stood and shone the flashlight into his face. And you can’t trust him. He’ll put his own welfare ahead of Steven and Hannah’s. He’s already done that by exposing them to all the danger.

  But she couldn’t just walk away either.

  She leaned down and slapped his face, blocking the driving rain from him for just a moment.

  He moaned.

  “Bryce,” she said in a steady voice.

  He moaned and put a hand to his head, turning away from the light.

  “Wake up,” she said. She slapped his face again, knowing it had to hurt a little. She forgave herself the perverse pleasure she got in the act. Bryce deserved even worse than the lump on the head and the cut he’d received from whoever had cold-cocked him while he was rooting around in Desiree Martini’s grave for the ransom money.

  “Leave me alone, you bitch!” Bryce snarled. He wrapped his arms over his head. “Don’t you dare hit me again!” He didn’t sound exactly lucid, but he was getting there.

  “Get up.” Kate pulled at him, shaking him awake. “Get up or you’re going to die.”

  He cursed her.

  She wanted to slap him again just for that, and the control almost slipped beyond her. “Rollins is somewhere out there. So is Jolly. You’re going to have to get up.”

  A shot cracked through the air back in the direction of the boat, away from the area where Shane had engaged Rollins’s reinforcements.

  Steven! Hannah! Kate was in motion before she knew it, running toward the boat. If Jolly took the boat, her kids were going to be left at the mercy of the storm’s newest flooding.

  Her boots splashed through the water and mud, p
acking deep and feeling like they were filled with lead. Her legs and back ached now from the constant physical demands she’d faced. Her breath rasped and burned the back of her throat.

  She drove herself on when she felt as though she didn’t have anything left to give, following the game trail through the woods, chasing the light. Reaching the hollow where she’d left Steven and Kate, she knelt and shone the beam into the dry area where she’d left them.

  They were gone. The beam tracked the empty space, playing over the blankets, the first-aid kit and the trail-bar wrappers and water bottles.

  Steven and Hannah were gone.

  In that moment, Kate’s heart emptied in a rush. Someone had taken her kids! The realization slammed into her like a blow. She staggered and fell to her knees on the muddy ground, sinking deeply. Black spots swirled in her vision as a ragged cry tore from her.

  For just a moment she gave into the helplessness. Then she stood and forced herself to stop crying, playing the flashlight beam around the ground, sorting through all the tracks there, knowing there were more than just hers and her kids’. Someone else had been there. From the size of the feet, she guessed it had been a man.

  Taking a deep breath, she made herself be calm. Panic wasn’t going to do anyone any good. The flashlight beam picked up a set of tracks that were washing out even as she found them. Her kids were lost in the wilderness, but she could find them. That was one of the things she did best. She started to follow the tracks.

  “Mom!”

  Steven’s voice came from behind her. Kate whirled, already moving to the side herself in case Rollins or Jolly or Shane had them.

  Steven stepped out from behind a tree, leading Hannah by the hand.

  They’re all right! Kate rushed to them and dropped to her knees, hugging them tightly. Then all of them were crying, holding on to each other fiercely.

  “We had to leave the shelter!” Steven said, looking at her, his small face pinched with hurt and fear. “I know you said not to. But I saw a flashlight coming. I knew it wasn’t you, so I took Hannah and we hid.”

  Kate forced herself to laugh and give him a smile. “It’s all right. You did good.”

  Steven calmed but still looked scared. “The guy found the shelter. He went inside and looked.”

  “But he didn’t find you, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Momma,” Hannah said, “we hided good. Like you told us to.”

  “Yes, you did, honey.” Kate stood and took Steven’s hand. “We’ve got to get out of here. The storm’s getting worse again.”

  “Where can we go?” Steven asked.

  “To your dad’s boat.” Even if they couldn’t start the boat, Kate knew it would be safer there when the land flooded. “Stay close to me. Do what I tell you. No one talks until I say it’s all right. Okay?”

  They both nodded. Hannah mimed a key locking her lips and threw it away, then took a tighter grip on her doll.

  “Are you going to get us out of here now, Mom?” Steven asked.

  “I am,” she told him with the complete conviction she knew he wanted to hear, even though she didn’t know how she was going to accomplish that feat yet.

  She led them into the darkness, switching off the flashlight because she didn’t want Rollins or Jolly to spot them in the darkness. Steven and Hannah slowed her, but they weren’t far from the boat. Kate kept thinking about the single gunshot she’d heard, wondering what it meant.

  Another lightning flash caused Hannah to scream.

  Kate turned to her daughter immediately, sliding a hand across Hannah’s mouth. “Shhhh, baby,” Kate whispered into her daughter’s ear. “We’ve got to be quiet. There are bad people out here. We don’t want them to find us.”

  Hannah nodded.

  Kneeling, Kate looked into her daughter’s eyes. They were big and filled with fear. Kate kept her hand in place. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  Hannah pointed.

  Slowly, heart thudding in her chest, Kate turned to look at the side of the trail.

  Jolly lay crumpled against a cypress tree, mostly covered by brush but Kate recognized his clothes. Then lightning flashed again, revealing the torn and bloody flesh that covered the side of Jolly’s face.

  Hannah quivered and screamed again. A little of the noise made it past Kate’s hand. She turned her daughter away from the sight.

  “It’s all right,” Kate said. “He can’t hurt us.”

  Hannah nodded, but she was still trembling and Kate felt the rush of hot tears across her fingers and the back of her hand. She felt bad because she knew Hannah wasn’t afraid that Jolly was going to hurt them. Hannah was afraid because she’d never seen a man wearing a gunshot wound where a large section of his face had been.

  “Steven.” Kate looked at her son and saw that he had his own hand over his mouth. He looked at her with big eyes. “I need you to take care of Hannah. Can you do that?”

  He nodded and slipped his hand in place of Kate’s. Hannah held her brother’s hand to her mouth.

  “He may have the keys to your dad’s boat,” Kate said, hoping she sounded calm and not panicked. Sounding panicked wouldn’t keep her kids from getting more panicked. Please let him have the keys! “I’ve got to get them. We’re going to take your dad’s boat out of here. Okay?”

  They nodded.

  Turning, Kate gripped the flashlight near its end so she could use it like a club if Jolly wasn’t as dead as he looked. She went down the small incline, walking through several inches of water that told her how bad the flooding conditions had already gotten.

  Keeping control of herself, Kate rapped Jolly’s foot with the flashlight, ready to bail at the first sign of movement on his part.

  He remained inert.

  She tried to see his face in the darkness and couldn’t. From the best she was able to remember, the bullet had hit Jolly somewhere under the left eye. Evidently he’d had his head turned to the side because the bullet had plowed through the soft tissue of his cheek and torn through his left eye socket. It might even have ricocheted into his brain.

  Taking a deep breath, she made herself go forward till she was beside him. She thought about checking for a pulse, but after seeing the ruin of his face, she knew there wasn’t one. And if there was, she couldn’t do anything that would help.

  Quickly, breathing shallowly to control her fear, she went through his jacket pockets. She found a key ring almost immediately and felt a surge of hope and happiness so strong that she laughed a little, surprising herself.

  A quick flash of the flashlight revealed that the key ring was Bryce’s. Shoving the keys into her jeans pocket, she stood and returned to Steven and Hannah.

  “Is he…dead?” Steven asked.

  For just a moment, Kate thought about lying to her son. Just to protect him. But there was so much more between them now that hadn’t been there before. She couldn’t risk it.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “And he was one of the bad guys that I saw on television? The one that kidnapped and killed that woman for all that money?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.” Steven took a deep breath. “At least he can’t hurt us now.”

  Pain touched Kate’s heart. Kill or be killed. It was one of the most instinctive and savage edicts of animals and people, but she didn’t know how jarring that feeling could be coming out of the mouth of an eight-year-old boy.

  “That’s right,” she made herself say. “He can’t.” Then she took Steven by the hand and they went on. She couldn’t help wondering who had killed Jolly. Rollins might have done it. But Shane was still out there too, and she felt he was definitely capable.

  After eluding the reinforcements Rollins had sent, Shane ran through the forest, slipping and sliding, falling twice but pushing himself back up immediately. Carlyle’s warning kept echoing through his head, adding urgency to the fear and anger that was already fueling him.

  Hurricane Genevieve has whipped up a wall of w
ater. The weather guys say it’s going to hit the area where you are within minutes.

  And Kate didn’t know.

  Topping the hill leading to the low area where Bryce Colbert’s boat was docked, Shane told himself that the course of action he’d decided on was the best he could do. Kate and her kids were somewhere in the middle of this part of the Everglades and he couldn’t immediately find them.

  Helplessness battered him as relentlessly as the rain that soaked him to the bone. He didn’t like feeling helpless. Not helpless. Hell no. You’re way past that. Ineffectual is what you’ve been. Shane Warren was supposed to be the Answer Guy at the FBI for getting tough cases solved. Always-Thinks-Outside-the-Box Warren. That was him. But he’d been like a fish on a bicycle ever since he’d helped Jolly and his crew escape prison.

  If it hadn’t been for Kate Garrett, he’d have already failed his assignment. He pushed his breath out angrily as he ran. Get off it, Warren. Without that woman, you’d have been dead a couple times in there, too.

  And if she hadn’t been trying to look out for him, Kate would have already gotten her kids and herself out of harm’s way. He was responsible for them being here. Right where a wall of water was already rushing inland to take out everything in its path.

  Some hero, he told himself. Some big-shot FBI agent. You’re just a hotdogger.

  Lost in his thoughts, overrunning existing conditions and way too fast for the trail, Shane felt his feet slide out from under him. He fell. Gracelessly and flat on his ass. The incline was sharp and slick enough with mud that he careened down the hillside. He wrapped his arms around his head as best as he could and took the beating delivered by the branches and trees, crashing at last into a tree so hard that it knocked the wind out of him.

  For a moment, he was stunned, drifting toward a lazy blackness. The rain pounded him, locking him into the here and now, and at that moment he was grateful for it. It hurt to move but he did it, knowing Bryce Colbert’s boat was the only chance he had at saving Kate and her kids.

  As soon as he was up, he started running again. At the bottom of the hill, he glanced at his compass and got his bearings. He headed to the right, knowing he had to be close.