Morgan Read online

  He dropped his weapons. “Reload those.” He motioned downward. “And keep an eye on the woods behind us.”

  She did both things. And caught the sound of someone creeping through the bushes. Snapping the clip in, she shot twice. The bushes stopped rustling as the creeping man staggered backward and fell into view.

  “Shit.” Her hands started to shake. “Shit. I think he’s dead.”

  “That’s the idea, Snowbird. I got two more on the west side of the cabin.”

  “How will we know when they’re all…gone?”

  “That’ll be the dumb luck part.”

  A scream cut through the darkness.

  “Rachel.” Amber whipped her head around. She started to rise, but Gage yanked her down.

  “If she shuts up, she’ll be fine.”

  However, instead of quieting down, Rachel screamed again. “Get away from me, you bastard!”

  Bodies streamed toward the cabin. Gage shot, but the first two made it to safety. “Christ.”

  “Don’t touch me!” Rachel shrieked. “I don’t care who you are.”

  Rifles went off. Rachel continued to yell. “Dammit…ouch! Aren’t you…? Oh God, Amber! I think I did it wrong.”

  More rifle fire exploded.

  “You assholes! Rachel screamed. “Wait until Owen hears about this. You won’t… Amber, help me. I messed up!”

  “Run.” Gage pulled Amber to her feet.

  “But…”

  He grabbed her hand. “Rachel screwed herself, Amber. All she had to do was listen and think, and she didn’t.”

  Amber took a last desperate look back, then gave up and ran toward the RV with Gage.

  “What happened?” she demanded once they were inside. “Did one of them get past us and grab her?”

  “In a way. Son of a bitch. Watch your mirror.” He floored the gas pedal. “Tell me what you see.”

  “Nothing,” she said. She peered more closely. “Wait, there’s something back in the trees. I see two sets of lights.”

  He braked so suddenly, she had no time to brace. She rammed her shoulder into the dash.

  “Get your pack,” he said. “We’re switching vehicles.”

  She reached for her backpack and phone. “Have you lost your mind?” She saw an empty truck to his right, but still. “What if you can’t hotwire it?”

  “Then we’re dead. Go.”

  She shoved the door open, jumped out, and ran for the truck.

  “It’s not a new vehicle,” Gage said once they were inside. “It won’t have antitheft everything.” Yanking wires, he got the engine running. “Hold on tight.”

  Amber twisted back and forth in her seat, struggled to keep the headlights behind them in sight. Gage, she noticed, wasn’t using theirs.

  “What’s this for?” she asked when he tossed her his phone. She regarded the already lit screen. “Who am I calling?”

  “Just hope he answers.”

  “Who?” Since Gage had already speed-dialed the person in question, all she could do was listen.

  A litany of curses burst from the speaker after the third ring.

  “What went down?” Gage demanded, swinging the wheel hard. “Are you hurt?”

  “Bullet sliced my arm. My nuts hurt like a bitch.”

  Amber blinked. “Bear? What in God’s name are you doing here, or anywhere near here?”

  “Getting myself kicked, scratched, and spit on. Your sister’s an effing wildcat. And I’m sorry, Amber, but I lost my grip when one of those flying bullets carved a half-inch groove through my bicep. Your sister spooked and ran. Fixx’s people grabbed her. Knocked her out cold.”

  Amber said nothing. What could she say?

  “How did you get away?” she asked instead.

  “It’s what I do. I killed two, but there was a swarm of others behind them. And you better know they’re not gonna let a few dead guys put a damper on their enthusiasm. Word on the criminal underground—and don’t ask me how I know—is that the reward’s spiked to two million. You want my take? Mockerie’s past the detonation point. When he goes off, the fiery bits are gonna rain down like shrapnel. Only word someone like him knows in the end is ‘dead’. That’s how he wants you. Dead and buried. And you’d better hope he wants to do it in that order.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Pain was having a field day in Owen’s head. Any minute, it was going to start leaking from his ears. On its heels would be blood. James was going to kill him. Slowly, though, and without a sliver of compassion.

  He had his phone on speaker. His head rested on his folded arms atop the office desk as he spoke to his second. “Explain again, in detail, how more than a dozen fully trained mercenaries missed the target and landed us right back at square one.”

  “Morgan picked them off,” the caller informed him coldly. “There was another guy in the mix, as well. He had Rachel. It must have been his responsibility, or burden, to pull her out of there. We had her bugged, so we knew something was up. We just didn’t know the specifics of Morgan’s plan. And we sure as hell didn’t count on a wildcard built like a gorilla on steroids to be part of the deal. Be grateful we got the bitch back.”

  Owen raised his head high enough to swallow a mouthful of whiskey. “Why should I be grateful? I’ll be lucky to make it through this night alive. Raise the reward. Two and a half million, no questions asked, Swiss bank account, et cetera. If nothing happens, we’ll go higher. Maybe Morgan will turn.”

  “And maybe hell will freeze over, or the big boss will sprout wings and a halo, but I’m not holding my breath.”

  Owen emitted a humorless snort of laughter at the mocking tone. “Gloat away,” he slurred. “Big boss gets well and truly pissed, you’ll be as dead as I am.”

  “No chance.” There was a lengthy pause, followed by a slightly less cocky, “Why would he kill me? I’m only the messenger, the keeper of the goods.”

  “I’m sure that’ll be taken into consideration… Not. Do yourself a favor, lose the attitude and figure out where the fuck Morgan’s taken her.”

  “What about Rachel? Kill or keep?”

  Owen took another deep swallow. “Keep. For now. I have to call Mockerie. Or… Crap, no I don’t. He’s climbing the stairs from the casino as we speak. If you don’t hear from me again, watch your back.”

  “You’re insane,” his second said in disgust.

  “Must be in the genes,” Owen mumbled.

  He ended the call, took a final drink, and sat up to watch the doorknob ahead of him turn.

  …

  By three a.m., Amber was too exhausted, emotionally and physically, to think in a logical manner. She and Gage managed to steal a few hours of sleep. Not that it really helped. Bear’s name and face ran through her head like a bad movie skipping back over the same snippet of film.

  Owen had Rachel. Again. Bear had been shot, and she and Gage were driving God knew where on roads that probably hadn’t been used since horse and buggy days.

  She drank cold coffee to wake herself up, then thought to hell with it and hunted up a bottle of whiskey. She poured three inches into the empty coffee cup, sniffed it, and downed a third of the fiery liquid.

  “Pour me some of that,” Gage said wearily.

  “No.”

  “Amber…”

  “I’m not listening and I’m absolutely not talking to you.” She drank again. “I don’t know all the reasons why yet, but it involves Bear, that stupid code thing you had me try and make Rachel understand—which she mostly did, by the way, except for the naked and wrapped in a blanket part. I’m not sure she got that. We used to run to the lake when our parents fought, wrapped in towels. Skinny dipping was empowering somehow. But that was then. She might not have understood why she shouldn’t wear her clothes outside the cabin.”

  “Tracking devices.” Gage glanced over as she tossed back the rest of the whiskey. “They’re incredibly sophisticated these days. If she’d left all her possessions—clothes, shoes, phone, ever
ything—near another cabin as you tried to explain to her earlier, that’s where Fixx’s people would likely have gone. She took something with her.”

  “Her phone,” Amber told him. “And her shoes. It’s too cold to be barefoot outside.”

  “There you go.” Gage shrugged a shoulder. “It still might have worked if she hadn’t put up a fight when Bear showed up to get her out.”

  “He was a stranger. He grabbed her. What would you have done in her place?”

  “Probably the same thing—until he told me he was with you and there to help me.”

  Feeling frustrated, angry, and a hundred other things she didn’t want to examine right then, Amber poured more whiskey. She allowed Gage a stingy quarter inch in his cup and thrust it at him. “I’m still not happy with you. I might be able to drink my mad away, but it doesn’t always work. I’m not much of a drinker overall and…” She trailed off. “Who’s Lydia?” The shock and trailing suspicion in his expression had amusement breaking through her annoyance. “You didn’t like that question, did you?” She drank more. “Why not? Did she dump you?”

  The look he gave her was nanodegrees short of lethal. “What Lydia did or didn’t do is none of your business.” A scowl invaded his features and made her want to take a bite of him. “How do you even know about her?”

  She glanced into her cup, swirled the whiskey. “You talk in your sleep. My name came up. Well, my code name, anyway. Then you said Lydia. I think you threw a punch, but it was too dark for me to be sure. Did you hit her?”

  His eyes narrowed dangerously. “No.”

  “Did she hit you?”

  “Are you drunk?”

  “Working on it. I told you, I’m not much of a drinker. Can’t overindulge and effectively climb the career ladder. That’s where Rachel and I differed. A lot. I wanted to make money. She preferred to marry it.” Frowning slightly, Amber thought back. “She said something to me when we talked. It didn’t make sense.”

  “Something about Fixx?”

  “I don’t think so. Like that, but no. Are you going to answer my question from before?”

  “Change the subject, Amber.”

  Her lips curved into a teasing smile. “What was your rank in the LAPD? I’m guessing Lieutenant.”

  “Good guess.”

  “Plain clothes? Homicide?”

  “You have moments of serious spookiness, Snowbird.”

  “I’m good at reading people.” She checked the bottle, poured more. “Your cop facade’s not all that deeply buried. Except I think you’re more reckless now that you’re not one. Abel definitely is.”

  “And now we’re back to him, are we? This is one wide-ranging conversation. Do you think Abel turned you in?”

  “I don’t know. I’m worth a fortune, apparently. Bear followed us. Maybe he turned me in.”

  “Bear followed us because he owed me more than one favor from our Army days.”

  “You recognized his truck’s engine, didn’t you? I thought it sounded familiar, but I never made the connection between the engine we kept hearing and Bear’s Ram-erado.” She studied Gage from the side. He really was so damn gorgeous. And hot. “Were you engaged?”

  “Nope. We just served together in the Army.”

  Amber calmly finished her second cup of whiskey. “You’re being ridiculously perverse.”

  He took the bottle from her before she could pour another drink. “You’ve had enough for one night. You’re not watching for headlights.”

  “Yes, I am. I’m an excellent multitasker. I’m also stubborn, sometimes contrary, and I have a tendency to let things I don’t like fester and grow. That comes from my Irish side. Grudges are sacrosanct and temper’s a given. Like elephants, we never forget what we don’t like.”

  “Does that mean I should worry about you shooting me in my sleep?”

  “I don’t know.” She took the bottle back. “I haven’t gotten to the festering stage yet. That’s why I’m drinking. I’m hoping to bypass it. Tomorrow’s another day, right?” When Gage veered off the lumpy road and pointed the truck down a treacherous incline, Amber felt her stomach bounce briefly into her throat. “Uh, do you have any idea what’s at the bottom of this roller coaster dip?”

  “Hopefully a dry creek bed. Or it could be a rushing river. You might want to cross your fingers.”

  “I did that with Rachel. Didn’t work. She’s so dumb, Gage.” Amber rescued the bottle before it spilled. “But that’s no reason for you not to tell me about your guy-plan with Bear. Guy-plans gone wrong are fodder for a good fester and subsequent Irish grudge. If you’d told me about it at the time, then asked me not to tell Rachel, I wouldn’t have.”

  “And I’m supposed to know that?”

  She stabbed the air between them. “Lydia let you down, didn’t she? Betrayed and/or disappointed you in some unforgiveable way.”

  Grabbing the whiskey, he tipped it up and drank a mouthful. “Let it go, Amber, before my Irish roots start showing.”

  He wasn’t going to talk, wasn’t prepared to tell her anything about his past. It shouldn’t bother her, that reticent James Dean attitude of his. He’d been sent to protect her. The rescuing Rachel part had been her idea. Not the best one she’d ever had, but Rachel was her sister. How could she be expected to leave her?

  “You know what we should do.” Curling a leg up under her, Amber faced Gage. “We should attack rather than run. Set a trap of our own. If we’re feeling really bold, we could do it in Las Vegas. Or New Mexico. But Las Vegas would probably be the best place. Owen likes really lavish parties.” She grinned. “On the flip side, he also spends time in scrungy bars where everyone smokes and drinks and has sex in bathroom stalls.”

  Gage stopped the whiskey bottle halfway to his mouth. “Where the hell did that come from? The scrungy bar and sex in the bathroom part?”

  She bit her lip, thought back. “I’m not sure. It was just there in my head. Obviously, more information snuck in than I realized. I know his nephew Luka liked sex in back alleys, but Owen’s always so proper and clean. So polished.” She struggled to think past the haze in her head. “Could that be helpful?”

  “Depends.” Gage used the thankfully dry riverbed as a roadway. The truck pitched and rocked, forcing Amber to uncurl and hang on. “Can you name one of his slimy hangouts?”

  “Not offhand. And I’m not sure he’d be in Las Vegas at this point. Wouldn’t Mockerie want him where Rachel is? Not with her necessarily, but in the vicinity?”

  “If not now, he will eventually. Whoever’s holding your sister will be someone Fixx trusts.”

  “Money can buy trust, Gage. Fixx has very loyal people on his payroll.”

  Gage shook his head. “This is Fixx’s life on the line. You don’t trust your life to a worker. A brother or a nephew or a son maybe, but not a worker.”

  Amber’s mind drifted back to Las Vegas. “I think—I’m not positive, but I think Rachel’s personal assistant Lauren might be Owen’s second cousin. That would make her family, wouldn’t it?”

  “What about her trainer?”

  “Helmut?” Amber tapped her temples with her index fingers. “Nothing here about him. He’s Swedish, though, and for some reason, I’m thinking Owen’s mother is Swedish. There could be a connection.” Her brow knit. “I’ve lost the thread of this conversation. Are we planning to do something, or just trying to establish who might be holding Rachel?”

  “Possibly both.”

  Suspicion she didn’t want to feel formed slippery knots in her stomach. She hoped it was the whiskey making her uneasy and not her instincts, because to doubt Gage at that point could mean death, for her and for Rachel.

  “Tom warned me Rachel would be a problem.” Amber watched through the treetops as tendrils of cloud drifted across the moon. “I knew he was right, but what could I do? We had to go into the WPP. Maybe she had a point, and I should have said no to the FBI. I wouldn’t have married Gareth, but who says Owen would have killed her like I�
�m sure he did his other wives? It’s possible Rachel was his one true love.” Her lips curved. “And maybe I’m a bit drunk at that. The Fixxes of the world don’t love people. They love power and money and probably themselves. Gareth never believed Owen loved him. I figure that’s what made him become so obsessive.”

  “Who’s obsessive?”

  She turned her head on the worn rest. “Gareth. He’s OCD, or close to it. He keeps his guitars in neat little rows the same way Owen lines up his files and his books and the suits in his closet. Underwear, too, according to Rachel. I imagine Luka and Owen’s brother Tony are the same. Is Mockerie?”

  “Is he what?”

  “OCD.” Irritation rose. “Are you even listening to me?”

  “I’m listening. I’m also thinking. Fixx isn’t going to hold your sister in this manner indefinitely. Taking her back to Las Vegas would be the smart thing. Every time he’s thwarted, his strategy should change to some extent. It only makes sense. He tried a trap here. It failed. Time to make another attempt somewhere else. That somewhere could be Las Vegas.”

  “Does that mean we have to wait and see what happens next? Drive in circles until Owen or one of his people contacts us?”

  “Or until whoever’s been assigned to follow us catches up.”

  Amber pulled the band from her ponytail and ran her fingers through her hair. “You’ve checked out everything I own: my clothes, my boots, my phone, my jewelry, even my shampoo, makeup, and moisturizer. What’s left?”

  He set the whiskey bottle on the seat between his legs, capped what remained. “Something I’m missing. On a more positive note, the terrain we’ve covered is virtually undriveable. We need sleep, they’ll need sleep. I’ll see if I can set up a band of interference between us and them. If it works, it’ll buy us some down time.”

  “How do you set up…? Never mind.” She waved the question aside. “If you can do it, do it. I want a hot bath and a bed with a mattress that doesn’t sag. Are either of those things in the realm of possibility at whatever o’clock it currently is in the morning?”

  “We’ll make a quick stop. I’ll see what I can do interference-wise, then we’ll head south, grab some sleep. Don’t get your hopes up, though, Snowbird. I’m good with tech, but I’m not a techno geek.”