Danger Mine: A Base Branch Novel (9 page)

Millions of gallons of glacial melt whirled past him with little more than a murmured ripple. The sheer power of nature once more took his breath. It gave life and took it in the blink of an eye. He crouched at the burbling edge in between two fishermen and submerged the tips of his fingers. The current swept his hand the two feet he allowed it before tugging his hands from the run.

“Colder than my ex-wife before alimony.”

Street craned his head to regard the bloke to his left. A red beard hung to the first buttons of his red and black flannel jacket. Cork covered a third of the well-used fishing rod he twitched back and forth with a narrow wrist.

“Is that so?” Street asked.

“Ha. I knew you wasn’t from ’round here. And hell yeah it’s so. She’s settled since I started lining her pockets with better than half my catch. But man, she could yell the skin off a elk.”

“So you fish here a lot?”

“Every damn day, now that she’s bleedin’ me. You lookin’ for a good fishin’ hole? Then this is it. Right now, at least. Later in the season you’ll have to move farther downriver to get the good ones.”

“I’m actually looking for a friend. He was last seen here a week ago Monday. You mind taking a look at this picture?” Street held out the phone before the man answered. “His name’s Zeke. He’s a couple of inches shorter than me.”

The man squinted at the picture, and then angled his gaze at Street. “Well stand up, son. So I can see you.”

He extended to his full height. The man’s head followed him up. It lolled back and the man blinked. “Shit. You’re what, six five?”

“My friend is six four, almost black hair, grey eyes,” he countered.

“As wide as you?”

“Muscles, but sleeker.”

Murky blue eyes zeroed in on the phone again. “Mind if I hold it?”

Street handed over the phone. After another moment, the bloke shook his head. “Na, I ain’t seen him. Andrew!” He stepped around Street and thrust the phone at another fisherman. “You saw this guy, Monday week? Little smaller than this bull.” His thumb hiked at Street.

Andrew looked for a minute. “No way you’d see a dude that big and not remember. And I’s here sun-up to sun-down Monday thru Friday. Never saw him. Now, that don’t mean he wasn’t out here. Just means I didn’t see him. But so you know, I like to keep tabs on my competition.” He handed the phone over. “You plannin’ to be my competition?”

“No, sir.”

“Good,” Andrew said, “I have about all I can take out here already.” His line drew tight and pulled his attention with it.

“Lucky bastard,” red beard growled. He thrust the phone back at Street, and then gave his line a tug.

“Well, thanks for your help,” Street said.

“No trouble.” The bloke yanked on his rod in rapid beats.

Street stepped away, but stopped himself. He shouldn’t give a shit, but he did. Like it or not. “You have kids?”

“Three.”

“Your ex have them?”

“Yep. My son, well, my oldest son’ll graduate high school next year.”

He stepped closer and lowered his gaze to the chap’s. “Then quit bitching about your money-grubbing ex-wife and take responsibility for your kids. One day they’ll be adults and you’ll want to look them in the eye without feeling like you’re a two-inch prick.”

The man faltered as though Street had punched him. Anger replaced surprise. Street held his gaze, hoping the meaning settled. Slowly, the sneer melted into a thin line.

He bowed and headed up the shore toward the next group of fishermen. “Sorry to interrupt, but Andrew told me to ask you guys. I’m looking for my friend.” Street went through the next three groups the same way. No one had seen Zeke.

Street stepped back from the river and found Khani plowing through her batch of fisherman as though she worked a line-up of suspects. The rate she filtered through her group told him she had no better luck.

The rock boundary of the excess parking lot turned to thick brown grass with spruce trees scattered about its gradual incline. A beaten-down mud path led into the distance. He wondered if it was a walking trail or a convenient pee spot for the fishermen. His gaze scanned the campground. In a smattering of navy-blue and green domed tents, two hikers climbed out of a tiny orange two-man made light for long trips into the wild.

They stretched their arms above their heads and arched out the restriction of such a cramped space. Each hobbled into their respective boots laid on a tarp in front of the zipper door. They slung on small bags, and then the woman leaned over and lifted a walking stick from the ground. She extended it toward the man. His upper lip curled. He eyed the thing as though it were barbed before finally relenting.

Slowly, they headed toward the trail’s mouth, the walking sticks a third party between them. Street played a hunch and set out for the trailhead without Khani. The woman twirled the end of a long braid around her index finger. She exaggerated her lumbering side-to-side as though she were bored, while the bloke favored one knee and pushed to keep pace.

Street timed it so they all came to the soggy path at the same time. “Oh, I’m sorry.” He shuffled back and put both hands up in surrender.

“No.” The bloke leaned heavily of the stick and ushered Street ahead with a flourish. “Go ahead.” The young woman’s jaw worked, but she held her tongue.

“Really, you go. I’m waiting on my girlfriend,” Street insisted. “I was just checking out the trail. Have you been here before? How is it?”

“It’s okay—”

His woman cut him off. “Do you hike a lot? You look like an experienced hiker, but you’re not from around here, are you?”

“I’ve done my fair share of outdoor living,” Street smiled. “But here, we’re tourists.”

“No you’re not. Tourists walk around in groups of ten. You’re adventurers. This trail will bore you to tears. It’s easy in, easier out.” She looked to her man and grimaced. ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed. “He’s recovering from MCL surgery. Otherwise we’d be on the ice-fields right now. Those are fun and challenging.”

“So challenging I ripped my MCL,” the bloke reminded.

“Well, ah, thanks for the advice,” he inclined his head to the couple. “Good luck on your recovery.”

They nodded and headed gingerly up the trail. Street turned and found Khani stomping in his direction. “What is it?”

“These people haven’t seen dick.” Her fists clenched at her sides. “It pisses me off, okay?” She shook them before folding her arms across her middle.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Her mouth arched wide as she dragged out the word. “You’re just going to let me bite your head off for no good reason?”

“You’re worried about your family.” He scrubbed the back of his hand over his frosty nose. “I can’t say I know what you’re going through, but I understand where your angst comes from. So, yeah. I am.”

Her cerulean eyes rolled back into her head. “Why do you have to be so logical? Fight with me, would you?”

“It wouldn’t make you feel better, but I know something that would.”

“You found a lead?”

“No, I was thinking more along the lines of eating you out.”

She grunted and shoved at his chest.

“Kidding,” he laughed.

Khani fought the curving of her lips.

“Your brother wasn’t here at all. Most of the fishermen I talked to are here every day from dawn until dusk. They’re protective of their fishing ground. An outsider would stand out like a black eye.”

“He’s sneaky. Maybe he blended in,” she countered.

“What reason would he have to go incognito up here?”

“I don’t know. None.” Her little hands balled into lethal fists. “But there are trails all around here. Suppose he slipped up one without anyone seeing him.”

“Is your brother a risk taker or play-it-safe kind of guy?”

“What do you think?”

“If he’s anything like you, he’ll risk his body all day long, but never his heart.”

She reeled back. Her gaze diminished to slits. “I don’t have a heart.”

“Sure you do. It’s just behind a few kilometers of concrete and steel mesh.”

“Oh yeah, well where’s yours?”

He pointed his index finger at her chest. “Standing in front of me, looking like she wants to rip me from limp to limb.”

Khani’s hands came up like a shield. The whites circling her eyes grew two fold. She turned and started to walk away…just like she always did.

“In a BDSM relationship, a master—”

Her feet ground into the rocks. “Dominant,” she snapped. “Not master. I’m no one’s master.”

“Fine. In a dominant, submissive relationship, there’s trust, right?”

“On both sides,” she agreed.

“You may not be my Dominant, but I’m asking you to start trusting me. Everything I do is to help you. Help you find your brother. Help you find yourself.”

“I know myself, thank you.”

He took a step forward and spoke into her ear. “No you don’t. No more than I know myself. We’re getting closer, but we have a way to go.” He rounded her, planting himself as a physical barrier yet again. “Isay lied. Your brother wouldn’t waste his time fishing or hiking a toddler trail. Troop, I’ll never hurt you. So, please trust me on this.” He grabbed the keys from her hand and headed for the car. The seconds gathered with no movement behind him. A stitch tightened in his chest. He swallowed past his doubt and soldiered on.

Street reached for the SUV’s handle.

Her slow and gentle treads grew near. “Troop?”

“Trooper,” he explained.

“Now I have a pet name.” She groaned. “Fine, we’ll try it your way.”

I
say’s toes
pointed better than a Royal Opera House prima ballerina’s. His back arched in a near perfect C. Long, muscular legs scissored in search of the ground. He wouldn’t make company though. The contorted muscles and high red flush of his face just weren’t entertainment material. Not for the general public, at least.

Khani eased into the recliner and crossed her legs. “What an intriguing show,” she cooed. “I don’t know why I didn’t let you do this sooner.” Then again, maybe not. Her clit throbbed against the seam of her pants. The closeness of her black lace bra abraded her stiff nipples every time she moved. Watching Street work only incited her need to claim him. She’d licked his pre-cum to show him how unaffected she was by his presence. The moment his taste hit her tongue the impulse exploded in her face.

She wanted him now more than ever. So much so that for a moment she forgot the entire reason for their being here.

His harsh gaze remained locked on Isay’s. “I don’t know why either. I’m quite enjoying myself. Perhaps he’ll hold out for a while yet. Five minutes is four and a half longer than I expected him to last.”

The punk garbled through the sock shoved in his mouth.

“What was that? I need to up the ante?” Street pursed his lips as though thinking about his options. “Why, Isay, I believe you’re right. I’m going to set you down again. If you don’t tell me what I want to know, I’ll use your cock and balls as my next handles.” He untwisted the fists full of the bloke’s nipples, gently lowered him to the floor, and then yanked the white fabric from his stuffed lips.

She remembered now.

A red handprint stained the kid’s neck. His shirt hung half off his body, ripped down the front from when he’d tried to escape. Pale skin inflated and deflated at a stressful pace, emphasizing his skeletal frame.

“Talk. Now.” Street cupped the air and squeezed. “Or I get a handful.”

Isay screwed his lips tight.

“You think he has that much?” Khani asked.

“Only one way to find out.” Street stepped forward.

“Wait. Fucking wait!” He covered his chest with one hand and his junk with the other. “I saw him, okay? But not at the campground.”

Khani leapt to her feet without making the decision to do so. “Where? When?”

He stiffened. “I guided him to Exit Glacier Monday.” When his mouth quit moving Street nudged him with a finger to the forehead. “We hiked hard all day into the ice-field. We made camp that night, and then…” The bastard hugged himself. As though those skinny arms could save him.

Khani lunged. She crouched and rammed her shoulder into the weak belly. Her knee split his knees. With one easy push she laid him flat on his back. She pressed her forearm on his windpipe and released her fury, fear, and frustration in a scream. “Where is my brother?”

Air wheezed through purple lips. She roared and pressed harder. The edge of reason blurred. Tightness clamped her waist and she dangled above the piece of shit on the ground.

“He won’t do you any good dead.” Street’s chest met her back.

Strangely she sank into it completely spent and oddly at ease in his embrace. She panted much like Isay had, her breaths whooshing through her nose and open mouth.

The punk rolled to his side. He tucked into a gagging ball.

Street set her on the floor, but held firmly to her middle. “Talk, kid, or I’ll let her go.”

A hack that’d make a life-long smoker cringe erupted from his throat. “I left him,” he rasped. “I left all my gear behind, so he wouldn’t hear me leave. A set of back-up gear had been stowed a mile up an alternate trail. I hiked all night. Got back here about lunchtime the next day.”

“Did you have a big date or just felt like fuckin’ off?” Khani asked.

“I’d asked for the time off, but my uncle wouldn’t give it to me.” He swallowed and grimaced. His fingers tested the skin at his throat. “I just wanted to show him, you know?”

“I know you’re a piece of shit with no regard for anyone but yourself,” Khani spat.

The hand holding her back slid across her torso, releasing her. Street’s wide frame stepped around her and advanced on Isay. His shoulders shifted with each step, prowling. Hefty thighs moved quietly over the creaky wooden floor. Isay scrambled back on elbows and heels, but Street didn’t stop until he towered over the prone form. “I know you’re lying. I can see it on your face. I also know you wouldn’t trash two days, hiking all the way out there to stow a pack and then back, just to hack off your uncle.” He leaned down, hands extended toward the bastard’s pecker.

“No! Yes! I mean yes, I lied.” Each word pitched higher than the last. “My uncle paid me double to ditch him at the pass.”

Khani’s heart stuttered.

Street’s hand hovered over the guy’s goods. “Why would he do that?”

“You’ll have to ask him. I really don’t fucking know. I swear!” Tears ran down Isay’s cheek.

“The problem is,” Street
tsk
ed, “once a liar, always a liar.”

K
hani paced
from one window to the next along the front of the house, waiting for her computer to confirm the tap she’d placed on Uncle Vasaya’s phone to come on line. She ignored the carcasses of burned down joints and bottle caps beneath her feet. Her mind prodded the more pressing problem at hand. Who was Isay Polzin’s uncle and why would he order his nephew to abandon a client on the middle of a mother f’ing glacier during the melting season?

“Good job, Isay.” Street patted him on the head. The reforming punk sat strapped with duct tape to the recliner Khani had used. His knees gaped. His fingers spread wide. His head remained free to see the horrors his limbs would endure, if he refused to make the call. Street crouched to eye level. “I think we’ve finally arrived at an understanding. You get your uncle here without him suspecting anything, you live. You alert him in any way, you die. And then we find your uncle anyway.”

“He’s my only family.” The young man hung his head. Tears dripped off the end of his nose, spilling into the puddle at his lap. “He gave me this house, his old office, to live in after my parents kicked me out.”

The progress bar zipped across the computer screen, and then flashed confirmation. “It’s ready.” Khani squatted in front of the keyboard and struck off a few lines of code. They allowed her to end the call at any moment.

“Remember that. You want him to live, you cooperate.” Street pressed send on Isay’s phone, activated the speakerphone, and then held it out for the kid. “Just like we practiced and tomorrow this will just be the worst hangover of your life.”

“Isay, damnit, you cost me double last night,” Vasaya answered without greeting. “The whole goddammned street called the station about your party. Winslow demanded double what I usually pay him to look the other way. It’s your good fortune I had the extra den’gi to pay.”

“I…I’m sorry, my boys got out of control.” Isay gulped. “Look, I need to talk to you about something.”

“You didn’t get girl knocked up again, did you? Because I don’t think you’re lucky enough for two miscarriages.”

Khani’s stomach tucked and dove into her lower intestines. She wanted kids like she wanted a bullet to the head, but it didn’t mean she didn’t have a soft spot for the helpless things. Street’s upper lip arched in a silent snarl.

“Naw. Naw. It’s about that thing you had me do the—”

“Have I taught you nothing? Don’t talk about shit over the phone. You want to talk about stuff, you come see me.”

“I can’t.”

Her hand hovered over the disconnect key, while Street’s trigger finger poised on the guard of his customized Smith & Wesson E-series.

“Excuse me? What do you mean you can’t?”

“I’ve got the shits. I can’t leave the toilet for more than a couple minutes.”

“I swear to Christ, you’re more trouble than you’re worth sometimes.” Vasaya huffed a protracted breath, crackling the line. “Can it wait?”

“Naw. I wouldn’t ’a called you out to see me like this, if it could.”

“I’ll be there in five,” the uncle said before disconnecting the call.

“Good choice, Isay. You know, life is the consequence of the choices people make. Choose wrong and the ripple effect is beyond the scope of your ability to reason.”

No shit.

If Khani had known how deep that first touch of Street’s skin would pull her, she’d have sheared off the tips of her fingers before she’d lay one on him. Or would she have? Wasn’t that the thing about hindsight. Most of the time, it just gave you a blinding headache.

“What’s your uncle mixed up in?” Khani closed down the computer and stuffed it into her pack. It wouldn’t take much research to uncover Polzin’s poison. They’d do it later though. This called for old-school face time.

“I don’t know,” Isay cried.

“Now, I thought we’d moved past the dishonesty.” Street sank the pistol into his holster, and then braced his hands on his knees.

“We have. I’m not lying. I don’t know what he’s into. All I know is sometimes he has me drop boxes for him and every once in a while me and the boys go rough somebody up.”

Maybe Zeke happened upon the Polzin operation and poked around for answers. But her brother was sly enough amateurs like these wouldn’t have pegged him. It did add a layer of questions to the mounting pile.

“What’s in the boxes?” Khani demanded.

“I don’t know.” The kid’s head jerked back and forth. “He told me a long time ago if I ever looked in one of the boxes the next one would have my head in it. So, I ain’t fuckin’ looked. Would you?”

“This isn’t about me, Isay. It’s about you and your uncle’s wayward path.” She straightened and resumed pacing between the two windows. “Who’d you beat around?”

“Nobodies. Low-lifes.” The arch of his thin upper lip revealed the silver caps she’d grown too accustomed to seeing during the first part of his interrogation.

“Lower than you?” she gasped.

“Hey, fuck yo—”

Street’s leather boot kicked the recline lever. His big hand pressed into the top of the pleather headrest. The punk reclined in a flash with his mouth agape. Street hovered over the bloke. When Khani expected him to shout he whispered so quietly she strained to hear.

“You know governments spend millions of dollars a year teaching their soldiers how to persuade people to comply with their directives, how to pry information out of them. All they really need to do is put those soldiers in a foster home or two.” Street rose to his full height and strode into the kitchen.

“What’s he doing?” Isay screamed. “What the fuck’s he doing?”

Khani couldn’t answer if she wanted to. Her boots suctioned to the floor and refused to move. Her gaze locked on the spot where Street had disappeared. Her brain processed the nugget of information she’d been given about his past. The water ran for a few seconds, and then shut off.

He returned a second later carrying a gallon container of bleach. “If bleach is diluted enough, it doesn’t burn the esophagus on the way down. It is hard to get the ratios correct without a measuring cup, and I couldn’t find one for all your mess.”

Isay thrashed against the tape. Khani’s heart sank into her shoes. She imagined Street as a brilliant and beautiful child held down and pumped full of chemicals by an overweight house mum bent on world domination. Only her world consisted of children incapable of fighting back. When she thought about it, maybe she and Zeke hadn’t had it so bad. At least they’d had each other. Who did Street have?

The closer Street got to Isay the whiter the boy’s clamped lips became. Street set the container on the ground by the chair. He clamped a hand under the boy’s clenched jaw and stilled it. His thumb and forefinger pinched Isay’s large nose.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I won’t cuss her again. Just please don’t do that,” he begged. Tears poured down his cheek.

“Okay.” Street righted the chair. “But I think you need to apologize.”

“I’m sorry. I won’t cuss you ever again.” Isay sucked at the boogers dripping down his lip. His eyes rimmed with red.

“Apology accepted.” Khani schooled her gaze on the punk, yet she really wanted to study her unlikely partner. An engine rumbled toward the cockeyed cabin. “Sock him.” She moved to the nearest window and watched a shiny granite truck complete with a neon 2015 sticker, wench, and off-road tires, dodge mud puddles as though they brimmed with lava.

A man in hiking pants so crisp they’d never seen a trail stepped out. He slammed the door and sinewy muscles flexed under his extra-medium long sleeves topped with a navy fleece vest. With bounding strides and careful footfalls he maneuvered the worst parts of the slushy yard. The only rugged thing about the man was the leather holster strapped to his hip and the fixed blade protruding from it.

Khani moved to the door. Rapid, heavy stomps on the first step shook the entire house. She pictured him slugging the mud from his pristine Merrell’s and a smile flirted with her lips. If he hated mud on his shoes how would he feel about blood on them? When his treads neared she opened the door and stepped into the opening with her hand extended.

“Hi. You must be Vasaya.” She let her smile shine. “Isay has told me so much about you.”