Chapter 35
Kat
Holly and I dove deep into Harry Potter, until Holly finally dropped off, her head in my lap. I probably could have wiggled away, tucked a pillow where my leg had been, but I couldn’t bring myself to move away from her warm weight.
I stared down at the two chicken salad wraps I’d taken off the platter in the kitchen while the story continued to run on the TV.
Neither I nor Holly could eat, not so much as a nibble.
A brick wall blocked my appetite. Mick had asked me to take the rest of the chicken wraps to the guys in the security room, so at least they hadn’t gone to waste.
The intimacy felt good. Having an innocent child trust me enough to fall asleep on me, ahhh.
Like being kissed by an angel. Who knew I was so damn sentimental.
I’d spent all my energy supercharging my defenses for so long, never sparing a thought for what was inside that barbed-wire perimeter. My tender, undefended heart.
I stared blankly at the TV, stroking Holly’s hair and remembering Gabri and Raffi so intensely, I could practically feel them. I remembered the smell of their shampoo, the sound of their voices, the freckles on Gabri’s nose, the way Raffi’s mascara smeared.
My attention was caught by the sound of a helicopter approaching. My first thought was Ethan and the rest, but they had taken the van, to keep a low profile.
I had decided to tell Ethan that I was sorry for reacting as I had.
Truth was, I understood what had impelled them to go look for clues about Shane, no matter the risk, no matter if they were being manipulated.
Ethan’s barb had been right on the money.
If I had ever had even the slightest reason to think my sisters were still alive, I would steamroll anybody on earth who tried to stop me from following up on it.
So it had been pretty unfair of me to get so damned snotty about it.
Then again. He had apologized so nicely. Maybe I should leave matters as they were. After all, apologizing was a muscle men needed to exercise on a regular basis.
The helicopter was getting louder. Maybe Ethan called for one to pick them up, to save time. Rich people operated according to different rules than normal folk.
In any case, the sound was pulling me up out of my emotional reverie.
I was too jazzed on stress hormones not to go and check it out.
It was silly of me to rouse myself, since we were guarded by an army of Unredeemables, for God’s sake.
Even so. I was a nervous and suspicious woman. I might as well give in to it.
I slid a hand under Holly’s head and held it tenderly as I inched myself out from under her, but Holly’s stress levels were high right now, too. She woke with a start.
“What?” she asked sharply. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, I’m sure,” I told her. “I just heard a helicopter, and I wanted to see who it was.”
Holly leaped up eagerly. “Me, too. I’ll go with you.”
So I went, holding her hot little hand, which was sticky from the orange and berry flavored gummies she fallen asleep clutching in her fist. We went out onto the terrace, and I squinted up at the helicopter, which was getting closer.
“Mick would have cleared them to land,” Holly said knowledgeably. “Let’s go to the security room and ask him.”
Seemed like a good idea, so we headed to the far side of the huge terrace. Before we got there, Holly let go of my hand and scampered ahead, into the room, calling out to them.
Her voice broke off. “Kat? Come quick!”
Her high, quavering change in tone made me leap into action. I hurried in the door, and stopped with a shocked gasp. Four men sprawled on the floor, unconscious.
“My God,” I muttered, crouching down by Cade. Feeling his throat for a pulse.
There was one, thank God, and it was steady. “He’s alive, honey,” I assured Holly, who stared at the men on the floor. Her face had a blank, shocky look.
I knew that look. I’d felt it on my own face, back in the bad old days.
I checked the other guys, ascertaining with immense relief that they were all still alive, but I was terrified and bewildered by the implications of this. How the fuck…? Drugged, I expect. They had to be. I identified Trey, Cade, Ryder, and Dale. How?
“Where’s Mick?” Holly’s voice was squeaky with panic. “Do you think Mick is sick, too? Maybe he’s all alone! We have to find him! Let’s go look for him!”
She ran out the door before I could shout to stop her, so I leaped up and gave chase, a looming dread clutching at my insides.
Something was terribly wrong, there was danger, and I had to get a handle on it fast. I sprinted to catch up with Holly as she pelted down the breezeway, to the stairs that led up to the helipad and the parking lot.
The helicopter’s roar got louder. Then Mick came into view, walking backward, signaling. Even over the noise, he heard Holly’s shout, and turned.
Oh, shit. I knew, the instant I saw his face, even from a distance. It was that look in his eyes. Burned holes opening into the pits of hell. The man was in agony. I recognized it right away. I knew that feeling, far better than I wanted to.
Mick had done this. He had done it reluctantly, but he’d done it. The drugged men in the control room were his work. Whoever was in that helicopter was no friend of ours.
Which meant, we were fucked.
Holly waved her arm at him, jumping. I grabbed her hand and pulled her back. “Come on!” I yelled, over the helicopter’s noise. “We have to go!”
“But we have to tell Mick about the—”
“No, baby. We can’t talk to Mick about anything,” I said.
Holly gulped as the implications of that sank in. “You think that Mick…oh no. He couldn’t. Kat. He couldn’t!”
“I’m afraid that he did, sweetheart,” I said, miserably. “Hurry. How do we get out of the house, and into the woods where we can hide?”
“Hide?” she squeaked. “We have to hide?”
“Focus, please,” I pleaded. “Help me. You know this place better than I do. We have to run right now!”
Holly’s eyes welled full of tears as she glanced at Mick, but she blinked them away and grabbed my hand. “This way,” she said, taking off at a dead run.
We sprinted together. The kid was holding up like a pro, after everything that had happened. I followed her off the terrace and down two flights of stairs, then out a gate that led to a wooden walkway that disappeared into the forest.
We took off down the walkway. I pushed Holly ahead of me to shield her from whatever was behind, and then saw the red dot of the laser sight on the back of her head.
“Stop.” A harsh voice shouted. “Stop running, or we’ll shoot. Turn around! Hands up where we can see them! Both of you!”
I stumbled to a halt, stopping Holly, too. The strength went out of my knees.
I couldn’t risk it. Couldn’t go through it again, the horror of seeing a little girl shot down. I squeezed her hand. “I am so sorry, baby,” I whispered.
Holly nodded, doubled over and panting. “Not your fault,” she whispered.
We stood there and waited for them, those little red laser dots of instant death trained on us, as men boiled out of the gate we had recently left, swiftly overtaking us. They jerked our hands back, and put plastic cuffs onto both of us.
“Really?” I asked the guy securing Holly. “You’re that insecure? You feel the need to cuff an eight-year-old girl?”
“Nine,” Holly corrected.
“Shut the fuck up, or I’ll gag you both,” the guy snarled.
We were dragged by the arms, back up the way we had come. Up the stairs, onto the big terrace, then down the breezeway.
Nicole was waiting for us, Mick next to her, looking ashamed and miserable.
“Mick?” Holly quavered. “Did you…are you on her side? Really? Why?”
“I’m sorry, Holly,” he said. “So damn sorry. They got to my Uncle Jay, and they were torturing—”
“Shut up!” Nicole rapped out. “Asshole. I didn’t tell you to run your mouth.”
“So sorry, sweetheart,” Mick said brokenly. “So sorry.”
“Don’t call her that, asshole,” I said icily. “You no longer have that right.”
“I said shut up, bitch!” Whack, Nicole bashed the pistol across my face, a sharp blow that made my head ring and my vision blur.
I lost track of the conversation for a while, and finally words made sense again.
“…don’t have to kill them! They’ve been drugged!
” Mick protested. “They’re still out cold, and they will be until well after you’re gone.
Leave me here, unconscious. Just leave them where they lie.
Let them think she did this.” He gestured at me.
“Wasn’t that the plan? Isn’t she the new fall guy?
She brought them the sandwiches! And I only escaped because I didn’t eat any, since my ulcer was acting up. It all tracks, see?”
“Fall guy?” That zapped me back to absolute attention. “Me? What? Who?”
“I wanted to thin them out,” Nicole complained. “This is the perfect time.”
“But you can’t. It ruins the story,” Mick pleaded. “You lose me as your inside man if you do that. If you kill them, I have to come with you.”
“Or I could just kill you, along with them,” Nicole mused. “That would look good, too.”
Mick gulped. “I can still be useful,” he said thickly.
“Hmm,” Nicole scoffed. “You think?”
“You still need me here to establish her as your inside man,” Mick insisted. “She’s your infiltrator. She drugged the guys, and screwed us all over. If you kill them, that story won’t stand up. There won’t be anyone to incriminate her. She’ll just look like a kidnapped victim to them.”
“Don’t try to do my job, Drummond,” Nicole said. “Are you wearing Kevlar?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I had all of us put vests on today when you—”
Bam-bam-bam-bam. She shot him in the chest. “You talk too much,” she said.
Mick stumbled against the wall, gasping for air.
“Did that break some ribs? I certainly hope so. It helps your story,” Nicole said.
Mick slid down to the ground on his ass, still wheezing for breath.