Chapter 9 #2
When she opened her eyes a moment later, Pipe could see she was still upset, but had gotten control of her emotions. “You’re wrong. You’re all wrong,” she said, disappointment easy to hear in her voice.
“About what? About the information we found online?” Brick asked.
“No, that’s probably true. You’re wrong about thinking Lara is with this Ridge guy because she thinks it’s true love.
I don’t disagree that she probably thought she was in love, but she’s not the kind of woman to up and leave without a word to anyone.
Lara’s in trouble. I don’t care what your friend might’ve found online about him being an upstanding businessman.
Peter Ridge Michaels is holding her hostage for some reason.
And if I’m the only person who believes that, so be it.
I appreciate your hospitality, and I think you’re doing great work here.
I’ll get out of your hair and you guys can keep doing what you do.
Thank you for your service to our country…
and yours too,” she added, looking at Pipe.
Her eyes were full of tears she refused to shed, and she was breaking Pipe’s heart.
“Sit down,” Brick said. It wasn’t a request.
Snapping her head to look at him, Cora didn’t move for a long moment. Then she slowly bent over, picked up the chair, and sat. She didn’t scoot up to the table though, and perched on the edge of the seat as if prepared to bolt at any second.
“Like I said, nothing we were able to find indicates he’s holding your friend against her will…but it’s been my experience that no one is as squeaky clean as Michaels seems to be,” Brick finished.
Pipe looked at his friend in surprise. In the short conversation he’d had with the others, no one had hinted they might not be buying the good-guy image Tex had found.
“I understand from Pipe that you’ve looked into us?” Brick asked Cora.
She nodded.
“So you know what happened to Alaska.”
She nodded again.
“If she hadn’t managed to call me while she was in Russia, if she hadn’t been able to trick the asshole who’d taken her, she wouldn’t be here today. I wouldn’t be the man I am today. So…what exactly is it that you want us to do?”
Cora swallowed hard. “Help me find her. Make sure she’s okay.”
“We have the address of the property the Michaels family owns in Arizona. So finding her shouldn’t be an issue,” Brick said.
“We aren’t mercenaries for hire,” Spike added. “Or bodyguards.”
“We’re just a bunch of former military guys who own a retreat in the woods,” Tiny explained. “We can’t exactly cross state lines with AK47s and RPGs and storm his house,” he finished with a small smile.
Cora looked down at her hands, and her shoulders slumped. “Yeah, I know.”
“This is a tricky situation,” Brick went on. “But for what it’s worth…we believe that things don’t seem quite right.”
She glanced at Brick, and Pipe could see the hope in her eyes.
“You seem to have made an impression on Pipe, and trust me, that’s a hard thing to do. It’s because of my loyalty to and trust in my friend that I’m agreeing to help you.”
“Thank you,” Cora whispered.
“Don’t thank me yet. I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, and I believe you probably know your friend better than anyone…
but like Spike said, we’re not bodyguards or mercenaries or security specialists.
We aren’t going to Arizona in any official capacity.
We’ll do what we can to help you see Lara, but if she says she’s okay, that’s all we can do. Understand?”
Cora nodded.
“Any volunteers to go with Ms. Rooney?” Brick asked with a small grin.
“I’ll go,” Pipe said without hesitation.
Brick’s smile grew. “Duh.”
“Me too,” Owl said.
“Hell, if Owl’s going, I will too,” Stone said with a shrug.
Pipe wasn’t surprised. The two men were very close. Almost dying in a helicopter crash, and then being held hostage and tortured together, forged an unbreakable bond.
“Right. Stone, I’m putting you in charge,” Brick said.
Pipe frowned. It wasn’t as if they were a special forces team, and Brick wasn’t their team leader. Then again, he was basically the driving force behind the reason they were all in New Mexico in the first place.
“You’re not as close to the situation as Pipe and Owl, since they met Cora in DC.
I expect you to be the voice of reason here, to not get emotionally involved.
If you think things are hinky, then you report back to us and we’ll decide on a next course of action.
And you,” Brick pinned his gaze on Cora, “do not do anything to put my friends in danger. Or yourself. Or Lara, for that matter. You want to know if she’s okay?
Then that’s the plan. Talk to her, alone if possible, and see what she’s really thinking.
If she loves this Michaels guy, you’re going to have to learn how to deal with the fact that she now lives on the other side of the country. Okay?”
“But what if she isn’t? And what if Ridge won’t let her leave?” Cora asked.
Brick frowned and sighed. “Then we’ll figure out how to extract her at that point.”
Cora looked relieved. “All right. But if I can make a suggestion…”
Spike laughed. “Sure.”
“Maybe it would be good if you guys started thinking of some sort of plan to get her out while we’re gone…you know…just in case.”
Most of the men around the table chuckled.
“Don’t worry, we will. Has anyone told you that you’re really stubborn?” Brick asked.
She smiled. “Yeah. Lara.”
Brick nodded. “Right. I’m thinking you guys can leave the day after tomorrow.”
“Wait—what? Why not now?” Cora asked, the humor wiped off her face.
“Because we need to plan,” Stone told her. “We need the layout of the estate, we need to figure out our best course of action. We need more intel.”
Cora sighed in frustration. It was obvious she wasn’t happy with the delay, but she seemed to understand that she’d gotten what she wanted—namely, their help—and if she pushed her luck, she might lose that.
“We’ll see if Tex can get us some satellite images of the estate and some sort of schedule of the comings and goings of the people who work there.
Maybe we’ll get lucky and figure out Michaels’s routine, or actually see Lara out and about,” Tonka said.
He’d been mostly quiet, but that wasn’t unusual for the man.
“I’d love to find out if Lara goes for coffee, or to a gym, or to do yoga every morning or something, so we could catch her away from the estate,” Stone agreed.
Cora snorted. “She hates coffee and is allergic to working out.”
“Right. Of course she is.” Stone grinned.
Pipe hadn’t said much during the discussion, but he couldn’t keep quiet anymore. “We’re going to get to the bottom of this, Cora,” he told her.
She turned to look at him. He could see the worry in her eyes, but she simply nodded.
His respect for her rose. What they were doing wasn’t exactly dangerous, at least he didn’t think it would be, but she’d need to control her emotions if she wanted Lara to talk to her.
That would be Cora’s biggest struggle. He knew that without a doubt.
“Okay, so…Cora, are you okay with staying with Pipe?” Tiny asked. “He mentioned he’s volunteered the spare room in his place while you’re here. We’d offer you one of the cabins, but we’re completely booked.”
“That’s fine. I can’t afford your prices anyway,” she said with a small smile.
“That’s not what I hear,” Spike said, grinning. “Heard you had six K at your disposal.”
“Oh, but that’s to pay you guys,” she said with a straight face. “It’s in my bag, which I left in the car. I can go get it now and—”
“No,” Brick interrupted her. “Did you not hear Spike when he said we weren’t paid mercenaries or bodyguards?”
“Yeah, but—”
“No buts. We aren’t taking your money,” he said firmly.
“Especially not after we heard you sold all your stuff to raise it,” Tonka added.
“Any chance you can get everything back?” Spike asked.
“Or maybe you can buy better stuff,” Stone said. Then he actually blushed. “I mean, I don’t know what you had, so that might’ve been a stupid thing to say.”
“Wait. Is it cash? You shouldn’t be carrying that much money around,” Owl interjected.
“We can exchange it for a cashier’s check,” Brick offered.
Cora looked from guy to guy, seeming a little shell-shocked at the concern being shown to her—and it pissed Pipe off. No one should have cause to be that surprised when people were being nice.
“I…I’ll need it to get Lara and I back to DC, when I get her away from that prick,” Cora finally said.
Pipe couldn’t help but smile. She was so sure she’d be able to convince her friend to return to DC. He just hoped it would be as easy as Cora wanted it to be.
“No, you won’t,” Pipe blurted. “I’ll take care of it.”
“You can’t do that,” she told him.
“I can, and I will. Consider it part of the deal of winning me at the auction, since you never got your fancy dinner.”
“But I didn’t win you,” Cora said with a frown.
“Didn’t you?” Pipe asked, raising a brow.
She stared at him for a long moment, and Pipe felt like they were the only two people in the world at that moment. He would’ve given anything to know what she was thinking right then.
He was ninety-nine percent sure that she wasn’t playing him and his friends…but what if she was? What if showing him an empty apartment, the cheap dress and shoes she’d worn to the auction, even the nasty confrontation with Eleanor that he’d overheard…what if it was all part of some elaborate plan?
But as soon as he had the thought, Pipe dismissed it.
Cora’s emotions were too real. No matter how good an actress she might be, there was no way she could fake everything.
Besides, he couldn’t come up with a single good reason why she might lie about her friend.
If she wanted to get to Arizona for some reason, there were a hundred easier ways to go about it.
“I’m so sending those flowers to Eleanor,” Cora finally whispered.