Covert Alliance (26 page)

“Yes, she does,” Alan put in gently, grasping for something to say to make the kid get to the point faster—like, what was going on now.

“She came here before. You know?” He looked up at Alan, who nodded to encourage Eli to continue despite not having been aware of it. “She said I should trust you,” he repeated, seeming to study Alan’s face as if he could somehow read in it whether that could be true. “I... I don’t know, but—”

“I understand that it must be hard to trust anybody right now with all that’s been going on. I know you trust Councilwoman Arviss, but she doesn’t know the background stuff you’re worrying about. And—”

Alan heard a noise, some kind of
thump
from somewhere in the house. He froze for a second, then glared at Eli. “Is someone else here?”

Once more the boy looked down, this time as he nodded. “I... I told Mr. Tirths that the tablet my dad wants is under the steps. He went there to look, and I was able to push him and lock him in there.”

Alan couldn’t help a brief smile, so he was glad Eli wasn’t looking directly at him.

“I see,” he said. “Where’s that tablet now? And where’s your dad?”

“He...he told me I’d better give Mr. Tirths the tablet if I wanted to see my aunt alive again. He’s taking her to see my mom, only...only I think my mom’s dead.”

Alan felt his heart stop beating for a moment. “And where is this?” He tried not to yell, to shake the kid, but searched for patience...even though he knew that every moment he didn’t start off after Stan Grodon and Kelly meant she could be another moment closer to death.

“See, my mom was scared of my dad, and she wrote stuff on that tablet that she didn’t want him to see. Then she hid it so he wouldn’t find it. Some of the stuff on it says she bought a cabin up in the mountains where she wanted to take me someday to keep us both safe. But the way my dad’s been talking about it, I think he took my mom up there and killed her.” His voice broke, and he again looked up at Alan.

Pity shot through Alan. This poor kid. How long had he suspected...or known? “And your dad was aware you knew about it,” he said gently.

“At first he acted like he missed Mom, too, but then he started asking me questions that told me he wondered what I knew. He didn’t know at first that I’d found Mom’s tablet and all the stuff she’d put on there.”

“Including the location of the cabin.”

Eli nodded solemnly. “I’ll go get the tablet for you, Mr. Correy. Only... I really can trust you, can’t I?”

Alan nodded emphatically. “And you can trust that I’ll do my damnedest to go save your aunt,” he told the kid.

* * *

A few minutes later Alan had the tablet in his possession—which was possibly the very evidence the ID Division was after—as he drove like a maniac toward the cabin at the address he’d found on the tablet that Eli had in fact given him.

He also had Kelly’s cell phone. She’d been forced to hand her purse to Paul, Eli said, but the kid had grabbed it away when he shoved the guy under the steps, and her phone had been in it, apparently turned off by Paul. Eli had turned it back on, and that was how he had gotten Alan’s phone number.

Alan had already called not only his security company colleagues but also Chief Sangler of the local cops, filling him in on the situation briefly—and letting him know that someone who had conspired with Councilman Grodon in the apparent murder of his wife was locked under some stairs in the councilman’s house.

He had ordered Eli to go back to school, since Councilwoman Arviss, his closest adult friend here, was at the festivities up at the Blue View. The kid might be in trouble at school, but a lot of people would be around to protect him if Tirths somehow escaped before the cops came.

And now, Alan could only hope that he arrived at that cabin in time to save Kelly. Good thing he had the information from the tablet plus his GPS to tell him how to get to the cabin in this unknown wilderness.

But would he get there fast enough?

Chapter 22

T
he cabin was as rustic as anything Kelly had ever seen—there were log walls with no insulation over them, uneven wooden floors, a large cot in one corner and a kitchen that consisted of a metal sink, a portable refrigerator, a propane stove and some enclosed cabinets that might—or might not—contain cooking appliances and serving ware.

Not that she could see much of it. At least she was sitting up now. Stan had half led, half dragged her in from the car once he’d parked beneath the trees surrounding the place. Kelly was stiff, so any kind of movement was a little painful. She saw another door in the far wall, which she presumed led to a bathroom. Or maybe it was a rear exit leading to the outhouse.

Maybe...

“It’s been a long ride,” she told Stan. “I need to use the restroom.”

“Sure,” he said with a smirk. “Right there.” He pointed toward the door in question. “And in case you’re wondering, the room has windows, but they’re locked.”

He did at least untie her and push her toward the room that was her goal. Could she somehow lock the door and simply stay there till...till what? Till her hero Alan somehow learned where she was and showed up here to save her?

Yeah, right.

She did take her time in the room—at least it had adequate facilities—and rinsed her hands, though there was no towel to dry them on so she used her slacks. And the slight respite gave her time to think.

No, she didn’t want to just hide out here. Maybe she could get Stan talking so she would learn, at last, what had happened to Andi.

Plus, Judge Treena’s Identity Division Transformation Unit team had taught her the rudiments of self-defense—not that she was ever supposed to need to use them with her new, innocent identity.

She thought about them now, how to attack Stan—despite his gun. Beat him to the ground, then run.

Where? Could she steal his car keys first? Otherwise, how would she ever survive in the outdoors here, far from any kind of civilization?

Oh, Andi
, she thought.
If you had to buy a cabin to run to for safety—why someplace like this
? She’d been in real estate. Had loved attractive homes. Weren’t there any other somewhat remote locations that were just a
little
closer to civilization?

But this place gave Kelly an even better idea of how stressed, how scared, her sister had been. If only they’d talked more about it.

Fled together back then, with Eli...

But now what was Kelly going to do?

Well, she couldn’t accomplish anything by staying in here for the rest of the day. She opened the door and walked out.

And didn’t see Stan. Had he just left her here? Would she be that lucky?

Although if he had, how would she survive? What would she eat?

How would she return back down the hill? And—

“Okay, finished?” Stan had just reentered the one-room place through the exterior door.

“Tell me about Andi now.” Kelly kept her tone calm yet insistent. No use showing even a hint of the fear she felt. “Is she hiding out here?”

She’d be shocked if Stan suggested that Andi might still be alive. Instead, the miserable SOB just laughed, his round face contorting into something macabre.

Kelly had an urge to slug him but stayed still, waiting for him to speak.

“Oh, yes, she’s hiding. She didn’t want to see you again at the end, you know? That’s what she said when I told her I’d bring you to see this wonderful place.”

Kelly felt tears rise to her eyes at the same time her fury increased a thousandfold. “So you did kill her here?” She tried to make her tone matter-of-fact instead of accusatory, no matter what she felt inside. She’d probably get more of an admission out of him that way.

As if it would do her any good now. She had no way of recording his confession. And although she would be able to testify directly now about what he said instead of trying to get the hearsay of what she’d heard from Paul Tirths into evidence, her chances of surviving this were slim to none.

But for Andi’s sake, and especially Eli’s, she had to try.

“Well, yes, she did die here,” Stan admitted, the wryness of his smile now appearing extremely fake. “And I did kill her, but it was all self-defense. She attacked me because I was in the way of her real estate deal for that tree-hugging agency, the National Ecological Research Administration. I just figured that Jerome Baranka’s property was a better fit for NERA.”

“So he’d get the commission, but you’d get a lot more out of him and his political connections—and money—if he was the successful real estate seller.” Kelly didn’t make that a question. He could deny it if he wanted, but she knew it had to be true.

Stan just shrugged. “Come on outside while it’s still light. I’ll show you where your dear, interfering sister ended up.”

Kelly wasn’t sure where Stan had hidden his gun before, but it was back out now, pointed at her.

This was going to be it, she was sure. Yes, she might see where poor Andi had ended up—but then she would end up there, too.

Would it help if she kept Stan talking? She figured it wouldn’t hurt, at least.

“So you followed Andi up here to convince her your deal was the way to go?” Kelly asked conversationally as Stan shoved her back through the door and outside onto the leaf-covered dirt surrounding the cabin.

“Sort of. The damned bitch was about to ask Regina Joralli for an appointment to speak in front of city council about the transaction and what I was going to get out of it. I figured our dear council president might be pleased to hear Andi’s lies, since I’d been maneuvering to take over her position, so I got mad at Andi. She threatened to run away that night with Eli, but she’d already bought this place and I knew about it, thanks to Jerome and his knowledge of local real estate. She wasn’t going to steal my son from me, so instead I threw her in my trunk and brought her here, exactly where she was headed. And when I let her out of the trunk, she ran at me, so I had to shoot her to save myself.”

The man was clearly insane. Otherwise, how could he sound so calm as he spouted such horrible details of her sister’s last moments? Unfortunately, that might give him
some
defense against being found guilty if he ever went to trial—which was unlikely now, of course.

They were now at the back of the cabin, and Stan led her to an area where some wildflowers were growing in a patch of yellow and red. Were they primrose and yellow pincushions? Kelly had seen some pictures of local flora online, but she wasn’t sure.

What she did feel sure of suddenly was that, whatever they were, these flowers marked a grave.

“You buried Andi there?” As hard as she tried, Kelly couldn’t keep the venom from her tone.

“Well, sure. Isn’t it pretty?”

“It’s disgusting. How could you do that to your wife? The mother of your son?”

“She deserved it,” he said offhandedly, then raised the gun as if preparing to shoot Kelly.

She didn’t want to die, especially not if this demon of a man would get away with killing both Andi and her.

How should she play this?

“Okay, Stan,” she said. “I understand, at least kind of. But now—well, you promised Eli you wouldn’t kill his aunt if he turned over that tablet to Paul. Shouldn’t you check to see what’s going on there?”

“I tried while you were in the john. Not that it really would have mattered. But Paul didn’t answer his phone. I’m not sure what kind of mess I’m going to have to clean up when I get down the hill again, but I need to get back soon and find out. So—” He looked as if he was taking aim.

“Stan, wait. What if I take Eli, and we both move far away from you? I promise we won’t say anything about our suspicions anymore, and that’s all they are—suspicions. I couldn’t prove anything about you then, and I can’t now either.” It was a lie, of course, assuming she could figure out where this cabin was again once she’d left it.

But Stan could also be lying, as usual. Maybe Andi wasn’t buried there after all.

“Wouldn’t you like to not have your son around making allegations against you, showing up with bruises when you hit him to keep him quiet? I can fix that. You can just say that his missing aunt showed up someplace back east, and Eli’s visiting her.”

He seemed to contemplate that, at least for a minute—a minute in which Kelly again surreptitiously studied their surroundings. There were tons of trees that could serve as cover, yes, but if she ran could she get far enough to hide?

Probably not.

So instead, she made herself walk closer to the flower patch, which also meant getting closer to Stan. She knelt to try to appear unthreatening.

“I don’t think—” Stan began, which was when Kelly rose quickly, hurtling herself at him, aiming her shoulder toward him first, then turned away slightly in case he was able to shoot.

“You bitch!” he exclaimed as she succeeded in knocking him over, his gun hand wavering.

Kelly’s mind spun through all the self-defense techniques she had learned. What was going to work for her now?

Stan lay on the ground, waving his gun in her direction. Before he got off a shot, she kicked his arm, but he didn’t drop it.

She kicked again, aiming for his groin, but he had anticipated that and turned over.

She moved away slightly, attempting to figure out her next move. But this time he managed to trip her, and she wound up beside him on the ground, screaming as he grabbed at her throat and aimed the gun at her.

“Drop it, Grodon!” yelled a very familiar, very welcome male voice.

He’d done it somehow. Her hero, Alan, had learned where she was and come to save her.

Only—she was somehow thrust by Stan in front of him as he stood, his arm around her throat, the gun pressed into her side.

“Well, well. Mr. Correy, isn’t it?” Stan said. “Now you’d better be the one to drop it, or I’ll shoot my sister-in-law right here. You two have something going, don’t you? Well, you can watch her die right in front of your eyes.”

* * *

Alan froze. He had stepped out from behind a tree and was aiming his own firearm at Stan Grodon, but there was no way he could get a shot in him without harming Kelly.