The night was fading, and the beginning light of morning was coloring the scenery. Alix watched as they turned off the highway and began to wind their way into the foothills of the Crazy Mountains. The peaks rose majestically, like sentinels guarding the land, and their surface was filled in many areas with thick clusters of evergreens. Here and there, she spotted a mountain goat. A scene she would have been much more enthralled with if not for their current situation. But she concentrated on it because it was better than thinking about Lee Bonner and the mess she’d gotten herself into.
When she’d asked Charlie if any of the Brotherhood Protectors had been injured in the episode at the house, he’d lifted an eyebrow as if to say, “You’re kidding, right?”
“Where are we going?” she asked. “Just out of curiosity, that is.”
“My place.” He flashed her a grin that transformed his entire face and made all the places in her body he’d touched tingle with anticipation for the next round.
“Oh!” That wasn’t what she had expected.
Nor was their destination, although she didn’t know what she had actually thought about where he lived. He turned off the roadway and onto a narrow road—almost a lane—with thick trees on either side. Then they burst into a clearing, and there was his house.
“My god.” Her jaw dropped. “This is the most incredible log cabin I’ve ever seen. Who built this?”
“Uh, I did.” The words were said with obvious reluctance.
She stared at him. “By yourself?”
“Yeah.” He scratched the back of his neck, then explained with obvious reluctance. “It was, uh, part of my healing process after my medical discharge.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off the building. “All those logs. Did you polish them yourself?”
He chuffed a short laugh. “Damn straight”
“But your arm must have been killing you.” More and more she was realizing how much inner strength this man had.
“ Some of the Brotherhood helped, when they had time. We got the job done.”
There was so much in those two short sentences. More and more she wanted to peel back Charlie Zero’s outer layers and get a good look at what lay beneath the surface. She’d known Barry for four years and Lee four months, yet in twenty-four hours she’d seen a depth in this man the other could not even come close to. Oh, how she wished that when this nightmare was over she didn’t have to leave.
He helped her out of the SUV, taking her backpack from her, and led her to the front door. When he opened it and gestured her inside, she gave a little gasp of pleasure.
“Oh!” She touched her fingertips to her mouth. “This is incredible.”
She looked up at him and saw the pleasure on his face. “Not what you expected, right?”
“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but not at all.” She walked over to the long window he’d had made for one wall. “What a magnificent view of the mountains and the land where it falls away at that side. And all those trees. And, Charlie, those wisps of clouds look as if they were about to land on the peaks.”
The downstairs was one large room, like a rustic family room, with an efficient and immaculately clean kitchen at one end. A ladder led up to a loft, and she looked at Charlie with a raised eyebrow.
“Bedroom and bathroom. At some point, I want to show you that view, too.” He gestured to another long window. “You shouldn’t miss it.”
They stood there, neither of them able to move, the heat between them so strong it shimmered in the air. Then he cupped her face with his palms and rubbed his thumbs over her cheeks. This was happening so fast, but then maybe that’s the way it was supposed to be, for both of them.
“When this is all settled, you really need to see the view from upstairs. At night as well as in the daytime.”
“I’d love that,” she whispered. Then she blinked and studied every inch of the main room again. “This place is incredible.”
“I tried dark and gloomy,” he joked, “but this works a lot better.”
And she wasn’t all that sure he was joking.
“Let me check in with Hank.” He picked up a satellite phone from the counter. “The reception up here isn’t always so great, but the sat phone works better than a cell. Yeah, Hank. Hey. We’re here. What’s the latest? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Got that. Okay. Keep us in the loop.”
“What?” She studied his face, sensing he’d learned something he might not want to tell her. “Whatever it is, please don’t try to hide anything from me. I’ve had people keeping things from me for way too long now.”
“Here it is. You know the Brotherhood has been tapping Lee’s phones because the feds had trouble getting a warrant in a hurry.”
“And?” She made a “come on” gesture with her hand.
“He’s called one of the men identified as a major buyer of young girls for the sex trade and asked him for some heavy muscle. With firepower. He must be desperate.”
“If he knows the feds are closing in on him, I don’t doubt it. But how could he know that?”
“The same way everyone finds out anything. He has a snitch somewhere that he pays a lot of money to.”
She dropped down into his big easy chair, color leaching from her face. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Deep breath,” he told her. “We’ll get through this. How about some coffee?”
“Sounds good.”
*****
Lee stared at the phone in his hand and then at the man standing in his house. One of his major buyers had just called to tell him the truck delivering his merchandise—in this case, the guns—had been stopped on the highway and confiscated by federal officers. And Lee better head for cover because there was a price on his head now.
“What the fuck?”
“I’ll take that phone, Bonner.” The agent held his hand out for it.
“Like hell, you will. This is my property.”
The agent reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “This is a warrant that allows us to confiscate anything in this house and on the premises that we believe is connected to your trafficking in illegal merchandise.”
“Just how the hell did you even decide to do this? You’ve made a big mistake here. I’ll get my lawyer on this and sue the ass off the federal government.”
“Give it up, Lee. It’s over.” Frank stepped through the front door and into the living room.
“What the fuck? Frank, what the hell is going on here?”
“I’ll take great pleasure in telling you how much I enjoyed giving the information to the feds that they needed. Good riddance, I say.”
Lee stared at the man who had worked by his side for four years.
“What’s going on here? How come you’re not under arrest, too?”
“Frank’s been our point man,” the agent told him. “He came to us four years ago with his plan, and it turned out to be a good one.”
Lee wondered if he was losing his mind. “But why? For what purpose?”
“Five years ago, your men swept through a nightclub in Dallas, drugged a bunch of young girls, hauled them out to a truck, and sold them off like so much meat. One of those girls was my sister. She tried to get away, and your men killed her. I’ll be sitting front row at your trial every day and laughing when they send you off to prison.”
Lee just stood there, shocked, while handcuffs were fastened around his wrists and another agent led him out of the house.
The first agent shook hands with Frank. “Thanks for all your help. We couldn’t have done it without you. Your sister would be proud.”
“It won’t bring her back, but at least I’ll get some satisfaction out of this.”
*****
“I keep wondering how Lee found us at the house we left. He could find us here the same way, right?”
Charlie rubbed his hand over his hair. “That’s something we’re all wondering. No one knew about that house except the Brotherhood. We took all your clothes, everything you had with you. Anything that could hide a transmitter.” He walked around the chair, studying her. The rising sun caught the gleam of something at her throat, and he stopped. Stared.
“What?”
“What’s that around your neck?”
She reached into the T-shirt she was wearing and pulled out a heart-shaped pendant on a chain.
“This? It’s a locket my mother gave me years ago. It has pictures of her and my dad in it. I’ve worn it ever since the day they were killed in a plane crash.” Sorrow washed over her face for a moment. “It makes me feel close to them.”
“Do you ever take it off?” She shook her head. “Never. Not even to shower.” Then she covered her mouth with her fingers. “Oh god. That’s not true.”
“What?” All Charlie’s senses were on high alert now. “What are you remembering?”
“See this diamond in the center on the front? It used to be a rhinestone. Lee took it about a month after we were married and said he was having it reset with a diamond for our one-month anniversary. I thought at the time it was so romantic and thoughtful. Oh, Charlie.”
“I need to take it off, Alix.”
“Yes. Please. Get it off right now.”
He reached behind her and unfastened the chain. When he carried it over to the kitchen counter, she followed him, watching as he took a tiny instrument of some sort from one of the drawer and very carefully pried the stone loose. He took out a magnifying glass and a flashlight and studied the place where the stone had been set.
“God damn it.”
She frowned. “What? What’s wrong?”
“See right there? Into that dimple in the metal. There’s a micro-transmitter in there. Very high quality. The kind that needs a special GPS tracker.”
“Oh my god.” What little color was left in her face drained away. “No wonder he’s been able to find me. I never had one second of privacy the whole time we were married, did I.”
He wanted to tell her different, but he knew she saw the truth on his face.
“We have to get out of here.” She was frantic now. “Leave the damn locket here and let’s go.”
But Charlie’s ears picked up sound, sound that he didn’t want to hear.
“Too late.” He threw the brace across the front door and urged Alix up the ladder. “Get up there and stay there. You’ll be safe.”
“But, what about you?”
“You don’t worry about me. I’ve dealt with worse people than this.”
The sound of an approaching vehicle grew louder. He hoped to hell Hank was not far behind with reinforcements. Grabbing his shotgun from the wall, he loaded it and held it loosely in his arms, the handgun stuck in the waistband of his jeans. “We only have to hold them off for a few,” he told Alix. “Now, get up to the loft. Go on.”
He watched her scramble up and hitch herself backwards until she was all the way against the wall. He had just turned back when he heard a shot outside and a bullet chinked against the outside wall. Then another one followed it.”
“Send that bitch on out, whoever you are,” one of the men called. “She’s not worth losing your life over.”
Charlie ignored them, just waited until whoever it was who did the shooting tried it again. The logs of this cabin were pretty indestructible. He just had to keep them away from the windows.
Two more shots chinked against the outer walls. Charlie opened the door just enough to stick the barrel of the shotgun out and fired it twice. Then he slammed the door shut, but he knew he’d hit someone because one of the men screamed. He hoped the other one hit their vehicle.
Come on, Hank.
“There’s more of us than you,” someone else yelled. “We can wait you out. We do this for a living.”
So did I, Charlie thought to himself. So did I.
He was reloading the shotgun when he heard the sound of another motor vehicle lumbering up his road. He recognized the sound of the engine.
Thank god. And thank you, Hank.
As soon as he heard the next shots, he opened the door barely an inch, the barrel of the shotgun wedged in the opening. But Hank and the others had the situation under control. There was no one who could take on Brotherhood Protectors and win.
Five minutes later, there were two dead bodies on the ground and the others were hogtied. The big pickup the gunmen had arrived in had two big bullet holes in the engine, but the Hummer Hank had driven was fine. Parked blocking the truck. And here came two SUVs, carrying the federal agents. Charlie walked out to where everyone was, nodded his thanks at Hank and the others, and shook hands with the feds.
Alix must have been watching, and when she saw him go outside, she’d come downstairs and followed him out. Now she stood beside him, her hand placed securely in his, watching as the federal agents did the cleanup. The one who seemed in charge had introduced himself as Dan McClellan.
“We’ll be rounding everyone up tonight,” he told them. “I think we give credit for all this to the snitches.”
Charlie frowned. “What do you mean? I don’t get it. Hank told me you guys had someone feeding you information, but did you have a loose cannon on your end?”
McClellan nodded. “We discovered who it was a couple of weeks ago, so we were able to feed her information that we wanted her to pass along, information that was wrong and kept them off guard. We’re one day early with our raid, so we caught them in three places with different shipments. Listen, thanks for the help, guys. Pleasure working with you.”
They shook hands all around then pushed the pickup to the side and McClellan promised to send someone later in the day to fetch it. They loaded the killers into the SUVs and, seconds later, took off toward the highway.
Hank slapped Charlie on the shoulder. “Don’t come to work today. Or tomorrow. Alix, we’ll let you know when you can go back to the house to get your things.”
She shuddered. “I’m not sure I even want them. I’d as soon start again from scratch with belongings that don’t have a history.”
“Whatever works for you. Just let us know.”
As soon as they were inside the house, Charlie pulled her into his arms.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” he told her, “But this is your last chance to run. If you want to leave, I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”
“Where would I go?” Her lips curved in that little smile he’d grown to love in such a short time. “I think my heart is here.”
“That fast? Are you sure?”
“I once read in a book that time telescopes in danger, so maybe we’ve actually been together a month.” She stood on tiptoe and brushed a kiss over his lips. “We have a lot to tell each other, Charlie. I look forward to it.”
“By the way. Since you were never married to Bonner, what’s your last name?”
She laughed. “Payne. Alix Payne.”
“Well, Alix Payne, maybe we could start in the shower. I could explore every inch of your body in case I missed any spots last night.”
She shivered and pressed herself against him.
“I can’t wait to get started.”