Exposed (18 page)

“You’re parking
here
?”

“Probably don’t want to go racing up the road with the lights blazing.” He cut the engine but left the keys in. He looked across the car at her, and the lights of the dashboard cast his face in a greenish glow. That intensity was back. He believed this was it.

“Are you going to wait for backup?”

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t bother to argue. Anyway, she agreed with him. If Jolene was alive, they had no time to waste.

“Where’s your pistol?” he asked, glancing down at her purse.

“In my nightstand at home.”

He got out and quietly popped the trunk. The car barely shifted when he closed it again.

He returned with a shotgun, and Maddie watched as he rested it on the console with the barrel pointed at the dash.

“It’s loaded,” he said.

Maddie’s pulse spiked as he pulled the Glock from his holster and checked the clip. He looked out the back window at the empty road.

“We may not even be in the right place,” he muttered.

“But you think we are.”

“Not a lot out here. I think we should check.” He plucked her phone from the cupholder. “I’ll take your cell. Use mine to call Sam, give him an update.”

“Keep it on vibrate.” Maddie took the phone from his hand, switched off the ringer, and handed it back. She felt the urge to say something, but when she looked in his eyes, her mind went blank.

“Be careful,” he said, pushing open the door.

“Wait!” She grabbed his arm. “Are you sure—”

“Maddie, I’m not sure of anything. But I need to go check this.”

She felt a rush of panic. Tears stung her eyes. She pulled him close and quickly kissed him on the mouth. “You be careful, too.”

Brian made his steps silent as he moved over the terrain. He stayed near the road, but not on it, as he eased deeper into the property. A large shadow loomed ahead, and judging by its right angles, he guessed it was the old tannery.

Or it could be a house. A dog might start barking, and some angry rancher might come out pointing a shotgun at him.

He paused to listen. No dogs. No cars. All was quiet except for the rustle of wind through the trees.

Quiet but not silent.

They were two different things, as he’d learned in Afghanistan during bitter-cold nights on patrol in the Hindu Kush. So many nights, he’d stared into the blackness around the remote outpost. He’d clutched his M-4 with frozen fingers, sensing more than hearing the enemy in the surrounding mountains. It had been quiet then, too—but not silent—and sometimes only the softest sound of a missed footstep or a falling rock tipped him off to the enemy’s presence.

He peered into the gloom now. With almost no light to help him, he squinted his eyes and tried to pick up even the slightest movement with his peripheral vision.

Nothing.

Gripping his Glock, he moved closer to the structure. Twenty paces. Thirty. Forty. When his feet went from uneven dirt to smooth concrete, he changed directions and started walking the building’s perimeter.

He eased around the first corner. On the building’s western face was a metal door, the type that could be raised or lowered on a track. He noted the six-inch gap at the bottom and crouched beside it.

In the dimness, he spotted the muddy tire tracks on the concrete. His fingers itched for his flashlight, but he left it in his pocket. He studied the tracks. The last rain had been eight days ago. A downpour. Someone had been here within the past week.

He stood and glanced around, skimming his gaze over the shadowy bushes nearby.

He retraced his steps. He avoided the gap under the door in case someone was watching from inside. He crept to the other end of the building and eased around the corner. Another door, but this one was raised completely.

Brian eased closer. He stared into the yawning blackness. A peculiar smell reached him, and he went stock-still as he tried to place it.

A sound—so faint he might have imagined it. He lifted his gun. The wind picked up, and he heard a dull thud as the building’s metal walls shifted. Then the gust died down, and Brian listened intently.

Shoes on pavement. He crouched low and slipped inside the building.

Maddie stared at the gun beside her. She looked out the window. She hadn’t heard a noise from any direction, and she was starting to get worried.

The phone rattled in the cupholder, sending her heart rate into overdrive as she snatched it up.

“Yes?”

“Hey, it’s Sam. He’s not back yet?”

“Not yet.”

“We’re on our way, probably ten minutes out. How’s it looking there?”

“Dark.” She glanced around and felt that clutch of panic again. Because of the foliage, her only visibility was out the rear window, and she hadn’t even
seen a car pass. “There’s not much out here. It’s pretty deserted.”

“Sit tight, okay? And call me if you see anything.”

“I will.”

Maddie tucked the phone into her pocket and looked at the shotgun, trying to calm down. She’d never been scared of guns. Her father had taken her hunting with him when she was a kid, so she was familiar with how to handle them. But she didn’t shoot regularly, and she’d never in her life fired a weapon in self-defense.

She checked the rear window again. A flicker of light on the road.

Her imagination?

No, it was a car. Her pulse skittered as the trees lining the highway brightened in the approaching headlights.

She pulled the gun across her lap. Would the car speed past or slow down?

What if it turned onto the dirt driveway and someone spotted her?

On impulse, she shoved open the door and squeezed out of the car. Batting away branches with one hand and clutching the gun in the other, she used her hip to shut the door. The road brightened as the engine noise drew closer.

Maddie ducked into the bushes. She pushed her way through the leaves and branches until her fingers encountered the barbed-wire fence on the property’s perimeter.

The car slowed. Her heart pounded. They weren’t speeding past, but stopping. She peered through the bushes and looked for Brian. Why wasn’t he back yet?
And was he close enough to hear that they had company?

She tucked the stock under her arm and pulled out the phone to text him one-handed:
Car coming
. As she pressed send, the bushes became whiter and whiter, until they looked covered in snow. Her stomach knotted with dread as she tucked away the phone and the vehicle rolled to a stop a scant ten yards shy of her hiding spot.

Maddie lifted the shotgun. She used the barrel to nudge a branch aside, giving her a clear view of the roadway. The SUV was pulled over now, engine idling.

Waiting for someone?

She cast a frantic look over her shoulder. Had Brian heard the approach? The ten minutes he’d been gone seemed like an hour.

A door squeaked open. Maddie whipped her head back around. The interior light was on now. Two men sat in front. They were big and bulky, and one had a cell phone pressed to his ear.

Maddie held her breath. She watched them. She tried to memorize their faces, their clothes, any distinguishing features she might later give to police. She shifted position for a better view, but then the door slammed shut, and tires squealed as they sped away.

Her breath whooshed out. She glanced over her shoulder. Through the branches, she saw a light flickering . . .

Fire
.

Fear zinged through her. She stumbled from her hiding place. Over the treetops, flames licked up into the night sky.

“Brian!” She put down the shotgun and ducked
through the fence, snagging her hair. She yanked it loose and pulled herself through the barbed wire, then darted through a clump of cedar trees. She reached a clearing and saw a warehouse engulfed in flames.

“Brian!”

An explosion knocked her on her butt. Pain shot up her tailbone. She pushed herself up and gazed, stunned, at the flames and smoke billowing into the sky.

Maddie scrambled to her feet and raced for the building, tripping and stumbling as she went.

“Brian!”
Her voice was shrill with panic. She halted and looked around desperately. Dear God, was he
inside
?

Smoke stung her eyes as she raced around the building, searching for a way in. It was stupid—she knew that—but she had to try.

Something clamped her arm and whirled her around.

“Are you okay?” Brian demanded.

She stood there, paralyzed with shock. The fire cast his face in an orange glow. He was dirty and sweaty and
bleeding
, but her relief at seeing him was so intense she couldn’t breathe.

“I thought you were
in there
!” She threw her arms around him and squeezed.

“Hey.
Hey
.”

Tears burned her eyes. Her lungs hurt. She felt dizzy and confused and terrified right down to her toes.

“Maddie.”

She couldn’t let go. She clung as tightly as she could, scared he was somehow going to vanish into the flames and smoke.

“Maddie, look at me.” He took her by the shoulders and eased her away from him. “Are you hurt?”

She shook her head, unable to talk now because of the rock-hard lump in her throat.

“Say something, damn it.”

“I’m fine.” She stepped back from him, glanced at the fire, and felt a surge of fear all over again. “I thought—” She couldn’t even say it. What if it had been real? People always thought the worst couldn’t happen, but it
could
. It
did
.

He turned to stare at the fire, and she took a moment to compose herself. Her palms were bleeding. She wiped them on the front of her coat.

“Chemicals.”

She blinked at him. “What?”

“Couple of big metal drums. I saw them inside. We shouldn’t stand so close—who knows how many might be in there.”

He tugged her back toward the road. The clearing was illuminated by the glow of the fire, and she realized that in her mad dash, she’d covered quite a distance.

He stopped suddenly. “Hear that?”

“What?” But even as she said it, she heard.

Sirens. They were getting louder.

“Come on.” He grabbed her by the elbow, and they jogged toward the noise. As they reached the road, a gray sedan plowed through the gate, flinging it back against a tree stump. Sam jumped out of the passenger’s side.

“Holy shit, Beck, what happened?” He rushed over and looked at Maddie. “She okay?” His gaze went to Brian.

“I’m fine,” she said as a trio of police vehicles arrived on the scene—two sheriff’s units and what looked like another FBI car.

“He torched the place.”

“Who?” Maddie and Sam asked in unison.

“Mladovic.”

“You saw him?” Sam asked.

“Not him, one of his guys.”

“What about Jolene?” Maddie touched his arm. “Did you see her in there?”

“No.”

“But did you see any evidence—”

“No,” he repeated, and the sharpness of his tone made her think the exact opposite—that he
had
seen something.

“I smelled gasoline when I first walked up,” Brian said. “And something else—whatever chemicals were stored in there. Then the place went up.”

“
While
you were inside?” Sam asked.

Maddie felt sick all over again.

“We need to go after him,” Brian said. “I didn’t see where he was parked, but—”

“Them,”
Maddie corrected. “There were two men in front. Looked like they were waiting for someone, and then they took off.”

“Which way?” Sam demanded.

“East.” She looked at her watch. “But that was at least ten minutes ago. By now, they’re long gone.”

“We need to try. Or we could set up a roadblock.”

Sam shook his head. “They’re probably in another county by now, but I could put out an APB.” He looked at Maddie. “You get a license plate?”

“Just a description.” Guilt stabbed at her. She should have tried harder to get a plate. “It was a gray SUV, midsize, chrome running boards.”