The Buried Hours: A Novel, page 31
She set the bag of hard drives at the base of a tree and paused, her gaze scanning the narrow break in the trees where water flowed south.
She’d be exposed while she drank, but did she have any choice? She needed water. Desperately.
She crawled forward. When she reached the rock-strewn creek, she placed her hands on the shallow bank, dipped her head down, and drank like a game animal.
It wasn’t a comforting comparison.
Still, she wanted to weep for the relief of the cold water on her throat. She drank and drank until her stomach protested and threatened to revolt.
Then she crawled backward into the trees, grabbed the bag of drives, and retreated farther until she found a tree to lean against while she took a short break, just like she had in Yosemite only a few eternally long days ago.
CHAPTER 51
The moon was high when Signe set out again. She would follow the stream as best she could from the shelter of the forest.
Her belly sloshed with the abundance of water. Or at least it felt like it did.
With each step, she made her plan. Find the road. Parallel it from the forest until she found a house. Break in if she had to and hope they had a landline.
It was a good plan. A solid plan. The only plan.
But in the end, it was useless, because Roman and the three monsters caught up with her before she even reached the road.
She heard them before she saw them and swept the woods with her gun as if she were panning with a camera. Her hands shook as she searched the shadows. “Don’t come near me. I will shoot anything that moves.”
“You forget I know you’re a lousy shot, Signe.”
Roman. Taunting her. How had she ever worked with him?
But then, she could ask the same thing about Leo but also add married to the question.
“Why are you doing this, Roman?”
“I figured out what Leo was looooong before you.” He said this proudly. So smart. But then, he did have that over her. She’d been in denial longer than was reasonable.
“Good for you. Why kill him? Orders, or so you can take over his business?”
There was a pause and she knew he wanted to brag, but he couldn’t in front of minions.
Falcons, or more likely hitmen. Not a lieutenant like Roman.
He ignored her question and said, “Did you know Leo told my uncle to recommend me? Leo handpicked me to work with you so I could keep him in the loop. He worried you’d start working your own crime story.”
“And then I did.”
“And then you did. But silly thing. You called me and asked if I could take you into the park.”
“Yet you declined. How is the ankle?” The sarcasm in her voice was impossible to miss.
“I knew the minute you said Yosemite what this was about. I called the boss and told him I knew how we could find the missing workers.”
“They weren’t ‘missing’ and they weren’t ‘workers.’ They were enslaved men who’d escaped.”
“Men Leo enslaved, but whatever. I knew you’d been contacted. I told the boss I could find them. All he had to do was let your contact give you the coordinates. Your informant is dead, by the way. No longer useful after he sent the coordinates.”
Her heart dropped until he used the male pronoun. She was almost certain DiscoFever was a woman.
But not 100 percent.
She reminded herself that he would easily lie to demoralize her. She hated that it worked.
Roman spoke again. “Where is your lover boy?”
“Probably bleeding out somewhere. That’s what I do to men who touch me when I don’t want to be touched. I cut them.”
“Not true. I’ve seen the video. In fact, they cut you.”
The scars on the insides of her thighs pulsed with phantom pain. She breathed deeply through her nose.
Don’t let them feed on your reaction.
“I brought some old friends to see you, Sig.”
“Fuck you, Roman. Also, you’re fired.”
“I’m going to make a documentary about you when you go missing. It’ll be a sad one. All the questions. The spiral. We’ll keep Leo out of it, naturally, so I can run his business. It’ll be about where you went wrong. How your lust for fame and getting the big story led to you committing crimes so you could get the scoop. And then you just . . . disappeared. Poof. I’ll probably get a Peabody.”
“Without me, you couldn’t even get a participation trophy.” She shook her head. “You really want to be Leo, don’t you? You want the respect he had as a producer and filmmaker, and you want his cut in a grotesque business. Why are you so obsessed with my ex-husband?”
Roman didn’t answer and she wished she could see his face. She knew his petulant look. He hated it when she corrected him on how a shot should be done, but she was the producer, he was the cameraman. She had final say in everything.
“You think your uncle will finally respect you like he did Leo?”
“Leo didn’t deserve his respect.”
“On that, we agree.” She took a step forward. “Now, if you don’t mind, I have places I need to be.”
“You’ve got balls, Gates.”
“Actually, I don’t. And I’m good with that. Now. Go back to your boss and tell him you had to let me go because if I end up dead, Bobby Jenkins is going to deliver all of Leo’s files to the FBI.”
“That’ll be hard for Bobby to do, considering he’s dead.”
“Oh? Haven’t you heard? He’s very much alive.”
“No. He isn’t. I got the call an hour ago. DOA at the hospital. His resurrection was short-lived.”
He was lying. Just like with DiscoFever. Lying.
From nowhere, an arm reached out to grab her and she swung around and fired the gun. The man was huge. Built like a linebacker. For a heartbeat, she feared it was Cole. The horror that thought triggered told her she trusted Cole Banner beyond a reasonable doubt.
Then her heart surged with pride at another realization. She’d just shot one of her rapists in the belly.
CHAPTER 52
Cole couldn’t breathe. From the moment Signe engaged with Roman, his throat had seized with a level of fear he hadn’t felt since he’d searched for Jasper, expecting to find a lifeless body.
She held her own, but she was in the dark and had no clue where to direct her gun. She also wasn’t trained in weapons. Not like the men she was up against.
Cole didn’t see the shadow move behind her until it was too late. He’d have given up his position and shouted a warning if he had.
Then he watched the impossible. The man stumbled back. She’d shot him in the gut.
Rage took over the man’s face and he lunged for her. She fired again, hitting him in the chest. When he kept coming, she spent a third bullet and this one hit him in the face.
The man dropped.
Signe’s hands shook as she twisted in a circle, making it clear she could and would shoot again.
Cole had been an agent for seven years, undercover for five. In that time, he’d never once fired his gun in the line of duty.
Signe Gates was a force to be reckoned with.
But even in her moment of triumph came a mistake. A hole in her defenses. Henchman Three was in position to grab her as she turned in a circle. There was only one move Cole could make to help her.
He had to draw their fire.
“Behind you, Signe!”
Cole’s voice.
She pivoted and fired into the darkness that had been at her back. There. One of the monsters. He’d been within arm’s reach, making a grab for her. Her bullet and Cole’s warning had him turning as well.
And there was Cole, rising from the darkness like a specter.
All at once, shots rang out, coming from all directions, and she realized what Cole had done by revealing his position.
He’d sacrificed himself.
For her.
He fired again, this time in the direction where she believed Roman was. That left her to shoot Monster Three in the back. She didn’t hesitate.
It wasn’t until Cole fell to his knees that she realized he’d been hit.
There was one henchman left standing, and he turned to her.
She pulled the trigger and discovered her gun was empty. She didn’t remember firing ten shots.
The man approached her. The moonlight made his features grotesque as he gave her a malicious smile. He grabbed her shoulder and yanked her toward him. “Remember me? We’re gonna have us a good time again.”
She felt dizzy. She hadn’t come this far only to end up here. Her knees gave out.
The bark of another bullet echoed down the hillside, and the monster pitched backward.
A spot of blood sprouted on his forehead.
She turned to see Cole on the ground holding his gun in both hands. “Good. I needed you to drop. To get a clear shot.”
The gun slipped from his hands as he passed out.
CHAPTER 53
Cole had been shot in the side. She yanked off her shirt and pressed it to the wound, praying his lung wouldn’t collapse. That he wouldn’t die here. Now.
Because of her.
It wasn’t lost on her that he’d done the thing Leo had never once considered.
Protect her. Draw fire to him.
“Don’t you dare die on me.”
“Hey. Aren’t you the one who stabbed me earlier?”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She was relieved he was still conscious after all. “Cut you. Stabbing is different.”
Cole’s hand was covered with blood. He must’ve pressed it to his own wound right after he was hit. Now he touched her face and she felt the wetness of the fluid on her cheek. Could smell the metallic odor.
“I’m not gonna die on you.”
“I don’t know what to do. We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“Take my gun, I still have a bullet left. Approach Roman. Shoot him if he so much as twitches. Grab his satellite phone and call 911. Then the FBI. I’ll tell you the number. Also grab Roman’s car keys. His SUV is only about a quarter of a mile away.”
“I can’t carry you ten feet, let alone a quarter mile.”
“You get the car keys, I’ll find a way to walk. Promise.”
She did as instructed. Roman was as dead as the others. He’d taken a bullet to the neck and died instantly. Just like Leo, his eyes were open as he faced the night sky. But unlike when she’d seen Leo’s corpse, she didn’t have an iota of remorse.
She returned to Cole’s side with keys and phone. Her call to 911 was brief. She handed him the phone after she dialed the FBI.
He told the person on the line which hospital to meet them at, then asked about Jasper.
Relief flooded Signe’s system when he relayed that there was no DOA involving Jasper Evans that anyone knew about.
Calls done, the hard part was next. Signe had to get the two-hundred-plus-pound linebacker to his feet.
She was all of five foot three.
“I might find the energy if you kiss me,” he said, sounding alarmingly delirious.
Once he was on his feet, he still had to walk.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
He gave her a weary smile. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
With blood everywhere, definitely not. She pressed her mouth to his, then slipped her tongue between his lips. A fast, deep kiss. “There. Now stand.”
“Crap. Guess I gotta now.”
“Yes. Or I will kick your ass for lying to me again.”
After pulling the satchel with the hard drives over her shoulder so the strap crossed her body but the bulky bag was on her outside hip, she tucked herself under his arm and rose. He pushed off the ground with his other hand. They wobbled a bit, but they made it upright.
Walking would be a different story, but dammit, they would make this final trek together.
One slow, teetering step at a time, they picked their way through the forest. Cole almost tripped several times, but somehow they managed to stay on their feet. Which was a good thing because she doubted he’d be able to stand again if he fell.
At last, they reached the road and the SUV parked on the shoulder. Signe hit the button on the key chain twice to unlock the passenger door, then leaned Cole against the rear panel as she opened it.
“This is all on you now. I can’t lift you.”
“Kiss me again.”
She didn’t argue this time and planted her lips on his. She kissed him as if her mouth had the power of an energy bar and healing power of a shot of antibiotics and blood transfusion.
“I like you, Signe Gates,” he whispered against her mouth.
“I like you too. Now get up and in.”
“That’s what she said.”
She let out a pained laugh and shoved at his butt as he boosted himself using the open doorframe.
Magically, he landed in the front seat. She didn’t even bother with the seat belt lest he fall out the open door while she fussed. Instead, she slammed it closed, then ran around to the driver’s side.
Minutes later, they both were buckled in and she was driving down the winding mountain road toward a hospital.
CHAPTER 54
Cole was taken directly to surgery. Signe spent the last thirty minutes of the drive on the phone with the hospital and FBI so they were prepared for their arrival.
He disappeared behind double doors and she faced an FBI agent who’d made it there in record time. It wasn’t long before more agents from the LA Field Office arrived, including a Special Agent in Charge and two Assistant Special Agents in Charge. A crime scene unit had been dispatched to the woods and Signe did her best to describe where the bodies would be found. Another group was sent to Leo’s cabin.
She handed over her sack of hard drives. No time to scrub her informants’ names and faces from Leo’s files, nor would she taint the evidence in that way. All she could do was hope investigators would respect the danger everyone would be in if they used that information to make arrests of informants not directly related to Leo’s crimes.
In the moment, she didn’t care about any of that. All that mattered was Cole’s survival. He’d taken a bullet to the same side she’d sliced hours before.
She had regrets. Deep regrets.
Her heart surged when Jasper entered the waiting room, and without hesitating, she ran to him and he hugged her tight.
Finally, he leaned back and studied her face, which she’d splashed with water but knew still had streaks of blood.
“You look like shit.” He gave her his crooked, scarred smile, and said, “But then, I’m not one to judge.”
She shook her head. “Hush. I like your face, even if it’s lopsided.”
“Yeah. It’s growing on me. I hear chicks dig scars.”
“What’s the word on DiscoFever?”
“We found her. We found them all. Farm outside Oakhurst like we thought. There were ten who didn’t escape with the others. Maria—DiscoFever’s real name—returned the cell phone to the guard she’d stolen it from after sending the coordinates. He was getting suspicious, so she didn’t dare try to access it again. She told the person who interviewed her that she knew—from overhearing Leo talking to the hitmen on the search—that you were in Singapore. That’s why she waited to send the first message. She figured if anyone would believe the cry for help, it would be you, and she couldn’t risk local law enforcement who might be on the take—as had been the case when an escape was attempted last year in the Sacramento Valley.”
Signe took in Maria’s faith in her.
She’d failed. She had little hope the men who’d escaped in Yosemite were still alive, but at least now a real search for them would begin.
“We found Manny’s car.”
“I heard.”
“Leo killed Manny.” She shuddered again at the horrors her ex had been capable of.
“And it appears Roman killed Leo after they found the men who escaped. Search and rescue—or more likely, recovery—will begin at first light.”
She nodded, her thoughts bleak when it came to what she expected the searchers would find. “But ten were saved, right? Plus Maria. That’s what Manny wanted.”
Jasper said nothing, just cupped her cheek. She understood. There were no words. She wasn’t in law enforcement but she knew crime as much as anyone and sometimes all you got were small victories. She should be grateful there’d been any victory at all.
However, in this instance, there were some big wins yet to come. She managed a weak smile. “La Jirafa is going down for good.”
“You got the tapes?”
She nodded. “There was no time to watch more than a few videos, but I have no doubt Leo got La Jirafa Macho’s face at least once.”
“If he did, it’s all over for the crime lord.”
That would be satisfying. But first she had to wrap her brain around the fact that she’d been married to a trafficker just as bad. “Someday I might try to understand Leo, but right now I think I just want to hate him.”
“Sounds reasonable to me. I’m not a fan either.”
She touched his scarred cheek. “I can’t imagine why.”
He brushed his lips over her forehead. How far they’d traveled in such a small amount of time. “So tell me how Cole got shot.”
She shared the story once again. When she got to the part where he’d sacrificed himself, Jasper appeared to be holding back emotions. “That’s Cole for you. You know I told him to protect his career and just accept I was dead? But no. He knew it would get to the point where he’d lose his job, but he never wavered.”
“I—I had a moment there where I thought he was working for Leo when he told me he’d been fired. I might have accidentally cut him with a chef’s knife.”
“Blame me for that, Sig. He wanted to tell you everything. I insisted there was no way we’d get your cooperation. I gave him my badge so you’d believe him. Convenient thing about being missing and presumed dead, when my badge was never found, no one asked questions.”
“But we will now, Agent Evans.”
Signe looked up to see the SAC looming. Reunion with Jasper time was over.
