SASSY IN STILETTOS ARe version (34 page)

Tom cleared his throat. “He wanted me
here
. He has back up. Caleb isn’t stupid. He wouldn’t go
in alone. He won’t underestimate Sabine again.”

Micha dragged her hands through her hair. “Don’t
give me that bullshit. He’s all alone, and he has you here watching me. His
decision-making process is compromised.”

Tom breathed a sigh. “He loves you. He’ll put your
safety above everything else if he has to.”

“You realize that’s stupid, right?”

Tom shrugged. “That’s love. Now why don’t you head
back to bed? Or do you want some warm milk or something?”

Micha scowled at him. “What I need is my mother-fucking
man in my bed beside me, not a goddamn nursemaid.” She planted her hands on her
hips. “So are you going to tell me where the hell he is, or am I going to have
to fight you to make you talk?”

He huffed as if daring her to try. “Micha, it’s
late. I’m on the radio with the teams. They have this under control. You don’t
need to worry about him.”

“Fuck you,” she said as she whirled around.

“Now where are you going?”

“To put on some goddamn pants, then get my gun and
knives. If you don’t tell me, I’m pretty sure I can torture one of the others into
it. I’m going after him.”

“I can’t let you do that, Micha. It’s too
dangerous.”

“I thought you said he had plenty of back up. Either
it’s easy and a simple extraction, or it’s dangerous.” She dragged in a deep
breath and exhaled. “Look. I know this is reckless. But I’ll stay out of the
way. I want
you
there with him. I know the other
guys are good, but when he’s in trouble, he calls you. And
you’re
with
me
. And I get he’s protecting me, especially
after the night I had, but he needs you, and I’m not going to risk his life
because he thinks I need a babysitter.” She shrugged. “Besides, you want to be
there anyway.”

Tom merely shook his head. “You have one minute to
get dressed.”

Caleb sat silently with Sarah as the other car
pulled up for the meet. He kept his voice soft. “Now remember, keep the hood on
over your head. I don’t want her catching on that you’re not Annie until the
last possible second.”

Sarah smirked at him. “You know that place where
crazy cowboys jump on the backs of bucking bulls? I’ve been to one before. This
isn’t my first rodeo, Caleb. I can do this. I’ve been studying the girl for the
last two days. Even if my hood slips, I look enough like her to pull this off. We’ll
be fine.”

Caleb clenched his jaw. Easy enough for her to
say, she didn’t know Sabine. “Stay here until I come to get you.”

She nodded, and he checked in via radio with his snipers
as well as the three men he posted on the ground. Even with the backup, he
wished Tom were here. Sabine could still slip the noose they’d laid out, then
Annie would be forced into hiding, and so would Micha for that matter. Sabine
wouldn’t let this kind of double cross lie.

He climbed out smoothly, slamming the door behind
him. As he walked toward her car, he called out, “Really, Sabine, this isn’t
exactly filling me with trust. There are too many exits and hiding places here.
Makes me feel like I’m walking into a trap.”

Sabine smiled as she climbed out of the car. “Now,
Caleb, you make it seem like you can’t trust me.”

“Maybe that’s because I can’t.”

She clutched her chest. “You wound me, you really
do.” She peered behind him at his car. “I see you brought my present.”

“Not a present, we have a deal. I hand her over, and
you back off of Micha.”

“Yeah, yeah, your little girlfriend. I have to
tell you, I’m surprised she’s the one you’re picking. She’s too hard. Too much
like me.”

Caleb breathed deep to keep the anger at bay. “She’s
nothing like you, Sabine. I’d trust her with my life.”

Sabine rolled her eyes. “For the love of fuck,
Caleb, you can’t still be mad about that ambush. It was years ago.”

He tapped a hand against his leg. “But that was
our deal, wasn’t it? The whole reason you came here. You needed help. In
exchange, you would tell me who was behind the attack. To help me put the whole
thing to bed. We agreed.”

“Except you changed the terms of the deal when you
introduced your girlfriend and lost my little parcel there.”

“Same terms. Or I take Carlotta, and I bolt.” He
flattened his lips. “Or should I say Annie Sanderson?”

Sabine huffed out a breath. “So you’re not a
complete idiot. You figured out who she is.”

“What the fuck were you playing at, putting her
under my nose? You knew how risky it was.”

“Well, I was counting on your do-gooder attitude to
protect an innocent, after all. I worried a little when little Miss Harriet
Tubman took off on you though. I thought you’d gone soft. But who knew? I had
the right man all along. You were the perfect person to keep her safe while I
worked out my deal with Cabrillo.”

“How much is that little girl’s lie worth?”

“Don’t fool yourself. She’s no little girl. She
seems innocent, but she’s ripe enough to rent out. And then in six more years,
her trust will come into effect, and Cabrillo wants his slice of that fifty
million dollar fortune. He was willing to pay me handsomely to bring her back. A
cool fifteen mil for my efforts. Easiest money I’ve ever made.”

“And how much did you get for selling us all out
that day?”

 She smiled, but there was nothing light or
humorous in her gaze. Pure murder. “Back then, I was cheaper. It only took two
million. Hell, I had no idea I was underselling myself there. Fool me once.” She
rolled her shoulders. “Let’s get this over with. I want the girl.”

Caleb stared at her for several moments, wondering
how he could have ever thought her relationship material. How the hell had he
not seen the evil beneath? “And we have a deal, you back off of Micha?”

“Yes, little miss tits is safe from me. You know,
frankly I didn’t think you’d give up the girl for love, but who knew? Caleb
Atkins has changed. You’re evolving.”

Caleb bit his tongue to keep from telling her
exactly what he thought of her and signaled for Sarah to get out of the car. He
didn’t look back, but from the satisfied expression on Sabine’s face, she was
buying the ruse. He held his breath. Thirty feet. He could hear the shuffles of
Sarah’s shoes on the asphalt. Ten feet. He could hear her steady, even
breathing. Five feet.

Sabine actually smiled. “Come on, Carlotta. It’s
time to go. Say goodbye to Caleb, do-gooder. You won’t be seeing him again.”

Everything happened so fast, he only managed to
dodge Sabine’s thrown switchblade just in time. He jumped back, avoiding the
blade, and instead, stepped right into the light of her high beams. A single
shot rang out. Pain tore through his chest, before he could reach Sarah. As he
slumped to the ground, Sarah dove for cover as additional shots rang out.

Sabine ran, and Caleb muttered into the radio to
try to get everyone’s attention, but the blackness took over before he could
get out instructions.

***

Tom wasted no time when they reached the meet
location. The car barely stopped, and he was out sprinting. Micha did her best
to stay in the car, she really did, but she abandoned that plan as soon as she
heard the gun shots. Jumping out of the car, she ran toward the first shots. “Who
the hell runs towards gunshots?” she mumbled, even as she dialed 911.

From the corner of her eye she saw a slim figure
heading toward the underground garage.
Sabine
. She
used the radio Tom had given her, told him where she was headed, and ran right
for Sabine. She wasn’t sure what the hell she was going to do exactly, but she
had to do something.

She’d never been happier that she’d been keeping
up with her marathon training. She was able to decrease the distance between
the two of them. When Sabine headed for the tunnel under the convention center,
Micha took a short cut. Her team had done a story on the men who’d built San
Diego’s largest revenue maker a couple of years ago; she’d had a private tour. Now
if she could only remember all the access points.

Once in the tunnels, she used her cell phone as a
flashlight and called out for Sabine. “Look there’s no point in running, we’re
going to catch up with you anyway. You might as well face the music. I’m sure
there are lots of people who are dying to know about you trafficking a young
girl and arranging for her parents’ deaths.”

From behind her, Micha heard a footstep and
whirled around in time to get hit in the nose. She immediately doubled over
from pain, but recovered her training to kick out her right leg, landing it in
Sabine’s stomach.   

Micha stood upright and wiped the blood with her
sleeve. “Bitch, you owe me an apology.”

Sabine righted herself. “Honey, you do realize I
can kill you with my bare hands, right? You’ve taken a little self-defense
class or two, and you want to tussle? I’m happy to kill you, but you see, I’m
in a bit of a hurry, so if we could get this show on the road...”

Micha put up her hands defensively. “Look. This
doesn’t have to end this way. You do not have to do this.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” The knife
materialized out of nowhere and sliced deep into Micha’s shoulder. Sabine then
landed a gut shot, and Micha fell forward onto her knees. Her breath whooshed
out of her lungs. She locked her hands around Micha’s throat like Micha had
done to Trisha, but somehow Micha didn’t think Sabine merely wanted to make her
unconscious. Death was her agenda.

Even with her vision graying, she fought back,
bringing her head back against Sabine’s nose with enough force that she heard a
crack.
Sabine cursed. While her assailant was
temporarily distracted, Micha aimed for her instep with her heel, but she
couldn’t get the aim right.

“Let her go, Sabine.”

Micha forced her eyes open and stared at Caleb. He
was bloody, but alive. Thank God.

“You see, Caleb, I don’t have to do that, because
I already know you won’t risk her life. Your aim can’t be that good. And there’s
the chance you could hit her.”

“She dies, you die.”

“Yes, but you know, I think I’d be okay with that,
because you still won’t have her.”

Micha tried to speak around her constricted
airways. “Shoot her.”

Caleb’s glace was quick and fleeting. His jaw
ticked, and his eyes narrowed. His voice was low as he whispered, “I love you.”

A shot rang out.

Micha woke in a hospital room with Jaya and Ricca
on either side of her. Alec and Beckett were on the tiny loveseat, passed out. The
moment her friends saw that her eyes were open, they started in on her.

“Are you insane?” Jaya asked.

“I mean, to go running toward gunshots. I mean
that’s really stupid.”

“I mean, we almost lost you,” said Jaya.

“You have a serious death wish,” added Ricca. “You
cannot do that shit again, or I’m taking the shoes back.”

Micha smiled. Or at least she attempted a smile,
until she realized that it hurt to move her face. “You can’t have the shoes
back. It’s still my turn. Though I guess I’ll let you wear them when you get
married, like Jaya did.”

Jaya’s attention snapped back to Ricca. “What the
fuck is she talking about? What wedding?”

Ricca gave Micha a baleful glace, and Micha almost
felt sorry for spilling the beans, but then remembered Ricca had just wanted to
re-commandeer their shoes.

“Uhm yeah, we were supposed to Skype later today
and talk about it. I was going to tell you then. I had no idea that you and
Alec would fly back,” Ricca said.

“Well, one of my best friends almost dies twice, I’m
coming back. Besides, we have the villa for another three weeks, so we’ll head
back as soon as I’m done chewing Micha out for scaring the hell out of me. Oh,
and yelling at you for not telling me that you’re fucking engaged.”

“Can you both lower your voices? My head is
killing me,” Micha said.

Immediately, they were both contrite, and Ricca
started fluffing her pillows. Her head felt fine. Probably whatever killer
drugs they’d pumped her full of. “Where’s Caleb?”

Her friends exchanged a glance. She looked past
them to their men. Why wasn’t he there with them? “Someone better start
talking.”

Jaya took charge as she usually did in difficult
situations. “The thing is, he was sort of escorted off the property.”

Micha sprang up, only to have a myriad of tubes
stop her progress. “What the hell? He was injured. He should have been treated.”

Jaya patted her arm. “Yes. We know. So Adele had
you moved into this private room and threatened to shut down the hospital if
they didn’t take care of him and put you two next door to each other. He came
to an hour ago, but the nurses sedated him again because he started insisting
on seeing you.”

Micha reached for the IV in her arm. “Well, I’m
going to him.”

Ricca had the good grace to look panicked. “No,
honey, you can’t do that.”

Jaya again came through. “Look, if I can get them to
wheel him in here, will you stay put?”

 She nodded and lay back. Goddamn, she was
exhausted. “Yeah, I’ll stay. But I need to see him.”

“I’ll take care of it.” As Jaya worked her magic,
Adele Westhorpe came in, and Alec and Beckett woke up, making the room extra
lively.

Adele took one look at Micha and said, “You know,
there are easier ways to get out of a contract.”

Micha started to laugh, but it hurt her ribs too
much, so she stopped post haste. “Actually, I’ve been thinking about that. I’m
not one to run from something that scares me. But it still has to be on my
terms.”

Adele raised an eyebrow. “If your terms are
agreeable with mine, then we might have something workable.”