Chapter 13 #2
“Exactly right. Okay.”
Outside the wind gusted.
Elena looked down at the map, then back at the others. “All right. Like Javier said, let’s do this.”
Sully and Piper had their vests on. Piper would stay with Ollie in the cabin with two vets guarding it. One at the front and one at the back.
David and Van had their vests as well and were armed with rifles and pistols.
Elena, Javier, and Felicity wore three more.
The wind had definitely lost all its baby teeth and now chomped through their winter clothing with a sharp, merciless precision that left no layer untouched. Not even the vest helped that much.
Sully shivered and ducked his head against the arctic blasts.
Elena walked beside him while Javier, Felicity, and Milo headed for the wrought iron gates ahead.
If the preppers truly wanted to blow up someone leaving the compound, the main entrance made the most sense to place a bomb.
If one wasn’t there, then he doubted there were others elsewhere. “You okay?” he asked Elena.
“I’m okay. Just wondering what all this is about. Me? Ollie? Something else?”
“We’re going to find someone to tell us that.”
“How?”
“I’m working on that part.”
“We might have a few minutes.”
“For what?”
“For you to tell me what happened with your former partner?”
He sucked in a breath that nearly froze his lungs. He coughed and glanced at her. “What prompted that question?”
“I don’t know. I’ve spilled my history to you, and I realized I know almost nothing about you. When we were talking about Piper and partners in the car, I could tell it was a sore subject.”
“So you thought you’d probe the wound?”
She flinched, and Sully gave himself a mental head slap.
“Never mind,” she said. “I don’t suppose I need to know. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
He cleared his throat. “I . . . it’s okay that you brought it up. You’re right. I haven’t done a lot of sharing because . . . it’s hard.” He paused. Just say it, Sullivan. “It’s my fault he and the witness we were protecting are dead.”
She stilled. “I see. Why do you think that? What happened?”
Sully’s shoulders tensed, and he stared out at the perimeter, searching for any movement. Javier and Milo continued their slow patrol. Felicity hung back a few feet, rifle steady, prepared to intervene with Milo should she need to. Elena adjusted her gloves as the group neared the gate.
“My partner’s name was Rick,” he finally said.
“He was antsy, but that wasn’t anything new.
He was always a nervous Nellie. We were holed up in a safe house with a guy who was testifying against a killer.
Rick wanted to move. Said he thought someone had followed us and staying made us sitting ducks.
But I—” His voice cracked, and he forced himself to continue.
“I didn’t notice anything. He couldn’t tell me exactly what he’d seen, so I thought he was just being overly cautious.
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in some instances.
Others?” He shook his head. “It can just cause you to jump into more trouble than if you’d stay still.
I told him we had our orders, and we’d stay put until backup arrived. ”
Elena’s gloved hand touched his and he welcomed the contact.
“I was so sure that was the safest play, and then it all happened so fast. I was outside checking the perimeter, making a wide berth around the house. Looking for any kind of weak area.” His voice came out raw and heavy.
“Then the place blew. Just like that. Rick and the witness never had a chance.” He clenched his hands into fists. “I walked away without a scratch.”
“How was that your fault?”
“If I’d just listened to my partner. Trusted him instead of . . .” He closed his eyes for a second before scanning the area again. “Maybe they’d both still be alive.”
“I’m so sorry, Sully.”
Her compassion just about undid him. He didn’t deserve it, but craved it at the same time. “I should have protected them.”
“You did all you could humanly do,” Elena said. “You did everything right.” She sniffed, and he thought he saw tears glisten in her eyes. “Sometimes you can do everything right, and then everything goes wrong.”
“Escaping the compound?”
“Yeah.”
He slid an arm around her shoulders. Then paused when Javier and Milo made a pass of the open gate, and Milo walked just outside the opening and sat, his nose wriggling, tail swiping back and forth.
“Easy, boy,” Javier said, patting his head, then slipping him a treat.
“Good boy.” He clicked to him, and they continued their walk like they were on a routine patrol.
“He alerted,” Elena said, her voice so soft Sully barely heard it.
“Yeah. I can’t tell if anyone is watching, though. Can you?”
“No. And we won’t unless they want us to know they’re there.”
A ranch hand passed by on a golf cart with a wave. Sully returned the wave with a two-fingered salute, the signal to let him know that there was indeed a bomb. The driver nodded and aimed the cart toward the barn where he’d report in to Maya and the others.
Elena frowned. “Will it seem weird if we don’t shut the gate at night like we usually do?”
He sighed. “Yeah. Probably.”
“So, how are we going to reopen it without anyone noticing?”
That was an excellent question, one he’d been thinking about. “We cut the power to it,” he said. “Inch it open and let Javier slip through. He saw where Milo alerted.”
“Right. Okay.”