Chapter 15
Angela lay with her back to his chest, wrapped in his arms with such an inner sense of peace and contentment. She hadn’t realized just how frayed and raw her nerves had been for so long. It had been years since Greg had shared her bed. She’d found it much easier to live with him when sex wasn’t part of their relationship. But she also realized it was a distance that was hard to overcome.
Now lying here with Corey wrapped all around her, it was such a different experience. One she remembered from the past. That sense of peace, sense of contentment afterward. She recalled the young woman she’d been back then and the hell she’d been through with her miscarriage. She’d retreated into herself.
Her mother and sisters had closed rank around her at the time. But she had even pushed them away. She’d gotten through the experience by being quiet, silent. He’d joined the navy soon afterward, leaving her to make peace with her world. And it had taken years.
And then she’d met Greg. What a nightmare that had ended up being. And yet now, with Corey in her life again, she wondered if she was being given a second chance. A new lease on life. A new chance at love.
He stroked the side of her cheek and whispered, “Heavy thoughts?”
She heard the insecurity in his voice, twisted slightly and said, “Only about walking away so long ago.”
Surprise was in the depths of his huge brown eyes. “I’m sure you did what you needed to do at the time.”
She was surprised at that insight. She nodded. “That’s exactly what I was doing. I needed to go away and heal. But, as I have now learned, I didn’t need to walk away from everyone I knew at the time.”
“I think we all do things when we’re in shock. Afterward we’re not exactly sure why it seemed like the right thing to do. But we did them, so we have to live with the consequences.”
She smiled. “Well, I can tell you that, right now, for the first time in twelve years, I’m happy, content. At peace, inside and out.”
He tucked her close against him and whispered, “So does that mean we can repeat this?”
She chuckled, rolled over and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Absolutely.”
Just then his phone rang. He swore softly, sat up in the bed, grabbed the phone and answered, “Mason, what’s up?”
She couldn’t hear the rest of the conversation, but he wasn’t getting upset, so she figured things were all good. She rose and went to the bathroom. When she came back, he was off the phone. “What did Mason want?”
“An update on Joshua.”
She smiled. “It’s amazing to think so many men did so much to help him, and Joshua doesn’t even know it.”
“Mason, Warrick, Levi … There are so many of us. We’re all good guys,” he said with a smile. “You just had bad luck to hook up with Greg.”
“Yes, if that’s what you call it,” she said. “How did you meet Mason? Was he one of the men in your unit?”
“No. But he’s been a friend for a long time,” he said with a smile. “Although Mason started a trend. Something most of us thought we could escape. Apparently that might be in jeopardy for me.”
She frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”
Laughing, he explained about Mason and his band of Keepers.
When she heard the story, she gasped. “Oh, my God, that’s perfect.”
“No, it’s not so perfect,” he said with dry humor. “A lot of guys are pretty protective of their independence.”
She chuckled and sat on the bed. “And are you part of Mason’s Keepers?”
“No. I’m not part of his unit,” he said triumphantly. “So it doesn’t apply to me.”
“But you wish you were,” she said in a low voice. “I know you. On the inside all you really want is to be happily married with half a dozen kids in a home somewhere and a way to make a living that honors that part of you that needs to do good in the world. Protecting others is what you were always meant to do.”
He looked at her for a long moment. “That always was the dream, wasn’t it?”
She nodded. “The thing about dreams is, we tend to turn away from them, but we never really forget them.”
He pulled her onto his lap. “How did you get to be so smart?”
She chuckled. “I’m not smart at all.”
Just then they heard a vehicle come into the driveway and roll up to the garage.
She whispered, “That’s Warrick.” She bounced off the bed and started dressing. When he didn’t get up, she said, “What are you doing?”
He gave her a lazy grin. “I wasn’t really planning on going down and seeing him.”
“He has to get rest too. I thought you were to be on four-hour watches,” she scolded him. “Come on. Get up. Get dressed.”
Chuckling, he was up and dressed faster than she was.
She frowned and grumbled, “How did you get to be so fast at that?”
“Getting dressed and being ready at a moment’s notice is something we’re trained to do.”
She nodded. “I can see that.” She raced downstairs to see Warrick at the kitchen table with her son’s backpack. “Oh, excellent. Thank you so much. I know he’ll be thrilled.”
She opened the backpack. Sure enough, her son’s homework was there. She turned to look at Warrick and caught a speculative look in his eyes. She frowned at him. “What?”
An innocent look crossed his face as he raised his gaze to Corey who was standing in the doorway. Corey, without socks. An extremely tousled-looking Corey. She gasped and turned back to the backpack. The last thing she wanted to get into was a discussion about what they’d been doing for the last couple hours. Mumbling, she asked, “Did they give you his cell phone?”
“Yes, they did.” He handed it to her. “They copied all the contacts and the history.”
She nodded. “I expected that. But he’ll be happy to know he got his stuff back.” She grabbed the phone and the backpack and excused herself, “I’ll put these in his room so he sees them as soon as he wakes up.” And she escaped up the stairs.
When she was almost at the second floor, she heard, “We have a problem.”
She stopped midstep, realizing she’d given them an opportunity to discuss something without her. She glanced down at the items, continued to her son’s room and placed them by his bed. Then she ran back down.
As she entered the kitchen, she was greeted with silence. She stood in front of Corey and Warrick, crossed her arms and said, “What’s the problem?”
Warrick looked to Corey. He stared back at Warrick and shrugged. Corey turned to Angela. “There’s a chance Warrick was followed here.”
She frowned, her arms gripped tighter around her chest. “What do we do?”
“We stand guard.”
“When did you shake them?”
“About half an hour ago. I was followed leaving the police station. But I’m pretty sure I lost them.”
She understood that. He wouldn’t have come home if he thought he was leading somebody to the house.
“Then I suggest we get some sleep.” She turned, headed back to the stairs. “Which one of you is on watch now?”
Warrick said, “I am. I need to do some work. I have to enter my notes from today and tonight.”
She nodded. “Come on, Corey. Let’s grab some sleep. Then you can come down and relieve Warrick.”
Obediently Corey followed her up the stairs. At the top she called back, “Good night, Warrick.”
“Good night,” he replied, his tone already sounding distracted by work.
In the bedroom, Angela crawled into bed after shucking her outer layer of clothing. “Do you think we’re safe?”
“Yes. I do.”
She smiled, waited until he got into bed and had his arms wrapped around her. She cuddled up and fell asleep.
*
Something woke Corey. He lay still for a moment, then gently eased himself out from under the covers.
Instinct drove him to move. He didn’t know what was wrong, but definitely something was not right. He checked his watch and saw it was time for a shift change anyway. But he couldn’t hear a sound downstairs. He dressed quickly, grabbed his weapon and stepped into the hall. He closed the door partway behind him and slipped over to Joshua’s room.
The boy still slept, and there was no sign of any disturbance in his room. Corey listened for anything downstairs, but still there was nothing. And that bothered him. Going down the stairs meant skipping two of the risers that made noise. On the first landing, he peered around the corner and saw nothing. And yet there should have been some noise, some slight movement from Warrick. Corey made it down to the main floor. And he froze.
A vehicle was parked at the bottom of the driveway. They had company. Warrick hadn’t warned him, and that meant Warrick couldn’t warn him. That was the only possible explanation. With his gun ready, Corey did a sweep of the living room. But found nothing there.
Moving soundlessly, he shifted to the kitchen. There he found Warrick slumped over the kitchen table, blood pooling around him. All the lights were off. Corey slipped over, pressed fingers against Warrick’s neck. There was a strong, steady pulse. Good.
So the head injury was enough to knock him out but not enough to kill him. But why hit Warrick and not then steal the boy? Corey’s mind flashed through all the options, not coming up with anything that made any sense. Until he heard a vehicle start up. He raced to the front door only to see somebody running across the lawn to catch the vehicle as it left. Then a huge whoosh, and fire started all along the front of the house.
“Shit.” He pulled out his phone and called 9-1-1. But there were too many flames, too fast. He raced upstairs, grabbed Angela and said loudly, “Fire. We have to get out of here now.”
She blinked at him before understanding, and then she bolted from the bed, grabbed her clothes and screamed, “Joshua. Where’s Joshua?”
Corey was already in Joshua’s room, grabbing the backpack as a second thought. With the boy once again bundled up in bedding, he raced down the stairs with Angela at his heels. He headed to the garage and his big truck. He tucked them both inside. “I have to get Warrick. He’s knocked out in the kitchen.”
Smoke filled the house already and seeped into the garage. The fire had started to eat heavily into the front rooms. He knew it would be touch-and-go. He had to get them out of the garage fast. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
She shook her head, protesting. But he bolted back inside. Warrick appeared to have just started to stack up all of his paperwork. Corey scooped it all into the computer bag, bent down, grabbed Warrick in a fireman’s carry, and brought him and the computer bag to the big truck.
There was no room in the front of the cab. Warrick was too awkward to maneuver. The best place for him was in the truck bed. Angela opened the tailgate for him to lay Warrick down in the back. Snapping the tailgate closed, they hopped into the truck, tossing the computer bag on the seat. Coughing, he turned on the engine and tried to open the garage door.
But the door wouldn’t open.
“What will we do?” Angela screamed.
By now the garage was full of smoke, and he felt the heat of the flames. He shook his head and said, “Hang on.” He put the truck in Reverse, hit the gas hard and blasted through the garage door, heading down the driveway. Pieces of the door floated around, but they were traveling so fast that Warrick would have missed getting hit by any debris. By now the flames had reached the second floor.
“Oh, my God, would you look at that,” she cried.
But he wasn’t too bothered. He was more concerned about something else. The steady ping hitting the side of the truck as he drove. He grabbed her head and pushed her down in the seat. “Stay down. We’re being shot at.”
She gave him a horrified look of disbelief, then covered Joshua with her body, both of them tucked down well below the back of the seat. He kept driving backward down the driveway, blasting through the gate, and around the corner. He couldn’t see where the shots were coming from, but the shooter had to be here somewhere.
He watched a man run, a gun in his hand. Still driving backward, Corey pressed hard on the accelerator and chased after him. In the distance he could hear sirens as the fire engines approached. But he was after the asshole who had hurt Warrick and was hoping to kill all four of them. The big truck continued backward. He couldn’t turn around; there just wasn’t enough room with all the parked vehicles on the street. He needed another driveway to do that, but he wasn’t letting this asshole out of his sight.
Corey saw the man cross the road and get into the passenger side of the same vehicle waiting for him as before, the driver ready with the engine running. Corey hit the gas as hard as he could, plowing into their car, spinning it around, pinning it against another one. Both men were inside. He pushed open the window between the cab and the bed, shut off the engine and crawled through.
As long as the men were pinned inside their car, that was fine. But the minute they got free, he would make sure they could not get away. Sure enough, they shot through their windshield, shattering glass everywhere. He waited in the back of the truck bed beside Warrick as the two men tried to climb out of their pinned-in car.
Warrick chose that moment to sit up and look at Corey, a groggy and pained look on his face. He reached up to touch his head and groaned, “What happened?”
“It’s still happening. These assholes, I presume, were the ones who tried to burn us alive, and, when we got out, they tried to shoot us down.”
Warrick swayed unsteadily. Assessing the situation, he reached for his own weapon, which thankfully was still in its place, and, as soon as the men crawled out of the car, Corey and Warrick both said, “Stop and put your hands up.”
The men were at least smart enough to freeze.
In seconds the street was filled with fire engines, police cars and, thankfully, an ambulance. With Warrick standing guard on the two men, Corey pulled out his phone and called the detective. “You need to get down here. Someone just tried to burn us alive, and then two men, probably the arsonists, were shooting at us as we left the safe house. I have both of them under armed guard. The fire trucks are here, but I have a very interesting set of hostages for you.”
“You know them?”
“I know the driver,” he said. “I know it’s dark out here, but it would be pretty hard to mistake Joshua’s father. The asshole driving this getaway car is Greg, the estranged husband.”
The detective crowed. “Don’t you let that bastard move.”
Corey said, “There’s no way. Just get down here before I’m tempted to put a bullet in these assholes’ heads.”
“Don’t do that. We’ve got lots to put him away. Now he’s just added twenty more years to his sentence. I’m in the vehicle, driving. I’ll be there in five.”
Hearing a voice behind him, Corey turned his weapon to see Angela poking out through the rear window of the cab. “Can I come out?”
He shook his head. “Better not. Greg and one of his henchmen are in the car. We’re holding guns on them. The detective is on the way.”
She shot him a startled look and shifted to the driver’s side. There she could see the two men in the vehicle.
She pounded the window until Greg looked at her. His face twisted in a snarl. Greg couldn’t see her face, but when her arm shot out the window with a finger in the air, he figured Greg got the message.
He chuckled. And then he laughed. “You don’t have to worry about him anymore. He’s not going anywhere.”
At that moment a gun appeared in Greg’s hand. He pointed it at Angela. She ducked and Warrick fired. Greg shouted, and his gun went flying harmlessly onto the pavement.
“Try that again,” Corey snarled. “The next bullet won’t take out your gun arm.”
But Greg wasn’t listening. He was sobbing in the front of the car.
A cop car arrived, and the detective ran up. “Did you just shoot him?”
Warrick popped his head over the back of the cab. “I did. He was trying to shoot Angela.”
The detective shot Greg a disgusted look. “Wow. You’re just adding up the years, aren’t you?”
But Greg wasn’t listening. He was too busy bawling like a baby.
Angela got in the last word. “I hope you lock him in jail and throw away the key. Assholes like him don’t deserve a nice life.”
The detective chuckled. “You won’t have to worry about him anymore. Take your son and go home.”
She smiled. “Now that’s an idea I can get behind.”