Chapter Forty-One
The ambulance rumbled as it climbed the moonlit mountainside. Rocks skittered under its tires. Chance and Camden perched against the back doors.
“On our mark,” Parker called.
Chance unlocked the back doors and held them ajar. Time ticked by as they crawled up a hill.
“Now,” Boss Man said as if he’d pulled a trigger. “Go one and two.”
Chance and Camden stepped from the climbing vehicle onto a curving makeshift road along a steep embankment. The ambulance maneuvered around an uneven bend, and Hagan’s teammates disappeared into the sharp angle of the woods as he caught then secured the doors.
He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead to the cold metal.
Every federal agency had tucked themselves onto a side of this mountain, ready to descend through the forest like wolves.
They didn’t need a prisoner to exchange.
They could save Amanda and her mom without handing over his brother’s killer.
Alone, Hagan turned and moved to the side of the stretcher. The ambulance stopped. The warning cry of its reverse sirens wailed. The ambulance veered as if lost footing. It quickly lurched forward, jostling Hagan. “What the hell?”
“Can’t get eyes on you,” Parker said. “What’s going on?”
They stopped on a steep incline. A back wheel spun without traction then lurched hard enough to knock Hagan to his knees. “Car trouble.”
Supplies rolled on the floor. The suck and whoosh stopped. He turned toward the stretcher. Morris’s body struggled as his machine didn’t make a damn sound.
Hagan felt everything that Morris stood for, everything that he took away—then Hagan saw a plug had been knocked loose as supplies fell. A switch hadn’t flipped. The grim reaper hadn’t called. A goddamn unconnected wire had left William Taylor Morris’s life in Hagan’s hands.
Suffocating gasps sputtered, and Morris strained. Hagan waited for satisfaction to soothe the anger in his heart as he watched the killer struggle against death.
It didn’t come, and instead of relishing in the retribution, he found a harder task than murder—a single, undeserved act of mercy. Hagan reconnected the plug.
The suck-whoosh returned. The strangled dying ceased. Hagan held his breath until his lungs burned and let it go when he was certain that had been the right thing to do.
The ambulance stopped. The parking brake applied. The heavy vehicle settled into place.
“Target is on the move,” Parker said.
Hagan listened for what would come next. With Halle outside the home, Chance and Camden would move in.
“Twenty yards and closing,” Parker reported.
“Sparkler and Scientist found,” Chance reported. “Happy and healthy.”
“If not pissed,” Camden added.
The corner of Hagan’s lips quirked. “I bet.”
“She’s ten feet and running, strapped as if she’s going to war.”
Hagan heard his heartbeat as he waited for Halle to arrive.
The ambulance driver and his partner had been instructed to let her enter from the back and wait for federal ground command to approve the exchange.
Halle didn’t deserve to see her man. She’d turn around and realize her hostages were now well-guarded.
The doors flung open, crying, “Billy—”
Hagan blocked Halle. “Surprise.”
Her head snapped back, and she gasped. Her face showed one emotion after another like falling dominoes. Shock. Distress. Disappointment. Anguish. Exhaustion. Fresh tears spilled. She didn’t raise a weapon. “Will you let me see him?”
Her anguish stabbed Hagan in the back, and a million pinholes of pain radiated from his heart. His jaw clenched. “You helped him kill my brother.”
Despair twisted her features. Hagan didn’t see a single slice of regret for Dylan, for what she’d destroyed, only what she couldn’t have. Her chin quivered. “Please…”
“You’re not even sorry,” he demanded.
Misery and martyrdom clouded her face, and she whispered, “I don’t know.”
The truth pummeled Hagan. He wanted to shove Halle from the ambulance and deprive her of the last moments with someone she loved. “You don’t deserve mercy.”
Like the truth had sentenced her to an understanding of her cruelty, she staggered back.
Hagan hoped she hurt. He prayed for her misery.
His chin lifted high, and he drank in a deep breath, but it soured in his gut.
Life never made sense. Humanity wasn’t always good.
But he was and wouldn’t devalue his own pain by denying hers.
Hagan had lived through pain too similar to Halle’s. Sick to his stomach, he extended his hand.
Disbelief tugged her gaze to his. “Why?”
“Because…” He stepped from the ambulance and methodically disarmed her without a fight.
“People I love wouldn’t have suffered if someone had shown you there’s another way.
” Hagan helped her into the ambulance and zip-tied her hands next to Morris’s.
He locked them together and turned toward the cabin.
The sour taste in his mouth was gone. Hagan walked away, at peace.
The pitch-black sky had softened to a gray-purple, and Amanda had no idea what was going on.
She’d only slept in spurts, most recently waking to find Halle gone, replaced by two men in tactical gear who paused long enough to assure that she and Mom were still alive.
No matter how many times or how loudly Amanda asked, they wouldn’t untie their wrists or share who they were.
Mom yawned. “I could use some coffee.”
Amanda rested her forehead on the back of her bound hands and worried that Mom had brain damage from whatever Halle had gassed them with. “I wouldn’t mind a knife and a gun.”
The men appeared again, this time with an armload of security equipment that they dumped on the blue-checkered tablecloth table.
Amanda scowled as they walked by again. “If you’re going to fleece the place, can you find a minute to cut us loose?”
One guy laughed. The other pushed him to get back to work.
She eyed the equipment that looked as if it had been removed from their office.
Halle had amassed quite the stockpile, and before Amanda could wonder, the men returned with their hands full of weapons.
She kicked and twisted to get loose. “A little help?”
No answer.
Of course. Amanda tried to stomp her feet but only succeeded in pulling her ankle binding tighter.
She wouldn’t make the same mistake as she had last night when attempting to tear the hook out of the wall.
That rustic piece of metal was anchored to the cabin with voodoo magic. “Did you arrest Halle?”
They ignored her and worked through the pile, dismantling and organizing like they were the booby-trap-evading-evidence fairies that had come to childproof a crime scene.
“Try to relax,” Mom suggested.
Amanda stared at the Zen-shade of purple in the sky and wanted to scream. “How are you this calm?”
“I’m not, sweet pea.” Mom sighed. “My heart hurts for Stephen, Brooks, and Juan. I’m tired, hungry, and in pain.”
Guilt threaded into Amanda’s chest. She hadn’t asked Mom about her detail. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too, and I’m angry.” Her mom leaned against Amanda. “It’s okay to be more than one thing at a time.”
The two men walked out again. Not even a nod as they passed. This time, Amanda didn’t yell for their attention. “This was everything that I tried to avoid.”
Mom nodded. “I know. But you can’t control the world.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure that you do.” Mom wriggled against the couch. “You have to try.”
“Why would I do that?” Amanda asked, then braced for a science pun when Mom grinned.
“You’ll figure it out.”
There were too many other things to figure out. “Right. I’ll get on it—” The sound of a truck reversing wailed from outside the cabin. “What is that?”
The two of them craned to see out the window. Spinning lights refracted through the trees.
“An ambulance,” her mom explained.
The lights stopped. The reverse warning beeped on and off. Why would Mom assume an ambulance? Then Halle’s words from last night replayed. They won’t let him out. “She’s exchanging us for Billy.”
“I think that might be her plan,” Mom agreed.
“It will never work.” Amanda temples pulsed. “She’s an extraordinary planner. There’s too much risk—”
“I don’t think Halle sees a choice.”
Amanda turned to Mom. “Did you know about her?”
Mom shook her head. “Not in a million years.”
“I should’ve seen—” The missing pieces from Casino de Gemmayzeh lined up. Halle had planned and executed. It’d been an inside job to lure Amanda away from the protective reach of Titan Group. Billy was dying, and Halle needed a bargaining chip. “She planned Lebanon.”
Mom’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“I had a job in Lebanon. It went wrong.” She pressed her fingertips into the corners of her eyes, exhausted. “But I didn’t know why.”
“How’d it go wrong?” Mom asked.
Considering their current circumstances, Amanda wondered how big of a deal would her mom see an attempted abduction.
Probably a pretty big deal … She decided to save that for later and bore Mom into a new subject.
“The casino’s fiscal budget showed irregularities.
I didn’t realize the numbers were doctored until I saw a store listed with an outdated name. ”
“So?”
Mom didn’t sound the least bit bored. “Well …” Amanda chewed her lip. “A little Googling explained that the store’s parent brand had filed for bankruptcy. But unless you were in the know, it would’ve been missed.”
“Why would Halle create a bogus job?” Mom asked.
Amanda bit her lip then leaned against her mom. “I didn’t want to worry you.”
Her mom snorted. “Take a look around, sweet pea.”
“Hagan and I botched a paid attempt to grab me.”
“Amanda.” Her mom took a heavy breath. “You’ve had a very rough few days.”
Amanda snickered. “Don’t make me laugh.”
“I’m not trying to. What else have you neglected to mention lately?”
“I don’t know.” She bit her lip. “If I had just kept it together after Dylan died …” She shook her head. “None of this would’ve happened. I would’ve seen what was happening. Or, better, said something about—” Her stomach churned. “I don’t know.”