Out of the Storm

by B. J Daniels

  He growled under his breath and gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white.

  She knew that was the real source of his anger—not her. She’d witnessed how Gerald had demeaned him in front of her. So she wasn’t surprised that Collin would take that anger and frustration out on her if she wasn’t careful. “I wasn’t thinking of you when I took the knife.”

  Those last words seemed to take some of the fury out of him. He drove, breathing hard, checking his rearview mirror often. Did he think Gerald had hired someone to follow him to the border?

  “This isn’t what I wanted,” he said after a few minutes. He sounded sad and unbelievably naive.

  “What did you think was going to happen?” she asked, regretting the accusation in her tone when she saw him bristle.

  “Well, I certainly didn’t think you were going to fall in love with someone else.”

  She looked away, thinking of the kisses, the caresses, the lovemaking and the passion. She’d made love with Jon. She hadn’t cared if he was Danny or not. She swallowed the lump in her throat at even the thought that she’d now lost him. Her need for him was even stronger after what they’d shared. She ached inside at the thought that the odds were good that neither of them would get a chance to see each other again—let alone survive this.

  “I didn’t think you’d brought me to Montana for a drug deal,” she said.

  “Like I could have told you the truth about the financial trouble I was in. You would have run like hell.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He flashed her a look. “Don’t kid yourself. You can hardly stand to look at me now.”

  Kate shook her head, staring at him with disbelief. “You’ve blackmailed me, kidnapped me and my daughter, involved me in drug smuggling. Of course I’m furious with you.” It was more than that, and he knew it. She couldn’t stand the sight of him because she knew that once they left that house those men back there weren’t going to let Jon go—no matter what they’d said. She held Collin responsible for some of it and herself for the rest.

  He drove in silence for the next hour. Kate was fine with that. She preferred the quiet. She needed to think. Maybe the paring knife hadn’t been her best plan. It had been her only plan. Now she had to decide what to do at the border. If she did what she wanted to, she would be signing Jon Harper’s death warrant. But she suspected nothing she did could save him now, anyway.

  If she played the role of Collin’s fiancée and they managed to get through customs without being arrested, then she knew what would happen. He couldn’t let her go. If he did, how could she not go to the authorities? How could she live with herself helping bring that much poison into the country?

  She had few options, and ultimately none of them would save her or Jon. Gerald had proven that he had friends in law enforcement. She didn’t even know his last name or Phil’s, either. What were the chances that they would be arrested? By the time the law got to that house, all sign of them would be gone. She’d be looking over her shoulder the rest of her life because she didn’t trust that one of them wouldn’t come after her or her girls. She was trapped in this mess because she’d believed Collin and his lies.

  “What has he got that I don’t?” Collin asked, dragging her from her thoughts. Kate looked over at him, confused for a moment. “Jon Harper,” he said. “What did you see in him that very first day? I don’t think it was just the likeness to your husband. Whatever it was, you couldn’t stay away from him.”

  She heard the truth in his words. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “There was something about him, and once I looked into his eyes... I think it was the pain that I recognized. It was something we shared.”

  Collin made a rude noise. “You’ve looked into my eyes, and you didn’t even know that I lied about my age. I’m only thirty-two.”

  Did he really think that mattered now? she wondered.

  “What about my pain? My suffering? You never saw it in my eyes, did you? I’m terrified of cold, dark, damp places,” he continued without looking at her. “This one nanny...” He stopped to clear his voice. “She used to lock me in the wine cellar when my parents had left me alone with her. It was just a part of the basement in the house that was small and cramped. She would lock the door and turn out the lights. I could hear her outside the door breathing hard. She would get so angry with me I thought that one day she might leave me there and forget about me and that my parents would never find me.”

  For a moment, Kate didn’t know what to say, let alone what to believe. Was this true? If so, why was he telling her this now? Because he thought they were both going to die? “Did you tell your parents?”

  “They didn’t believe me. She told them I had an overactive imagination. Sometimes she would leave me there for hours. I would huddle in the corner terrified that the little sounds I heard were mice or something bigger moving around in there with me.” He let out a cough of a laugh. “I knew better, but being in that kind of dark, your eyes, your ears, all of your senses play tricks on you.”

  He’d said he’d was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and that his parents were well-off, but she’d suspected there had to be more to the story. Kate didn’t want to feel sorry for him. Poor little rich boy.

  She thought of her own upbringing. Middle-class family who lived in a modest home, her father worked a steady job with the local utilities company, and her mother stayed home, kept house and raised her. Vacations meant visiting relatives or friends.

  When she’d gotten pregnant at sixteen, it had devastated her parents. They’d worried that Danny wouldn’t be able to provide for her. But he had—even after the explosion. She’d just never spent the settlement money. Instead, she’d swallowed her pride and moved home for a while because she’d needed her parents’ help with the girls since she had to go to work. As soon as she could, she’d moved out on her own with the girls. She’d figured things out for herself. Collin apparently hadn’t.

  “Her name was Katrina,” he said now. “I’ll never forget her. I still have nightmares about her.”

  She looked over at him and felt a chill. “What happened to her?” she asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice.

  Collin didn’t answer for so long, she knew that her fears had been warranted. “She fell down the basement stairs and broke her neck. They found her by the wine cellar door—and me, just a day after my seventh birthday, locked inside.”

  Kate heard the pride in his voice and knew. He’d pushed the woman down those steps and then locked himself in the wine cellar to pay back not only the nanny but his parents for not believing him. She couldn’t speak. She’d already known how Collin would react when backed into a corner. Once they were across the border, she was a dead woman.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  JON HAD WORRIED that something might have happened to his pickup. But there it was parked on the second floor of the parking garage next to the hotel. He looked around, saw no one. There was an SUV parked next to it with British Columbia plates. It took him only a few minutes with the tools behind the seat of his pickup to remove the plates and put them on his truck.

  That done, he climbed behind the wheel, started his pickup and drove out of the parking garage. He figured he wouldn’t be that far behind Matthews. If he was right, they were headed back to the Port Morgan border crossing. At least he hoped so. He was counting on it as he drove out of town, watching his speed and his rearview mirror.

  He told himself that Kate would be safe—until they reached the border. He’d seen a weakness in Matthews and questioned whether he would be able to kill Kate. It wasn’t a chance he was willing to take, though. But he was hoping that weakness would give him the edge once he caught up to them.

  Jon just had to reach them before they reached the border. Before Gerald made the phone call he’d overheard him talking about on the phone.

  * * *
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  COLLIN HAD SUGGESTED she try to sleep. “I would imagine you didn’t get much sleep last night at the hotel.”

  Kate heard the allegation in his voice. She hadn’t looked at him, hadn’t denied anything, afraid he would see the truth in the heat that came to her cheeks.

  But she hadn’t been able to sleep. Instead, she’d stared out into the brutal, bright whiteness through her sunglasses even though there was no sun, reminding herself to lower them when they got to the border checkpoint.

  She saw the sign as they drove past the town of Val Marie. It wasn’t far now to the border. Why hadn’t Gerald called? Maybe it was too early. Hadn’t he said something about a shift change? Wasn’t Collin going to call him?

  Collin kept driving. She expected him to pull off onto one of the local roads before they got to the border as Gerald had told him to do. Ahead she could see the flashing lights of the border crossing. She looked over at Collin. He had a death grip on the steering wheel.

  “Aren’t you supposed to wait until you get the phone call?” she asked, pretty sure she remembered Gerald’s explicit instructions. Don’t cross the border. Gerald would call when it was time.

  Except now Gerald hadn’t called. Nor was Collin slowing the SUV. He was ignoring not only her query but also Gerald’s instructions. He was going to cross and not wait for the call.

  Kate held her breath as they got closer and closer to the flashing lights at the border. Why was he doing this? Just to show them that he couldn’t be bullied? It was a little late for that, she thought. This seemed reckless even for him.

  “Collin!” She hadn’t meant to yell. But it did get his attention.

  He shot her a warning look. His face was twisted into a look of abject misery as if he was in pain. “You made love with him. I could tell the moment I saw you.” His voice shattered. “I loved you. Maybe not the way Danny loved you, maybe more than he did if he’s Jon Harper. Did you ever consider how I felt when you couldn’t stay away from that carpenter? Everyone in Buckhorn knew that you two-timed me. Did you make love in his workshop? Right there in front of that woodstove in the sawdust?”

  “No. I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper. They were going to argue about this now?

  “Whatever happens now, it’s on your head,” he said, sending fear careening through her veins, setting off her pulse as he sped up the SUV.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded as he raced toward the border crossing directly ahead.

  He didn’t look at her. “What I have to do.”

  He was going to kill her. Had to kill her now. Was that what this was about? Getting angry enough at her that he could do it? She could see it on his handsome face. She wondered if the nanny had seen it in that split second before she felt the shove and realized she was headed down those basement stairs.

  Looking away, she saw that they were at the border. He slowed, driving past the Canadian side, apparently not required to stop. Ahead on the US side, Collin pulled in, stopping in front of a signal light now glowing red.

  * * *

  COLLIN FELT AS if his brain was on fire. He could hear his blood pulsing in his veins. He tried to calm down only to realize he might be in more trouble than having a cheating fiancée.

  On the way across the border yesterday, he hadn’t noticed the apparatus they had to pull through that looked like a weigh-station platform. That’s because there hadn’t been one to the east of it where they’d driven through before.

  “What is that?” Kate asked breathlessly.

  “I don’t know. It looks like it might raise vehicles to look under them.” He hated the way his voice broke. Why hadn’t Gerald mention this?

  “What if they lift up the car?” Kate asked in a hoarse whisper.

  “I don’t think we’ll find out—unless they suspect us.” He stared at the red stoplight, waiting for it to turn green, begging for it to turn green.

  He was just now realizing what a mistake it had been to ignore Gerald’s orders. Maybe the guard who came on in the next shift was planning to wave them right through because he was one of them? By not waiting for the phone call, had he just blown everything? He was thinking what a fool he was, when Kate asked, “What happens if they lift the car?”

  “Nothing. Just sit there and wait.” He hoped Gerald was right about the guys who added the undercarriage containers being the best in the business because according to the plan, they were filled with enough drugs to make them all rich. Then there was the wedding dress with its small fortune sewn inside. If everything went as planned, this would be the largest shipment yet.

  “The light turned green,” Kate said, her voice high and squeaky with obvious relief. As he pulled forward a large overhead door opened. He drove in, the door closing behind him.

  He didn’t look at Kate, couldn’t. They weren’t out of the woods yet. But once that door opened in front of them and he drove through, they were safe. Unfortunately, the realization of how this was going to end had struck him a few miles back. He had no choice but to kill Kate. It was him or her. He hadn’t done all of this to end up buried up here in this frozen country—if you could even bury a body out here in the sagebrush this time of year.

  Before that moment, he hadn’t even thought about what he would do with her body once he was done. Or even how he would kill her. In truth, he wasn’t sure he could, and that made him furious with himself.

  Nor had he thought about what ignoring Gerald’s orders would mean. If they got through and into the States, then what would it matter? Gerald had treated him like he was stupid. Maybe he was. How else had he ended up in this mess? When had he lost control of everything? He wanted to believe it was when Kate stumbled into Jon Harper’s workshop and decided he was her dead husband.

  But he knew it was long before that. Now as he watched the Homeland Security cop come out of his glass enclosure, he told himself he didn’t care if he got caught. Maybe that would be the best way out. Years of prison? With his fear of small places? No, he’d rather take a bullet.

  “Turn off your engine,” the cop said. Collin quickly turned off the SUV’s engine and put down his window, smiling at the uniformed officer who couldn’t seem to crack a smile if his life depended on it.

  “Passports,” the cop said. It wasn’t the same one from before.

  Last time, Collin had been ready. This time he had to dig them out. Handing them through the open window, he waited as the officer took them and went back into his cubicle.

  He seemed to be gone longer than last time. Collin felt sweat trickle down his back. He shifted in his seat as he stared at the glass and metal door in front of the SUV. He wondered how hard the front of the car would have to hit it to break through.

  “What was your business in Canada?” the cop asked when he returned, startling him.

  “Just a few things for the wedding,” Collin said. “This is our engagement trip. My fiancée wanted to see snow and Canada.” He shrugged. “We saw some of both.”

  “Please put down the window behind your seat,” the officer said. Collin did, noticing that it had frosted over because of the temperature outside.

  The cop peered in. “What’s in the box?”

  “My wedding dress,” Kate said, speaking up.

  The officer continued to peer in for a moment, then returned to Collin’s open window. The smile he gave the cop hurt his face. He held his breath, afraid the officer was going to want to look inside the box or maybe even search the car. “We’re getting married next week.” He sounded happy about that fairy tale, wishing it was true. How different their lives could have been if it was.

  As the officer handed their passports back, Kate reached for hers. In front of the cop, Collin had no choice but to let her take it. But he couldn’t help smirking over at her. Who was she kidding? She wouldn’t be needing that. Not after today, since she wasn’t going to be leaving Montan
a. Not alive, anyway.

  “Please wait until I am inside the booth and the door is open before you restart your engine.” With that, the cop walked away.

  Collin put up his window, his hand shaking as he restarted the engine as the large door rose slowly. He drove out. He couldn’t believe it. They’d gotten through and without Gerald’s help. He couldn’t help grinning. He could breathe again. His heart was pounding. He’d been so scared that something would go wrong. But it hadn’t.

  His cell phone rang. He didn’t even have to look to know who was calling. He realized he shouldn’t have taken matters into his own hands and crossed before he was supposed to. But he had, and he’d made it. No problems. Screw you, Gerald. The man would be livid. Right now Collin could have cared less. He let it ring four times before he picked up. By then he could no longer see the border crossing in his rearview mirror. There was no one behind him. No one in front of them.

  He was home free with a shitload of drugs worth millions.

  * * *

  JON COULDN’T BELIEVE what he was seeing. He’d been able to catch up to Matthews, who seemed in no hurry to get to the border—given the orders he’d been given. That gave Jon the edge. Matthews was supposed to pull off before the border crossing and wait for a phone call from Gerald.

  Knowing what Gerald had planned, he was nervous as it was. He’d been waiting for the moment when he saw the SUV turn off the highway. That’s when he’d planned to make his move.

  But Matthews hadn’t turned off the road to wait for the call.

  Instead, he’d seemed to speed up—racing toward the border. Had Gerald called to change the plan? Jon hadn’t considered that. Now he didn’t know what to think as he held back, watching from a distance as the SUV pulled in. Even from this far back, he could see the glow of the red light.

  What would he do if the border guards found enough evidence to arrest both Matthews and Kate? Had that been Gerald’s true plan?