Stephen Frey (28 page)

A
s she had many times before, Catherine stole through the darkness up the path toward the farmhouse nestled in the rolling hills of Middleburg, Virginia. For many years this had been a place of refuge for her. A place she could come for consolation and compassion. She had fantasized that it would also be the place where she would make love to him for the first time, but it had never been that way when she had visited him after the long train rides. He had always been a perfect gentleman—until the night of the funeral reception.

She felt her heart rise into her throat as she made it to the back of the house and stole up the creaky wooden steps. From her jeans pocket she retrieved the key. Guided by the dim rays of a tiny flashlight attached to her key ring, she slid the key into the lock. As she did, she shut her eyes and thought about what had happened down by the lake. How her passions had exploded after all these years and how she wanted him again so badly.

Catherine pushed open the door, moved swiftly to the alarm pad on the wall, and entered a code. As the loud beep faded, the back foyer's overhead light came on and she turned to her left. For a moment she gazed at him. Then she ran to him and threw her arms around him. “Why did you do all of this, Michael? Why did you make me think you were at death's door?”

Mendoza caressed her shoulders and nuzzled her sweet-smelling hair. “I had to,” he said softly.

“You didn't call me.”

“I wanted to.”

“But you didn't.”

“I couldn't.”

“Why?”

“I can't explain now. You just have to trust me.” He kissed her gently. “How did you find out I was here?”

“I bribed a nurse at the hospital,” she explained, feeling safe now that she was in his arms. “I love you, Michael.”

“I love you too,” he said tenderly. “How about a drink?”

She nodded. “Yes, a glass of wine would be nice.”

“Come on,” he said, leading her away from the back door.

As they turned the corner into the living room, two men clad in black uniforms and ski masks appeared before them. Catherine attempted to scream, but one of the assailants was on her instantly, forcing a foul-tasting rag far down her throat. As her ability to struggle drained from her body, she had a fleeting glimpse of Mendoza being pinned to the floor by his attacker, an expression of utter shock on his face.

CHAPTER 19

B
o raced down the long driveway toward his mansion, whipping past the tall oak trees which were swaying wildly in the gale. The spring storm had swept up the Atlantic seaboard into the Northeast a few hours ago, but was just now beginning to unleash its full fury on Connecticut, pelting the Explorer with buckets of rain and hail.

Bo had waited two hours for the police and the paramedics to finish at Jimmy Lee's place, and it was now almost midnight. The bullet had ripped away part of Paul's skull, but as far as the paramedics could determine, hadn't pierced his brain. Bo's last-second lunge had deflected the gun barrel toward the ceiling, where the slug had lodged after burrowing through Paul's scalp, creating a momentary bright red halo around his head. Bo's white shirt was spattered with dark, dried blood.

Paul had remained conscious after collapsing to the floor. Blood dripping steadily from his head, he lay with his hand clasped tightly in Bo's. Over and over, he swore on Jimmy Lee's fresh grave that he hadn't killed Melissa, even as the paramedics tended his wound. Paul would survive, the paramedics had said, eyeing him nervously as he rambled on about Melissa. The wound was serious but not fatal.

After the ambulance had pulled away, a detective had asked pointed questions about exactly what had happened in Jimmy Lee's study. Bo had answered the queries curtly but directly and the detective had reluctantly allowed him to leave.

A flash of jagged lightning crackled above the mansion as Bo skidded to a halt at the edge of the driveway, jumped from the car, and headed toward the front door through the wind and rain. Protected by the porch roof, he guided his key into the lock. As he pushed the heavy door open, he happened to glance to his right. One foot on the sill, he stared into the darkness. He had an eerie sensation that he had seen the silhouette of someone standing at the corner of the structure. Another bright flash illuminated the grounds, but this time he saw nothing.

Bo stumbled inside and made certain the front door was secured behind him. He hurried to the basement door, flipped on the lights, and headed downstairs, taking several steps at a time. He raced down a long corridor past several closed doors, finally stopping at the last one on his left. “John!” he shouted, pounding on the door. “Blackburn!”

“Yes,” came the muffled reply.

“Open up.”

“I need to hear the—”

“Churchill!” Bo interrupted with the agreed-upon code word. The lock clicked and he burst into the room, rushing past Blackburn, who leaned into the hallway and checked both ways before returning his gun to his shoulder holster and relocking the door.

Meg sat in a chair across the room. Her eyes alit at the sight of Bo at the door.

“You look terrible,” he teased with a smile.

“I don't feel so great either,” she admitted feebly.

“Is Katie all right?” Bo asked Blackburn.

“Yes, she's on a plane back to Montana. I spoke to her just before she boarded. She's fine.”

“Good.”

“I appreciate your friend Allen Taylor escorting her to the airport,” Blackburn added.

“Not as much as I appreciate you staying here with Meg,” Bo replied.

Late last night, at Blackburn's urging, they had moved Meg from the carriage house to the mansion, Bo carrying her to his Explorer as Blackburn, gun drawn, covered them. Meg was still weak from her fall in the parking garage, but Blackburn didn't want her staying in one place too long. After the episodes at Penn Station and in the garage, it was clear that someone was after Meg, and Blackburn's law enforcement training told him that they needed to avoid being a stationary target in order to remain one step ahead of the hunter. Bo had agreed.

Bo knelt down beside Meg. “You seem stronger,” he said, checking the bandage above her eye.

“I'll be all right. I'm a pretty tough woman. I may not look like it, but I am.”

“I know.”

“I have to admit that right before I hit the wall, I didn't think I'd be waking up. You know, that terrible feeling you have right before something bad happens when you're still all right but you know you aren't going to be in a second and there's nothing you can do about it.” She slid her hand into his. “The very last thing I thought about was you, Bo,” she said, her voice trembling. “About how I'd never see you again.”

“It's all right, sweetheart, I'm here now. John and I will take care of you.” Bo looked over his shoulder at Blackburn, who had turned around and was adjusting his holster, trying to give them the illusion of privacy. “We ought to get her out of here right away,” he said. “To someplace safer. I think she'll be able to handle a move now.”

“I agree,” Blackburn said.

“Is that all right with you, Meg?” Bo asked, turning back toward her. “Do you feel strong enough to move?”

“Yes,” she said, wiping a tear from her cheek.

An earsplitting clap of thunder exploded directly above the mansion, causing all three of them to duck down instinctively.

“Damn!” Bo shouted. “That was close.”

“Hey, what was that?” Blackburn called out.

“Thunder, John. Jesus!”

“No, I heard something else.” Blackburn had already drawn the revolver. “It came from out in the hallway.”

“Are you crazy? How could you hear anything over that?”

“It was like a door opening and closing.” Blackburn held up his hand. “There! There it is again.”

Bo had heard it this time too—it sounded as if someone was systematically searching the rooms along the corridor. He glanced up at a small window, near the ceiling, that opened onto the area below the deck in back of the mansion.

Blackburn stepped away from the door and aimed his gun at it. “Might be security people,” he muttered, “and it might not.”

“We aren't going to stick around and find out,” Bo said, helping Meg to her feet as gently but as quickly as possible. He pushed the chair she'd been sitting in against the wall beneath the window, then jumped up on it and pulled frantically on the window lock. “The damn thing probably hasn't been opened in years,” he muttered, smacking the lock hard with the base of his palm. Finally, it popped open. He pushed the window up and held his hand out to Meg. “Come on!” he urged, helping her up on the chair beside him. “Hurry, sweetheart.”

“Outside?” she asked fearfully.

“That's the only choice we have.”

With what little strength she had and aided by a boost from Bo, Meg struggled through the narrow opening, then scrambled beneath the deck toward the lawn, her fingers digging into rain-soaked earth as she pulled herself along.

“Come on, John!” Bo whispered hoarsely over his shoulder, hoisting himself up. He scrambled through the opening, then turned and, on his hands and knees, stuck his head back into the room. Blackburn remained motionless, both hands clasped around the revolver's handle, barrel pointed at the door. “Come on!” Bo said again.

“Get out of here!” Blackburn hissed back without taking his eyes from the door. “I'll be all right.”

“You won't be all right. Now is no time to play hero.”

“Go!”

Bo glanced over his shoulder. Through the darkness he saw that Meg had paused to wait for him. His eyes raced back to Blackburn, who still stood defiantly in the room, gun pointed at the door. The man had children back in Montana, Bo thought. Two young sons who would not become orphans if he could help it. “Dammit.” He pulled himself back through the window and plunged eight feet to the floor, his cell phone tumbling from his pocket and skittering into a far corner. He regained his feet instantly, ignoring the shooting pain in his shoulder and the burn on his arm. Above the roar of the storm he could hear people in the corridor twisting the doorknob frantically and banging on the door. He raced to Blackburn, grabbed the gun from his hand, and pushed him violently toward the window.

“Get out of here!” Bo yelled.

A shotgun blast from the hallway obliterated the knob and half the door, spraying tiny pieces of wood and steel across the room and barely missing Blackburn's lower legs as he pulled himself through the window.

The explosion knocked Bo down, but he was up again quickly, unloading the revolver's chamber at the destroyed door even as he once again used the chair as a springboard and lunged for the window. As he hoisted himself onto the soggy dirt beneath the deck, he felt a screaming pain in his calf, like a swarm of hornets stinging all at once. Pellets must have grazed his leg.

Blackburn pulled out the .22 caliber pistol he kept in a holster affixed to his calf and aimed it down into the room, squeezing the trigger six times in rapid succession. He clipped one of the men who had burst into the room in the thigh and killed the other instantly with a clean shot to the head.

Bo dragged himself to where Meg lay. “Are you all right?”

She nodded, shielding her eyes from another flash of lightning.

Bo and Blackburn helped her to her feet. The three of them emerged from beneath the deck and dashed ahead, the men steadying her against the violent gusts of wind as they ran.

“You okay, Bo?” Blackburn yelled.

“I wouldn't be,” Bo gasped, “if you hadn't played Tonto.” The burning in his leg was brutal. He grabbed Blackburn's arm and pointed as another jagged bolt illuminated the grounds. Several men stood on a slight rise to their left, guns draped over their arms. “We've got to make it to the woods.” As they struggled toward the line of trees, Bo looked skyward apprehensively. “Gotta pray for no lightning in the next few—”

The next-second flash was the brightest of the storm, slamming into a tree above their heads and splitting it in two. Sparks, shredded leaves, and limbs showered the three. Bo threw himself on top of Meg as a huge limb slammed to the wet ground beside them, a sheared-off branch impaling the turf a foot from where Blackburn was sprawled.

Through the leaves of the downed tree, Bo saw them coming—at least five men, sprinting toward where he, Meg, and Blackburn lay. He dragged Meg to her feet and guided her into the woods, pushing her the last few yards. “Cover your face,” he shouted as they tumbled into the thick underbrush, Blackburn just behind them.

They were up again quickly, scrambling and rolling together through branches and vines that tore at their flesh and snagged their clothes. Bo could hear the pursuers yell as they hit the first line of underbrush, like an advancing infantry line encountering the first enemy rifle volley. “Come on.” He took Meg's wrist and pulled her forward.

Deeper into the woods the underbrush thinned and progress became easier, as it would for the pursuers too, Bo knew. He veered right, wiping water from his drenched face. He glanced over his shoulder and saw flashlights bobbing up and down behind them.

“Keep going, Meg,” Blackburn urged from behind when she slowed down. “You've got to keep going.”

“I'll try,” Meg gasped, practically dropping to her knees on the muddy ground. “But I'm so dizzy.”

Bo glanced back once more. The flashlights were spreading out behind them to cover more ground. One was coming directly at them, visible off and on as the man weaved around trees, less than a hundred feet away. “Carry her, John,” Bo rasped. “Straight ahead no more than a hundred feet. I'm going up,” he said, pointing toward a tall tree.

Blackburn scooped Meg up in his arms and stumbled forward.

As the pursuer passed beneath him, Bo dropped from the tree he had climbed, knocking the man to the earth. The man's rifle exploded as they struggled, a hot blast of steel barely missing Bo. Then Bo caught the man flush on the point of his chin with his right fist, and the man collapsed, unconscious.

Bo scrambled on his hands and knees across wet leaves to where the man's flashlight lay and hurled it like a grenade. It caromed off a tree thirty feet away and came to rest on the ground, still illuminated. He raced back to where his pursuer lay, slammed the man with another hard right to the jaw to make certain he didn't regain consciousness anytime soon, grabbed the rifle, and hunched behind a tree, watching four more flashlights bobbing toward the one on the ground. The other pursuers had been alerted by the blast even over the din of the storm and had spotted the beam of light. A moment later lightning sliced the sky wide open, and Bo saw the squad of men beginning to fan out again.

Bo dragged the unconscious man beneath a bush to hide him, then rushed ahead to where Blackburn and Meg lay curled against a tree. He knelt down beside her. She was shivering, more from fear than cold, although the temperature felt like it had dropped ten degrees in the last half hour. “Here,” he said to Blackburn, shoving the rifle into his hand. Then he lifted Meg in his arms and began moving forward. The storm's intensity was fading and they needed to get out of here or face certain discovery.

Bo knew the estate as a hunting guide knows his territory. He was quickly able to put distance between them and the hunters by locating a familiar dry streambed and using it as a path.

“Where are we going?” Meg murmured, her head on his shoulder.

“To a safe place.” He struggled along, doing his best to avoid rocks that could cause him to stumble. The rain had stopped and an eerie mist was rising from the forest floor. It was visible in the dim moonlight that filtered down through a canopy of young leaves.

Thirty minutes later Bo had reached his destination—a cave that had been a childhood hideout. He had identified the spot by the huge egg-shaped rock which lay in the middle of the streambed. It was the way he would find the cave when he'd come out here as a child.

“Can you stand up?” he asked. He looked up the side of the ravine to the cave's entrance.

“Yes. I'm sorry you had to carry me,” she whispered, leaning against a tree for support as he put her down gently. “I couldn't have gone any farther back there.”