Blindsided (8 page)

NINE

“‘L
et us throw off everything that hinders,’” Maddie spoke into the tension-filled convenience store. “‘And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus.’”

Ethan took his attention away from surveying the scene outside. “What does that mean?” he asked.

“It’s a promise from the Bible. Jesus has already gone before you. He has marked out your path. You can’t stop now, but you must let go of the things that hinder you.” Maddie put her hand on her chest. “Forget about me. Leave me here. I’m just going to slow you down.”

“No!” Roni ran back to the girl, grabbing her upper arms. “I am not leaving you behind. What if Ramsey’s men find you? Or if the authorities get to you first, they might deport you back to your family who sold you in the first place.”

“My mother believed in the fairy tale that I would be given a better life. I don’t fault her for selling me.”

“But can you go back?”

“No.” Maddie dropped her gaze for a moment. “I can never go home. But I can’t hold you back either. I’m hindering you just like the scripture says. Leave me here, and make a run for it. Please. I want you to be free. That’s all I’ve wanted from the moment I met you.”

“You believe in freedom for me, but not for you. Why? Why can’t you see freedom is for both of us?”

“Believe it or not, Roni, I’m already free.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I know you don’t, but I pray someday you will.”

Ethan watched the exchange between the women while he kept one eye to the sky. “You ladies forget I’m in charge now, and I’m not leaving anyone behind.”

Maddie frowned. “You, too, Agent Ethan, have things hindering you that you have to let go of. Not only me. You can’t win your race if you are tangled up in your past. You also can’t win if I am holding you back.”

“No,” Roni jumped in. “Now’s not the time to be breaking up our team. Now’s the time we work together and become stronger. We need to stick together. You don’t hinder us, Maddie. You help us. You swiped me the key to the car. I would have gone nowhere without that. And your exchange of the key to me was brilliant. As smooth as a perfect baton pass in a relay.” She looked to the ceiling, insinuating the thrumming sound of the helicopter above. “This is just another exchange we need to make...but as a
team
.”

“But I can’t help you now. I don’t have anything to offer to get us out of here safely.”

Roni implored Ethan for his assistance in convincing Maddie to stick with them, a team as she called them. She didn’t know what she was asking, the danger it would mean for them. He was supposed to work alone only. Nobody got hurt that way.

“Come on, Ethan. In a race, the runners only have twenty meters to make that pass. If they miss it, they’re out. Disqualified. The whole team, Ethan, not just one person. The whole team. Our time is running out. Are you in or out?”

“No,” Ethan snapped. “I am a federal agent. You are civilians. This is not a team, and I am in charge. Do you understand?”

Roni shrank back. She swallowed hard. “Sure. I understand.” She pursed her lips. “So, what will you have us do,
boss
?”

Ethan ignored Roni’s tone of degradation. She would have to learn his job was to keep her safe. “Keep away from the windows. I’m going out first. I’ll wave to you to come when I know who we’re dealing with.”

“And what if it’s Ramsey’s men and not yours?”

“I’ll stay under the canopy until I know.”

“And then what? I follow you out and turn myself in? That’s your big plan? I guess I’m not surprised. They’re your real team. We’re not.”

“Just follow my orders, and no one gets hurt.” He hoped. The last time someone got hurt his orders were also followed. A lot of good they did.

Ethan pushed the glass door wide and stepped out under the canopy. The helicopter’s motor whomped louder as he left the protection of the convenience store. Still he remained under the canopy and clear from exposure. A few steps toward the edge of the awning would tell him who he was dealing with.

The smell of gasoline smacked hard, but not as hard as the realization of his fear. One peek out from under the awning and he could be riddled with holes. Not the best approach, but what else could he do? Call for backup, he supposed. But deep down he worried his backup was up above, already here and ready to take Roni in.

Or down.

Ethan took his first step out from under the canopy, but before he made himself known, a car screamed into the parking lot behind him. Ethan swung around to catch a quick glance at Roni’s Porsche.

A man was at the wheel, but Ethan didn’t get a good look at his face because of the gun the driver pointed out the window.

Three shots wrenched the air, none at Ethan himself. Still, Ethan dropped to the concrete out of procedure. He lifted his gun to shoot, but two more shots blasted beneath the canopy.

Again, not at him.

To his left he saw the direction the gun aimed. Ethan wished he had been the target when he saw what the shooter shot at.

A propane tank on the side of the store.

Ethan scrambled to his feet and made it to the door at the same time he heard the car scream out of the parking lot. He ducked low, knowing what was coming his way. He launched himself into the store as a huge explosion threw him farther inside.

Glass sprayed in every direction as the women screamed and ran. His back stung from the flying shards. Ethan hit the tiled floor in a roll, glass slicing his forearms and palms when he pushed up to stay in motion and make tracks. Screams from the back of the store pulled him in that direction.

He had to get Roni and Maddie and the clerk out of here before this place blew miles up into the sky.

“Roni!” Ethan pushed past the pain his dive into the store had caused.

“Back here!” Sam called.

A quick glance over his shoulder at the blown-out storefront showed a crater where he had stood outside. Fire-extinguishing foam spewed down from the part of the canopy still erect, but the fire roared on. The whole station could blow when it found the gasoline.

Ethan ran to the back. Maddie’s eyes were awash with fear as she glanced past Sam’s shoulder. The boy had used his body as a shield for the women. Nice thought, but fire was a beast that wouldn’t let a little flesh stand in its way.

“Get outside!” Ethan ran at them, driving them to move.

Sam snapped to, but when he stepped forward, Ethan caught his first sight of Roni—frozen against the wall.

Ethan reached for her. “Come on! We have to go. This place could blow if that fire isn’t put out by the foam. Roni! Are you listening to me?”

Nothing.

She gave no inclination she even heard him. Her eyes were open. Her lashes blinked. Her hand held her neck.

Her hand held her neck.

The sight before Ethan nearly undid him. Suspended in her painful memories, he knew her mind sheltered her from more. Ethan reached his arms around her and scooped her up in a cradle hold. “I’ve got you. Do you hear me, Roni? I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Sam held the door for Ethan to make his escape. The car remained in its hiding place beneath the trees. The three of them ducked as they made their way to the car, but a quick glance overhead showed the helicopter was gone. His head craned to see where the enemy might be, but a second fire off to his right stopped his surveillance.

The helicopter lay crashed and burning.

But how?

Ethan pulled the passenger door wide and placed Roni gently there. He buckled her in as he realized when the explosion threw him into the store, it must have shot up and brought the helicopter down, as well.

Pace
.

Ethan ran around to the driver’s door but couldn’t get in. Not until he knew if his lifelong friend was in that burning chopper.

“Sir?” Sam called from the backseat of the car. The boy’s voice shook. “Shouldn’t we get out of here? This whole place could blow up.”

Ethan nodded to Sam but still didn’t take his seat. His gaze wandered to Roni’s ashen face.

Flames danced in the reflection of her glassy eyes. He followed her line of vision to the shooting billows. What was going through her mind? he wondered. The way she still grabbed her neck gave him a hint.

A pain that went beyond his pain of poverty. He’d misjudged her on so many levels. Saying she wouldn’t understand real pain had been a major slipup on his part. He wronged her, but he wouldn’t do it again.

Ethan made his decision and took the driver’s seat. He fitted the rectangular key into the ignition. The car purred to life and he put it in gear, passing the flaming helicopter without a glance. He didn’t need to look for the driver of Roni’s Porsche to know he was long gone. Did the guy know his foil had been foiled? Did he know he actually might have saved them all, instead?

Ethan looked over at Roni after he pulled out on the open road. Her head turned to watch the flames get smaller and smaller as he sped the car away from the site. He reached for her hand still on her neck, glad when she didn’t fight him.

So cold her hand felt in his palm.

So lifeless, too. She may not have fought him when she let him take her hand, but she didn’t offer anything either.

Ethan thought it strange that her coldness bothered him. He, himself, never gave anything to anyone either. The two of them were cut from the same cloth. Two Lone Rangers forging their own paths in life, alone but in charge.

But alone never felt so cold.

* * *

Uncle Clay was right. What was she thinking opening a racing school? She didn’t have what it took, but it had nothing to do with being a woman in a man’s sport.

“I’m not qualified,” she mumbled, the first words since the explosion.

Ethan squeezed her hand. She looked down and noticed dried blood on his. The sight of blood never bothered her. Racers were always getting banged up and in need of bandaging. Roni had even bandaged her sister-in-law up one night when she had been shot. Roni never got squeamish.

But apparently she froze at being in a fire.

She’d seen them from afar on the racetrack, but had never been in one...except for the one as a child.

“What aren’t you qualified for?” Ethan asked, his voice low and concerned.

“Opening a racing school.”

“I’ve seen you drive. You’re qualified.”

Roni slowly turned her head in his direction, blinking to snap out of the shock of her limitations. Limitations she never knew she had. “I always thought so, too. I thought I could deliver. I taught Jared to race and brought him up the ranks. If I could do that with him, surely I had what it took. But what kind of teacher would I be if I can’t be around fire? I froze back there. You saw it. You saw me!”

“Okay, yes, I did, but you can’t make a life-altering decision in the wake of that scene back there. That was an attack on your life, not an accident.”

“Accidents on the track can kill, too.”

“Yes, but nobody wants them to. That’s the difference. That explosion back there was purposely triggered, and the fear you’re experiencing is because you were cornered in it with no way out.”

Roni looked out the window, but the dense forests flew by in a blur. “No. The fear only came when the flames did. I’ve spent all my racing years learning ways to break away from careening out-of-control cars not because I wanted to win, but because smashed cars tend to catch on fire. I can’t believe I never saw this before. I wasn’t racing to the finish line. I was running for my life.” Saying the words out loud raised her voice as more of her past actions became clear. “Do you know how twisted that is? Since I was three years old, I have tried to forget what caused my pain, but in some warped part of my brain, I played with the one thing I knew could cripple me again. It’s as though I had to prove to myself that I would win this time.”

“Is that why you took on Jared Finlay as a student? You feared him?”

“I didn’t fear Jared.” The comment took Roni out of her reflection. “What would make you say that? I ended that relationship with no problem, and I only entered into it as a favor to Cora.”

“Why would your maid care who you dated?”

“She didn’t, but she did ask me to teach him to race. Cora is Jared’s aunt. He’s her sister’s son. Jared’s father ran out on them years ago. He’s a gambler and his addiction left them destitute. Cora asked me to teach Jared what I knew to help them. It was the least I could do. Cora has always been there for me.”

“So when did you start dating?”

“That came later, when Jared started winning big. It was an exciting time, for both of us. He made a public profession of love to me. I thought it was so romantic. I know now it was a PR ploy to make sure the public thought I was only his girlfriend in the pits. Nothing more. He hated telling people I was his trainer.”

“Sounds like a great guy. Made sure not only your scars were covered up, but also your brains. Was today the first day he tried to kill you? Or have there been other attempts?”

Roni faced Ethan, confused at his words.

“His method of choice back at the station tells me he knew you feared fire.”

Roni looked to the rearview window. The station was long gone, but Maddie’s and Sam’s stunned faces in the backseat had to mirror her own.

“Are you telling me Jared caused that explosion?”

“I didn’t get a good look at the face behind the gun, but it was a man and he was driving your Porsche. You seem to think it’s Jared. So, tell me, does Jared have any reason to make sure you don’t return home?”

A huge sigh escaped Roni’s lips as she righted her scarf. A memory from the day she went to the media to set the record straight about their relationship came to mind, how Jared had been nothing without her. She’d returned home after to find a message tacked to her door. Or rather a picture. A car on fire.

She’d crumpled it immediately, hating the sick feeling the image caused deep down inside her. She’d tossed it, but the image would forever be etched in her mind. Even the model of the car. A 1980s Mercedes, black, four-door sedan. She owned lots of cars, most from her parents’ collection from when they were alive, but she didn’t own that one. Even still, the message felt personal.