Page 4 of Tango (Hunt Brothers Search & Rescue #4)

Alice

W ith a groan, I pour another round of rubbing alcohol into the refusing-to-heal bullet hole in my arm. Unfortunately, with every day that passes, the injury just gets angrier. Even now, I can smell the infection that’s taking root.

Since I can’t go to a doctor or risk the police getting involved, it’s back-alley medical care for me at the moment.

I can’t even go back home because Web Safe has my apartment being watched.

That, or there are two walls of muscle in black suits who just happened to move into a black SUV in the parking lot the day after Ramiro was killed.

Seriously, could they be any less discreet? They might as well have had a bumper sticker on the back that says, “Alice, stay away.”

“Okay, that should do it.” I gently apply a fresh bandage to my arm then hop off the bathroom counter and store my supplies in my backpack.

Armed with a worn Bible, my laptop, a gun with no bullets, and now some medical supplies, I step out of the bus station bathroom, ensuring the baseball cap is low over my face.

I’m dressed in baggy clothes I bought from a secondhand store after I barely escaped my apartment with what little I could carry, so my hope is no one will recognize me. Especially since I tucked my black hair beneath the baseball cap.

I need to be invisible. It’s the only chance I have.

After handing my ticket to the bus driver, I move down the aisle and take a seat in an old pungent-smelling striped bench at the back of the bus. My arm aches, but it doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as my heart does.

I lost my best friend.

My home.

And all of my belongings in a matter of hours.

All because of someone’s greed.

I’ll find the truth, Ramiro. And I’ll fix everything. The weight of my grief is crushing, but I refuse to live in that pain. To find the truth, I need my head clear. The time for crying will come after, when I’m standing at Ramiro’s gravesite.

I keep my head down as a man sits next to me. The bus is relatively full, so it’s not unusual, though there is at least one seat toward the front that’s empty.

My heart rate quickens.

He leans in. “I have a gun aimed directly at your gut, Miss Sterling. Scream or do anything except what I explicitly tell you to do, and I’ll shoot first and ask questions later. Got it?”

“Yes,” I reply softly. My pulse is deafening, and I turn my head to look at him. Silver eyes are narrowed on my face, and his hair—a bright gold—is cut short on the sides but longer on the top. He looks like a clean-cut businessman, but I’m guessing he’s never carried a briefcase in his life.

No, this man is a killer.

Hired to finish what Darren couldn’t.

Lord, help me.

“I wonder what your plan was,” he says softly as he uses the hand not currently holding the gun in his pocket to shove a handful of peanuts into his mouth.

“Run. Isn’t it obvious? Or are you all muscle and no brains?”

He jams the barrel of the gun into my side. “Did you forget I’m armed? Irritate me, and I won’t deliver you in quite as good of shape as I promised.”

“Deliver me to who?”

He grins, but the smile is dripping venom. “You’ll see, cupcake. Just enjoy the ride. You’ll be getting off at the next stop.”

I swallow hard. Lord, help me , I repeat again because I know I won’t survive without Him.

The bus begins moving, and the drive to the next stop takes less than ten minutes.

All the while, I’m urging someone—anyone—around me to notice what’s taking place.

Would they even step in to save me if they knew?

Most people in the world today would rather record an abduction than step in to stop one.

What a sad reality we live in.

“Get up,” he orders. “Bring the bag, but make any sudden movements and?—”

“You’ll make me regret it, yeah. I have a decent enough memory, thanks.”

“Good.” He urges me forward as we climb out of the bench seat. Doing what I can to keep my gaze focused on anything but the people around me, I keep walking forward—putting one foot in front of the other.

My mom always told me that, if someone grabbed me in a parking lot and told me to get into the vehicle, it would be better to fight there and get shot than end up in a car alone with them.

It’s a life tip I haven’t had to use until now, but I know that, if I get off this bus with him, then I’ll likely never see the light of day again.

The problem is, if I bring too much attention to myself, the police will get involved, which means their contacts will let Web Safe know exactly where I am.

So my only choice is to either let him take me off of this bus and try to get away as quick as possible, or throw a fit right here and call his bluff on shooting me in a bus full of people.

I pass a woman cradling her baby, and that last option becomes a moot point.

I won’t risk these people getting hurt…not even to save my own life.

Outside of the bus, there will be fewer chances of innocents getting hurt.

So, with my heart in my throat, I carefully move down the stairs and onto the relatively sparse sidewalk.

“Good girl. We’ve established that you can follow directions. Stand here, I’m making a call.” He reaches into his pocket, so I take the only chance I have. I swing out with the bag and slam it into his face.

He yells, but I’ve already started running.

My black boots hammer the pavement as I sprint down the street and disappear into an alleyway.

The man follows—right on my heels. He fires a single shot—it barely misses me.

And then, I reach a chain-link fence. Without stopping, I jump up and grip it, trying to climb my way to safety like they do in the movies, but he grips my leg and rips me down.

With a heavy thud and what is probably now a concussion, I hit the pavement so hard it dazes me. Before I can even fully process what’s happening, he’s on me, one hand around my throat.

“I told you I was going to make it difficult if you didn’t listen, didn’t I?” he growls, looking even more menacing now that blood from the hit he took to his nose is dripping down into his mouth and staining his teeth.

His hand tightens around my throat. I fight against him, thrashing my body as much as his hold will allow, all while trying to find something—anything—to use as a weapon. And then, I see it—a chunk of old brick just out of reach.

I reach out for it, my fingertips barely brushing the surface as spots invade my vision.

I’m going to pass out—and then there’s no telling what will happen to me. I could wake up halfway around the world—or not wake up at all.

Come on. Please, not like this.

My hand closes around the brick, and I swing.

It slams into the side of his head with such force that he topples to the side and goes still.

Gasping for breath as I suck so much oxygen into my lungs that it makes me even more lightheaded, I jump to my feet, prepped for another fight.

But it only takes me seconds to realize with stomach-churning certainty that it won’t come.

A piece of old rebar is protruding from his chest. He stares down at it in disbelief then looks up at me as though I did it on purpose.

I rush forward, bile burning in my throat.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I didn't mean to. Just hang on, I’ll get help.

” Since the only thing I do know is that I shouldn't pull him off the bar, I reach into his pocket for the cell phone he’d had only minutes ago.

He says something, but it comes out as gibberish. Blood trails from the corner of his mouth.

“9-1-1, what’s your emergency?” the operator answers almost instantly.

“There’s a man. He was impaled on rebar. I think he’s dying.” My words are frantic, my tone just as panicked. “You have to send someone.”

“Okay, honey, calm down. What’s your name?”

“I—uh—there isn’t time. It’s an alley near the second stop of the three o’clock bus that runs out of the South Station. Please, he’s barely breathing.”

“Okay, I’ll send someone. But I need to know your name.”

I start to give it to her; then I realize that, if I do that, I’m giving Web Safe another reason to paint a bull’s-eye on my back. So, I hang up the phone. “They’re sending someone,” I tell him, but as soon as I’ve hung up the phone, I know it’s too late.

His eyes are frozen open.

His breathing, no more.

No. No. Tears burn in my eyes as the realization hits home: I killed a man.

How did this happen?

God, what do I do?

Sirens wail in the distance, so I quickly wipe the phone off then leave it on the ground beside him as I grab my bag and rush from the alleyway, ensuring my baseball cap is pulled back down low over my face.

This time, to also hide my tears.

I shouldn’t have come home.

I know it as soon as I unlock the back door using an old hide-a-key, but I had nowhere else to go.

Ever since I was thirteen and Jemma and Fred Sterling adopted me, they’ve chased away every nightmare and helped me through the years of trauma I suffered while being a kid in the system.

They can help me here too, right? They have to help me. Because I’m so lost. So afraid.

“Who’s there?” my dad calls out as the light over the stairs comes on. “I can hear you, and you should know I’m armed!”

I stop in my tracks—standing in the hallway that leads from the kitchen into the living room. He comes down the stairs, and the light shines on my face.

“Ali?”

No longer an adult of nearly thirty, I’m once again a child as I crumble at the sound of my nickname. “Daddy.”

He rushes forward and wraps his arms around me as I collapse to the ground. “It’s Alice!” he calls out. “She’s hurt!”

“Don’t call the police. You can’t trust the police.”

“Don’t call anyone!” he yells as my mom rushes down the steps.

“What happened?” She reaches me right as my dad is pulling me to my feet.

“I killed someone. I didn't mean to. He attacked me, and I killed him.” I shake my head. It doesn’t matter that I’m twenty-nine years old; right now, I’m a thirteen-year-old girl, and there’s a monster in my closet in need of slaying.

“Shh, baby, come sit down.” My dad guides me into a kitchen chair while my mom turns on the light overhead. It’s so bright I have to shield my eyes.

“I’m putting coffee on,” my mom says. “Grab the first aid kit, Fred. And a towel. She’s soaking wet.”

Am I? I hadn’t even noticed.

He brushes the hair out of my eyes and tucks it behind my ear, then rushes out of the room to get the first aid kit they keep beneath the bathroom counter. Seconds later, he’s returning. “Take off the sweatshirt,” he tells me.

I unzip the front and use my good arm to push it off. He wraps a towel around me, though he leaves my injured arm uncovered.

“Who did this to you?” he demands as he slowly removes the bandage over my injured arm.

I don’t even know how much is safe to tell them.

“I’m in trouble.”

“Tell us what happened,” my mom urges. In the background, the coffeepot hums as it prepares the coffee. My mom pulls a chair over and slides her glasses onto her nose. She leans in closer to get a better look.

Given she’s a nurse—and a great one at that—she’ll be able to help with my physical issues. And, well, my dad’s a therapist, so if I ever get past this, I imagine he can help me with my internal demons just like he did when I was a kid.

That’s if I survive and don’t end up in prison.

“Ramiro is dead.” It’s the first time I’ve spoken those words aloud.

“Did he do this to you?” my dad demands, fury etched in every line of his expression. “Is he the one you killed?”

I shake my head. “No. They killed him and tried to kill me, too, but I got away. Then a man found me on the bus and told me he was going to take me somewhere. I fought back, and he—he’s dead. I hit him, and he fell back into a piece of rebar.”

“Is he the one who killed Ramiro?”

I shake my head again. “I can’t tell you everything. The more I tell you, the more at risk you are.” And then, it hits me that I really shouldn’t have come here. I try to get up. “I have to go.”

“No, you don’t. There are all kinds of glass shards in this injury. I need my tweezers from the bathroom,” she tells my dad. “The good ones.”

“On it. You stay put, Ali. We’ll keep you safe, okay?”

But they can’t. Not when killers are looking for me. “I’m sorry I came here. I didn’t know where else to—” A knock sounds on the door, and I stiffen.

It’s nearly ten at night. No reason anyone should be knocking.

My eyes go wide. Did I just sign my parents’ death warrant? “I have to go. Now.” I shove the towel off of me and start to get up, grabbing my sweater as I do, but my mom shakes her head.

“Come with me.”

My dad goes down the stairs and pauses by the front door. He and my mom exchange a look before she drags me through the kitchen and toward the basement door at the back.

“Mom, you don’t understand, if I’m here—you’re in danger.”

“I do understand, and I don’t care. You are my daughter.

Do you hear me?” She pauses at the bottom of the basement steps.

“I’ve loved you as my own since we first saw you, and I will love you as my own until the day I die.

” She quickly lifts a door in the floor.

“Now get inside so I can cover the entrance with a rug, okay? You stay down there until your father or I come get you.” She gently squeezes my good arm.

“We will iron this out, okay? Everything is going to be fine, darling. You’ll see. ”

I nod because, even if I leave now, I know it’s unlikely they’ll leave my parents alone. At least, if I’m here, I stand a chance at helping. Maybe.

Without argument, I descend into what we’ve always called the cellar. It’s a crawl space beneath the basement where an old repair was made to some piping a while back. Instead of fully filling it in, they just cemented it up and turned it into a weird little bonus room.

I barely fit.

Keeping my breathing as steady as I can while stuck in what’s basically a concrete coffin, I listen for any sound that something bad is happening upstairs.

God, please protect them. Please keep them safe.