Page 4

CHAPTER FOUR

Pricks of sunlight pierced through the bag over her head, but not enough to gauge where they were taking her.

Charlie stumbled forward at a push from behind, only managing to catch herself by taking small steps. They’d secured her wrists behind her back with zip ties. Didn’t they realize she’d been brought up just like them? It would take more than zip ties to hold her back. Small rocks worked into her boots as they walked. “You didn’t have to knock him out.”

“Mouth closed. Keep moving.” It was the same soldier, the one who’d taken charge and clocked Granger with the butt of his rifle. The distinct sound of dragging punctured through the pound of her heart. They had to carry Granger now that he was unconscious. And where was Zeus?

A whine pierced her ears. The bull terrier was struggling without orders it seemed.

Charlie tried to distract herself from the sick feeling that’d taken hold as Granger had hit the ground. Her fists tugged against the zip ties, and she couldn’t contain the laugh sticking in her chest. Men like this particular soldier didn’t get to take charge. Not as long as her father was alive, and Daddy didn’t like to share the glory. She turned her head where she thought the soldier might be standing. “I’m going to remember you long after Henry Acker uses you up and discards you like the ones who’ve come before you.”

Pain speared across her back, and she launched forward. The ground rushed to meet her faster than she expected. Her shoulder caught the brunt. It was a miracle she managed not to hit her head. Something heavy lodged into her ribs and rolled her onto her back. A foot.

“I told you to keep your mouth shut.” Rough hands wrenched her to her feet and guided her a few more steps.

They were coming up on her father’s barn. Because it didn’t matter that they’d put a bag over her head to keep whatever secrets they had safe. She’d been born here, learned to walk here, ran laps around this property a thousand times. Every inch of Vaughn had been carved into her brain a long time ago. She knew exactly where they were headed.

The crunch of gravel beneath boots slowed. A heavy thud registered from her left as the soldier at her back pulled her to a stop. Despite the full-blown sun overhead, a chill took hold along her spine. November in the desert had always been magical to her. When nature seemed to freeze for a time, when she got a break from working the land and the livestock didn’t need her as much. It was a time of gratitude in her house. For what they’d accomplished and what they’d been blessed with throughout the season. When Henry Acker seemed more like the father she remembered than the hardened extremist he’d become after her mother’s death.

“Looks like we got visitors.” The gravelly voice accompanied a series of footsteps. Close but with enough distance to counter an attack. Just like he’d taught her.

“Trespassers, sir.”

“Caught them at the edge of town, the end of Magnolia.”

“Take the hoods off,” her father said.

Stinging pain ripped across her skull as the soldier who’d shoved her fisted the bag over her head and pulled. She automatically winced against the onslaught of blinding sun and didn’t see the next strike coming. The soldier launched his rifle into the back of her knee, and she collapsed.

“Don’t touch her!” The words were more predatorial than human. Shuffling kicked up dirt onto her hands and forearms as she caught sight of Granger fighting for release between two other soldiers. A fist rocketed into his gut and took him down to his knees. “I’m going to make you pay for that, you son of a bitch.”

Henry Acker didn’t need to see her face to recognize her, but Charlie got to her feet to face him all the same. To prove she could. The soldier at her back moved to subdue her again. Her father raised a hand to warn him off.

She breathed in the scent of dried-out hay, the odor from the chickens and the cooling scent of dropping temperatures as the sun reached the second half of the sky. So many memories battled for dominance here. Some good, some bad. But all of them hers. All of them combining to make her into the woman she was today. “Hi, Daddy.”

A wall of nervous energy hit her from behind. The soldier who’d brought her in hadn’t recognized her. She wasn’t surprised, given the ten or more years between them.

“The prodigal daughter returns.” Henry Acker let a half smile of amusement crease one side of his mouth as he wiped his hands clean with a work towel. Black smudges spread across the strong hands she’d once trusted to protect her. Never one to shy away from the work that needed to be done. One of the tractors must be out of commission. He motioned to Granger. “Who’s your friend?”

“Nobody you need to concern yourself with.” Charlie managed a glance at Granger. A dark bruise had already started forming alongside his face, but she couldn’t see any swelling. A concussion? “But I’d watch out for the dog, if I were you. He likes to sit on people.”

Zeus cocked his head to one side and parked his butt on the ground. Ever the loyal companion.

“Granger Morais.” Her partner wrenched out of the hold of both soldiers working to contain him.

“Morais. I remember the name. Homeland Security, right? You investigated the death of my firstborn after that attack on the Alamo pipeline. Sage.” Henry absently nodded. “You brought a federal agent into my town?”

Her father closed the distance between him and Charlie. He stuffed the rag in the back pocket of his worn jeans. That all-too-familiar shiver of his authority raced through her as he reached for her. Charlie tried to dodge his attempt at contact, but there was nowhere for her to run this time. He gripped her chin, giving her a full view of his aging face. “You’re bleeding.”

Acid charged into her throat at his touch.

“I fell.” Half-truths. That was how she’d managed to survive in Vaughn for so long while she and Granger strategized on how to dismantle Acker’s Army. The more honest she could be when talking to her father, the higher chance he’d continue to trust her. Charlie maneuvered out of his hold.

“I see.” Her father unholstered the gun at his right side, letting it dangle in his hand for a moment. “Do I have you to thank for that, Johnny?”

“I asked her to keep her mouth shut, sir.” Johnny. The soldier who’d bagged her and knocked Granger unconscious shifted his feet. He held onto the strap of his rifle as though to prove he belonged. “She refused.”

A low laugh rumbled through Henry Acker as he circled behind her. Charlie knew what was coming next, and she didn’t have the stomach to watch despite Johnny’s treatment of her. “Nobody lays a hand on my daughter.”

The first strike was the loudest, and a cringe cut through Charlie. Johnny’s cry didn’t come close to the sound of the butt of her father’s weapon against his skull. She tried to focus on Granger, on the rise and fall of his chest, of the pattern of the bruise on his face, but it didn’t help. The second strike accompanied a thud of the soldier’s body hitting the ground. No cry this time. Granger turned away from the attack. The third strike to Johnny’s head sounded more wet than any preceding it.

Zeus set his head against his master’s leg.

Then silence.

Heavy breathing reached her ears as her father handed off his weapon to one of the other men. He wiped his head and hands with the same work towel he’d used while fixing his tractor. As though it’d never happened.

“Was that really necessary?” Granger didn’t understand the rules here, that he didn’t have any authority or rights. Vaughn police were controlled by Henry Acker. The mayor was controlled by Henry Acker. Anything and everything that happened in this town went through him, and there was nothing anyone could say or do to change that.

“He’s alive, which is more than he deserves.” Henry motioned for two of the other soldiers to clean up the mess he’d made, and they collected Johnny’s body and hauled him out of sight. “Now, Charlie, considering you brought Agent Morais onto my property, I’m starting to think you’re not here to apologize for making me think I lost two daughters in that pipeline explosion. When you broke into my house last night, you accused me of having something to do with Erin’s death. Is that what this is, Charlie Grace?” He motioned to Granger. “You here to have Agent Morais bring me in?”

First and middle-named. It’d always been a warning for when she’d crossed a line as a kid. Only now it seemed to have a much stronger effect, despite her years of emotional and physical distance. “Erin wanted out, Dad. She’d been trying to leave for years, but you just wouldn’t let her. You wouldn’t let any of us. Sage had to die to get away, I had to fake my death and run, and Erin—”

“Erin died in a hunting accident. Just like the coroner said.” A slip of her father’s eyes gave her the answer she craved, and her heart squeezed too tight in her chest. He scrubbed at the same spot on his hands, a little too hard.

“A coroner who would write whatever you told him to write in his report.” The zip ties were cutting deeper due to the tension in her hands and arms. “Because that’s how it works around here, doesn’t it? Everyone here worships you. Every word out of your mouth is gospel. No matter how many lives have to be sacrificed, nobody is allowed to question you for the good of the cause.”

“I keep them safe. They know that, and they reward me with their service.” Her father shoved the towel back into his jeans and headed for the barn, leaving her and Granger zip-tied in the middle of the most dangerous place on earth. “Let them go. See if they can make it to the town border alive.”

Bastard.

But she wasn’t finished. After all these years, she finally had the courage to stand up for herself, for her sisters. “You brainwash them, just like you brainwashed your own daughters, and look what happened. Two of them are dead, and the other is the target of a drug cartel. Because of you and your extremist bullshit.”

“Drug cartel?” Henry Acker turned to face her, years of age, any hint of grief he’d shown and some color melting away. In front of her was the man she’d wanted to love her more than anything—to choose her over his cause—who had come up short every chance he got. “Don’t come back, Charlie. There’s nothing left here for you.”

“I’m not leaving until I find out what happened to my sister.” She squared her shoulders, feeling stronger than ever. Maybe it had everything to do with Granger at her side or the fact she really had nothing left to lose, but she would take it. All of it. “You don’t scare me anymore, Dad. I’m going to find out the truth. In the end, you’re going to pay for everything you did to us.”

“You’ve been warned, Charlie,” Henry said. “Get them out of my town.”

* * *

His head pounded harder than it should.

Sundown was in less than twenty minutes.

Henry Acker walked into his barn without another glance in their direction. The Acker patriarch had set the rules. Breaking them would bring a rain of hell on earth. Granger had witnessed it firsthand. But he’d gotten what they’d come for. Confirmation. Henry Acker had paused at the mention of Sangre por Sangre . Might as well told them right then and there he knew exactly what the cartel wanted with Charlie.

“Let’s go, princess.” Another one of Acker’s soldiers shoved Charlie forward, but she managed to stay on her own two feet.

“I told you. I’m not going anywhere.” Charlie broke out of the zip ties as if the plastic was mere sewing thread. And hell if that wasn’t one of the sexiest things he’d ever seen. She turned on the soldier at her back and rammed her fist into his face. No, wait. That was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.

The man hit the ground. Out cold.

Granger wrenched his wrists down as hard as he could and snapped the zip ties loose. He turned on the escort behind him and knocked the soldier out cold. Rubbing at his wrists, he stared into the barn. Hell, they were in the middle of enemy territory. “An abduction, a beating and a death threat all in one day. You sure know how to show a fellow a good time. Hadn’t expected to meet the parents so soon though.”

“It could’ve been a lot worse.” Johnny obviously hadn’t known who he was dealing with when he’d dragged Charlie into town. She turned that dark gaze on him. “He could’ve strip-searched you like the first boy who dared ask me on a date. Get their feet.”

They dragged each soldier away from the front of the barn and behind a wall of bailed hay. Not ideal but the best option they had.

“Guess I should be grateful.” His laugh took him by surprise. “All right. So we’re in the middle of a hostile town with twenty minutes until the sun goes down. What now?”

“We make those twenty minutes count.” Charlie charged for the side of the barn, leading him straight past the structure and toward a house an eighth of a mile up the drive.

The Acker family home was everything he’d imagined, but nothing like he’d expected. Vaughn, New Mexico, wasn’t exactly the type of place people from renovation shows visited. Not when a single man controlled the import and export of every grain of rice, wheat and piece of fruit. Jobs here consisted of farming the land, livestock raising and the occasional trade. The nearest dentist or physicians were in the next town over. Henry Acker and the townspeople didn’t trust anyone outside these borders. More likely to take care of any ailments themselves and utilize natural remedies they’d made or stockpiled over the years. But the Acker home itself could’ve starred in one of those design shows.

Clean white horizontal siding gave the impression of a large home, but the structure couldn’t have been more than two-thousand square feet. Dark shutters highlighted large windows from the covered porch. Old brick steps—handlaid from the looks of it—were still in perfect condition. As though the place had been built yesterday. An equally well-built redbrick chimney stretched up along one side of the house. Despite the constant threat the people of this town believed was coming, Henry Acker had done a fine job taking care of his home.

Understanding hit as Charlie hiked up the steps.

“You’re not serious about going in there.” Granger pulled up short. Zeus ran into his leg, unable to stop his mass quick enough. Happened more often than not. “Your father ordered us to leave. Not to mention anyone could be inside.”

Charlie swung the screen door open. Old hinges screamed in protest, but it didn’t stop her from shouldering inside the house. “If I followed every order my father gave me, Granger, I’d be buried next to my sisters’ headstones in the backyard.”

She didn’t wait for his response, letting the house consume her.

Wind shifted through the trees protecting the property from the rest of the town with a false sense of privacy. Large thin trees that had no business growing here in the middle of the desert. Granger stared past the house, through the trees as an uncomfortable weight of being watched hitched his pulse higher. He didn’t have a choice. Because a stranger standing outside Henry Acker’s house was sure to attract attention. And not the good kind.

“Come on, Zeus.” He and the bull terrier followed after Charlie up onto the porch, though Zeus had far more trouble than usual. Damn dog had probably gotten into something else he shouldn’t have. Old boards creaked with his additional weight as a pair of rocking chairs—most likely hand hewn—shifted back and forth from the breeze. He had a perfect view of the driveway and the barn from this angle. Less chance of an ambush. Granger worked his way inside, instantly confronted with wood paneling, orange drapes and a wood-trimmed bay window looking out into the side yard. A thin layer of dust coated decades-old family photos, and cracked leather couches hinted at the stark difference between the outside of the home compared to the inside. Strong and pulled together on the exterior. Suffering on the inside. Granger catalogued everything within sight as he moved through the squared-off wood-trim arch into the kitchen. “Charlie?”

Old cabinetry stuck out. Old appliances. Wood countertops. A table with six chairs stood alone in the oversized space of the kitchen. The dining room looked as though it hadn’t gotten any use in years. No new scratches against the linoleum. What the hell were they doing here? What was Charlie hoping to find? A stack of boxes stuffed behind the dining table threatened to tip over at any second. Overpacked. Granger rounded the end of the table and pried the lid of the top box open as Zeus sniffed his way around the kitchen. Most likely looking for crumbs off the floor.

“It’s meticulously inventoried.” Charlie’s voice had lost some of the power it’d had as they’d witnessed a man beaten to near death, and Granger couldn’t help but take it in. The vulnerability, the pain that came with coming back here. She crossed the kitchen from the family room and pried the other lid open, pointing out the handwritten numbers on the underside of the cardboard. “Every week for the past twenty years. See these?”

She slid her finger closer to the beginning of the numbers where the handwriting had changed.

Granger pulled himself up taller, having not really come to terms that this place was where Charlie and her sisters had been raised. Until now. “Is that your handwriting?”

“One of my weekly jobs. I was in charge of inventorying all of our supplies. Here in the house and out back in the bunker. I had to make sure nothing was unaccounted for. Doesn’t look like much has changed in that regard.” She studied the kitchen as though seeing it for the first time.

“And if the numbers didn’t match up?” He wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer, but these were the kinds of things he and Charlie had kept out of their short relationship. The stuff she hadn’t wanted to give up to the man looking for a way to arrest her father. Not out of any kind of loyalty to Henry Acker but as a way to move on. To distance herself from the life she would be leaving behind.

“Then I would have to replace it with my own wages. If it happened enough times, I paid for it in other ways, but when you’re trying to escape an extremist group, you make sure that never happens.” She folded the lids back into place, sealing the inventory inside. “You know, I was here last night, but it was so hard to see. In the daylight, it’s almost like…”

Granger couldn’t look away from the familiarity softening her face. It was nothing like that invisible armor she insisted on presenting to the world. Here, in her childhood home, she reminded him of the woman he’d known ten years ago. “Like what?”

“Like I’m home. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.” She shook her head, snapping herself back into the moment. “If my father catches us in here, his warning won’t matter. He’s very protective of his property. No one outside the family is allowed to even know this stuff exists.”

She was right. They were running out of time. Acker’s supplies, the house, her childhood—none of it had anything to do with her sister’s death. “Did you find anything during your search?”

“I went through Erin’s room again, but it’s the same as last night.” Charlie threaded her dark hair out of her face, highlighting the terra-cotta coloring of her skin. Henry Acker was the epitome of an angry white man determined to protect his constitutional rights in the extreme, but somewhere along the way he’d fallen for a woman of Cameroon heritage. Charlie had never told him about her mother. Another one of those pieces of her childhood she wanted to forget. “My father has an office at the end of the hall. He always kept it locked, even when I was a kid. Going in there was forbidden, and I wasn’t masochist enough to break that rule. If there’s something tying him to Erin’s death or any of the attacks you suspect him of being involved in, it would be in there.”

Granger crossed the kitchen to the window above the sink. Only this window didn’t give him a visual on the barn or the front of the house. A cement bunker took up most of the view. It wouldn’t take long before someone found the men they’d knocked unconscious. “We better move fast. The sun is behind the trees now. It’ll be ten times harder to get out of town if we can’t see where we’re going.”

“I’ve got that covered.” Charlie didn’t wait for him to catch up as she vanished back into the family room. Zeus took it upon himself to follow her. Traitor.

Granger tracked her past worn couches, an old box TV and a crocheted rug that’d seen better days. The house wasn’t large, making it easy to navigate down the hallway where Charlie crouched in front of the last door in the hall. “Any idea where we’re supposed to get a key?”

“I don’t need one.” The door fell open. Only as she stood did he recognize the miniature lockpick set she was sliding back into her jacket. Shoving to her feet, she smiled, with victory etched into her face.

“Another one of your weekly tasks when you were a kid?” he asked.

“No. That one I picked up on my own.” She grabbed the doorknob and pushed inside the too-small office taken over by the massive desk in the center of the room. Charlie didn’t wait for permission, rounding the other side of the desk. She tested drawers and went through papers as Granger surveyed the rest of the room.

A closet stood off to his right, pulling him toward it as effectively as gravity held him to the earth. He dragged the door open. And stepped back. Guns. Lots of guns. Granger lost count after he hit twenty, and that was just the rifles. Reaching for one dead center of the lineup, he tested the modifications. High-powered and definitely not used for hunting. At least not the legal kind. Boxes of ammunition stacked along the overhead shelf nearly reached the ceiling. “He’s got enough guns here for an entire army.”

Though he guessed that was the point.

“Granger.” Charlie’s voice had taken on that wispy quality again. “I found something.”

He replaced the weapon on its mount and shut the closet door behind him. “What is it?”

She flattened what looked like a blueprint across the desk with both hands. “Plans.”

“These are dated two weeks ago.” Granger took out his phone and took a photo. Handwritten notes took up the margins, with lines cutting across the page. He sent the photo to Scarlett Beam, Socorro’s security specialist. If anyone could get them an answer, it was her. “Looks like the layout of a building, but I won’t know from where until I get one of my teammates to look at them.”

“You don’t need to. I already know where these blueprints are from, and I know what my father is up to.” She took a step back, though she didn’t take her attention off the blueprints in front of her. “He’s planning to attack the state capital.”