Page 5

CHAPTER FIVE

This couldn’t be right.

Her father and his homegrown army had never plotted something this big before. Age was supposed to come with wisdom. Where the hell was Henry Acker’s common sense? Attacking a state capital building would put him behind bars for the rest of his life. However long he had left anyway.

Charlie grabbed for the blueprints, crumpling the thin paper between both hands. No. She wasn’t going to let this happen. She’d find a way to stop him, even if it meant taking the few notes he’d made in the margins. Heavy footsteps echoed through the house from the porch. “We need to go.”

“Leave the blueprints. I’ve got photos.” Granger grabbed her arm and tried to maneuver her toward the door.

She tugged herself free, looking for anything else that might slow Acker’s Army down. They were already responsible for so many lives. She couldn’t let them do this. “We can’t leave these here.”

The front door screen protested, just as it had when she’d pulled it open to come inside.

Granger got close—too close—pressing his chest against her arm. His mouth dropped to her ear. “If you take them, he’ll know we’ve been in here. He’ll know we found them, and he might change his plans. Right now, we have a way to stop him, Charlie. Do you really want to risk that?”

He was right. Of course, he was right. But the thought of allowing her father to do what he did best knotted panic deep in her gut. The front door creaked open with two even thuds. Only her father wasn’t coming inside the house. At least not completely.

Charlie nodded, forcing herself to release her hold on the blueprints. “There’s a hatch that leads under the house on the left side of the closet.”

Granger didn’t hesitate. He released her, leaving a cold trail of sensation around her arm. Swinging the closet door open, he shoved her father’s hunting camo hanging across the metal bar out of the way and exposed their only escape.

Sundown had passed.

They were out of time.

Charlie quieted her breathing to listen for signs of movement as Granger worked to clear the hatch. There was nothing to suggest her father suspected she hadn’t left town as ordered, but the one mistake she’d made growing up was underestimating the monster he kept inside. The one he only let out when he was in the middle of one of his operations.

Her gaze cut back to the blueprints, then to Granger. She already lived with the guilt of four innocent lives taken that night at the Alamo pipeline, not including her oldest sister. She couldn’t handle the weight of any more. She couldn’t give Henry Acker the chance to even try. Charlie closed the distance between her and the desk for a second time and folded the main blueprint as quickly as possible. She shoved the plans down the back waistband of her jeans.

Granger hauled the hatch open and reached back for her. “You first.”

Old wood whined from the hallway. Just outside the office door.

Air caught in her throat as she watched a shadow shift beneath the crack between the floor and the bottom of the door. Fear and a thousand questions bubbled up her throat. She needed to know why. Why her father had become an enemy of his own government. Why he’d decided the lives of the people of this town were worth sacrificing in a losing battle. Because no matter how many attacks Acker’s Army carried out, they were going to lose. He was going to lose, and when that happened, everyone she’d ever loved would be gone.

“Charlie, we’ve got to go.” Granger latched onto her hand and pulled her into the closet. He shoved her into the square opening and pressed her head down.

Cold air whipped her hair into her face. She kept low and moved fast as she headed for the back of the house. Zeus dropped out of the opening behind her with a huff.

A gunshot ripped through the wood flooring.

“Go!” Granger was out of the opening and shoving her forward.

Her nerves shot into overdrive. Charlie clawed out from underneath the house.

Another bullet exploded from behind them. “Charlie!” Her father’s bellow seemed to shake the house right off its minimal foundation. “Get back here, girl!”

Granger’s hand found hers as they ran for the trees. They kept pace with each other as though they’d been together this entire time. Like they’d never lost touch.

Twigs and pine needles scratched at her hair and face as they broke the line of trees that’d stood guard over her family’s property her entire childhood. Once upon a time, she’d known these trees as well as she’d known the back of her own hand. Dozens of summers of her and her sisters playing hide-and-seek struggled to fit into the overgrowth and darkness. Despite the encroaching desert and miserable temperatures throughout most the year, this patch of paradise went on for miles. Her family had relied on it more than once for wood in the winter, for mushrooms in the spring and growing produce not meant to survive in this part of the world in the summer.

They’d made a mistake coming here.

Henry Acker never gave up, and he never surrendered. Even when faced with the exposed involvement and potential arrest of his daughters for his dirty deeds, he hadn’t admitted anything that could implicate him in his attacks. And he wouldn’t stop looking for her. Not after knowing she was the one to take his blueprints. There was a chance she and Granger would never make it out of Vaughn, and she’d lose the one tie to that old life she’d never wanted to let go of. Him.

Her breathing overwhelmed the pounding of her footsteps until it was all she could hear. She’d been running for so long she wasn’t sure she could stop. Her body wouldn’t let her. Not until she got them as far from this place as possible. It was the only way to survive what was coming for them.

“Charlie.” Granger grabbed for her, but she wouldn’t slow down. She couldn’t. “He’s not following us. You can stop.” His hand latched around hers, and he seemed to anchor her to the spot. Her momentum swung her into that comforting wall of muscle, but the need to keep fighting was too strong. Arms of steel secured her against his frame. “Charlie, stop.”

She couldn’t contain the sobs. They cut through her like thousands of shards of glass. “He’s coming for us. He’s never going to let me go. No matter how hard I fight or how long I hide, I’ll never escape this place. I’ll never escape him.”

“I’ve got you.” His hand threaded through her hair as something warm and slobbery collapsed against her leg. The dog. “I gave you my word when you agreed to be my CI. I’m not going to let him touch you. Ever. Understand?”

She latched onto that promise with everything she had as the adrenaline rush of escape ran out. Because it was the only thing that made sense in this world. The internal battle between loving the man who’d raised her and the man who’d carelessly sacrificed innocent lives for his cause—including her sisters’—was tearing her apart, piece by piece. But Granger was holding her together right now. And that was enough.

Charlie brought her arms around him, taking in everything she could about these few seconds. They’d had moments like this that’d sustained her before her disappearance, but this…this felt different. Stronger and more fragile at the same time. It was familiar and terrifying and absolutely needed in the middle of a fight for their lives. “My father will already have someone raiding your vehicle for supplies. We’re stuck out here without flashlights or a compass or a plan. Sooner or later, he’s going to send someone in to flush us out. For this.”

She pulled the blueprints from the back of her waistband. Sweat permeated the paper. There was a chance she’d screwed this up. But letting Henry Acker go through with his plans and potentially being too late to stop him wasn’t a risk she’d been willing to take.

“You took the blueprints.” No hint of disappointment. Nothing to suggest anger or any other emotion got the better of him. And hell, she wished Granger would show her something. That she could read him as well as she used to. “No wonder your father’s pissed.”

“I just wanted…” The pain of that night, of watching people die because she’d been too weak to stand up to her father, clawed through her. “I wanted to do something good for once. Something that might make up for my mistakes. I can’t let him hurt anyone else, Granger.”

“It’s going to be okay. We’ll figure this out. Together.” Granger secured her against him. Right where she needed to be. “Not sure if you know this, but I have a little experience with getting out of tough situations.”

The rumble of his voice soothed her cracked nerves, and Charlie wanted nothing more than to stay in this moment for a little longer. To pretend her father wasn’t about to attack the state’s most protected landmark. That ten years of silence hadn’t changed things between her and Granger.

But they had.

She pulled out of his arms. Because no matter how much she wanted to believe they were the same people they’d been back then, it just wasn’t true. Her fingers grazed the left side of his rib cage. Wetness spread across her fingertips. Concern hijacked her central nervous system. “You’re hit.”

“It’s nothing.” Granger clamped a hand over the wound, coming away with blood in the last blur of sundown. He cut his attention down to hide the flash of pain in his expression. “Just a graze. It’ll stop bleeding as long as I keep pressure on it.”

“You were shot. That’s not nothing.” Charlie shoved the blueprints back into her waistband and ripped her jacket from her shoulders in a flurry of needing to do something. “Take off your shirt. I need to see the wound.”

“It’s fine. I’ve survived worse. We need to get moving if we want to stay ahead of your dad’s underlings.” He attempted a step forward, but Charlie wouldn’t let him budge.

She planted a hand on his chest, directly over that heart she’d once believed belonged to her. That was the thing about fairy tales. They’d always been too good to be true. Including the one she’d created between them. “Unless you’re trained in field medicine like I am, you’re going to do exactly as I tell you. Now sit down and lift up your shirt.”

* * *

She was going to be the death of him.

And not in any kind of physical way.

Granger braced against the boulder jutting out from a grouping a trees. A place like these woods shouldn’t exist in the middle of the New Mexico desert, but the people of Vaughn had taken advantage of the protection they offered between them and the outside world.

He took out his phone, raising it up to search for those out-of-reach bars. No service. No way to get ahold of Socorro out here. The photo he’d sent to Scarlett with those blueprints hadn’t gone through. Hell, Henry Acker and his army were probably dismantling his satellite phone from the SUV at this very moment. Preppers didn’t like to rely on government-monitored technology. Too many chances they’d attract attention or tip their hands. In fact, he knew firsthand that Henry Acker forbid the use of any kind of cell phone within Vaughn. They mostly worked with private radio channels if they had to communicate. Wouldn’t do Granger or Charlie a bit of good out here though.

Zeus stared at him from a few feet away with those marble-like black eyes, ready to pounce on Granger’s command. But despite the image of Charlie struggling to get out from under the bull terrier again, his wound was still bleeding. Adding pressure hadn’t done a damn thing the past few minutes. Which meant the graze was worse than he’d originally estimated. She was right. They were stuck out here in the middle of a hostile town without supplies, first aid or an idea of where to run.

“Hold still. I need to get a look at the wound.” The sound of something tearing reached his ears. The skin across his stomach tightened in response to the outside elements filtering through the lost fabric of his shirt. Every muscle in his torso tensed at her touch, and Granger couldn’t help but flinch at the contact. “Sorry. Cold hands.”

“Don’t apologize. Just do what you have to do.” Every second they wasted trying to get his wound taken care of was another second Henry Acker had to find them. Oxygen sucked through his teeth as he tried to relax against her probing. Pain spiked through him and bucked his shoulders against the boulder. “Except that. Don’t do that again.”

“You’re right. It’s a graze, but it’s pretty deep.” She sat back on her heels, searching for something around them. Hauling herself upright, she collected something out of sight. “This might sting at first, but the longer we leave it pressed against the wound, the faster it’ll stop bleeding.”

Hell, he’d taken a bullet through his shoulder less than three weeks ago. A graze should be nothing. But it was as though his senses and pain receptors had gone into overdrive with Charlie so close. Enough for him to recognize the plant in her hand. “Is that a cactus?”

“Prickly pear. The pads contain astringent and antiseptic qualities. I’ve had to use them a couple times growing up around here. Lucky for you, we’re surrounded by them. And if this doesn’t work, we can use pine sap. Same antiseptic properties, just harder to get to.” Unholstering a small blade from an ankle holster he hadn’t spotted until now, she set to work stripping the cactus of its thick skin as easily as an apple. “Figured you Socorro types would be required to carry your own first-aid kits with the kind of work you do.”

“We are.” He watched her hands move as though she’d done this a thousand times before. Which she most likely had, growing up in a place that put so much value on independence and using what one had to survive. “Mine is in the SUV.”

Her laugh rolled between them. She flipped the blade of her knife closed and holstered the small weapon, shuffling forward on her knees to get closer. Charlie had removed the hot pink bulbs on the edges of the cactus and stripped the skin down until nothing but a shiny surface remained. Maneuvering what was left of his shirt out of the way, she pressed the cool flesh of the plant against his rib cage. Instant relief melted across his skin and took the pain of the wound. “Well, thank goodness I’m here. Otherwise you might have to use that dog to get you out of this mess, and we all know he’s going to get distracted by whatever food he comes across.”

“Hey. Zeus is perfectly capable of staying on task when ordered,” he said. “It’s all the other times I have to make sure he doesn’t accidentally eat my mattress or shoes.”

“Here. Hold this in place while I make some bandages.” She grabbed for his hand and used it to secure the cactus to his side. Charlie collected her knife once again and set about cutting through the jacket she’d been wearing, shaping them into long strips. “How long have you been together? You and Zeus?”

“Going on nine years.” Granger mentally double-checked his math as Zeus pushed his front paws into the dirt and settled down. Apparently, the bull terrier had realized Charlie wasn’t going anywhere. “Came into my life right when I needed him and hasn’t left since. Though I’m not sure he could at this point. Any other K9 unit would’ve shipped him off to the shelter for his binge-eating.”

“I’ve never met a dog with an eating disorder.” Charlie measured out the longest stretch of denim from her jacket and wound it around his rib cage. Her mouth came into contact with his ear, and a shiver of warmth exploded through him. Too soon, she pulled back to secure the cactus in place. “And wow. Nine years? And all that time was with Socorro?”

Granger forced himself to take a breath that wasn’t coated in Charlie’s scent. Soap with a bite of citrus. “Ivy recruited me after I left Homeland. Every operative is assigned a dog when we sign on with Socorro, but we all know the K9s are the real heroes. They detect explosives, identify remains, protect our handlers against threats. They have our backs when we’re in danger of taking our eyes off the mission. Loyal to the end.”

“And what does Zeus do other than suffocate people with his enormous weight?” Her fingers worked to straighten the bandages, though they didn’t need to be straight to do their job, and a piece of him realized it’d been years since Charlie had let herself connect with someone else like this. It was human nature to want affection and to give that attention to someone else. And she’d denied herself since the moment she’d run.

Zeus snapped his head to attention at the mention of his name, then slowly army-crawled closer until he was able to set his chin over Granger’s leg.

“This chunk is the best tracker the Pentagon has. Once he picks up a scent, he doesn’t let it go until he finds its location.” Granger scrubbed his hand between the K9’s ears. “I think that’s one of the reasons he’s been able to get into my stash of treats at the top of my closet. He never gives up.”

“You two seem close.” Charlie let her hands fall back into her lap. She’d taken care of his wound and ensured he wouldn’t bleed out before they came up with a plan to get the hell out of here. He owed her for that. “You’re different now. The counterterrorism agent I knew would’ve spent the rest of his life hunting down terrorists for Homeland Security. Not playing house with an overweight dog.”

Granger pressed back into the boulder to get his legs underneath him. A deep ache wrapped around his rib cage, but it was nothing compared to the initial pain. The cactus was doing its job. He just hoped it’d keep him on his feet.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t exactly have a choice.” He inventoried the supplies and weapons on his person. Not much. And not nearly enough if they ran into trouble. The sun had disappeared completely behind the mountains. His vision would adjust to the darkness, but they still had to figure a way out of Vaughn without coming across Acker’s path. “After that night at the Alamo pipeline, I had to come clean about my source. My superiors weren’t too thrilled I’d taken on a member of Acker’s Army as my CI. Not to mention the fact that I’d gotten her killed. Every piece of intel I’d gathered on your father and his army was questioned and discarded, especially since I had no way of proving any of it was real. Seems the United States government wasn’t willing to risk keeping me around.”

Charlie got to her feet. “You were fired? Because of me? Even though you knew I hadn’t died in that explosion.”

“Yeah. I knew.” He took another step. To add some distance between them. To make sense of what they’d gotten themselves into. Charlie had taken her father’s blueprints, and right now, they had no way of getting that information to his team without cell service. But the part of him that had believed she’d died in the attack on the pipeline that night didn’t want the distance. It wanted nothing more than to protect her like he should have that night. “Didn’t make a damn bit of difference though. You’d gone off the grid. And I realized after a few months you weren’t coming back. In the end, it was for the best. I moved on, landed this job with Socorro. With Homeland, I was always too late. Always at the scene of an attack after it’d already happened, but now I have a chance to stop attacks before they happen. I can save lives before they’re ruined.”

“Granger, I—”

Static cut through the trees.

Granger rounded on her and slid his hand over her mouth. Her exhale warmed his hand as they waited for a sign they weren’t alone.

There. North of their position. The static was louder now. Getting closer. He removed his hand, angling down for his sidearm. He whispered in Charlie’s ear. “Behind me. Move.”

She did as he asked.

But her impulsive move to redistribute her weight snapped a dry twig—too loud in the silence.

“Over here!” An explosion of brightness overwhelmed Granger’s senses as a flare shot straight into the air.

They’d been found.

“Run. Now!” He shoved Charlie ahead of him as multiple shouts followed them through the pines. The enemy would cut them off if Granger gave them the chance. He wasn’t going to let that happen. Zeus’s growl registered as the K9 struggled to keep up. Granger dropped back and hauled the dog over his shoulder. Pain ripped through his side from the bullet graze, but he’d have to rely on adrenaline to get him through. “Keep going.”

A second flare lit up their position. Only this one had been shot horizontally. It hit a tree ten feet in front of them and exploded on impact.

Granger grabbed for her. “Charlie!”

She protected her face as the tree burst into flames, falling back to counter her momentum. Granger rushed to keep her from losing her balance, but it was too late. He, Zeus and Charlie all hit the ground as one.

The flames jumped from the originating tree to the next and the next.

Blistering heat cut them off from escape as a wall of darkness and flames moved in.