Page 11 of Burning Justice (Chasing Fire: Alaska #6)

Six

“We’re not killing him.” Kane held on to her, holding her back.

Maria let him. “Why not?”

She already had what she’d come for. All she needed to do was get the guys out of here before they were discovered. Before the unconscious man on the ground woke up and sounded the alarm, or one of his buddies came looking for him.

Kane didn’t even look over his shoulder. If he did, he would probably be the one determined to kill Elias Redding.

Their enemy.

The man who had betrayed the Trouble Boys, who was responsible for her being captured, and who had hurt Kane so badly just because he could, stepped off the helicopter like this was a social visit.

“We aren’t going to kill him,” Kane said, his tone tight. “If he’s here, it’s because he’s involved in this situation. He’ll know where to find your father and that canister.”

“He’s our shot at ending this.”

“That’s why we need him alive.”

Maria nodded. “Good.”

Kane frowned. “What?”

“When you want to kill him, remember that.” She grabbed his elbow and tugged him away, toward the front of the house. “Tell Saxon we’re leaving.”

No one else had disembarked that chopper. Her father wasn’t on it.

“Your dad isn’t here?” He sounded genuinely disappointed.

“I have a copy of Howards’s hard drive. We might be able to get something from it. Find out why the canister hasn’t been deployed yet.”

“Because they need a code.” Kane walked with her toward the front yard. “Because they need your dad to make more since we got all the rest.”

Maria frowned. “If they need more, why not just steal it from evidence? I doubt it’s been destroyed. That wouldn’t happen until after a trial.”

Kane said, “Sax, did you get that?”

Maria switched channels on her comms in time to hear Saxon say, “I’ll call Rio.”

She said, “We need to find Raine. Elias Redding can’t see us here, or he’ll recognize us and we’ll never get our hands on the canister. They’ll disappear, and I’ll never find my father.”

Kane squeezed her hand, then didn’t let go of it. “We didn’t come this far to give up now.” Those words had become their mantra—the code they’d lived by since they were declared dead. After a second pause, he said, “Raine shut off her comms, but we can go in the front again and find her.”

“I’ll go. One of us will draw less attention than both.”

“You don’t need to protect me from him.”

“I’m protecting all of us.”

Kane didn’t respond to that. But then, she didn’t need him to, did she. After this long, she knew what he was thinking.

As much as she might want to tear through that house and search every inch of it for her father, she would have known if he were here.

For such a high-value asset as her father, there would have been way more armed guards in the house.

She’d seen it in other places, when she’d come close to finding her father before.

“I’ll go get Raine.” She tugged on her hand, but Kane didn’t let go.

“Be careful.”

“I’m better at this than fighting fires.”

He smiled. “I believe you. I’ll be out here praying.”

Maria bit her lip because he knew how she felt about God. She went to the front door, and the bouncer guy let her in, but not before she gave him a twenty-dollar bill.

In the front entryway, she scanned the crowd for Raine and spotted her friend over by a bar that had been set up in the corner by the pool table.

She caught Raine’s attention and motioned with her head.

The other woman said something to her grandfather and kissed his cheek before wandering over. “What is it?”

“I need to go. And so do the guys.”

“My grandfather was just about to introduce me to someone.”

“He isn’t the kind of guy you want to know.”

Raine tugged a folded paper from her purse. “Like the kind who would give me a note for you?”

Maria unfolded it and found a handwritten note, unaddressed and unsigned.

I’m sorry. I’m going to fix everything.

“Who gave this to you?”

Raine said, “If we need to go, then we need to go.”

Maria heard Saxon in her ear and told Raine, “Turn your comms back on.”

Raine said, “I needed to have a private conversation.” But she reached up and switched it back on.

“Did you have it?”

The other woman nodded.

“Then it’s time to go.”

The commotion at the other end of the room was swelling, and Raine’s grandfather looked around—probably looking for Raine.

In her ear, Saxon said, “Rio is on his way here. The FBI is going to raid the house.”

Raine turned back to the room.

Maria shoved her to the door. “We’re already on our way out.”

“Hurry.” That was Kane.

“What’s going on?” Raine followed her through the front door.

Maria waited until they were out of earshot of the bouncer, then said, “I think you know exactly why the Feds might show up here. Don’t you?”

Kane met up with them by the fountain and walked behind them down the long drive.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Raine’s plea didn’t have much strength to it. Probably because she’d known they weren’t going to believe her before she’d even said it. After all, she was the one who’d brought them here—precisely because she knew her family was connected.

Which meant there was a whole lot Raine hadn’t said. Even if she tried to live like she knew nothing and had no connection to this situation, it was a lie.

In her ear, Saxon said, “Two minutes. I’ll pick you guys up out front.”

Maria said, “Why don’t we hang around, and you can tell Rio that you have no information?”

Raine whirled around and faced her, forcing Maria to stop walking. She said, “I’m not part of it.”

“But you were prepared to do the right thing and bring me here.”

“So you could look for your father!”

Maria eyed her friend, understanding how she might want to hide her connection to a group of dangerous people. How some might consider her untrustworthy because of her family.

“I know what it feels like to be judged for who your family is.” Maria had been forced to train harder, score higher, and prove herself over and over because her father had been suspected of voluntarily working for criminals all over the world.

As if he would have orchestrated his wife’s murder and left Maria just to get paid.

No way.

“I know what it feels like to have to prove who you are. To wish you could be judged on your own merit, not maligned because of something someone else did.”

Raine’s eyes filled with tears. As she shook her head, the moisture glistened in the light. “You don’t know anything about me.”

Saxon pulled up at the curb in his 4Runner.

Kane opened the back door right as a commotion erupted on the street.

Screeching tires. Men in dark fatigues and helmets, carrying assault rifles, raced across the grass, coming out of every corner, every shadow, the white FBI letters on their vests prominently visible in the dark.

A tactical truck pulled up to the curb, followed by three other SUVs. Another two SUVs came from the other direction, and personnel poured out of all of them.

“Stay where you are!” It was Rio, striding across the lawn to the front door.

The bouncer had run inside.

One of the agents rammed the door open, and they all raced inside.

Raine sucked in a breath.

“Will your grandfather comply, or will he fight them?”

She shook her head, and a tear fell.

“Who gave you the note for me?”

Kane said, “What note?”

She would show him later, but right now she needed information. And she needed to get the copied hard drive somewhere the FBI wasn’t going to find it in her possession.

Raine said, “Grandfather gave it to me. He said he was glad you came, and that he’d been asked to give it to you.”

“We should get in the car and go.” Kane looked around. “I’m not waiting around for Elias to see us.”

They all ducked into the SUV, and Saxon drove down the street. He weaved around the FBI vehicles, ignoring when he was flagged down to stop.

Saxon nodded to the agent, then hit the gas and sped away. “We’ve got bigger problems than the FBI being mad at us if Elias is here.”

“He’ll be in custody by tonight.”

Kane sounded like he almost believed that.

Maria glanced at Raine on the other side of the back seat, then said to the two guys in front, “You think he isn’t able to dodge FBI custody? He hasn’t come this far to get snatched up by the Feds with no way to get free. Rio won’t know how he ties into it, so he’ll just talk his way out of it.”

What they needed was to come back and follow Elias to see where he went. Surely he would lead them to the canister. A guy like that wasn’t going to leave it to someone else to carry out the plan.

That had to be why he’d come here himself.

Kane figured Sanchez was right enough about that. No way would Elias end up in a jail cell tonight.

But there was a risk they might.

Or at least that Rio might not share any more information with them. Probably they’d be shut out of the investigation from here on out.

Not that it mattered.

Far as he knew, dead people couldn’t be confidential informants.

Saxon pulled onto the highway. He had that edge to him he got sometimes—usually when there was a traitor nearby. Or when he was about to flip things around and take a stand.

Kane shifted far enough in the seat that he could draw his weapon, hoping he didn’t need it for whatever was about to happen.

Half a mile later, on a quiet stretch of winding highway, Saxon hit the brakes and pulled over.

He got out, so Kane did the same.

Saxon opened the back door and tugged out Raine.

She sputtered and yelped, but Kane knew Saxon had no intention of hurting her.

Saxon walked her to the back of the SUV and backed her up to the rear door. “Talk.”

“Or what?” Raine yelled. “Are you going to drag me around some more? Or walk me into those woods and shoot me in the head?”

She didn’t seem scared of them, but she was hiding something.

Sanchez left her door open. “Is there a reason we couldn’t do this back at the base?”