Against the Sky (19 page)

Her chest was too tight to reply. Nick grabbed the black duffel and tossed it up on his shoulder. “Put your coat on, get your carry-on, and let's go.”

“Is he . . . is he dead?”

His hard gaze fixed on the man on the floor. “He's dead, you aren't. Let's go.”

“What about the police? I . . . I didn't have time to call them.”

“Better that way.” Gun in hand, he moved toward the door, stopped to check and see if it was clear outside, then started forward again. “Come on.”

She zipped up her heavy parka with shaking hands, grabbed the handle of the carry-on and fell in behind him, moving on wobbly legs. She was glad for the jacket; it was freezing cold outside.

“Should I . . . should I drive?”

He looked at her as if she'd lost her mind and just shook his head. “Get in and buckle up.” There wasn't a glimpse of the man she had been sleeping with, no teasing smiles or occasional grins. This was Nick Brodie, former Ranger, ex-cop, in full battle mode.

It took two tries to strap herself into the seat. Nick started the engine and jammed the car into reverse. They were just pulling out of the parking lot when headlights came on behind them.

“Fuck. Hold on.” As his heavy leather boot slammed down on the accelerator, she jerked back against the seat. Shots rang out. Nick jerked his pistol, angled it out the window, and fired two shots back, then the car was fishtailing around the corner, accelerating wildly again.

Dear God, was this really happening?

She turned to look behind them, saw a black SUV closing the distance between the two vehicles. She shrieked as a shot crashed through the back window and glass flew everywhere.

“Keep your head down!”

She clamped a hand over her mouth to hold back a scream as the car slid around another corner and shot forward again. As they roared down the straightaway, Nick leaned out the window.

He fired off two shots, fired two more. “Hold onto the wheel!” Determined to help, Samantha fought back her fear and grabbed the steering wheel. Gritting her teeth, she steeled herself, kept the car steady and centered in the middle of the lane as it roared down the highway. Nick kept his foot on the accelerator, leaned out, took careful aim, and pulled off two more rounds.

There was a loud pop. She glanced in the rearview mirror in time to see the front tire on the other car explode and the car start skidding, careening wildly from one side of the road to the other.

There was an embankment on the right. The SUV hit the embankment and shot into space, began to flip in midair, then came down hard on the roof and slid completely off into the mud at the side of the road.

The last thing she saw before they careened around a corner at what felt like a thousand miles an hour were the wheels of the SUV spinning uselessly, the headlights growing smaller and smaller as Nick drove farther and farther away.

Nick looked over at Samantha. Her face was pale and she was trembling. But there was a stubborn set to her features he had never seen before.

The heater was cranked full force but with the window broken, it was freezing inside the car. The road had iced up and there was nothing but darkness for miles. At least the tank was full.

“A man is dead,” she finally said. “Don't we have to talk to the police?”

He tried to block the image of the big Russian pointing the barrel of his semi-auto at Samantha, an instant away from pulling the trigger. At the time, he'd just reacted, done what he was trained to. Now he looked at her and fear washed through him. What if he'd been an instant too late?

“I'll talk to them as soon as we get to Anchorage. I don't want to chance another run-in with those bastards.”

“Who were they?”

“My guess? Part of the Russian mob.”

“How did they know where to find us?”

He shook his head. “I don't know. I didn't spot a tail. Maybe they picked me up on a security camera somewhere and started watching my movements.”

He glanced in her direction. She was trying to warm her hands by pressing them between her thighs but she was still shaking. He wanted to stop the car and make damn sure she was okay. He wanted to tell her how sorry he was for bringing this down on her, but stopping was out of the question. He couldn't take the risk.

He raked a hand through his wet black hair. The sleet was getting thicker, turning into snow. “Dammit, I knew better than to bring you along. It was a stupid, unforgivable thing to do. I'm really sorry, Samantha. Are you sure you're okay? What about the baby? You don't think anything could have happened?”

“I was scared, but I didn't do anything strenuous. I just climbed up on the dresser.”

As worried as he was, he couldn't stop his lips from curving. “Yeah, just climbed up on the dresser and knocked some Russian gangster loop-legged. You were really great in there.”

She didn't reply, which told him exactly how shook up she was. He felt a fresh pang of guilt. He still couldn't believe it. When the going got tough, Samantha had done what she had to, gone toe-to-toe with a three-hundred-pound Russian gorilla. She might be a white-knuckle flyer, but she had one helluva lot of guts when the chips were down.

He dug out his cell phone, saw there was service, tossed the phone to Samantha. “Find Cord's number in my contacts and get him on the line.”

She worked his iPhone, listened till Cord picked up. “Sorry to bother you so late, but Nick needs to speak to you.”

She handed him the phone. He had hands free in the Explorer, not here, but this was important.

“This better be good,” Cord grumbled, his voice thick with sleep.

“Get Mary and Jimmy out of the house. Get them somewhere safe.”

“I take it something went wrong,” Cord said, instantly alert.

“Something went wrong. I'm not exactly sure what. One of their goons is dead, two more shot up pretty bad.”

“How long have I got?” He could hear Cord moving around, throwing stuff into a bag.

“Time to get out to the lake and pick them up, but I wouldn't wait. I'm not sure how long it'll take them to track me. I didn't leave much of a trail, but still . . .”

“Don't worry, I'm headed for my truck as we speak. You really think these guys will come after them?”

“I'm not sure. I got a hunch they think the kid knows more than he actually does.”

“I'll take them up to my place. No one will find them there. Where are you?”

“On my way back.”

“You need to talk to Taggart. You can't wait any longer.”

“I know. I'm going there first.”

“It's snowing here. There, too?”

“Yeah.”

“Be careful.”

He grunted. “Too late for that.” Nick hung up the phone.

 

 

Samantha felt tired to the bone. The heater was on full blast but with the back window gone, it was still icy cold in the car.

“I'll stop as soon as it's safe,” Nick said. “Unfortunately, there isn't much out here for the next hundred miles.”

A shiver ran the length of her body.

“I wish there was something I could do to make this better,” he said.

Her gaze swung to his. “You did something, Nick. You saved my life.”

For an instant, his glance strayed from the road to her. “If I hadn't brought you in the first place—”

“I wanted to come. We have to stop these people. We can't quit until we do.”

“As soon as we get home, I'm putting you on the first plane back to San Francisco.”

Samantha shook her head. “I'm not going back. Not yet.”

“What are you talking about? You almost got killed tonight.”

“That wasn't your fault. I'm in this, same as you. I'm not leaving.”

For the second time that night, he looked amazed. “I'm a professional. You work in a pet salon.”

“I can do things on a computer you can't. I can help. Now we know what we're up against, I want to help those girls.”

“Why?”

“Because my sister was one of them. She was twelve years old when she was taken. Before she was killed, she was brutally raped, just like the girls in those motel rooms. There was nothing I could do then to make up for what happened. Now there is.”

“Samantha. . . .”

“I want this chance, Nick. I need to do this.”

“What about the baby?”

Unconsciously her hand came to rest on her stomach. “From now on, I won't be doing anything dangerous. Just working on the computer, helping you figure things out.”

Nick just kept driving. She could almost see his mind spinning, mulling things over, trying to make the right decision. She knew exactly how hard that could be.

The silence stretched between them for so long, her eyelids began to droop.

“You know, I'm kind of getting used to the idea of being a father,” Nick said, jolting her out of her exhausted stupor.

The words were unexpected yet she had been thinking along those same lines, beginning to imagine herself with a child. “I'm starting to feel like he's real. Like he belongs to me.”

“He?”

“I don't know why, but I think it's going to be a boy. It doesn't matter, though.”

His mouth edged up in the faintest of smiles. “A girl who looks like you would be okay.”

She shouldn't have felt so pleased but she did.

“The thing is, I can't imagine having a kid who doesn't have my last name,” Nick said. “Boy or girl, it'll be a Brodie. I think we should get married.”

Samantha's whole body went stiff. “What are you talking about? A man is dead. We're running from the Russian mob and you're proposing?”

“I wasn't actually proposing. It was just, you know, an idea.”

“Well, it's a very bad idea. It's too soon to even be thinking about something like that.”

She couldn't see his eyes in the darkness, but she could feel them zeroing in on her. “You really hate the idea that much?”

“I told you—it's too soon to talk about it.” But the bitter truth was, no matter how much she cared for Nick, she wasn't cut out for a man like him. She would hate living in Alaska and he would hate living in San Francisco. It was a no-win situation either way. She ignored a little pang in her heart.

“I guess you're right,” he finally said.

“Of course I'm right.” But even as she said the words, she felt another pang. “It isn't time to make those kinds of decisions, and besides, right now we need to concentrate on Mary and Jimmy and putting those terrible men behind bars.”

His big hands tightened around the wheel. “True enough.”

The car rolled along in silence. In the headlights, the road was white with a light coating of snow. Two parallel wheel tracks showed the way, cut through by the last car to travel the highway.

She flicked a glance at Nick, saw that he was watching her from the corner of his eye.

“You saw a man die tonight,” he said. “That's not an easy thing to handle.”

She hadn't really had time to process it yet, didn't really want to think about it. “As you said, he was going to kill me. Now he's dead. It was his decision.”

“Yeah.”

She could tell he was wondering if she really meant it. She tried to feel some sort of pity for the man who'd been shot, but none surfaced. There were bad people and good people in the world. One of the bad ones was dead.

She shivered, pulled the hood of her coat a little closer around her face, felt the warmth of the fur against her cheeks, and silently thanked Nick for his thoughtfulness. Leaning back in her seat, she tried to concentrate on something pleasant, a beach in Hawaii, shopping at Saks.

As cold as she was, she began to nod off. She must have fallen asleep because when the car began to slow and turn off the road, she jolted awake.

“Where are we?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“Gas station. I need some coffee.”

“Oh, God, you haven't slept all night. Let me drive for a while.” But when she looked out the window, she saw nothing but a wall of white.

“I'm okay. Once I'm in the zone, I can stay awake for hours.”

“Something you learned in the Rangers?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled up to a gas pump and got out of the car. “Go inside and get warm. I'll be there in a minute.”

She didn't hesitate, just unbuckled her seat belt and opened the car door. It was six a.m., but the sun wouldn't be up for a couple more hours. Nights were long this time of year in Alaska, and they would only get longer.

She headed for the door to the Bear Tooth Mercantile. The log building looked as if it had been there forever. The orange neon
OPEN
sign was lit, but they were the only customers. Samantha shoved through the door, ringing the bell.

“You look frozen, little lady.” A burly, white-haired man with a long scraggly beard walked out from behind the counter. The place was rustic, with rows of canned goods and packaged bakery items, a small refrigerator section filled with cartons of eggs and milk.

“My name's Joe,” he said, but it should have been Santa Claus. “Come over by the stove and sit down. I'll bring you a cup of coffee.”

She felt a rush of gratitude. She must look even worse than she thought. “That sounds like heaven.” She followed him over to an old-fashioned pot-bellied stove and sat down in one of the wooden captain's chairs clustered around it.

“Cream and sugar?” he asked as he poured from the pot on the counter.

She usually drank it black but she could use a sugar boost, and the cream might help soothe her nervous stomach. “That would be great.”

The white-haired man returned, ambling over with a paper cup he pressed into her hand.

“Thank you.” Samantha warmed her fingers around the cup, took a tentative sip and felt like moaning in pleasure.

The bell rang above the door as Nick walked into the station. His jaw was still hard, but she didn't miss the concern in his eyes as they swept over her.

He returned his attention to Joe. “I've got a problem. I'm hoping you can help.”

“Sure, son, what is it?”

Nick explained about the rear window, saying a rock had flown up from the road and knocked it out. Then the two of them walked through a door at the back of the store and disappeared.

Samantha made a trip to the ladies' room, then returned and sat quietly in front of the fire, letting the warmth from the stove seep into her, finished the last of her coffee. She was half asleep when Nick returned and gently took the cup out of her hand.

He stared at her for several long moments. “There's something I really need to do.” Reaching out, he drew her to her feet and into his arms, wrapped himself around her and just held on. “Are you sure you're okay?”

Samantha relaxed into his warmth and strength. For the first time that night, she felt safe. “Better now,” she said.

He kissed the top of her head. “We gotta go. I'm sorry.”

“I want to get back, too, and I'm okay. Really.” She flashed him a slightly too bright smile. “What do we do about the snow?”

“Snowplow just went through, and Joe helped me fix that rear window. At least you won't be cold.”

Relief flooded through her. She turned to the white-haired man. “You're a saint, Joe. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.”

Joe just smiled. “Roads are still gonna be icy. Drive careful, now.”

“Thanks,” Nick said.

The interior of the car was finally warm, and as the drive stretched on she drifted off to sleep.

The next time Samantha woke up, the car was pulling up in front of the Anchorage Police Department.