COLE (Dragon Security Book 1) (31 page)

Kate

We were walking in the woods, hand in hand, not really talking. But it felt like the need for talk had passed. I think we were both emotionally exhausted. Still, it was nice to be able to be alone together like this in silence. I finally understood what they meant by “companionable silence.”

We were approaching the house when Donovan suddenly came up short. He pushed me behind him and stepped back, nearly causing me to stumble as we moved back into the woods.

“What?” I asked.

“Something’s wrong,” he said. But he didn’t elaborate.

I peek around him trying to see what it was he saw. And then there was some sort of movement along the far right side of the house. Someone in a dark, hooded sweatshirt was doing something there, making big movements, but I couldn’t see what it was.

Suddenly memory began to unfold.

I made my way to the sidewalk, my thoughts still on that old man who wanted funding to open what would essentially be a brothel for older gentlemen, again chuckling under my breath. Then I turned the corner and the chuckles died.

What was going on? Something wasn’t right.

I hesitated before stepping into the dark alley where the employee parking lot sat. There was just something not right here. I thought about going back and asking Joe to walk me to my car. He’d offered often enough that I knew he’d be more than happy to. And then there was movement deep in the back of the lot, near where my car was, and…

I ran.

Joe was sitting on his little stool, writing in the little journal they made him keep. Probably writing down how he unlocked the door to let me out.

“Joe,” I called as softly as I could, but still loud enough to get his attention through the bulletproof glass. “Open up, Joe!”

It took him a minute, but he finally looked up. There was a worried frown on his face that reminded me of my dad when he didn’t like something I’d said or done.

“You okay, Miss Thompson?”

“Someone’s breaking into my car.”

He frowned. “Well, come inside and we’ll call the police.”

“Joe, I think I know who it is. I don’t want to call the police just yet.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“An old friend.” I touched his arm. “I’m just…I don’t understand why she’s…I just, you wouldn’t mind accompanying me to talk to her, would you? I’d feel safer that way.”

“I’m not really supposed to leave my post.”

“I know. But I think she might be confused.”

He hesitated a moment. Then he nodded. “If you think that’s for the best.”

“I do.”

He stepped out of the door and turned to secure it. Then he led the way down the steps. I hesitated. I didn’t know why. When I followed, she was already confronting him.

“Hiding behind a rent-a-cop, Katie?”

She had a gun, and it was pointed at Joe’s chest.

“What are doing?” I cried, my initial fear immediately rushing over me, paralyzing me. I couldn’t run, and I couldn’t do anything to help Joe. All I could do was stand there.

“He a friend of yours, Katie?” she asked, her tone filled with more hatred than I’d ever heard. “All these years I’ve searched for a way to hurt you. Maybe this will be the first volley in the war.”

She fired before I even realized what it was she meant to do. I screamed, suddenly able to move, twisting so quickly that I tripped over my feet. I fell hard and the next thing I knew…

…I was in the hospital, my memory gone.

“I know who it is,” I whispered. “Oh, my God! I know who it is. And I know why she’s here.”

Donovan pushed me back again, turning and twisting me around as he urged me to move deeper into the woods.

“She’s going to blow the house.”

“No, no, no!” I moaned. “What are we going to do?”

Donovan didn’t answer. He just kept pushing me deeper and deeper into the woods.

“He died because of me.”

“Katie…”

“She wanted to hurt me the same way I hurt her. She wanted to take away someone I cared about because I did that to her. But there was no one else, no one but Joe…”

“We have to put as much space between her and us as we can,” Donovan said, pushing me behind a tree. He stared down at me. “I need you to keep it together right now, okay?”

I nodded.

“She probably knows we’re not in the house. She’ll be watching for us to come out of the woods, and when we don’t, she might come looking.”

“What do we do then?”

He studied my face for a long second. “We separate.”

“No, Donovan, I can’t—”

“Listen to me, Kate. It’s the best chance we have.”

I took a deep, steadying breath. “And then?”

“I’ll draw her away from you. You go back to the house, get in the car, and drive as far and as fast as you can. I’ll come find you.”

“But you won’t know where I’ll be.”

“I’ll find you.”

I nodded, reaching up to touch his face. “Promise me, Donovan.”

I felt his muscles tighten under my hand. I knew how seriously he took promises. He wouldn’t make one without the confidence that he’d be able to fulfill it. If he didn’t promise this to me now, there was no way I was going to leave him alone here.

He moved closer to me and pressed his lips to mine.

“I promise,” he whispered.

Then he grabbed my hand and dragged me deeper into the woods.

Donovan

The moment she said she knew who it was, I realized I’d known all along.

Amanda Graham.

It was so obvious, right there in front of my face. Her father owned one of the largest, privately owned conglomerates in the country. Maybe even in the world. And his company handled everything from real estate to medical research to weapons manufacturing. Weapons. Explosives.

And Amanda ran his tech firm.

I should have known. It was so obvious, but I didn’t want to see it. Amanda was as much a part of our little threesome as me, as Kate. As Joshua.

And that’s what this was about. Why she’d waited ten years, I wasn’t sure. But this was revenge for Joshua.

I pulled Kate through the woods, trying to step as lightly as possible so we weren’t leaving too big of a trail. But Kate felt like deadweight on the end of my arm. I was so afraid she was making too much noise, that Amanda could hear us a mile away. When she came after us…I wasn’t sure I could get Kate somewhere safe before it came down to a one-on-one situation.

Why hadn’t I grabbed my sidearm when I left the house?

Not that I could have predicted that this would go down today. We’d spent, what, five quiet days here. You tend to get complacent after a while.

I was trying to remember the layout of Ash’s property here. I knew he owned the woods far back behind the house. Acres upon acres. But I couldn’t remember what was on either side of us.

There had to be a place to hide Kate.

My damn phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it. A little busy just now. But it buzzed again and again. More than one call. They must have figured something out back at the compound.

A little late, boys.

And then the sound I’d been waiting for came.

But it wasn’t just one person’s footsteps. There were many.

Fuck! She had dogs!

I turned and grabbed Kate by the upper arms, shoving her against a tree’s trunk hard enough to make her breath burst from her lungs.

“Listen to me,” I said, my lips tight against her ear, “she’s got dogs. And, my guess is, they’re trained to attack. I want you to get up in this tree and be as quiet as you possibly can.”

She nodded, thank God. No argument.

I took the phone out of my back pocket and shoved it into her hands. “When the coast is clear, get back to the house. Take the car, like I told you, and run. Then call Ash. His number’s programmed…tell him what’s going on. Tell him about Amanda.”

“Donovan—”

“I’ll find you when it’s over. But it’s your turn to make a promise. Do what I say and don’t hesitate.”

She stared at me a long moment, then she nodded.

“Good.”

I grabbed the bottom of her t-shirt and ripped it, pulling a piece of it free. I was hoping that Amanda had prepped the dogs with her scent and not both of ours. That way, maybe, I could confuse them for a few minutes.

“Go, now.”

I turned her and gave her a boost before she was ready. She flew, sprawling among the lower branches. But she began to climb, looking down at me only once.

As soon as I was sure she was secure and she wasn’t about to come climbing back down, I turned and ran. I made as much noise as I could, counting on the dogs to hear me and come in my direction. I could hear them howl and knew they’d caught our scent. There was no turning back now.

I ran, praying that I wouldn’t stumble over a tree root. The ground was covered in vines and dead leaves and other debris. I couldn’t always see what exactly where I was planting my foot. There was nothing like this in Afghanistan. Nothing like this at boot camp.

I ran until my chest hurt and I thought I was never going to take another breath that didn’t feel like fire. Then I began to run in a zigzag, rubbing the torn piece of Kate’s shirt against bushes and tree trunks, anywhere I could reach quick and easy. Then I dropped it in a pile of leaves and ran at a dead heat.

The dogs were gaining on me. The howls were coming closer and closer, the sound of their running feet reverberating all around me. It spurred me on, made me go as fast as I could despite the exhaustion that was beginning to settle in every muscle I was born with. I almost didn’t see it, the chasm that opened up in front of me, three feet wide and God only knew how many hundreds of feet deep.

That’s when they got me. The first one slammed into the center of my back, the full impact of his fifty pounds taking the air from my lungs. I fell forward, but managed to catch myself on the edge of the chasm. I ducked my head and the dog, not expecting the earth to open up in front of it, fell without so much as a whimper. Then another, caught my upper arm in its jaws, clamping down with a determination that humans should admire. Then a third barely missed tearing a hole in my jaw. I saw it coming at the last second and moved, causing it to fall, too, right into the chasm.

The pain rushed through my body, the pain in my arm almost as bad as that in my lungs. I searched, my fingers digging in the loose soil and compost, finally wrapping them around a stick about as thick as half the dimensions of my wrist.

I beat the dog about the head, knowing that it was never going to let go until its master gave the order. Beautiful dogs. I had a lot of respect for a well-trained pit bull, but not when it was trying to tear my arm off.

I beat it until I felt just the slightest give in its hold on me. Then I dropped the stick and grabbed its lower jaw, felt it snap in my hand. I was on my feet before the dog knew it was defeated.

“Where you going, Donovan?”

I didn’t stop to look behind me. The first bullet whizzed past the side of my head. The second grazed my hip, not far from the scar that worried Kate so much.

“Where is she?” she called. “I know she can’t be far. You would never leave her unless she told you to. You were always her good little puppy dog!”

Another bullet glanced off of a tree, the bark exploding into a storm of debris.

I could only hope I’d given Kate enough time to get out.

Please, God,
I prayed,
don’t let anything happen to her.

Kate

I saw the dogs first. They were running like the devil himself was on their tails. Vicious things, they were little balls of muscle with legs and jaws like a barracuda. I’d never liked pit bulls.

And then I saw her. She was running quite impressively despite the roots and vines that wanted to pull at my feet the entire time Donovan was dragging me through these woods. Hell, I’d fallen twice when I was simply walking here for pleasure. I don’t know how she was staying on her feet. I didn’t know how Donovan was staying on his. But he was. At least, until he vanished from my view. I had all my fingers and toes crossed that he was still on his feet.

I waited a few minutes, five, ten, before climbing down. I’d promised I’d go, and it would be hypocritical not to keep my promise after making him promise. I jumped from the lower branches and began picking my way back toward the house, walking as quickly as I could, praying I didn’t lose my way.

I was only moving for a few minutes when I heard the dogs barking, then the sound diminishing a little bit at a time. One dog whimpered pitifully. It was hurt. And then gunfire.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

I couldn’t remember if Donovan had his gun. What if he was out there, unprotected? But, then again, I was talking about a Green Beret. Surely he could defend himself against an average-sized woman, right?

I knew he told me not to call Ash until I was safely in the car, moving away from the house, but I needed to talk to someone. I needed to know I wasn’t insane for heading in the wrong direction. I needed to know I hadn’t just left the man I loved to die.

The phone was shaking. Or my hands were shaking. Something was shaking. I couldn’t read the names. More gunfire. What the hell had I gotten myself into? What happened to my simple, well-ordered life?

“Donovan,” Ash’s authoritative voice barked into my ear.

“No. Kate.”

“Kate? Where are you? Where’s Donovan?”

“It’s Amanda Graham. She’s got dogs and explosives and I heard gunfire…”

“Kate, listen to me. Where are you exactly?”

“In the woods behind the house.”

“Okay. Here’s what I want you to do. Can you see the house from where you are?”

“No.”

“What can you see?”

I looked around me, feeling hysterical laughter began to build in my chest. Trees. That’s all I saw. But then I could hear Donovan’s voice in the back of my head, telling me everything was going to be okay.

“There are trees with red markings on them.”

“Good,” Ash said. “I want you to follow those. They’ll lead to a small shed. Inside you’ll find an all-terrain vehicle. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Run, Kate.”

So I did. I stopped worrying about the damn roots and the stupid vines. I still tripped. More than once. But I got to the shed faster than I would have otherwise.

“The keys are in a drawer on the workbench.”

I found them. The ATV started up without hesitation.

“What about Donovan?”

“The best thing you can do for him is get yourself out of there,” Ash said. “Drive as quickly as you can along the fence line. Do you see it, Kate?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That’ll lead you to the front gate. Then go left and just keep going until you find the police station.”

I closed my eyes, sent a quick prayer up to heaven or wherever prayers went in moments like this, and sped away so quickly that I thought I might have given myself whiplash.

The thoughts you have in moments of stress.