“Don’t answer. It might be Durand,” Ben replied sleepily.
“Which is why I have to,” Zach told him. “It’s not, though. It’s Hayley.”
“At the crack of dawn?”
Zach patted his ass. “It’s eight-twenty-three,” he said, and then answered the call with, “Do you have a clue what time it is?”
“Eight-twenty-four,” she replied. “When did you get back?”
“Day before yesterday.”
“And you didn’t call me? I think I’m hurt. Anyway, feel like getting out of the city for a bit while we have the chance?”
“Depends. Doing what?”
“Believe it or not, Ez wants to go fishing.”
Zach snorted. “Want to try again?”
“Honest, he does. So pick up Ben and meet us at his place.”
“I haven’t said ‘yes’ yet.”
“You were going to. We’ll see you in an hour.”
“Hayley…” Zach muttered but she’d already hung up. “Guess we’re going fishing,” he said to Ben.
“So I heard. You have any gear?”
“Who do you think I am?” Zach asked as he got out of bed, heading to the bathroom.
“The man who’s prepared for anything?” Ben replied with a grin.
“Well, not this,” Zach said before closing the door behind him.
An hour later, having made a stop at Ben’s place so he could unpack and change into one of his older pair of jeans and a fairly presentable sweatshirt, they pulled up in front of Ez’s apartment building. Hayley was sitting on the stoop—“Which I guess means she didn’t spend the night,” Zach commented.
“Last I knew, they were still dancing around each other,” Ben replied as she hurried over to the jeep.
“Still are, I guess.” Zach gave her a salute when she came around to his door. “Where’s your gear?”
“In Ez’s van, along with his stuff.”
Ez appeared at that moment, giving a wave and beckoning for them to follow him. They did, around to the lot at the back of his building.
“Mind telling me why fishing, of all things?” Zach asked when they got to the van.
“It’s relaxing, the weather’s good, and it gets us out of the city for the day,” Ez replied as he unlocked the van. “Get in and tell us how things went with you and Ben.”
“He means on the job,” Hayley said with a wink as Zach and Ben got into the back seat and she took the shotgun position.
Zach tried not to laugh when Ben whispered, “Told you.”
She grinned. “Zach always lets us know as soon as he comes back from a job that doesn’t involve all of us. I talked with Noreen yesterday, so I knew both of you had returned. When Zach didn’t call, it piqued my interest. I did a couple of drivebys and…You need to keep your curtains closed, Zach.”
“They were,” Zach protested.
“Only in your bedroom. I saw you and Ben through your living room window yesterday morning, and again in the afternoon.”
Ez shook his head as he drove the van out of the lot. “Of course she jumped to conclusions.”
“Well, duh,” she replied. “I bet I’m right.” She looked between Ben and Zach. “Right?”
“No bet,” Zach said with a shrug.
By then they were heading toward the highway a few blocks from Ez’s place. “Do you have somewhere in mind?” Ben asked.
“Yep,” Ez said. “A nice lake in the middle of miles and miles of fields. Since it’s a weekday, there shouldn’t be too many people around.”
Obviously not willing to be deflected, Hayley said, “Tell all.”
Zach did, but not the way she meant, describing in detail what they had done to stop Irene Leyton’s stalker.
Hayley let him finish, because it was a good story according to her. Only then did she say, “That is not what I meant and you know it.”
Ben was about to kid her about minding her own business when he noticed Ez glancing from the rearview mirror to the two side ones with a deep frown. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“Maybe. Not sure,” Ez replied. “There’s a gray car that seems to be tailing us. I slow down, so does it. Same when I speed up. It been keeping at least a couple of cars between us.”
Zach and Hayley immediately went onto high alert. “How long?” Zach asked.
“The last several minutes.”
Zach told him to take the next turn off the highway, which he did so fast Ben wondered if he’d roll the van.
“So much for a peaceful day fishing,” Hayley muttered. “On the other hand, I didn’t leave home unprepared. There’s a pistol in my tackle box, the green one.”
“And one in mine,” Ez said. “Hayley, get the one from the glove compartment.”
Zach leaned over the back of the seat, opened both boxes, and retrieved the guns, handing one to Ben. By the time he had, Hayley was holding the third one.
“The damned car’s still behind us,” Ez reported. “And he’s picked up a companion, dark green, coming up fast.”
They were now on a curving two-lane highway, with trees, fields, and a few houses on either side, the gray car only a few yards behind them. The green car looked as if it was going to pull up beside them, but didn’t when a truck appeared, taking up the other lane. Ez took advantage of that to make a sharp right onto a side road, and moments later a left onto a dirt road that meandered through a large stand of trees.
“They’re not giving up,” Zach said tightly. “Okay, who’s got a hard-on for one of us?”
“Or all of us,” Hayley added. “Try there, Ez.” She pointed to a ramshackle barn barely visible through the trees to their left.
They were at it a few moments later. The doors hung open just enough for Ez to drive inside and they all scrambled out of the van. Zach pointed to Ez and Ben and the right side of the doors, and then he and Hayley took positions to the left of them. The only light came from the doorway and through spaces high in the side walls where boards were missing.
“Ez, you don’t have…” Ben started to say as he positioned himself with his gun trained on the entrance.
“Do,” Ez replied, pulling a knife from his boot and a second one from his waistband. “Never leave home without them.” He grinned briefly.
They heard the cars come to a stop in front of the barn, and doors open. Then someone called out, “Roach, we’ll leave your friends alone if you come out, now.”
It seemed to Ben as if Ez was going to answer, so he knew who the man was speaking to. He saw Zach shake his head, putting a finger to his lips.
There was an old wooden ladder a few feet to Ben’s right leading to the hayloft above them. Tucking his gun in his waistband, he went up two steps at a time, barely favoring his knee as he prayed none of the rungs would break under his weight. They didn’t. Across from him there was a sliding door directly above the one they’d entered—he thought it was probably to allow bales of hay to be hauled up from the ground. It was open a couple of inches, which allowed him to look down at the man who had spoken to Ez, and his three companions. When the man gestured, two of them started toward the sides of the barn.
Ben moved to the edge of the loft, whistling softly. When Zach looked up, Ben held up four fingers and then mimed the movements of the two men who were, presumably, circling the barn at that point, looking for another way in. With a nod, Zach repeated Ben’s motions to let the others know. Keeping low, Hayley moved quickly to the far side of the van, which gave her an unobstructed view of the door at the back of the barn.
“Roach,” the man shouted. “You have to the count of ten and then we start shooting. If your friends die…well, that’s on your head.” Ben saw Ez stiffen, at which point he moved back to his position by the loft door.
The man started counting down. When he reached ‘two,’ Ben fired, the bullet hitting him right below his shoulder blade. The man cursed but didn’t go down as he returned fire, the shots slamming into the door. Ben stepped back, his foot landed on something, tw
isted, and he fell, hitting hard on his bad knee. The pain was intense but he refused to allow it to debilitate him. Crawling to the door, he peered down, took careful aim, and shot one more time. It hit the man in the center of his chest and this time he did go down, blood flowing.
The man’s companion knelt, raking the entrance of the barn with a volley of shots. When he paused momentarily to reload, Zach stepped into view, taking him out with two well-placed shots.
Ben hobbled to the ladder, wondering if he could make it down, when he saw the back door of the barn fly open. The last two men were shooting indiscriminately as they came inside. Then one of them spotted Hayley, who was now using the van door as a shield as she shot back. He aimed and fired at the same second she did. Blood soaked her shirt where his bullet hit her side, but it was the last shot he’d ever take, her shots tearing into his abdomen before she fell back against the van and slid to the barn floor.
Ez, meanwhile, had managed to come up behind the last man as he moved toward the loft, firing as he went. Ez grabbed the man’s gun arm, twisting it behind his back. He had one of his knives in his other hand, which he used to slash the man’s throat. Releasing his hold, Ez was beside Hayley almost before the man’s body hit the ground.
“How bad?” Ez asked her as he cut her shirt open.
“Getting a bit personal here,” she managed to reply between clenched teeth.
“Hayley…” Ez growled. “Don’t move,” he told her as he got his first aid kit from the back of the van.
“Not planning on it.”
By then, Zach had joined them and helped Ez clean her wound as best they could. Ez slathered it with antibiotic cream, putting two gauze pads over it, holding them in place with medical tape. “That should do until we get you to the clinic,” he told her as he helped her into the back seat of the van, telling her to lie down.
She grimaced as she did, and then frowned. “Where’s Ben?”
“Shit!” Zach raced to the ladder to the loft, clambering up. “Were you hit?” he asked as soon as he saw Ben. “You’re pale as a sheet.”
“Screwed up my knee,” Ben replied. “Right now the fucker hurts like hell.”
“Not good,” Zach said as he began walking through the loft, kicking at the remnants of hay littering the floor. He stopped, picked up a short piece of wood and came back, pulling off his T-shirt along the way.
“Not sure now’s the time for some one-on-one action,” Ben said with a tight grin.
Zach chuckled. “Not planning on it. Can you straighten your knee?”
“Maybe?” Ben tried, sucking in a sharp breath. When he had, Zach slipped the wood behind it and then wrapped his T-shirt around it tightly, using the sleeves to tie it off, creating a makeshift brace.
“Not the best, but we have to get you down,” Zach told him, taking his gun when Ben held it out, sticking it into his waistband next to the one he’d used. Then he helped him up and to the ladder. “I’ll go first. Take it slow. If you feel like you’re going to fall, let me know.”
“I won’t. Fall that is,” Ben replied. He waited until Zach had gone down three steps before carefully following, gripping the sides of the ladder tightly. “Not so bad,” he muttered, using his arms and his good leg to move down step by step. When they made it to the bottom, he sighed in relief.
“You get to ride in front so you can keep your leg straight,” Zach told him, before helping him into the van. Then he got in, sitting on the floor beside the back seat, gently resting one hand on Hayley’s shoulder. “How you doing?” he asked her.
“I’ll live, I think.”
“Of course you will,” Ez said as he got into the driver’s seat. Taking out his phone, he made a call to Durand. “You might want to send a couple of guys to do clean-up,” he told him, before giving him the GPS coordinates. After a pause he said, “Yeah, we know. It was supposed to be a fishing trip but someone had different ideas.” Again, he paused before replying, “Carter.” Whatever Durand replied had Ez nodding his head. Then he told him they were heading to the clinic, and why, before hanging up.
“Who’s Carter?” Ben asked as Ez drove out of the barn and swerved around the two dead men to get to the lane that would take them back to the road—and eventually into the city.
“A guy who thought he owed me for breaking up his drug ring.” Ez replied. “About a year after I joined the team, Durand sent me in undercover to learn what I could about Carter’s operation. My alias was Ed Roach. It took almost six months, but I got what we needed. Then some bastard broke my cover. I got out alive, barely. Carter had a damned good lawyer, of course, got out on bail, and vanished.”
“Until today we figured he’d gone underground, gotten a new identity, and probably started over again,” Zach added. “Coming after Ez was a stupid move on his part.”
Ez smirked. “Deadly.”
“How did he find you? Never mind. There’s no way you could know, and for sure you can’t ask him now,” Ben said.
“The van,” Hayley replied weakly. “The idiot refuses to get rid of it.”
“I resemble that remark,” Ez said. “Yeah, probably, since I moved as soon as I got back. My place isn’t in my name, or my alias, obviously, so he couldn’t have found me that way. He and some of his people did know the van, because I used it to transport drugs for them. It’s a good vehicle—” he patted the dashboard, “—so once I was certain he wasn’t going to come after me I liberated it from the storage shed where I’d hidden it. Best guess, one of his people was here in town for some reason, spotted it, and let him know.”
“Makes sense to me,” Ben agreed.
“Zach,” Hayley said at that point, “you really can sit on the seat if I bend my legs.”
“Nope. I’m fine here and I don’t want you moving. Deal.”
With a whispered, “Dealing,” her eyes closed.
* * * *
The instant Ez pulled into the lot beside the clinic Zach got out, walking swiftly to the side door. He was back moments later with two doctors, one rolling a stretcher. They eased Hayley onto it without her coming to, which worried Zach. Apparently it did Ez as well because he was right behind them as they took her inside, asking if she was breathing. Zach heard one of them reply that she was before the door closed.
“Now for you,” Zach said, coming around to help Ben out of the van, putting his arm around Ben’s waist. “Don’t argue.”
“Wasn’t planning on it,” Ben told him. “Right now I need all the help I can get.”
“Do you think you did major damage?” Zach asked in concern.
“I can’t tell,” Ben replied as he put his arm across Zach’s shoulders to gain extra support while they walked slowly into the clinic. “It hurts like hell, in spite of the wrapping and the splint. Maybe Ez should keep some strong pain killers in the first aid kit. Hayley and I could have used them.”
“I know. He usually does. I have no idea why there weren’t any this time. Of course, I didn’t remember to check, so maybe there were,” he added ruefully.
When they were inside, Doctor Franklin, who had dealt with Ben’s knee before came over, shaking his head. “Now what did you do to it, or dare I ask?”
As they went down to an exam room where the doctor could X-ray his knee, Ben told him what had happened. The doctor removed the makeshift brace, complimenting Zach on his ingenuity. He took several X-rays, and then compared them with the ones he’d taken previously.
“You did more damage, above and beyond what’s already there,” Doctor Franklin said. “It will heal, but until it does I’ll fit you with a brace. A real one.” He winked at Zach. “You’re to keep it on except when you’re in bed until I say differently.”
“As long as I can do my job, I’m fine with that,” Ben replied.
“I’d like to tell Durand to put you on indefinite leave. However, I know he’ll pull you in when he needs you whether I approve or not. I am going to make it clear to him, and to you, that stressing your knee at t
his point could retard its healing which is why you get the brace.”
“Understood,” Ben said. “Does it come with a dose or ten of painkillers?”
“It does, starting now.” The doctor gave him a shot, and then wrote a prescription for pills before leaving the room. He returned a few minutes later with the promised brace, showing Ben how to put it on and adjust it. “I have news about Hayley,” he told them when he finished. “She was a very lucky young woman. The bullet was and in-and-out, missing her ribs and any vital organs in the process; although it did tear the muscle and she lost quite a lot of blood. At this point she’s in recovery, receiving blood transfusions. As soon as her doctor deems her ready, she’ll be released into Ez’s care.”
“Oh boy. She’s not going to be happy about that,” Zach said, chuckling.
“From what I was told,” Doctor Franklin replied, “she seems to be all right with it.”
“That should make Ez happy,” Ben said.
Zach grinned. “Are you going to release Ben into my care, doc?”
“I have the feeling whether I do or not you’re going to be there for him.”
“You got that right,” Zach agreed. “Now, can I take him home?”
“Be my guest.”
* * * *
“Since when is your place ‘home,’” Ben asked when he realized where they were headed.
“It’s my home,” Zach retorted. “I don’t want you at your apartment all on your lonesome. I know you, you’re stubborn. The minute I leave you’ll take off the brace.”
“I’m not that stupid,” Ben said sourly.
“You can be. Like…you should never have gone up to the hayloft to begin with.”
“It was the best place to see how many men there were and how they spread out,” Ben retorted. “Besides which, it put me in a better position than the rest of you had to take out Carter.”
“If you’d given me a couple of minutes, I’d have done it.”
“Will you stop beating yourself up. I was closer, I took a chance, it worked.”
Zach had to admit he was correct. It still didn’t make him feel any better about Ben’s getting hurt. “At least you didn’t get shot,” he replied grumpily.
A Second Chance Page 14
