CARRIE'S PROTECTOR (12 page)

Visitor? That stopped him short. Patrick probably wasn’t expecting anyone to come in here. Which might have made him careless.

Wyatt returned to the bedroom and opened the closet, riffling through the neatly hung shirts, jackets and pants, all arranged by color. He didn’t know a lot of men who enjoyed shopping for clothes, but Patrick had a lot of them, and the labels were good ones. Apparently, he liked his sartorial comforts.

He should have asked Carrie what the guy did for fun. There was no indication here of what that might be.

He opened drawers, finding carefully folded underwear and T-shirts. All of them looked as though he’d gotten Inez to iron them.

In the sock drawer, Wyatt hit pay dirt. There was a slight irregularity in the shelf-lining paper, and when Wyatt lifted it up, he found a manila folder.

When he pulled it out, he found something interesting. It was a carefully compiled and annotated employment history on a security man—named Wyatt Hawk.

* * *

I
NEZ
STOOD
IN
the hallway feeling sick inside. She didn’t like what she was about to do, but what choice did she have?

First she peeked into Patrick’s room, where she saw Señor Wyatt searching through dresser drawers. Satisfied that he was busy, she walked down the hall to the office and saw Señorita Carrie sitting at the desk trying to get into the computer.

She could have told her the password, but then she’d have to admit how much snooping she’d done around here.

She’d watched Señor Mitchell type in the letters and numbers, and when he’d been out of the office, she’d done it herself to make sure they worked.

Before Señorita Carrie could turn around and find her standing there, she went down the hall to the front of the house, where she looked out the window as she’d been instructed. She saw no cars coming up the driveway, but she didn’t expect to see anyone. Not yet.

Her heart was pounding as she moved to the kitchen and checked to make sure that neither of the other people in the house was watching. When she was satisfied she was alone, she took the receiver off the hook and dialed a number.

“Hello?” a voice said.

“Is this Home Depot?” she asked.

“You have the wrong number.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

She hung up quickly, knowing that she had delivered the required message. It had to do with the place she’d asked for.
Home Depot
meant Carrie was in the house.

She pressed her fist against her lips, then pulled herself together and went back to the window.

Chapter Twelve

Wyatt riffled through the folder he’d found in Patrick’s drawer, noting that the information wasn’t totally about him. There were also several other guys who specialized in security work, but it seemed he was the star attraction.

He thumbed through the pages and found he knew some of the men. Cal Winston was a good choice for a protection detail. So was Drake Inmann. They would both have been excellent for the assignment, but from the amount of material on each, it looked as if they’d been taken out of the running early on.

He went on to his own work history, reading about his early army training at Fort Bragg. His CIA experience in a number of countries around the world. The spy operation that had gone bad in Greece was highlighted in yellow.

So they knew about his biggest failure, but Patrick had made a notation next to it, saying that Douglas had accepted Patrick’s recommendation of Hawk.

Wyatt stared at the page with narrowed eyes. If this was to be believed, Patrick had been the one who’d recommended him. Because he thought Wyatt was the most qualified, or what?

A sound behind Wyatt alerted him that he was not alone. He whirled around to find Carrie standing in the doorway.

“Sorry I startled you.”

“I guess I’m jumpy.”

“We both are. What did you find?”

“Work experience of several security men—me included. Did you know Patrick recommended me for your bodyguard?”

“No.”

“Did you have any input into the selection or talk to him about it?”

“No.”

Wyatt held up the folder. “There are several other candidates in here. Good men. Why do you think he picked me?”

“I have no idea.”

He wanted to ask if she thought it was because he’d made a bad mistake in Greece, but he didn’t want to open the subject to discussion.

“Where did you find the file?” she asked.

“In his sock drawer.”

“He was hiding it?”

“Looks like it.” He switched subjects abruptly. “Were you able to get into your father’s computer?”

“Yes. The password is my birthday.”

“Not too original. What did you find?”

“The usual things. His list of contacts. A list of his medications. Angry letters he’s written to various companies complaining about their products and services. There’s also a file of family pictures. He must have had them scanned and put into the computer.”

“Anything useful?”

“The bills he paid and his bank records. It looks like some money has been moved around.”

“Let me see.” Wyatt put the folder back where he’d found it and glanced around the room, trying to ensure he left no trace of his search.

“Was he always such a neat freak?” he asked Carrie.

“Not at first.” She stopped and thought. “My dad used to criticize him for the way he kept his room. That made him much neater.”

“Kids respond to their parents in one of two ways. Either they do what’s asked of them, or they do just the opposite.”

She laughed. “I guess.”

“Were you as neat?”

“No. One of my acts of rebellion.”

They headed down the hall again. In the office Wyatt got a listing of the files and started scanning the contents. He rummaged in a drawer for a thumb drive and stuck it in the machine. He had just started copying files when Inez came running down the hall, her face a mask of panic.

“Mr. Patrick is coming up the driveway. He’ll fire me if he finds out you’ve been here. What should I do?”

“Just act naturally, as if you’ve been ironing his T-shirts,” Wyatt said. He hadn’t copied all the files he wanted from Douglas’s computer, and it looked as though he wasn’t going to get to do it.

“Come on.”

He shoved the thumb drive into his jacket pocket and headed for the back of the house, but it was already too late. The front door slammed open and Patrick charged into the house.

Wyatt looked at Carrie.
Where can we hide?
he mouthed.

She looked wildly around, then pointed to the back door.

“He’ll see us.”

“I have an idea.”

Out in the front hall, they could hear Patrick interrogating Inez.

“Were they here?” he demanded.

“Who?”

“Carrie and Hawk.”

“Why would they have come here?”

“You tell me.”

“I...I...don’t know.”

“You were alone here the whole time?”

“Of course.”

The voices faded as Carrie led Wyatt to a shed a few yards from the edge of the pool deck. It filled a gap in the wall of tall shrubbery that enclosed three sides of the pool. When she opened the door and stepped inside, he followed her into a small enclosure that housed the pool’s pump and large plastic cans of chemicals. They closed the door behind them, shutting out most of the light.

“Doesn’t he know about this place?” Wyatt whispered.

“I don’t know, but you can bar the door, and he won’t be able to get in.”

It seemed crazy for Carrie to be hiding in her own house—from her father’s chief of staff, a man she had known almost all her life. But Wyatt couldn’t shake the conviction that it would be dangerous for Patrick to find them here.

Carrie rummaged through the equipment and found a metal bar, which she slipped through two slots in the door.

“This door locks from the inside?” he asked, his voice low.

“I had one of my father’s workmen put it on for me years ago,” she answered.

“Why?”

“You see how the pool’s enclosed. When I was a kid, a friend of my dad used to visit with a big dog that scared me. I’d be in the water or on a chaise, and he’d come charging outside. If I thought I couldn’t make it to the house, I’d come in here.”

The sound of footsteps made Carrie stop speaking abruptly.

Wyatt listened as the steps crossed the pool deck. He reached for Carrie, thrusting her behind him and turning to face the door.

He tensed, preparing for a confrontation as the door rattled, but it didn’t open.

Outside, he could hear Patrick drag in a breath and let it out. “Carrie, you’re in the pool shed, aren’t you? I remember you used to hide in there.”

She made a muffled choking sound but didn’t answer.

“Listen to me,” he continued. “I made a big mistake. I helped your father pick a bodyguard, and I recommended Wyatt Hawk.”

At the sound of his name, Wyatt tensed.

“I thought he was the right man, but now I think I was wrong. I’m so worried about you. Let me protect you. Or I can call one of the other guys your father was considering.”

In the dark, Wyatt could feel Carrie stiffen behind him. What if she believed Patrick? What if she took him up on the offer? Was he going to have to kidnap her to keep her safe?

He waited with tension bubbling inside him.

Patrick was also waiting for an answer. To Wyatt’s relief, Carrie said nothing, and Wyatt certainly wasn’t going to give away their hiding place. After long, tense moments, they heard the man kick the door.

“Get the hell out of there,” he bellowed.

When they didn’t answer he said, “Have it your way.”

He gave the door one more kick and hurried away.

“What’s he going to do?” Carrie whispered.

“I think he’s going to get something he can use to break in.”

“He’s angry.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt grabbed the bar from the door, turned and shoved it through the slats in back of the shed. With a mighty heave, he pulled one free and then another.

“Go out that way,” he said.

She moved around him and wiggled through.

Wyatt replaced the bar in the door, then turned back to the escape hatch. He was bigger than Carrie, and he had to twist to get his body through the narrow opening, gritting his teeth as the boards scraped the arm where he’d been shot. Behind him, he heard rapid footsteps coming back, then Patrick was rattling the door, but it held.

“Come out!” he shouted.

When they didn’t respond, he started bashing the door with something heavy.

Wyatt pressed the boards he’d removed back into place. They wouldn’t hold if Patrick shoved on them, but for the moment they looked okay.

“Come on,” Wyatt whispered. Taking Carrie’s hand, he started running across the field, hearing Patrick whacking at the shed door and cursing.

They were almost across the field when the sound of a vehicle in the Mitchell driveway made him turn. He saw a green van speeding toward the house.

“Who’s that?” he whispered.

She turned and followed his gaze.

“The gardeners.”

“This is their regular day?”

“I don’t know.”

Pointing toward the woods, Wyatt motioned for Carrie to duck low and run for the shelter of the trees. He followed, staying between her and the truck.

They had just made it to the little woods when the sound of gunfire echoed behind them.

* * *

D
OUGLAS
M
ITCHELL
’
S
EYES
blinked open. He was still in the darkened room, still lying with his left hand fastened to the bed. But something was different this time.

He stayed very still, thinking about everything that had happened. Carrie had overheard terrorists plotting when she’d been taking nature photographs in the woods. She’d talked to the police, and then everything had gone to hell in a handbasket.

She’d been hiding out with Wyatt Hawk and some other men he’d hired to protect her. She’d been safe, until she’d gone down to D.C. to talk to the Federal prosecutor.

Those details had been insubstantial in his memory. He hadn’t known if they were real or if he’d made them up. Now he
knew.

His mind had been very dim, as if all his thoughts were filtering through a glass of motor oil. Now the oil had been washed away, and his mind was functioning again.

Again?

He stopped to think about that. How long had he been feeling as though everything was all balled up in his mind?

Six months. That sounded right. For the past six months he hadn’t felt like himself. Then men had captured him and locked him away from the world, and he was somehow thinking straight again.

He ground his teeth together, unable to believe that his mental state was just a coincidence.

In his mind he went back over the past few months—and the past few days, and a terrible conclusion began to dawn on him.

He wanted to howl with rage, but that wouldn’t do him any good. Instead, he looked around, and made a startling discovery. He knew where he was. He’d been out of this room to go to the bathroom, and the place had looked vaguely familiar. Now he knew.

This was a guest bedroom in the vacation house he owned down on the Severn River.

Good God. He was being held captive on his own property—a location that he knew well. Was there some way he could escape? Or some way he could get a message to Carrie?

There was so much he wanted to say to her. Not just about where he was being held. Things that he should have said to her years ago.

First he had to get free of this place so he could warn her what was going on. But how was he going to do it?

Chapter Thirteen

At the blast of gunfire, Carrie stopped in her tracks.

Wyatt grabbed her arm and pulled her forward, into the shadows of the trees.

Someone had arrived in a truck that looked as if it belonged to the gardeners. Whoever it was had started shooting, and Wyatt didn’t know if the fire was directed at them or at Inez and Patrick. But he wasn’t going to stay around to find out.

They made it into the woods, where they stood panting. Wyatt looked back toward the house and saw several men in green uniforms standing outside. The hedges around the pool prevented him from seeing Patrick or Inez.

“What if they’re hurt? We have to go back,” Carrie said between breaths.

“We can’t.”

“But—”

He shook his head, silencing her. “We have to get the hell out of here.”

He led her back the way they’d come, across the fields and into the manicured yard of the house that was for sale.

“Wait,” he ordered, leaving her beside the back wall while he cautiously looked into the car.

It appeared to be untouched. As far as he could tell, whoever was shooting hadn’t figured out that they’d left their vehicle here.

He came back and motioned for Carrie to follow him. They both climbed into the car, and he drove away. But he hadn’t made a clean escape. As he headed away from the Mitchell estate, he looked in the rearview mirror and saw a car exit the property and come speeding in their direction. Not the green van. A different vehicle.

His curse had Carrie’s head jerking toward him.

“What?”

“Somebody figured out where we were,” he answered as he pressed his foot to the accelerator.

Carrie swung around in her seat, her gaze zeroing in on the pursuer.

“Hang on,” he advised. He took a curve at a dangerous speed and kept going. A truck was ahead of them. Wyatt blasted his horn and swung out into the oncoming lane. He made it back onto the right side of the road just in time to miss crashing into a sedan coming the other way.

Beside him, Carrie gasped, but she didn’t ask him to slow down. They had come to the more populous part of Potomac, and he chose a development at random, slowing down as he turned into a street lined with large two-story houses. He followed the entrance road for several hundred yards, then chose one of the side streets at random. From there, he wound his way through the development.

“Keep looking in back of us,” he told Carrie. “Let me know if you see anyone following.”

She did as he’d asked.

“Nothing?”

“I don’t see anyone.”

He breathed out a sigh, then left the development through a back entrance and made his way toward Route 29.

Beside him, Carrie relaxed a little.

“I have to call Inez,” she whispered.

“You can’t.”

“But—”

“It could be dangerous for her if the terrorists are there. They’d know you were in contact with her.”

“They know we were there, don’t they?”

“Yeah. But they don’t know your relationship with her.”

“You think it’s the terrorists?”

“That’s my best guess.”

“But there was shooting. Maybe two different groups. What does that mean?”

“The cops and the terrorists? The Feds and the terrorists? Or maybe Patrick opened fire on them,” he said as he kept driving. “He was pretty angry. Out of control, I’d say.”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Have you ever seen him that way?” Wyatt asked.

“No.”

“So maybe the pressure is making him unstable.”

“Because he’s worried about me and my father.”

“Maybe.”

She sighed. “I understand the need to let off steam. If I start screaming in frustration, you may have to gag me.”

“You won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“You’ve got your act together.”

“Yes, but I feel like I’m getting people killed or putting them in danger every time I turn around. I feel like I shouldn’t have gone home.”

She gave Wyatt a defiant look, pulled out her phone and called the Mitchell home number.

Inez answered.

“Are you all right?” Carrie asked.

“Yes. We—”

Wyatt grabbed the phone and clicked it off. “That’s all you need to know,” he growled.

She glared at him and he could see her struggling for calm.

“They’re okay, and we got some important information.”

“Like what?” she demanded.

“We have some files from your father’s computer, and we know he’s got—” He stopped and wondered how to phrase the end of the sentence.

“Dementia,” she said.

“Not necessarily.”

“That’s what Inez said. She said that Patrick’s been taking over more and more of his business dealings.”

“We know the business part, but she might not be interpreting the rest of it correctly.”

Carrie dragged in a breath and let it out. “I’m trying to remember what he’s been like. I didn’t notice any difference—except that he wasn’t saying much. And he got angry more easily.”

“That can be a symptom. But we don’t really know what was going on with him. There’s simply too much happening for everything to get cleared up in a few hours. We’ll find out the true story when we find your father.”

“And you think we will?” she asked, her voice cracking.

“Yes.” He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers with hers. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Not your fault.”

“So you don’t go along with Patrick’s theory that I’m the wrong man for the job?” he asked in a gritty voice.

“No! I’d be dead a dozen times over without you.”

“Maybe I’ve been making wrong decisions that got us into trouble.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“No. I think that we’re up against a...conspiracy that’s bigger and more organized than anyone suspected.”

“A conspiracy?”

“That’s the best way I can describe it.”

When he pulled to the shoulder of the road and then into a clearing, she looked at him questioningly. “What are you doing?”

“Checking for a tracker again. Making sure nobody put one on our car while it was parked at that other house.”

* * *

W
YATT
CLIMBED
OUT
and went through the same procedure that he’d gone through earlier. He felt along the undersides of the bumpers, then along the undersides of the chassis. He stopped abruptly when his fingers encountered a small piece of plastic that shouldn’t have been there.

His pulse pounding, he pulled it out and held it up. He hadn’t expected to find anything, but here it was.

Opening the door, he eased back into the car and held the thing up.

Carrie’s eyes widened when she saw it. “What is it?”

“A GPS locator.”

“How long has it been there?”

“You know I checked after we left Rita’s apartment.”

“Yes.”

“It must have been put there while we were parked at your neighbor’s house.”

She kept staring at the thing. “Who would do that?”

“For all I know, it could have been Inez.”

“When?”

“While we were busy.”

“But she warned us that Patrick was coming.”

He shrugged. “This is just more proof that we don’t know what the hell is going on.” He turned the thing in his hand. “It could have been Patrick. He could have done it before he came up your driveway.”

She looked as if she didn’t want to believe either alternative, but she nodded slowly.

“And he’d have good reason. You lied to him about where you were going to be, and he wanted to make sure he had his own means of finding you.”

“I don’t like thinking that.”

“I don’t like thinking any of this. I mean, as long as we’re speculating...it could be the cops.”

“Why would
they
do that?”

“They might want to find out what we’re up to.”

“Wouldn’t they just arrest us?”

“Maybe not, if they thought we were involved in your father’s kidnapping.”

She made a strangled sound. “That’s awful.”

“This whole thing is awful.” Something in his expression must have alerted her that another thought had struck him.

“What?”

He laughed. “I was wondering... Maybe the bad guys and the cops both showed up back there and they were shooting at each other.”

She shook her head. “Yeah, maybe they can eliminate each other.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. Remember, a car drove away.”

The conversation brought his thoughts back to Rita Madison. Like what had she said to the cop who’d been in her apartment after she told him about Wyatt Hawk locking her and the maid in the bathroom? She’d seemed to want to help him and Carrie, but he could have totally changed her mind by locking her up. He kept his gaze on the tracker, not wanting to open that line of speculation with Carrie.

One thing he knew: they had to get moving.

He got out of the car again and put the tracker on the ground. He was going to crush it under his heel, then thought better of it. Let the bastards think they’d simply stopped moving. That would give him and Carrie a head start to somewhere. After walking into the woods and setting the tracker down inside the circle of an old automobile tire, he got back into the car.

Carrie looked at him expectantly. “You want them to think it’s still working?”

“Yes.”

“If they had the tracker, why didn’t they follow us?”

“I guess to make us think that we’d lost them. Or if there were two sets of guys at your house, one could have the tracker and the other could have followed us.”

“Oh, great.” She kept her gaze on him. “Where are we going now?”

“When we drove away from your neighbor’s, I was thinking about the Baltimore suburbs. Now I have the feeling that’s too obvious. When they realize they don’t know where we are, they’re going to start beating the bushes.” He flapped his hand. “I guess we need to go somewhere I can look at the information on the thumb drive.”

“A motel?”

“Probably.”

He heard her draw in a breath and let it out before speaking. “Somewhere nice. I want to feel like I’m not a fugitive.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“What about Frederick? It’s not that long a drive, and it’s a tourist area with a lot of bed-and-breakfast places.”

He thought about it, then punched the small city into his GPS. He wasn’t concerned with luxury accommodation, but he knew Carrie could use some kind of respite. If he’d had the option, would he have kept the information about the tracker to himself? Although he would have liked to spare her the worry, at the same time he couldn’t in good conscience withhold information from her. But perhaps he could make her hiding place pleasant. After he took care of one more problem.

When he neared Frederick, he stopped at a shopping center on the outskirts of town.

“What are we doing?” she asked when he pulled up in front of a hardware store.

“Getting some electrical tape and scissors.”

“Because?”

“If they found the car, they probably also took down the license number.”

She winced.

“I believe I can make it look different.”

After purchasing the supplies, he drove the car to a secluded section of the parking lot, got out and examined the front license plate. The first digit was the number one, and he used the tape to turn it into an
E.
He did the same with the plate on the back. If you stood ten feet away from it, he thought, the ruse should work.

Then he headed for the old-town area of Frederick, which had been in existence since Colonial times and was at the center of Civil War activity in the state.

Like many other older communities, it had gone through a period of decline, then began to prosper again, partly due to people moving out from Baltimore and Washington, where housing was more expensive, and partly due to the Colonial charm of the downtown area, where many restored buildings housed antiques shops and restaurants.

When they drove past a Victorian house with a B-and-B sign out front and extensive gardens all around, Carrie pointed. “Try that place.”

“Spur-of-the-moment decision?”

“Yes.”

He slowed and pulled to a stop down the block. “We’d better get our story straight before we go in.”

“Okay, what’s our story?”

“We’re on a road trip traveling around Maryland and Virginia. We stop when a place strikes our fancy.”

“And where are we from?”

“The D.C. suburbs. I work for the government—in a hush-hush job that I don’t talk about—and you...teach...what?”

“Photography. So I can answer questions if I have to.” She kept her gaze on him.

“Do you remember the names we were using?”

“Carolyn and Will Hanks.”

“Right.”

“And we’re married?” she asked.

“Do you want to be?” he countered, wondering why he had put it that way.

“Yes.”

He swallowed. “Okay.”

Wyatt turned around and pulled into a gravel drive, and they got out of the car together. Carrie reached for his hand as they walked toward the front porch.

A few moments after Wyatt had rung the bell, a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman came to the door.

“Can I help you?”

“We’re hoping we don’t need a reservation to get a room.”

“Not at all. Come in.”

“We’re the Hankses,” Wyatt said, as they stepped into a spacious front hall. He looked to the left and saw a living room furnished with comfortable couches and chairs and what looked like antique chests and tables. On the right was a dining room with several tables.

“I’m Barbara Williamson.”

“Nice to meet you,” Carrie answered. She then said, “We want your best room.”

“Are you celebrating something?”

“Not really, but we’re having a very nice road trip, and I want to continue with the top-of-the-line experience.”

“Our best room is in a private building out back. Would you like me to show it to you?”

“Yes.”

They followed Mrs. Williamson through a large modern kitchen to a building that might have once been a carriage house. Unlocking the door, she showed them into a two-room suite. The sitting room was comfortable and cozy. The bedroom had a wide canopy bed. And through a doorway was a large luxury bathroom with a soaking tub, a shower and a double sink.