13. The Wait
The Wait
Janice
We’re packed and out of White Pine Lodge within twenty minutes of Perry leaving.
If he’s heading straight to Lockhart, there’s no point pretending the lodge is safe anymore. Going back to the community center would be just as obvious. If Perry or Lockhart security comes looking, it’ll be one of the first places they check.
Rose has already thought of that.
She takes us several streets away to a large three-bedroom home belonging to Nora Beardy. She’s in Winnipeg with her grandmother for a specialist appointment and won’t be back for several days. Nora gave Rose permission to use the house if anyone in the community needed it while she was away.
Right now, we need it.
From the street, there’s nothing to distinguish the place from any other home nearby. No unusual activity, no reason for Lockhart security to give it a second glance. Steve moves the SUV out of sight into the garage while Rose lets me in through the back door.
The house gives us plenty of room. I turn the rumpus room into a temporary medical bay, keeping supplies along one wall and the center clear for treatment.
The three bedrooms stay untouched. We don’t know how many women we’re bringing back, but anyone who makes it out of Lockhart country is going to need warmth, privacy and somewhere to sleep.
Two folding tables become treatment stations. Another holds everything I’m most likely to need. Trauma dressings. Saline. IV equipment. Splints. Sutures. Pain relief. Antibiotics. Oxygen. Warming blankets.
I add more blankets.
Honor has been held for thirteen days. Kai has seen her alive, but Angus saw a guard hit her yesterday. We know almost nothing about the condition of the other women.
Cold injuries worry me too. Once Kai, Angus and Jax get them out, they still have to cross winter country before they reach us.
Steve carries in the last medical case.
“Where d’you want this, darls?”
“Beside the treatment tables.”
He sets it down and surveys the room. “Planning to open a hospital?”
“I’m planning for whatever comes through that door.”
“Hopefully a bunch of women complaining you’re fussing over them.”
“I’ll happily take complaints.”
He kisses my temple and heads back outside.
The community drivers are being kept away from the house. Steve briefs them elsewhere so the extra vehicles and a collection of people don’t suddenly advertise where we’ve moved to. They already know their routes and rendezvous points. Today they only need to know when to move.
When Steve returns, I’m running through the whole setup again.
Transport. Communications. Medical supplies. Emergency routes.
Kai knows the terrain. Angus and Jax know extraction. Steve has worked through every contingency he can think of.
I’ve prepared for hypothermia, frostbite, dehydration, blood loss, fractures and shock.
We’ve done everything we can. It may still not be enough.
I stand between the two empty treatment tables. Fairly soon, women who’ve spent days, months, or maybe longer believing nobody was coming for them could be lying here.
The alternative is something I refuse to dwell on.
I straighten the blankets and check the warming packs one last time.
Somewhere beyond the community, Kai, Angus and Jax are preparing to move toward Honor.
I can’t help them with the approach or extraction.
My job starts when they bring the women back, and I need to be ready for whatever condition they’re in.
Steve appears in the doorway.
“Ready?”
I look around once more.
“Ready.”
The operation goes in a few hours.
Now we make damn sure we’re here when they come home.
Beardy House, First Nations Community, Northern Manitoba. 1230 hours.
Steve sets the laptop on Nora’s kitchen table while I finish making coffee. We should’ve checked in with Victor earlier, but Perry’s arrival and moving everything out of White Pine Lodge shoved the call down the list.
Victor appears on-screen from San Francisco with Felicity and the others beside him.
“About time,” he says.
Steve drops into the chair beside me. “Been busy, mate.”
“So I gathered. Start with Perry.”
Steve gives him the short version. Perry knew who we were before he arrived, threatened us with arrest if anyone entered Lockhart property, recognized North Star, then left without asking a single question about Honor or the missing women.
“And we moved,” I add. “Rose put us in an empty house inside the community. Owner’s in Winnipeg for a few days. The lodge was compromised once Perry knew exactly where we were.”
Felicity leans toward her screen. “You were right about Perry.”
Something in her voice makes Steve sit straighter.
“How right?”
“Seventeen years stationed in the region. Seventeen years receiving money connected to Lockhart interests.”
I stop with my coffee halfway to my mouth.
“How much?”
“Directly traceable so far? Just over one-point-six million Canadian dollars.”
Steve stares at her. “On an RCMP salary?”
“That’s the fun part. Almost none of it went straight to him.
” Felicity brings up a financial map. “Payments through a consulting company registered to his wife. Property purchased below market value from a Lockhart subsidiary. A mortgage discharged six years early by a numbered corporation. Investment accounts funded through two trusts with directors tied to Lockhart Mining.”
I look at the screen. Seventeen years.
Missing women. Closed files. Searches stopped after hours instead of days.
More than a million dollars quietly moving around the man responsible for deciding which cases deserved attention.
“Can you prove he knew where it came from?” I ask.
“Not yet. But Faith’s working backward through every transaction. The pattern is astonishing, Janice. Payments increase around periods when women disappeared near Lockhart sites or when complaints were filed against the company.”
Steve’s expression changes.
“They paid him by the problem.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
Victor cuts in. “We’ll build the evidence. Your priority remains Honor and anyone being held with her.”
“Agreed.”
I pull the regional map closer. “We also need somewhere beyond this community for stage two. Once we get people out and stabilize them here, some may need somewhere Lockhart can’t reach.”
Steve taps the west coast.
“MacLeod’s Boat Harbor in Vancouver.”
Victor nods. “Brian confirmed it ten minutes ago. Private accommodations are available, and he’s clearing a section of the hotel for us. Staff will be restricted, security increased, no guest records under the women’s names.”
Perfect.
“We can get them there once they’re medically fit to travel,” I say. “But I recommend we don’t stay here any longer than necessary.”
“Exactly,” Victor replies. “Local extraction first. Vancouver becomes the secondary safe house.”
Steve leans back. “One less thing to worry about.”
Felicity’s screen changes again.
“I wouldn’t relax yet.”
Steve gives her a flat look. “Wasn’t planning to.”
She enlarges Perry’s financial timeline.
“I’ve only finished nine of the seventeen years.”
I stare at the figures already filling the screen.
If this is what nine years looks like, I don’t want to imagine what the full seventeen will show.
Nora Beardy’s House, First Nations Community, Northern Manitoba. 1300 hours.
Kai answers the satellite phone on the second ring.
“We’ve moved,” Steve tells him. “Perry turning up at the lodge changed things.”
“Where are you?”
“Community. Rose put us in Nora Beardy’s house. She’s away in Winnipeg with her grandmother.”
“I know the place.”
“Medical setup’s here now,” I add. “Bring everyone straight to us after extraction. I’ll assess them here before anyone moves again.”
“Understood.”
“How’s Honor?”
“Still there. Still moving.”
It isn’t much, but right now it’s enough.
Kai confirms the approach remains on schedule. Angus and Jax are with him, the dogs are ready, and they’ll contact us again before they move on the compound.
“Anything changed at North Star?” Steve asks.
“Nothing we can see.”
“And Honor?”
“Still following her normal routine. If she gets the laundry outside, we’ll know she’s received the signal.”
Steve nods even though Kai can’t see him. “Right. Keep us updated.”
“We will.”
The call ends.
After that, there’s nothing left to organize.
I hate this part.
The medical supplies are ready. The three bedrooms have clean sheets and extra blankets.
Rose has quietly gathered clothes in different sizes without telling anyone why.
Food is waiting in the kitchen. The drivers know their instructions.
Victor knows where we are, and MacLeod’s Boat Harbor is ready once we can safely move whoever comes back.
Every practical problem I can solve has been solved.
So Steve and I wait.
I check the clock above the kitchen doorway again.
“Jan, glaring at the bloody thing won’t make it go faster.”
“I know.”
“You’ve checked it four times in ten minutes.”
“Then stop counting.”
His mouth curves as he reaches for my hand.
Perry knows who we are. He knows where we were staying, and he drove directly to Lockhart after leaving us. If this operation goes wrong, the danger won’t necessarily stay one hundred and twenty kilometers away.
Steve’s thinking the same thing.
“If trouble comes here,” he says, “you get Rose and the others moving. Don’t wait for me.”
I look at him. “Same rule applies to you.”
“Jan.”
“Same rule, Steve.”
He holds my gaze, then nods. “Same rule.”
That’s all either of us needs to say.
We’ve planned the evacuation routes. Rose knows when to use them. The drivers know where to go. If Lockhart comes after this community, Steve and I each know what the other expects.
We set it aside.
There’s a couch in the living room beside a wide window overlooking a backyard buried beneath snow. Steve pulls me down beside him and wraps one of Nora’s spare blankets around us.
I curl into his side, his arm around me, my hand resting over his.
Outside, the community carries on as though nothing is about to happen. A truck passes at the end of the street. Snow slips from the branch of a spruce. Somewhere far beyond those trees, Kai, Angus and Jax are preparing to bring Honor and whoever is with her home.
Soon, the satellite phone will ring.
Until it does, there’s nothing Steve or I can do except wait.
I settle closer beneath the blanket.
We’ve got less than an hour before everything starts moving.
I intend to spend every minute of it with him.
Nora Beardy’s House, First Nations Community, Northern Manitoba. 1315 hours.
We sit together on the sofa, wrapped in a thick wool blanket, watching the snow drift silently past the living room window.
The hard realities, the what-ifs and the promises have all been spoken.
Now, in the final quiet hour before the operation begins, there’s only this room and the wordless language we’ve built through every mission and our marriage.
Steve shifts beside me, pulling me closer against his side. His hand slides beneath the hem of my jumper, his warm palm gliding over my ribs and slipping under the lace of my bra. He cups my breast, his thumb gently rolling over my pebbled nipple until a shiver runs down my spine.
He tugs my jumper up over my chest, leaning down to take my peak into his mouth. He laves and sucks with slow, thorough warmth, making me moan as my fingers entangle in his hair.
My free hand wanders down to his crotch, palming his weight through his denim until his erection hardens beneath my touch.
I reach down and unclip the stud button and unzip his fly, flashing him a quick grin as I reach into his boxer briefs to free him.
My thumb strokes the velvety head, my fist smoothing up and down his shaft while he closes his eyes, letting out a low, gravelly breath.
After a moment of enjoying the sensation, Steve sits up and kicks off his boots, shedding his jeans and briefs in one quick motion. I strip off my own jeans and panties, swinging my leg over his lap to straddle his thighs.
I slide down onto his hard shaft as he holds it, filling myself completely. The sensation takes my breath away. I plant my hands over the back of the sofa, leaning in to capture his lips in a deep, lingering kiss.
He tastes like the hot chocolate we drank earlier, and I can even discern a hint of marshmallow sweetness.
Steve grips the full curves of my backside, guiding my movement. I move up and down his length, incorporating slow, teasing circles as I grind against his pelvis. Each time I lift, I deliberately squeeze his shaft tight with my inner walls, holding him captive.
“Vixen,” Steve rumbles against my lips, his grip tightening on my hips. “You know what that does to me, darls. I won’t last.”
“I know,” I whisper back, leaning down to press another kiss to his jaw as I increase the pace.
He matches my tempo, his hands lifting and pulling me down against his driving thrusts. The heat builds rapidly between us, burning away the frozen wilderness outside until neither of us can hold back.
My inner muscles clamp down around him in an intense, rolling climax. Steve groans heavily, his head falling back against the cushions as he thrusts deep one last time, spilling his release into me.
We collapse together into a boneless pile on the velvet cushions, completely spent. Steve reaches down, pulling the warm woolen blanket back over both of us. He holds me tight against him as we lie in the quiet room, patiently waiting for that phone call.