Hearts Under Siege (23 page)

“We there?” he asked, groaning as he pulled himself upright. “Fuck, that hurts.”

She reached for the pain pills tucked into the back pocket of the car’s front seat. “Here, take—”

The car door jerked toward her and knocked her off her feet. Her head slammed into the edge of the roof. As she hit the ground, grit scraping her palms raw, Brady flung himself out of the car. Molly was so shocked at seeing him move so fast when he’d just been moving gingerly and groggy, she didn’t immediately register why he’d done so.

A booted foot came within inches of her already throbbing head. She scrambled backward, out of the range of Brady and the man he was grappling with. A second later her head had cleared a little. She gasped—the other man gripped a knife in his right hand. Brady held off his wrist with his own right hand, but with the awkward angle and his existing injury, he was going to lose within seconds.

Molly pushed herself toward the attacker’s feet. She wrapped her arms around his ankles until he twisted and fell, grunting as he bounced off the pavement.

“Call 911!” Molly yelled. No one was outside, but maybe the clerk or Dix would hear inside. Brady staggered against the side of the car, half collapsing on the hood, coughing and groaning.

She scrambled up the big man’s body until she could step on the knife, now loose in his hand, and dropped her knee onto his chest, knocking out whatever air he’d recovered in the last few seconds.

“Who are you?” she demanded. Blood roared in her ears. She was so freaking sick of being attacked. “Who do you work for?” She balled her fist in his shirt and shook him hard. She’d have knocked his head against the ground a few times, but he’d rolled partly to his side and stiffened his body.

She
thought
he’d done that to protect himself while he recovered, but she learned differently with a flash of silver and a cold burn across her chest. The only reason his second knife didn’t slit her throat was because Dix yanked her back just in time. He flung her to the ground and started battling with the attacker.

Instantly Brady was kneeling at Molly’s side. She leaned on one elbow, gaping at the well of blood through the slit in her shirt. “It doesn’t hurt,” she said, her voice irritatingly wondrous. “Does that mean I’m going to die?”

“It’s shock.” Brady flung his scarf-sling over his head and struggled to peel off his shirt. “It means it’s a deep cut. It’ll start—”

Fire blazed across her chest and she choked off a scream.

“Right about now.” Grim-faced, Brady laid her back and pressed the balled-up shirt against her chest. “Fucking déjà vu. Wasn’t I doing this last night?”

“Not with me,” Molly wheezed. “I need to see how bad it is.”

“No way. Leave the pressure on.”

“You can’t do it with your shoulder.” She tried to push his hand away, but she had no strength. She ducked her chin, trying to see. The shirt didn’t seem too stained with her blood. Then again, it was a dark shirt.

Crap
. She was getting lightheaded. “Dix.”

“He’s a little busy,” Brady quipped.

She squinted up at him, surprised at his composure. “You were a lot more hysterical last night,” she said. “Does this mean you don’t love me as much as you love your brother?”

He smiled, but his face was ghostly white against the dark sky. Almost green. But maybe that was the fluorescent lighting. Was it because of his injury, or what she’d said?

The pain subsided, making her suspect the slice wasn’t as deep as Brady feared. She pushed away his wrist and sat up. He wasn’t doing well, if he was weak enough to let her.

Several feet away, Dix had gotten the upper hand with their attacker. He zip-tied the guy’s hands behind his back and added ties to his ankles for good measure. He was reaching for his cell phone when Molly braced herself and tugged her shirt away from her skin. The lighting wasn’t good, and the cut was high, just below her collarbone, but she could tell it wasn’t bleeding very fast, even removing the pressure and sitting up. She brushed her fingers against it.

“It’s superficial,” she told Brady. “I think I can get away without stitches.”

“Good.” Dix came over and helped them both up. “Police are on their way for this guy. I gave the clerk my contact information, but we’ve got to go.”

“How did he find us?” she asked as she climbed into the back seat with Brady, who looked strangely satisfied. “What if there’s a tracker on one of us, or on the car?”

“We’ll have to take that chance,” Brady said. “The faster we get the information to my father, the faster we can end this.”

“You want to risk leading them to your parents?” she questioned. “To Jessica?”

He didn’t answer, but he didn’t change his mind, either. That made Molly feel strangely satisfied, and she had to look out the window to hide her grin. Brady had taken her hand again, and his thumb stroked over her knuckles. Shivers raced through her, making her cut prickle, but she didn’t care. This was the greatest swell of hope she’d ever felt. If Brady had still been ga-ga over his sister-in-law, he would never have considered taking this fight anywhere near her.

The tension in the car increased with each mile. Brady watched out the rear window to be sure no one was following them, including cops, while she sat and fretted about how clammy his hand had become. He really needed to be in the hospital, or at least a bed.

Taking the package to Rick would create other complications, too. Hopefully, he’d be able to do something to give Howard Ellison and his unknown partner no reason to harm anyone else. But they were going to descend on the house after two days with no word, a strange person with them, myriad injuries—and the news that Christopher was still alive, but in critical condition in a hospital hundreds of miles away. Not to mention a kidnapped granddaughter.

Molly fervently hoped she wasn’t going to have to be the one who imparted all that information.

A phone rang. All three of them checked theirs reflexively. It was Dix’s, in the front seat. He pulled it out and glanced at the screen before staring back out the windshield, handling the phone as if unable to decide whether or not to answer it.

“Do you want me to—” she started to offer before Dix cut her off.

“No.” He thumbed the speakerphone button and held it so they could all hear the conversation. “What?”

“Son. Where are you?”

The voice was familiar to Molly, but she couldn’t pinpoint it. Obviously Dix’s father, but he was the only Dixson she knew.

“I think you know where I am,” Dix said.

His father hesitated. “I know where you’re supposed to be.” He sounded confused. “Or were supposed to be, a few hours ago.”

Dix cursed under his breath. “I forgot. Things are a little hairy today. A friend got shot. Is Mom furious?”

As natural as his words sounded, Molly had a feeling they were calculated, that his father’s response would reveal something to Dix. When he immediately asked about the friend, the concern in his voice as sincere as she could detect without being face-to-face with him, Dix relaxed a little.

“He’s okay,” Dix told him. “He’ll be able to complete his mission.”

“Good, good. So I guess we won’t be expecting you for dinner in the next few days.” He chuckled. “I’ll tell you, your mother does not miss me doing field work. Bet you’ll be glad to get back to the desk, too, huh?” He didn’t wait for Dix to answer. “Okay, I can hear you’re driving, so I’ll let you go. Call us in a couple of days if you don’t want your mother descending on you.”

“Sure, Dad. Couple of days. Thanks.” He disconnected the call and dropped the phone onto the front seat.

“You think he’s clean?” Brady asked.

“I don’t know.” Dix sighed and rubbed his forehead, then checked the rear and side mirrors again. Molly twisted to check, too, but there were no lights or moving shapes that could be cars with their lights off.

“He said the right things and didn’t sound like he was fishing,” Dix said. “But he
was
a field agent, and a cofounder of the company, so he could just be that good. I’ve been watching him with a lot of suspicion, paranoid about what every little thing meant. It’s exhausting and I’ve lost any objectivity I might have started out with.”

She let go of Brady’s hand to lean forward and lay it on Dix’s shoulder, squeezing with comfort. “You’ve done more than most would have,” she told him. “That’s a lot of integrity.”

When she sat back, Brady took her hand again, this time lacing his fingers firmly through hers and shifting so their shoulders touched. She closed her eyes and let her mind release everything external and just soak in his warmth. After a few seconds, she was breathing in tandem with him, slow and deep, and she sensed the tension draining out of them both. For the moment, she didn’t care what happened when this was all over. If moments like this were all she’d ever get, as long as Brady was alive, she’d take it gratefully.

The car lurched sideways, the back end slewing left. She whiplashed with it, the seatbelt cutting into the side of her neck. She belatedly registered the smashing noise of fiberglass and metal, and the shattering of glass that rained over her and Brady. Dix was shouting and fighting the wheel. She got a glimpse of a vehicle bigger than theirs as they spun before Dix slammed on the gas and they were racing down the road again. Over the roar of the engine she heard the now-familiar report of a handgun. She and Brady shoved against each other, both trying to cover the other. Molly unsnapped her seatbelt and rolled to the floor with a grunt. The longer she fought Brady, the longer he’d be exposed. Then his body was over her, his shoulders wedged between the seats, his legs heavy on her knees. She felt herself whimper, the sound smothered by all the other noise. Dix was still in the line of fire. But as long as the car kept moving in a straight line—or fairly straight, she corrected herself as they slewed left again, apparently around a corner—he had to be okay.

“Gun.” Brady’s voice rumbled through her as he reached between the seats. Dix complied, and Brady shifted to drag himself up and aim through the space where the rear window used to be. He fired three times before sinking back down over her, his breathing ragged.

“Are you okay?” She put her hand on his shoulder gently, and felt moisture on his shirt. “You’re bleeding. Let me—” She reached for the pistol.

“No.” Brady set the hand holding the gun on the seat, out of her reach. “You’re not exposing yourself.”

“Hey, maybe that would work!” She reached for the collar of her shirt. Brady laughed, but his eyes tracked her movement. He spotted the blood on
her
shirt as she touched it and felt how much wetter it was than before.
Oops
.

“We need to get out of here, Dixson!” he called over his shoulder.

“I know what we fucking need!” Dix shouted back. “You shot one of the tires, but they’re still coming! I don’t know these roads well enough. Do you? You grew up around here.”

Brady’s eyes met Molly’s, and even in the dark, she could see what he was thinking. They hadn’t grown up here, but that wasn’t the point. He
would
know the roads better, if he’d spent any time with his family after they moved to Connecticut. He hadn’t spent enough. But she had.

“Move.” She struggled to get out from under him.

“Molly, no.”

“I’m just going to navigate.” She dragged her body from under his and squeezed between the front seats onto the passenger side, keeping herself as low as possible. She looked out the front window to figure out where they were.

“Okay.”

“Okay, what?” demanded Dix.

“I’m thinking.” They were about four miles from the Fitzpatrick home, but they had to lose these guys before they got there. This main road took them into town, but there should be— Yes! She pointed to a farm road, its entrance marked by three-foot-tall reflectors on either side. The burst of inspiration solidified into a real idea, the needed steps laying themselves out in her mind.

Dix waited until the last second, then spun the wheel and swerved onto the narrow dirt road. The sedan bounced over ruts. In the back seat, Brady grunted and cursed.

“They’re closing in again,” he told them.

“This doesn’t seem like a good idea,” Dix said through gritted teeth as he fought the wheel. “They’ve got an off-road vehicle.”

“I know. It’s okay.” She hoped. The vehicle following them was more powerful, but also bigger. As long as things hadn’t changed too much… She inhaled slowly when the buildings came into view. “There. Go between the barn and silo.”

It was Dix’s turn to curse. The gap wasn’t meant for vehicles, and it would be a tight fit. “They’ll go around and meet us on the other side.”

“No.” She didn’t try to explain. “Just go. Hard.”

Dix mashed the accelerator to the floor and braced his arms straight out, gripping the wheel tightly to keep the car pointed that way. They zoomed through the gap like an arrow through the window slit of a castle, and both men whooped as they came out the other side.

And—
yes!
—the pile of hay was still there, as tall as the barn and filling all of the space between the building and the forest on the other side.

“Turn left!” Molly shouted as the car’s momentum took them toward the trees. Dix turned and they ran parallel to the woods, on rutted tracks made by farm vehicles. The car’s engine made odd noises now, protesting its rough handling.

“Okay.” Dix’s elation had been short-lived. “What now?”

“Are they back there?” she asked Brady, who was still watching out the back window.

“Not yet. They’ll have to go back around the buildings.”

“As fast as you can,” Molly told Dix. “We’re almost to it.”

“To
what
?” But then he saw it, a gap in the trees, and swung the car wide left to make the tight right turn. This road was still dirt, but hard packed and littered with pine needles.

“Still nothing,” Brady said. “Kill the lights, Dixson.”

“That’s going to slow us down.” But he did it, slowing to a crawl. It was late enough in the season that the deciduous trees had lost their leaves. Soon their eyes adjusted, the moonlight sufficient to see the path. A few minutes later their sedan came out onto a regular road. She gave directions, and soon they were in town, with no sign of their pursuers.