Chapter 7 #2
She stiffened and he couldn’t quite figure out why he’d brought it up. So much for sensitive.
“Not for a while,” she said after a moment. “It’s still the best fishing hole ever. Trout as big as my arm. Aaron used to say the fish congregated there on a weekly basis to commemorate the hilarious day he fell in.”
“I remember. It was a knee-slapper moment except that he took our bag of lunch in with him.” That felt good too.
Just for one small tick of the clock to revisit a happy memory of the three of them.
Just a trio of friends enjoying a summer day, innocent of the future grief that would forever mark them.
“You caught more fish than any of us, yet you never ate a single one, did you?” A fact he’d teased her about relentlessly. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I dunno. They just look so beautiful with their iridescent scales and all. They fight with everything in them to breathe and get back to the water. I just can’t bring myself to kill them.” She shrugged. “Silly.”
“Not silly.”
She yanked a look at him. “No?”
“Life is precious. Not silly to remember that.”
She smiled, a lovely, warm, radiant smile that erased the defiant lines around her mouth. “I suppose a guy who jumps in to rescue a floundering deer and then a drowning lady on the very same day would understand something like that.”
“Yes, he would.”
“Rescue is your life?”
“It’s my job.” Her pack shifted on the seat, and he set it straight again. “But I’m glad I was around at the right place and time, for the deer, and for you.” Why all the honesty, Gid? Why now? He had the sense that the moments with Mackenzie were about to expire.
Her lower lip wobbled. Suddenly he was taking her hand, cupping his palm over hers.
He squeezed her fingers and she returned the pressure.
Oddly, he found himself wanting to reach for her, ease the pain from that broken place that refused to be mended.
For a moment, he thought she might let their hands stay joined, but with a shake she let go, pressed the gas harder, and sent the truck rattling over his tender thoughts.
An electronic pulse buzzed from the glove box.
She stared. “What was that?”
He pulled out a cell phone as it continued to ring. The number on the screen said “Unknown.”
She stopped the truck and snatched the phone from him, flipping it to speaker mode before he could decide whether it was wise to answer or not.
“Ms. Bardine, you need to go home.” The voice was low, male, hard-edged.
Electricity jolted through his battered muscles.
“Who is this?” Mackenzie snapped.
“You know.”
“Yes,” Mackenzie said. “Bullseye, right?”
The voice dripped with disdain. “That’s your nickname for me. Clickbait for the social media trash who follow you like pigs after slop.”
“How do you know I’m in this truck?”
“A famous podcaster like yourself? I’ve got eyes on you.”
Gideon grew cold. Bullseye knew about Mackenzie’s online crusade. Had it allowed him to pinpoint when she would arrive in town? Helped him conclude she’d be meeting Lorraine?
Bullseye continued. “Like I said, you should go home while you can. It’s dangerous here. You’ve noticed?”
She stared daggers as she clutched the phone. “I have, particularly since you keep sending goons to try to kill me.”
“They’re loyal to me. Everyone in this town is. That’s the part you don’t understand yet. You won’t find anywhere to hide or anyone to shield you from me. This is your one chance to get out alive. It’s a gracious offer. You should take it.”
Mackenzie’s eyes flashed. “I’m not going until you’re punished for what you did to my brother.”
“You need someone to blame, but Aaron did it to himself.”
“You peddle death. You profit off people’s misery.”
“The opinion is irrelevant to the issue. Your brother’s choices got him killed.”
Mackenzie’s face went white and Gideon grabbed the phone from her.
Rage painted his vision red. “Enough,” he snarled.
Bullseye’s tone remained calm, clipped. “Gideon Landry, isn’t it? Inserting yourself into a situation that doesn’t concern you. This is not your fight. Mixing yourself up with her is going to get you dead.”
“You don’t get to exterminate everyone who crosses you,” he said through gritted teeth.
Bullseye laughed. “I don’t bother. I have people to do that for me. You’ll never get near me. You’ll die long before you see my face. You can’t win. Go home. The offer extends to you too. I’ll forget I ever knew your name.”
Gideon looked at Mackenzie and saw the mountain of rage and hurt and pain she was trying to contain.
Too much for her to live with, too much for her to let go.
In that moment he knew she was trapped, unable to free herself any more than her brother could from his torment.
She was bound to this man by her need for revenge. It would blind her.
It would kill her.
His blood pounded through his veins and coalesced into a rush of conviction.
Before he could speak again, she grabbed the phone. “You’re scared of me. That’s why you sent your men, why you’re calling now. You’re scared that I’ll expose you to the world and upset your business.”
“You’ve annoyed me, is all. With your podcast. Your deal with Lorraine.”
Mackenzie bit her lip. “I have an episode loaded already. If anything happens to Lorraine or me, it goes live to my followers.” It was all unproven, of course, about Bulleye’s responsibility for what happened to them in the police van, how Lorraine said Bullseye was targeting her and what her boyfriend knew about his business operations.
Enough to get the authorities to investigate, though.
“She’s not my priority. You are.” The silent pause crackled with tension. “Listen, because we won’t talk again, Ms. Bardine. This is my promise. You’ll die if you don’t go home, both of you. Your parents can bury you next to your brother.”
The phone beeped. Connection ended.
She stared at the cell and then at Gideon. “He knows about you.”
Gideon nodded. “His message was pretty clear, Zee. He’s giving you a chance to get out, walk away, or he’s coming at you with both barrels.”
“Us. He’s coming at us.” Her eyes sparkled with tears. “Gideon, I’m sorry I brought you into this, but it’s what I’ve told you from the beginning. I don’t want you here. You have to go or you’ll get hurt.”
He grabbed her hand and held it up. Palm to palm, he locked fingers with her and would not let her look away. The pressure of their entwined hands infused his words with intensity. “I have a choice in all this too. I choose to stay.”
She shook her head. “You can’t.”
“I’m staying.”
“Why, Gid?” The question came out like a whisper. “Why stay? Aaron’s dead.”
He squeezed harder and cut her off. “This isn’t about Aaron. It’s about you, and I’m not letting you do this alone.”
Her eyes glimmered like smoke rising in the sky.
He couldn’t help himself. He kissed her.
For so many years he’d wondered what it would be like to kiss Mackenzie Bardine.
He’d gotten a taste when she surprised him in his car.
A real, unhurried kiss, he’d imagined, would be tender and soft and it would light up part of his heart that beat in shadow. He’d been right, about all of it.
The kiss went on for a few seconds, sending sparks through his bloodstream. She might have warmed to it, leaning in for the barest fraction, until she drew away and they sat in awkward silence.
He struggled to catch his breath. “I don’t know why I did that.”
She shrugged, looked away, and pulled in a shaky breath. “An impulse, just like, um, before. Forget it. Get out of this town as quick as you can. Please, Gid.” She reached for her pack.
“Are you coming with me?”
She shook her head.
“All right. Then if you won’t leave until you talk to the guy at the airstrip, we’ll go there.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Why do I hear a catch coming?”
“After you get what you need, we leave. Go to the cops. You sort out your evidence when you return home, where it will be harder for him to reach you.”
Her gaze grew curious. “And you’re so concerned about this why? To make sure my parents don’t lose another child?”
“Not only that.”
“Guilt is a bad reason to risk your life.”
He bristled. “Do you think it’s the slightest bit possible that you don’t know me as well as you think?”
She considered for a moment, then shook her head, dismissing the kiss, dismissing him. “I’m going to the airstrip, and if you insist on coming, I can’t stop you. What you do is your business.”
Frustration banged through his nerves. Why was it so hard to be her friend? “You sound just like your brother.”
She flinched. “What?”
“He was Mr. I’m Gonna Live My Life Any Way I Choose. Always after whatever made him feel good without considering the consequences. It was fun when we were teenagers, but he never grew out of it.” His words were bitter, but he was too tired and irritated to regret them.
Rage blazed across her face. “My brother wasn’t your kind of person. And I’m not either, so please excuse yourself. Glad that’s cleared up.” She grabbed her pack and yanked the strings tight to be sure it was closed.
He wasn’t sorry he’d said it, but he’d touched a match to the gasoline. If he didn’t get himself together and rein in his emotions, there wouldn’t be a next step or even a next hour for either one of them. He cleared his throat and focused, then pointed to the cell phone from the glove box.
“The phone no doubt has a tracker. There’s a possibility the truck does too.”
She allowed him to take the phone, and he opened the window and hurled it as far into the trees as it could go. The truck was an older model, might not have GPS built in, but it wasn’t inconceivable that Bullseye had a device installed to keep tabs on his employees. No way to know for sure.
“We should ditch the truck.”
She glared at him. “I’ll say it again, Gideon. I don’t want you around.”
“And again, I don’t really care what you want.” Just the right mix of cocky and certain. He rubbed his chin. “Did you really make a podcast to protect Lorraine?”
“Yes. In the middle of the night, after I got my phone back that you withheld from me.”
He didn’t take the bait.
“I’ve got it scheduled to post if I don’t return. The police will see it. I tagged an officer I trust.”
“High-tech vigilantism.”
“If it’s the only way to protect Lorraine, call it whatever you want.”
No sense creating another argument. It was going to be tough enough to get back to his Jeep and from there to the airstrip. She could be as furious as she wanted, but he intended to be a barnacle on her back until she was safely delivered to local police or, best case, got back home to Seattle.
He grabbed his pack and plumbed the deep recesses of the glove box. “Might as well see if Al left anything helpful before we ditch it.”
Giving him the silent treatment, she looked under the seats to do the same.
He located a slender packet. “Score. A stick of beef jerky.”
She held up the bounty she’d found. “Two old saltwater taffies and a visor.”
“We’ll write him a thank-you note later.”
There was nothing else of interest in the truck except for tools. They didn’t need any extra weight to carry, and he had a bare-bones assortment in his backpack already.
As they exited the truck, stinging needles of rain drilled down on them. Mackenzie zipped up her jacket while he stripped away the truck’s spark plugs to disable the engine. “If we can’t use the vehicle, neither can they.” A small satisfaction, but he’d take what he could get.
“How long to your Jeep?” she asked.
“We can’t travel at night, so I’d say we’ve got about five hours of hiking today and another two in the morning.”
“If we’re not caught by then.”
“Optimism, Bardine. I’m not going to let us get caught.”
Big talk. Would he be able to deliver?
“Your parents can bury you next to your brother.”
Over Gideon’s dead body.
He marched resolutely into the storm.