Gone Too Deep (19 page)

“Better?” her dad asked, and she grinned at him.

“So much.”

“Ready?” He gestured toward the gun she'd been trying to ignore.

She groaned, scrunching up her face.

Although his smile was gone in a flash, it was nice to see it, as quick as it was. Leaving the magazine on the table, he picked up the gun. After pulling back the slide to make sure it was unloaded, Baxter handed the gun to her, his hand shaking a little. It seemed she wasn't getting out of learning to shoot.

“Choose…choose a target, baby. Anything. Window, knot on the wall, anything.”

She stared at him, her mouth open. “You want me to shoot this
inside
?”

“No, no.” He gestured toward the unloaded gun. “Dry fire. Dry.”

Gazing at him helplessly, she admitted, “I don't know what that means.”

He took the gun from her hand, and she happily relinquished it, hoping he'd keep it for a while. “Dry,” he repeated and squinted, tilting his head so his open eye was level with the top of the pistol. His index finger pulled back on the trigger until there was a solid click. To Ellie's embarrassment, the harmless sound made her jump. He didn't seem to notice as he returned the gun to her.

It was still hard to pull the trigger. It was also hard not to let the memory of the last time she'd held the gun make her shake and swallow back bile. In contrast, Baxter seemed to be relaxing as he made small adjustments to her stance and the way she held the gun. He showed her how to line up the sights, and told her to aim for center mass. When she looked at him sideways, he clarified.

“Shoulders to hips. Aim…aim high center. Gives you the biggest target, the biggest target and the best chance of hitting something…something vital.”

Her brain immediately projected a picture of the blue-eyed man, blood dripping from the cut through his eyebrow, onto the wall where she was aiming. Instead of seeing the discolored spot on the wood she'd focused on before, now she aimed at his chest. Her hands shook, the sights bouncing too much to allow her to aim.

“Okay, baby girl. Okay.” Her father's hands closed over hers. For once, his were steady while hers vibrated with nerves. “Enough…enough for now.”

“Sorry.”

He removed the gun from her hands, and her fingers sprang away from the grip like she'd been clutching the tail of a mountain lion. “No. Don't…don't be sorry, baby girl. You're okay. Never be sorry you don't want to…hurt someone.”

Giving him a grateful smile, she sat in what she was already considering to be her chair. “What should we do now?”

“Tell me…can you tell me about…you? Your life?” He didn't meet her eyes, and his hand started rubbing his arm again.

“Sure.” Once she'd agreed, her mind blanked. “What did you want to know?”

“Just…anything. Everything.”

“Um…okay. I work at a boutique…” Ellie told him about her job, about Chelsea—bad and good—and about her condo. She explained what she loved about Chicago and what she hated. She told him stories about high school and college, about her mom and her friends and her teachers. The only subject she didn't touch was George, because that was too new and fragile to be discussing with anyone. She talked until she was hoarse, and Baxter absorbed the information almost hungrily, as if he'd been starved for details of her life.

She slipped a few questions in, as well, getting her dad to talk about his own life. While he was telling a story about his time in the army, he mentioned his friend, Gray Goose.

“Is that Willard Gray?” she asked tentatively, not wanting to set him off but hoping to find out about the man who'd been killed. Some of Baxter's actions were fueled by mental illness, but she needed to know how much danger he was actually facing.

His face grew sad, but he didn't seem to get agitated by the question. “Gray…he and I…we were good friends. You could trust him, trust him to watch your back, you know?”

“Yes.” Even though Ellie had never really thought about the importance of back-watching before, the past four days with George had opened her eyes. In the wilderness, they'd just had each other when things went wrong—and they'd gone so, so wrong. If anyone else had been her guide, she didn't think she'd have survived. It was a sobering thought that only George had stood between her and death.

“He'd send me letters, emails…told me things. Things that weren't right. There were all those fires… When there was nothing…nothing from Gray for months, I knew he was gone. I wanted to find out for sure, needed to be sure.” He rubbed his chest like it hurt. “I knew, though. My friend was dead, and I knew.”

Although she tried to hold back the question, it burst from her lips despite her best efforts. “Who killed him? You said they were after you.”

Shoving back his chair, he stood and started to pace.

“Sorry, Dad.” Her stomach squeezed painfully when she saw that her question had agitated him. They'd been doing so well, sharing stories and learning about each other's lives, and she'd had to ruin it with her curiosity. She nibbled on her index finger until she realized what she was doing.

“No,” he said. Instead of rubbing his forearm, he was clutching it tightly, as if to restrain the motion.

Ellie looked ruefully at her own hands, one holding the other in her lap in a pose uncomfortably similar to her father's. It was genetics in action, she supposed.

“No, no. Not your fault, baby girl. Never your fault.”

“You don't have to talk about it.” In fact, if it made him so upset, she wished he wouldn't.

Baxter acted as if he hadn't heard her. “I shouldn't…shouldn't have called you. Sorry, baby girl. So sorry. Now you're in danger, too, and it's my fault. They'll be coming. They'll be coming soon.”

Unable to stay still while her father was so agitated, Ellie stood. “Dad. It's okay. George is getting help. He'll be back tomorrow. What time is it?”

He just stared at her, his fingers flexing on his arm.

“Dad.” She was using her ultra-calm voice again. “What time is it?”

When he pulled back his sleeve to check his watch, her shoulders relaxed a little. At least he wasn't so far into his own head that she didn't exist. She remembered that happening when she was young and he was still living with them. Her mother, Ellie, their lives—they'd all disappeared from Baxter's reality while he struggled with his mental ghosts.

“Two forty-eight.”

“No wonder I'm hungry.” Forcing a smile, she turned toward his pack. “Should we break out the M—what were they again?”

Although he didn't return the smile, some of his twitchiness settled. “MREs.”

“Right. Can I get a couple out of your pack?” It seemed rude to dig around in there without asking, as if she were barging into his bedroom and going through his dresser drawers. At his nod, she retrieved a couple of the wrapped containers and made a face. “I have to warn you—you'll probably end up eating most of mine if these taste anything like the stuff George had. Especially if we're eating it cold.”

As he moved toward her, his hand released his other arm, and Ellie relaxed a little more. “They're self-heating.”

“Really?” She eyed the food packet with renewed interest. “Cool. How does it work?”

He smiled for the first time since she'd brought up Willard Gray. “I'll show you.”

By the time they'd eaten, cleaned up, refilled water bottles, and talked some more—carefully skirting the topic of his murdered friend—the light had a reddish cast as the sun disappeared behind the western peaks.

“It's so early for it to be getting dark,” Ellie said, peering out the window. The snow gave an eerie glow in the fading light.

Baxter didn't look up from where he was fiddling with a loose strap on his pack. “The mountains block the sun.”

“That's another weird thing.” Something moved in the shadow of a pine tree. Squinting through the growing gloom, she tried to see what had caught her eye. Everything was still, and she decided it had been a trick of the light, the filthy window, and her overtaxed nerves. “In Chicago, my GPS tells me which way I'm going. Anywhere else in Colorado, the mountains are always to the east or west. Here, I have no idea which direction is which, since the mountains are all around us.” That was a slight exaggeration, since the sun gave her an idea. Nighttime, though, would be another story. If she had to find her way in the dark, she knew she'd just wander in circles until a bear, dizzy from watching her, ate her.

“Come here.” Moving away from the window, she walked over to where he was pulling something out of his pack. “You need…you need a compass. Here. Here.”

When he pressed something cool and heavy into her hand, Ellie closed her fingers around it automatically. Bringing it close to her face so she could examine it in the fading light, she saw what looked like an old-fashioned pocket watch.

“It was your grandpa's,” he said, reaching over to open it.

“Wow.” She turned her entire body so the needle rotated to continue pointing north. “That's so cool.” Closing the compass, she ran her thumb over the smooth metal cover before holding it out to Baxter.

He refused to accept it. “You need a compass, baby girl. So you…so you can find your way, even when you're in the mountains.”

Her nose and eyes burned, and she blinked rapidly. “Thank you, Dad.”

Turning so he wouldn't see the couple of tears that had escaped despite her best efforts at keeping them contained, she moved over to where her coat was hanging by the door and slipped the compass into her pocket. Although she was sure he'd given her presents when she was little, she couldn't actually remember ever getting one from him. Ellie swept the wetness off her cheeks with the heels of her hands and plastered on a wobbly smile before turning.

“What do—” The rest of what she'd intended to say was lost in a shriek as Baxter grabbed her arm and hauled her into the corner.

“Down!” he hissed, and she crouched automatically, staring at him. Scooping up the handgun from the table, he slammed in the magazine and yanked back the slide in scarily efficient motions. When he held it out to her, grip first, she made no move to take it.

“Dad…” She didn't whisper because he had, but because her throat was almost too tight to produce sound. She'd lost him. The ghosts in his head had taken over, just like seventeen years ago in this same cabin.

“Baby girl,
please
!” The desperation in his voice made her wrap her fingers gingerly around the grip.

With a satisfied nod, he moved toward the table. Flipping it onto its side, he used it to barricade her into the corner. Ellie watched, the gun clutched awkwardly in her hand, mildly surprised that she wasn't crying. She didn't feel upset, though, just numb.

When he'd arranged the table to his satisfaction, he leaned over so their faces were close. “Center mass, baby girl. Remember that.” Without waiting for a response, he grabbed the shotgun from where it had been propped up next to the door and flattened himself against the wall. Moving silently, he picked up a two-by-four that Ellie hadn't even noticed and placed it into the metal brackets on either side of the doorframe, barring the door.

Because she wasn't crying, because her heart wasn't pounding with fear, but was instead thumping in a quiet, steady rhythm, because her breathing wasn't rough and raspy in her ears, because of all of those things, Ellie was able to hear a soft scuff of a boot on the porch, followed by the squeak of a wooden board.

Her first thought was that George had returned, and her heart rate did pick up at that, but common sense reminded her that George wouldn't
sneak
onto the porch. He'd stomp his monster-sized boots up the steps. Her numb despair started thawing at the realization that someone was outside, and that someone didn't want them to know.

The shadow she'd seen earlier flashed through her mind, and her gaze shot to the unprotected window. The wall containing the window made up one side of her corner, so she could see only the protruding edge of the window frame from her vantage point.

“Dad!” she whispered. When his head turned toward her, she gestured toward the window, hoping he could see her in the dim, red glow of the woodstove fire. There was a window in the cast iron door, but it was sooty and small and let out only a limited amount of light.

A crash of breaking glass had her ducking behind the table, her hand squeezing convulsively around the grip of the gun.

“Open the door, old man, or I'll shoot you from here.”

The voice was horribly, gut-wrenchingly familiar, and she felt the MRE she'd eaten earlier work its way back up her esophagus. Fighting down the need to vomit, she focused on breathing, on slowing her quick pants that sounded so loud to her own ears, and peeked over the top of the table. One of the windowpanes had been broken, and the man outside had shoved a pistol into the opening.

All she could see was the vague outline of the gun and the dark-gloved hand that pointed it at her dad. Her position was almost the same, minus the snow underneath her. Instead of an unconscious George lying on the ground, her father was standing frozen, his shotgun pointed uselessly toward the barred door.

A gust of wind whistled down the stovepipe, making the flames dance and illuminating the look of grim resignation on Baxter's face. Ellie knew he wasn't going to open the door. Her dad was going to let the blue-eyed man shoot him so she would remain hidden, safely barred inside the cabin.

A surge of rage burned through her, flaring like the fire in the woodstove. Anger at her dad for trying to sacrifice himself when she was just getting him back, at the man who wouldn't stop terrorizing her, at herself for cowering in a corner while her father waited for the bullet to rip apart his insides—all of it twined together and allowed her to raise the pistol with steady hands.

The fire died down again, but there was still enough light for Ellie to see Baxter shift his weight. She just knew he was about to swing the shotgun toward the man at the window, the man who could pull the trigger so much faster than Ellie's father could aim.

Turning back toward the dark shape of the pistol protruding through the broken window, Ellie held her own gun steady. The white dot on the center sight glowed in the firelight, and she lined it up with the others, just like her dad had showed her. Letting her finger slide to the trigger, she squeezed, smooth and steady.

The flash from her gun surprised her more than the boom, as did the yelp from the man at the window. There was a thump as the pistol fell from his hand onto the cabin floor. Despite her fear and ringing ears, Ellie had to smile. That was the second gun she'd taken from the asshole.

As the man yanked his hand back, Baxter swung the shotgun toward the window but didn't fire. Long gun held snugly against his shoulder, he made his careful way toward the window. Her heart tripping in double-time, Ellie watched his slow approach. Still focused on the window, he crouched and located the fallen pistol by feel. As soon as his fingers closed around the handgun, he backed toward Ellie's corner.

“Nice shooting, baby girl,” he whispered, handing her the pistol before stepping over the barricade.

Accepting the gun with a now-shaking hand, Ellie grinned. Praise from her father, she realized, was almost as nice as getting it from George. “Thanks.”

“Not sure if there are more than the two brothers,” he started quietly.

“I don't think so.”

“Or what kind of weapons they have besides that”—his head tilted toward the handgun he'd just recovered—“but they've followed me a long way. Don't think they're giving up anytime soon.”

She wasn't sure if it was the combat situation or what, but Baxter sounded as coherent as she'd ever heard him.

“I took this gun from him a few days ago when they tried to steal our packs.” Ellie held up the first appropriated pistol. “So they're down two, at least.”

“There was just the pair of them, then?”

“Yes. The guy in the window is Anderson, and the other is Wilson.”

“Anderson and Wilson King.”

“George said they're drug dealers.” At Baxter's grim nod, she hesitated before asking, “Why are they after you?”

He looked sad—sad and tired. “I've put you in enough danger. If he found out you knew… I can't do that to you.”

“Who is
he
?” Frustration joined the anxiety eating at her stomach lining. “Dad, tell me what's going on!”

Baxter remained stubbornly silent.

Cold air was rushing through the broken windowpane, battling with the heat radiating from the woodstove, and Ellie gave a convulsive shiver.

“I'll get our coats.” When Baxter started to stand, she laid a hand on his arm.

“You cover me, and I'll go.” Before her dad could protest, she swung one leg and then the other over the sideways table. Her pulse was drumming in her ears as she kept her gaze locked on the broken window, expecting Anderson or Wilson to come crashing through at any second. Ellie had already taken several steps toward where the coats hung by the door when she realized she had a gun in each hand.
How very badass of me.
With a silent, more-than-half-hysterical giggle, she pointed both guns toward the window and rushed to the coats.

Breathing in quick, shallow gulps, she continued to watch the dark hole of a window as she dropped the pistol in her left hand into her coat pocket and yanked her jacket off the hook. Hanging her and her dad's coats over her right arm, carefully keeping her gun uncovered, she bent down and grabbed her boots in her left hand.

Every second she was in view of the window seemed to stretch into hours. Without looking away from the jagged hole in the glass, she stepped into Baxter's boots and moved as quickly as she could in the oversized footwear back to their barricaded corner. Each step threatened to trip her and send her sprawling, leaving her vulnerable to the two men watching. Despite her fear, she stayed upright for the entire dash to the corner. Her father had his shotgun aimed toward the side of the window, only easing the barrel toward the ceiling when she'd reached the table wall.

Ellie wasn't finished, though. After she stepped out of the boots and dumped them, her own boots, and the coats onto the floor, she evaded Baxter's grasping hand and slipped along the other wall. This time, she took just a few steps toward the window in order to grab Baxter's pack. Those couple of steps seemed to happen in slow motion, as everything inside of her resisted getting closer to danger. When her fingers closed around the strap, her breath emptied from her lungs in a rush. Leaving Baxter to watch the window, she pivoted and lunged for the safety of the corner. When her knees bumped against the table, she hoisted the backpack before clambering over the barricade once again.

Relief made her shaky when she was safely behind the table. Her dad didn't look happy with her. The light from the woodstove was just bright enough to see the tight, flat line of his mouth.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “I just wanted to get everything we might need if we're stuck in this corner all night.”

He gave a stiff nod, not looking at her. They both donned their coats and boots in silence. Ellie couldn't keep her gaze from darting to the window. After reaching into his pack, Baxter held out something toward her. Accepting it, she saw it was a stocking cap and gratefully pulled it over her head. As soon as she had it on, he extended a pair of gloves. Although she took them from him, she tucked them in her coat pockets. Adrenaline was keeping her hands warm at the moment.

Dressed for the cold, they sat with their backs pressed against the wall. Only a couple of inches separated them, but it felt like a mile as Baxter sat rigidly, his gaze fixed in front of him.

“Are you mad at me?” Ellie finally whispered. It seemed like a trivial concern with two homicidal drug dealers just a thin wooden wall away, but she couldn't hold back the question.

After a long moment, her dad sighed. “You can't risk yourself like that, Eleanor. Not for me.”

That was wrong on so many levels that she didn't know how to answer it. Finally, she said, “I knew you had my back.”

Baxter turned his head to look at her in the flickering light. “Always, baby girl.”

Reaching for his hand, she gave it a squeeze. “Same here, Dad.”