“So, you’ve been living up here this whole time, I take it?”
Duarte nodded. “You?”
“Got a place down near the beach in Miami.”
“Let me guess. One of those sleek high-rise condos with glass walls and ocean views for miles?”
It was no secret that Alec Colton came from money—very old, very established East Coast money—even if he was the unabashed black sheep of his well-heeled family. He’d joined the Marines soon after the Trade Center attack, just like Duarte and Kyle Becker had, but Alec had also admitted he’d done it to escape the yoke and disapproval of his family.
Now, there was no going back. None of the former Phoenix operatives could go back to what they’d once had.
“Nah, nothing like that,” Alec said. “That never was my style, man. I’m renting a sweet little Airstream in a trailer park a few blocks from the water. I keep my head down and my ear to the ground, online and otherwise.”
“What’s your cover down there? Doing anything for work?”
“I pick up the odd job here and there. Nobody to answer to, nobody telling me how to live my life, which is how I prefer things these days.” He paused for a long moment. “So... you and Lisa.”
“Yeah,” Duarte said. “Me and Lisa. Long story. Private one, and I’m not of a mind to get into it with you at the moment.”
Alec nodded slowly, studying him now. “You trust her, though?”
“I trust her.”
“Well, that’s good, because that dead guy we’re about to toast isn’t the last of her problems. Not the last of ours either, my friend.”
Duarte had a feeling he knew where Alec was heading with this. The same thing had been bugging him since they’d dragged the would-be assassin out of the ditch. “The pistol he was carrying—”
“Isn’t a SIG,” Alec finished. “It’s not the one I saw in my vision.”
Not the one Duarte had seen either. Which meant that whatever this man had intended by tracking Lisa up the mountain with a weapon drawn, even though he was now dead, her life was still in danger. The thought put a knot of fury and dread in Duarte’s chest. “I’m not going to let her get hurt. Anyone tries, and they’ll have to come through me first.”
“Even her brother?”
Duarte narrowed his eyes. “What do you know about him?”
“Like I said, I’ve been having a lot of visions lately. One of them involves Talon.”
“As in?”
“As in, him working with the bad guys. Giving them intel, using his ability to help them put hits out on other Phoenix operatives.” When Duarte cursed, Alec went on. “The vision first came to me a couple of months ago, but it was hazy. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing.”
“Then maybe you were wrong. Hazy could mean you’re mistaken.”
“I’ve seen it a few times now, each one clearer than the last. Enough to know that it’s real.” Alec’s expression was as sober as his tone. “Once the premonitions started, I dug into Becker’s sister online, began keeping a covert eye on her from a distance, in case she might lead me to him. But nope. Not even a blip of activity on that front. Then, last week, I got the vision of her being held at gunpoint and I decided it was time to move in for a closer look.”
Duarte raked a hand over his jaw. He’d been having his own share of disturbing premonitions, too, but the news about Kyle Becker was difficult to reconcile.
None of the three of them was a saint, but Talon a traitor to Phoenix and his comrades? If that was true, it was going to devastate Lisa. And if it was true, then Duarte would have to take the double-crossing son of a bitch out personally. “You sure about all this?”
Alec nodded. “Wish I wasn’t, man, but I know what I saw. He’s working with Phoenix’s enemies. I would bet my life on it. I just don’t know where the son of a bitch is, or who’s calling the shots above him.”
“We need those answers,” Duarte murmured.
“Right. And now that Lisa’s heard from him, there’s a chance she can help us find them—”
“No fucking way.” A spear of possessiveness—of white-hot protectiveness—surged through him at the thought of using Lisa to prove, or disprove, her brother’s guilt. And Duarte wasn’t about to put her anywhere near the fallout, if Alec’s vision turned out to be true. “She stays out of this, you got that?”
Alec eyed him soberly and gave a mild shake of his head. “Like it or not, Ranger, she’s already in. You and I both know that. And sooner or later, before this is all done, she’s gonna have a SIG nine cocked and loaded up against her pretty head.”
The reminder chilled Duarte to the bone. It also solidified his resolve. “I’ll die before I let that happen.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come down to that, my friend.”
“I need to take her someplace safe,” Duarte said. “I want to keep her close by while you and I figure out what’s going on with her brother. And then decide what we need to do about it.”
“Right,” Alec agreed. “As for where to go, I have some connections that may be able to help with a temporary safe house.”
“What kind of connections?”
“Trustworthy ones,” he said. “Let’s just say I have a business colleague who owes me a favor or two and won’t balk at being asked for payback. There won’t be any questions, and the place is guaranteed secure.”
“You talking military security?”
Alec smirked. “More or less.”
“Why do I get the feeling it’s much less?”
“Guess you’re just gonna have to trust me, Ranger.” The Marine comrade who’d had Duarte’s back since boot camp held his gaze now from under the fall of a shaggy mane of surfer dude waves. Crystal blue eyes held Duarte’s stare, measuring him, too. “Guess we’re both going to have to trust each other now.”
Duarte nodded, and suddenly it felt a bit like old times. Like being back in the platoon in the sandbox, preparing to head out on a combat mission.
Except this time, if Alec was right, the enemy on the other side of the wire could be one of their own. Duarte didn’t want to consider that possibility, but he was too jaded by war and betrayal to believe it could never happen.
And his years in the Phoenix program had taught him another thing, too. The visions never lie.
“Come on,” Duarte said. He took the GPS tracker out of his pocket and pitched it into the woods. Anyone else monitoring the signal would have to search a thousand acres of wilderness before they realized Lisa’s car was no longer attached to the beacon. “Let’s start the barbeque and get the fuck out of here.”
Leaning into Lisa’s open car, he put the transmission in neutral. Then he closed the door and together he and Alec went around behind the Camry and pushed it off the narrow dirt road and over the steep ledge.
9
They cleared out of the cabin and hit the road as soon as the guys returned. Leaving her car smoldering at the bottom of the cliff along with the gunman who’d come to find her, John explained that the diversion would likely only buy a day or two lead time before someone else came looking for her.
They needed to put miles between themselves and the cabin, and they needed to do it fast. John had packed a duffel with a change of clothes and some additional firearms. Lisa had the few things she brought with her from Cincinnati in her backpack.
With it likely that whoever was tracking Lisa now also had John on their radar, his old pickup would have been as useless to them as her car. Alec’s Jeep, parked down at the base of the mountain since he’d arrived last night, made for a cramped road trip option but they had few choices.
Lisa didn’t know precisely where she and her pair of grim companions were headed now. Before they left North Carolina, Alec had made a call to a friend who’d agreed to provide them with a temporary safe house somewhere. Now, as the sun began to set over I-95 South some eleven hours later, Lisa watched from the Wrangler’s small backseat as the highway signs indicated they were approaching Miami.
Alec exited the highway and drove through a maze of side streets and back alleys, skirting the tropical vibrancy of the downtown for a more industrial section of the city. The salty scent of the ocean and aromatic, spicy foods carried in through the Jeep’s open windows as they traveled deeper into Miami’s back channels.
Alec seemed to know the area well. He navigated with a sure hand, eventually rolling the Jeep to a stop at a gated entrance to a large dock-front warehouse.
A mean-looking security guard came out of the small gate shack to approach. He was swarthy and thick-trunked, his dark brows furrowed over black-lensed sunglasses. At his hip, a holstered pistol bobbed with each stride he took. Behind him came an even bigger guard to circle around the other side of the Jeep.
“Jesus Christ,” John muttered under his breath as the armed men stalked toward the car.
The surly guard’s face lost some of its aggression as he ambled forward, but the whole thing still left Lisa on edge. She could sense John’s unease, too, as the second man strolled slowly up to the passenger window, his hand resting on his weapon. From the way John’s muscled shoulders tensed, there was little doubt he was prepared to draw his own pistol any second.
“It’s cool, relax.” Alec lifted his finger off the wheel in a casual wave of greeting as he cranked the driver’s side window down. “Hey, Luis,
qué más?
”
The guard on Alec’s side cracked a broad smile and chuckled. He thrust his big mitt into the vehicle to clasp Alec’s hand in greeting.
“Qué has hecho, parce?”
They launched into a brief but congenial conversation in some form of Spanish. Alec was fluent, almost familial, with the men. As they were with him. Even the second guard’s face slackened into an expression that was almost friendly. Then the guard talking with Alec nodded to his comrade, who clicked a button on a remote he wore on his belt. The gate swung open, permitting them through.
Alec gave the two men another smile and a salute, then he drove inside the warehouse yard.
John slanted him a suspicious look as they rolled away from the guard shack. “My Spanish is rusty as fuck, but I’m guessing that was Colombian?”
“My friend and his associates are from Bogotá,” Alec said as he drove toward the large square building up ahead and the deepwater docks behind it.
“Your friend and his associates.” John grunted. He swung a glance at the warehouse and cursed. “Just what kind of safe house did you arrange for us, Stingray?”
Alec flicked an arch look at Lisa in the rearview mirror. “He always this growly and ungrateful?”
John glared. “Some people just bring out the best in me.”
Lisa smiled in spite of the apprehension that rippled through her. John’s caution was understandable, after all. In coming with Alec, they were putting their lives in his hands. She and John—Alec, too—were putting their lives in the hands of people he said could be trusted, yet who seemed to be more than a little dangerous in their own right.
“That’s our ride over there,” Alec said. He nodded ahead of them, to where a sleek helicopter stood. “The safe house is a short flight from here. The pilot will take us the rest of the way.”
As they collected their things and climbed out of the Jeep to approach the helipad, John caught Lisa’s hand in his. The gesture was as unexpected as it was intimate and reassuring. She didn’t try to pretend she didn’t welcome his warmth as they embarked on this strange new leg of their journey together.
Alec greeted the pilot with the same fluent Spanish and easy charm. Like the guards at the gate, this man was also armed with a holstered pistol and a don’t-mess-with-me demeanor. After a few words with Alec, a few moments to allow them to get settled and buckled in to their seats in back of the cockpit, they were off.
The chopper lifted up over the azure water and strip of white sand, then banked into a southerly course. The Florida keys lay up ahead, a chain of green islands of varying sizes and populations. They spangled like dark jewels in the setting sunlight.
Lisa watched the scenery pass below, then realized they were heading for a small island set by itself about a quarter-mile off shore from a larger key. The beach-fringed clump of green foliage was home to a single residence—a sprawling tropical mansion with a pool on one side and a helipad on the other. A pair of wooden boat slips stretched out into the blue water, and circling the entire diameter of the residence was what appeared to be a hand-dug moat.
The helicopter began to descend. As they touched down on the concrete pad, two pairs of guards waited nearby.
Lisa was apparently getting used to the idea of being greeted by heavily armed Colombians, because she hardly flinched when one of them gestured to take her backpack inside for her while Alec chatted up the leader of their detail and casually shook hands with the others.
The guard who’d taken Lisa’s backpack went to the helicopter and retrieved a medium-sized silver suitcase. When he started carrying it inside with her backpack, she stepped in and shook her head. “Wait, that one’s not ours—”
“He knows,” Alec interjected smoothly. Smiling, he gestured to the guard to continue on. “My friend on the mainland sent along some other cargo with us.”
Duarte slowly shook his head. “We’re not staying.”
Alec frowned. “What?”
“We’re not taking favors from some fucking drug dealer, Stingray.”
“You got a better option, Ranger?” Alec met him stare for stare, every bit as hard-headed and clearly just as accustomed to being the chief alpha in charge. “Like I told you, we’ll be safe here. Those men in there and the one they serve may operate outside the law, but they’re good people. And so long as we’re here, they’ll guard us like they would their own family.” He pivoted away from John and Lisa, and started walking. “I smell dinner cooking inside. You two coming, or what?”
~ ~ ~
Duarte had his doubts about Alec and his so-called friend’s provision of a safe house, but even he had to admit the accommodations didn’t suck. Neither did the dinner they’d all enjoyed an hour ago in the main house. Turned out one of the rifle-toting Colombians who’d greeted them on arrival was also a gourmet-caliber cook.
After feasting on marinated grilled mahi with melon and citrus salsa, spicy roasted vegetables, followed by a sweet coconut flan for dessert, Duarte’s doubts about their private island hosts had lost some of their edge. The generous pours of hundred-year-old scotch he and Alec had enjoyed after the meal hadn’t hurt either.