Murphy's Law (The Bounty Hunter Series - Book 1) (8 page)

“You’re smart, too smart, for your own good, Echo,” Gerald said, pulling her gaze and attention away from Murphy.

“And you talk too damn much, son,” his father said, sending him a warning glare.

Gerald seemed to ignore the older man as he went on. “You suspected something. I guess you saw this little ol’ bank manager buying a big house, the Benz, the country-club life, traveling, pretty, sparkly things for the wifey. I couldn’t explain it away any longer on good investments when the market tanked.” He snorted. “I couldn’t even lie and say it was from the bank. How could a small town, border town bank manager get those kind of bonuses? Yeah, you figured it out.”

“Me?”

“Money laundering,” Murphy supplied. “You came to me to tell me your suspicions.”

Jagged little pieces poked her memory. Doubts had crept in, she recalled. How could he afford so much? His sweet, naive wife, oblivious of it all, brushed it away. After all, Gerald was the numbers man.

But other things rushed back, in broken slices. Murphy’s face when she’d suggested it. Was it guilt? Or denial? Now, she couldn’t sort it all out.

How much did he know and when did he know it?

“I’m going to be sick,” she said. She jabbed at the button and the window slid down. She stuck her head out, gulping in great, big lungfuls of air.

Without a shadow of a doubt, she knew that her memories were unfolding in rapid succession the closer she allowed herself to face the cold, hard, ugly truth.

***

Murphy grimaced as he exited the truck, dropping to the ground. It jarred him. But the blank look on Echo’s face and the more she withdrew from him tore him up inside.

What did she remember?

What did she suspect now?

The small, hole-in-the-wall gas station sat in the hot sun in the middle of nowhere. It didn’t seem like anyone was around. He walked behind Echo into the dusty, cluttered interior. The musty smell and heat hit him like a ton of bricks.

“Anybody here?” Gerald Sr. called out.

No one answered.

The henchmen piled in behind them, hooting, hollering and shoving each other.

“Pipe down,” their father said. “Get you something to eat, take a leak, and we’re outta here.”

Echo headed toward the little restroom sign. Murphy followed her.

“Oh, no, you don’t. I’ll go with her.”

“The hell you will.” Murphy almost snarled.

“I’m checking it out first. No escaping through a window.”

Damn, Murphy was thinking that very thing. There had to be a back way out of this place. Someone had to be here or near enough to get away in their car.

He yanked open the door and jerked back fast. The smell hit all of them full force. “Good luck. There hasn’t been any ventilation in there in years.”

Echo nearly gagged, but went in. Murphy stood guard at the partially opened door. “Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. Through your mouth,” he advised.

“God, this stinks. Why don’t girls get to pee standing up?” she asked.

That brought a smile to his face. When she was done, she nudged him out of the way. “Your turn.”

“Stand right here,” he said.

“Afraid I’ll leave you?”

“Look for a way out,” he said under his breath. “In the back.”

She seemed to understand. Crossing her arms over her chest and drumming her fingers on her arms, she shot him a pointed look. “Well? Hurry up.”

It was worse than he thought, but he quickly did his business. Before he left the restroom, he went to the door and asked her, “Anything?”

“There’s light coming from somewhere high. A sliver of light. A partially covered window maybe.”

“Great. We got nothing.”

He came out and directed her to the front of the store. The guys were snagging up snacks, ripping the bags open, and began to munch on them.

“This place got anything cold to drink?” Slim asked, searching for a cooler.

“It looks about as dried-up as your momma,” the one in the cowboy hat joked, smacking him on the back of his head.

“Shut the fuck up, will ya?”

“Come on, little boy, you just itching for a fight. Have been now for hours stuck riding in that truck.”

Murphy leaned close to Echo. “Something’s brewing. Stay close.”

She took a side step to the old wooden counter, reaching out for something. His half-brothers’ voices rose higher, drawing his attention.

They started to shove each other. “Take it back.”

“Gonna make me? Come on, you know I can whoop your butt. Just make me.”

“Settle down,” their father yelled. They didn’t listen to him.

Fists started flying. One of them slammed the other into a shelf, knocking it over. Years of old vapor rub and bandages sailed through the air.

“Quit it,” Gerald Jr. shouted. No one listened.

Murphy inched closer to the door. He looked around for Echo. She was nowhere to be found.

Echo didn’t know anything about trucks, but she did know a few things about vehicles in general. The cool open blade of the pocketknife she’d lifted from the peg near the cash register felt good in her hand.

She scurried to the truck she’d ridden in and slid under it. The dirt ground scraped her back and arms, but she ignored it and went to work on the lines above her. Working fast, she sliced through them, scampered back out, and then rolled to her feet.

Next, bent low, she raced to the driver’s side door of the second truck. Bingo, her guess was correct. The younger brothers had left the keys in the ignition. All she had to do was get behind the wheel and start it up.

Scrambling in, she ducked so no one could see her. Turning the key, she heard an unmistakable voice asking her, “Going somewhere?”

Her heart lurched into her throat. “Jesus, Murphy, you scared the hell out of me.”

“Move over.” He shoved her, none too gently, across the seat. He leapt in and fired the engine. He peeled out of the parking area, his door swinging shut with a loud bang.

“They’re coming,” Echo said, looking out the back window through the dust he kicked up, and snapped the blade of the pocketknife shut. She shoved it in her front pocket.

“Were you just going to leave me?” he asked between gritted teeth as he yanked the wheel. They bumped onto the main road and he floored it.

“You know I wouldn’t have.” She snuck a quick glimpse at him. The muscle along his jaw jumped. She jerked back to the truck close on their tail.

“Do I? Really, do I?”

“For Christ’s sake, Murphy, do we have to go there right now?”

“Just for the record, Echo, I never turned my back on you. Not once.”

She gulped hard. His fierce declaration shafted through her. Another memory jolted her brain. The look on his face, so like it was right at this moment, came back to her. His gaze drilled into her.

He’d warned her away. He’d said no.

She persisted.

“The gold,” she whispered.

“Yep,” he said grimly.

In the end, he’d gone along with her plan of stealing the gold right out from under the thieves’ noses.

***

Murphy glanced at her. Her eyes fluttered. “Echo, stay with me,” he called. He jabbed at the button and the windows rolled down. Blasts of air rushed in. “Breathe.”

“In. Out,” she said, recalling his instructions. She gulped in and let it out.

The hit on the bumper jerked him around. Echo bounced forward. He shot out his hand to grab her arm, stopping her. He dragged her back. “Can you get the seat belt on?”

He couldn’t tell if she nodded or her head jerked around. Relief shot through him when she yanked the seat belt around her and clicked it into place.

“Murphy, yours,” she gasped out.

The truck behind them banged into them again. Murphy held onto the wheel with a steely grip, keeping the vehicle on the road. He jammed his foot down and the truck leapt ahead.

They kept at it, ramming them, jolting them even more with each hit.

“Listen, Echo, can you remember anything about the hideout?”

“Hideout?”

He cursed under his breath. “They’ll never believe you don’t know where half the gold is. If we’re caught—”

“I cut the brake line.” Her voice faded, but he’d heard her.

A grin inched up the corner of his mouth. “Good girl.”

“You taught me well,” she said with a smile in her voice.

He must have let his guard down; they nailed them again. This time, the wheel spun out of his grasp.

Echo gasped. Leaning over, she grabbed onto the spinning wheel, helping him. The truck lurched from side to side. But, they held strong, righting it.

She glanced back. “They’re slowing down.”

He checked the rearview mirror. They dropped speed. “I think your plan worked.” Keeping his foot on the gas pedal, he didn’t let up, just in case. He wanted to put a hell of a lot of distance between them. Catching her gaze, he asked, “Now, how ’bout you and me going to get the gold we stole?”

***

Echo felt the miles drop away and slowly fragments of her memory return.

When confronted, Gerald had denied his involvement. Murphy had accepted it. She hadn’t.

She hatched a plan to trap him. He struck first.

Gerald had set her up, forging her name to bogus accounts. He was going to frame her.

“You stepped in. You swore he was just a puppet on a string for them,” she said now, blinking through the flash of images rushing up to her.

“I convinced Jack of it, too. It’s coming back to you,” he said, his grim features speaking volumes.

Now, in Colorado, he guided them up and down long, winding mountain roads, making her dizzy.

They’d been on the road for more than fourteen hours, only stopping to fuel up. She’d gone in to pay with what little money they had scraped up between them and grab some snacks so no one would see Murphy’s bloody jeans. On one stop, they’d snuck him into a gas station bathroom and poured nearly a whole bottle of peroxide on his raw, oozing wound. Infection had begun to set in. They’d patched him up and got back on the road.

“Join forces,” he added. “Steal the gold with him, and then out from under him and them.”

“Somewhere along the way, he and his drug dealer cohorts must have realized it.”

“I’d put so many of them away over the years, they couldn’t believe I would be on the take now.” He slowed the truck to a crawl. “Do you remember any of this?”

She looked out the windshield as they came through what could only be described as a modern day ghost town. Cars were parked in front of businesses. But shutters were in place. No one could be seen. No dogs or cats roamed the streets.

“Eerie,” she said, shivering. The feeling seemed familiar.

He rolled through town and made his way down the road. “Last time, it was night. We’d gotten lost. I barely remembered how to get here myself after you were hurt. Storm helped getting the gold out of the car. But, she doesn’t know about this place and where it’s hidden. She and I agreed its better she didn’t know. She stayed with you. I got it the hell out of Dodge and came back to be with you.”

“Murphy,” she gulped hard at what he’d done. “What about us?”

“How we met?”

Tickles of him on the fringes of her memory teased her. She and Storm were bartenders on Sixth Street in Austin. He’d walked in. She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. He couldn’t take his off her, either. His big, strong arms coming around her to lead her off to the dance floor rushed back now. His sexy smile and that hot, green-eyed stare melted her from the first moment they’d met. Lazy, drugging heat had followed. And it wouldn’t let her go, no matter how hard she tried.

“Where we’re going?” she asked softly.

“To bed, first.”

She chuckled. Tingles rippled through her blood. “I kinda like that idea.”

“Find Storm and Timmy.”

Echo clamped her eyes shut. “I…I think she got away. I can still feel her, sense her.”

He sighed. “Good.”

They were probably ten miles outside of town when he checked the mirrors and slowed down. The road he turned into was more like a brush-covered trail. He inched the truck along, stopped, shoved it into park, and then got out to cover the opening again. Coming back in, he shifted gears and they were moving again.

It took nearly another hour before he stopped.

“We’re here?” she asked.

Murphy nodded to the far-off ramshackle deserted mine opening and nearby dilapidated building. “Our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

With only a couple of water bottles to sustain them, Murphy led the way. As they hiked to the entrance, he kept a keen eye out for any intruders.

Echo felt exposed, but welcomed the gun he held in his hand. Even though the black tunnel vision had slowly eased into a fuzzy gray border, she still couldn’t predict how her brain would react.

As bits and pieces of her memories rushed back over the last hours, so had the pain lifted from her skull, the pressure just a gentle buzz now. There were still missing spaces, but she didn’t feel as lost or broken anymore.

He halted at the entrance. “I’ll go and make sure nothing’s hiding in there.”

“I’m going, too.” She’d rather be in there with him than out here alone.

The cobwebs and spiders yawned across their path. Murphy knocked them away as they stepped into the black hole. They’d walked for a few minutes when he finally stopped. His boots scuffled in the dirt and soon he squatted down. The sound of a match striking and the flare of the flame came next.

She helped when he directed her to a hidden lantern. Soon, between them, they had it lit. Murphy tucked the gun in the back of the waistband of his jeans, held up the light, and then led them deeper into the tunnel.

Farther in, there were five intersections. He glanced up and she followed his gaze.

Murphy went to one to his left, reached up, and then brushed off the dirt over the arch. He uncovered two dots. She shook her head, but went with him through that one. Deeper still, they came upon even more entrances. Again, he chose one, this one off the side, and cleared away the grime. A curved line pointing up was underneath.