CHAPTER TWO
. . . .
. . .
Sunny day, cool. The river—a wide deep stream, really—was partially shaded by tall trees at the shoreline. Pleasant thoughts of Karen's warm voice, and the promise of more to come.
Lassiter felt a tug on the line, a serious ain't-messing-around-I-will-take-this-bait tug, and although he was well aware he was being watched from the trees, he set about bringing in the trout, which looked to be a large and handsome specimen.
A random thought of cooking it for dinner with Karen crossed his mind, and he smiled.
"After you bring that in, throw it right back," someone called from shore.
He glanced at the speaker, a man in a black vest who was standing on a rock looking very casual except for his handgun.
The man—Lassiter had dubbed him Slick from his earlier forays onto their land—was not alone. Blocky, Stench and Tooth were a few feet down, all carrying rifles.
"I said," Slick repeated genially, "throw it back."
"What are you, vegans?" Lassiter snapped, not stopping his fight with the fish.
Slick was amused. "Nah, I love a good trout almondine. We just don't have time for this right now."
"And just when the hell did I get on your schedule?"
"About two minutes ago." Slick raised his gun and shot the fishing rod right out of Lassiter's hands, which startled and then pissed him off as he watched it sink—in pieces—under the gentle waters.
"Crap on a cracker," he spat. "What do you want?"
"Bring the boat in."
"Get your own boat!"
"You don't go down easy, do ya." He nodded at 'his boys,' who raised their rifles in unison, and Lassiter had to admit, it was impressive.
He faced them, steady in the dinghy. "If you're going to kill me, get it over with."
"We're not gonna kill you, moron. Just bring the damn boat in or we'll shoot it right out from under you."
He really hated not having options. It torked him off more than almost anything else. He was cursing the whole time he maneuvered the dinghy close enough for Tooth—so named because he seemed to have just the one—to catch the line and pull it the rest of the way.
They were a little rough getting him onto land, and a little rough pushing the dinghy back out into the water. There went his gun—and his phone.
Slick stood off a few feet while the other three formed a wall between Lassiter and the water.
He pointed at Stench. "You shouldn't send this guy to snoop over at my place. He leaves a scent trail. It's not pretty."
Stench glowered; Slick grinned. Blocky and Tooth grinned too, which didn't improve Stench's mood.
"I'll make a note," Slick said.
"If you're not going to kill me, and you don't want my boat, then why am I here?"
"How about we just like your company?"
"How about I don't like yours?" He punched Blocky, kicked Stench when he came at him, and elbowed Tooth in the gut.
It didn't go well from there, but he was pretty sure, before everything went black, that he'd proved Slick right: he most definitely did not go down easy.
. . . .
. . .
Apparently, he was alive.
And he could see.
He could only see dirt and feet right now, but he could see.
Raising his aching head, he surveyed his surroundings.
Cement-block building, small, square. Dirt floor. Two high openings on opposite walls, and one heavy wooden door, currently open. Trees beyond.
Slick was sitting on a barrel in front of him, seeming relaxed, Colt still in view.
Blocky had a black eye, Stench had a split lip, and Tooth's shirt was torn enough for Lassiter to see bruises on his ribcage.
Good, he thought with grim satisfaction, and never mind how he ached right now. It was all worth it.
His left wrist was shackled; the shackle was new and attached to a sturdy chain which was in turn securely affixed to a stone post in the middle of the room.
"What's the plan, Slick?"
Slick smiled. "I like that. Slick. Well, Mr. Dennis—see, I figure we're not quite close enough for me to call you Stan just yet—really all we need is for you to be here."
Stench's explorations in his cabin had turned up the false name he was using, but he'd expected that.
"So I'm a hostage? What for?"
"More like an insurance policy, but you don't really need to know." He got up, and gestured around the dim room. "There's your commode in the corner. Got you one of those little pine tree air fresheners too. We'll be bringing you food and water. Just relax and get comfortable. Nobody wants you dead."
Stench cleared his throat.
Slick laughed. "Okay, maybe he wants you dead. But if the Rolling Stones taught us anything, Mr. Dennis, it's that you can't always get what you want."
"You should tie that air freshener around his neck," Lassiter muttered.
The man took a sudden step forward, but Blocky and Tooth held him back, and Slick settled him down with an icy glare.
To Lassiter, pleasantly: "We'll leave you be now. See you soon!"
They trooped out and slammed the heavy door shut behind them; Lassiter could hear the lock sliding into place as his cement-block prison went nearly dark.
He really, really hated not having options.
. . . .
. . .
They came to bring him food and water, always in pairs, but only at noon. Slick didn't appear again, and Lassiter knew not to bother asking questions of the others; they were all made of the same stone-faced stuff.
He spent his time listening to the sounds outside the building. He knew from his previous snooping that he was at the far south end of their property, half a mile from the river, and most of the other structures were closer to the water.
He also spent his time working at the shackle, and the chain, and the post. The chain was long enough to allow him to get within a few inches of being able to kick at the door, and he'd tried. He'd had to work his jacket off to use part of the sleeve to wrap around his wrist, which was raw from his efforts to get the shackle off.
During the rest of his long dim days, he allowed himself to replay his conversations with Karen Vick. Seemed so long ago now, those quiet hours on the phone, finally getting to know the woman he'd worked for all these years.
It also seemed so damned unlikely now, that she'd hinted at wanting more from their new closeness. How could it be true? She was the frickin' Chief of Police. She surely had more sense than to take up with her Head Detective, especially when that Head Detective was him.
And maybe it was all moot, depending on how this mission played out.
Nonetheless, he remembered the sound of her laughter, and the warmth of her voice when she was pleased to be talking with him, and they brightened some of the endless hours he spent here waiting. Made him think about improbably happy developments when… if… he got out again. In fact, it was only because he might not get out that he permitted himself to think of those happy improbabilities in the first place.
Meanwhile, more waiting.
He hated waiting even more than he hated having no options.
It wasn't long before he perversely began to look forward to his surly visitors… because they at least provided a diversion of sorts.
The first day with lunch, Blocky hit him while Tooth looked on, but it didn't last long.
The second day, Tooth hit him while Stench looked on, grinning.
Lather, rinse and repeat.
The fifth day, Stench and Blocky brought his food and water and he didn't get hit, but mid-afternoon, Stench came back alone.
Lassiter knew hate when he saw it, and he knew rogue when he saw it too.
It got ugly fast, but he was neither so slowed down by earlier fights nor so worn down by the shortage of food that he couldn't manage, and having height and speed and anger-fueled adrenalin helped a hell of a lot.
It was good to be Irish, and he would always, always go down swinging.
So he had the chain wrapped around Stench's neck when Slick appeared in the doorway, and it wasn't at all clear which one of them Slick's handgun was aimed at when he fired.
. . . .
. . .
Looking back on it later, Karen didn't understand how she made it through the week. She didn't say a word about it to O'Hara; she lied smoothly about Carlton's mission being ongoing and kept her office door closed a lot claiming quarterly reports, conference calls, and other plausible reasons which allowed her to be alone, jaw clenched, sick with fear for… for her friend.
Friend.
A short, harsh laugh escaped; behind her, Iris at the breakfast table asked idly what was so funny.
Friend.
Iris persisted. "Mama, what's so funny?"
Karen considered saying that the man who held Iris when she was first born—the man with the bluest eyes ever known to the world, the man who had tried so hard and so long to save his marriage, the man who had far too many notations in his file about weapons discharge, the man who was oddly proud of how many people wanted to kill him—had somehow become incredibly important to her on a very, very personal level.
But that wasn't funny. It was just scary.
The kind of scary which makes a grown-ass woman lie awake at night thinking about a man she'd like to be lying there with when she wasn't flat-out praying he was alive and coming back to her soon.
So she told Iris the army joke (where does a General keep his armies? in his sleevies) and distracted her until her ex came to pick her up. He would have Iris for the next few weeks, with a trip planned to New Mexico, and Karen thought maybe this is a good thing, because if I lose Carlton when I've only just barely maybe sort of gotten him, I'm going to need a hell of a lot of alone time for a while.
. . . .
. . .
Thursday was the ninth day.
Nine long days of mind-numbing worrying and a host of bad dreams.
She told her sixth lie to Juliet about everything going according to plan with Carlton's assignment. This time, she had the feeling Juliet doubted her too-quick answer. She might not be able to get away with a seventh lie.
Decker called her in the afternoon, and Karen got up to close her office door before letting him say whatever potentially horrific thing he was going to say.
"We've got him."
Karen's eyes closed, and relief wanted to take over her suddenly trembling body, but she had to stay on point. "How is he?"
"He's okay." His tone was cautious. "They'd been keeping him in an outbuilding at the back end of the property. They roughed him up some and didn't feed him much but he's okay."
She needed more. "Roughed him up how?"
"Karen, he's alive and in one piece."
"Roughed him up how?"
Pause. "What you need to remember, Chief Vick, is that he's okay now. He's safe. Nothing's broken and he is safe."
Karen forced herself to start breathing again. Decker was right. Focus on the job. "And the mission?"
"We got most of them, including our mole. It didn't go down perfectly but it went down and the right people are going to jail."
Now, now finally, she allowed the relief to take over—as if she had a choice, what with those damned tears burning her eyes again. "When can he come home?"
"We need him for debriefing, so probably not until Monday."
Instant rebellion. "Screw that. I'm coming to get him today."
"Karen, settle down. I told you Lassiter's all right and we need to—"
"I don't care," she said flatly. "I'm coming up there now."
Don't you even think about getting in my way.
Decker let out an exasperated sigh. "Geez, fine. You can stop to pack up his stuff from the cabin when you get here and that'll give us more debrief time. I'll send you the directions. Make sure your vehicle can handle these roads."
. . . .
. . .
She rented a hard-top Jeep on her own dime after going home long enough to change into jeans and fill up a small overnight bag. It would only take a couple of hours to get there but she didn't want to assume she could get Carlton back home again; Decker's assessment of "he's all right" might not be entirely accurate.
At the station she'd claimed having forgotten an appointment, encouraged O'Hara—acting Head Detective—to not need to call on her, and took a few minutes to clear her Friday schedule just in case.
There were ferocious storms brewing as she drove toward her destination, and some of them were internal. She knew it was totally unnecessary for her to go and collect Carlton in person. Juliet (had Karen confided in her) would have been delighted to go—might even have demanded—and so would Buzz McNab, or any number of the people under her command. Some would have gone out of sincere interest, like Juliet; some would have gone out of respect for Carlton no matter how thoroughly terrifying they found him. Hell, she could have sent Shawn and Gus without much objection on their part (although imagining either the Blueberry on these roads or Carlton stuffed in it with those two for hours on end was a bit iffy).
It was not her place to make this trip.
And you can screw that, too, she thought. This one is all mine.
The Jeep turned out to be useful on the narrow dirt roads leading up to the cabin, and she eyed the restless skies above her hoping she could get them out again before the rains came and made the roads impassable mud.
Donnell met her at the cabin, saying he'd take her to Decker and Lassiter shortly, and she set about efficiently packing up Carlton's belongings.
He hadn't brought anything of a personal nature, certainly nothing which could be traced back to his real identity. It was simple enough to gather his toiletries, his clothing, a few books by the bed which she knew were his because they'd talked about them.
Karen paused by the bed, resisting the urge to pick up the pillow and breathe in his scent. This was where he'd sometimes lain while they talked, just as she'd often been in her own bed as well. Her cheeks warmed.
She needed to see him now.
It had been two months since he last stood in her office, and over a week since she'd last heard his smoky voice over the phone, and she was done waiting.
Blinking back a tear—again! she'd become a regular fountain lately—she reminded herself it had only been three weeks of conversations. Three little short insignificant weeks. Nothing to get so ridiculously worked up about, and besides, even if he hadn't talked himself out of anything in the past nine days, he might still when he returned to the 'real' world. This man would not be easy to win, even if he'd already won her… and by God, she believed he had done just that.
Hell with it—Karen took the pillow and breathed deeply of him, and felt better.
Stupid woman.
She breathed him in again anyway and went on, because that's what she was here to do.
When she thought she had everything which was unmistakably his, the bags he'd brought were full, and Donnell stolidly carried them to the Jeep for her. He'd already loaded up the remainder of Carlton's fishing gear.
In his own vehicle, Donnell led the way over to the targets' property, which was still crawling with investigators, and she had no voice any more. Trusting herself to say anything that wasn't a desperate and incoherent babble was a bad idea. She had to see him.
The sky was black and the trees whipped around above them and the agents were scurrying around trying to get what they needed before Mother Nature let loose, and Carlton came out of the main structure while she was nearly to the steps and looked at her and for one second she was frozen and after that she wasn't sure how she got her arms around him.
He was real, he was solid… he was alive.
Carlton held on to her all-too-briefly before setting her away, and it couldn't have been her imagination that the deep blue depths of his eyes showed something intensely and totally about her—about them.
"Karen," he said quietly. "They told me you were coming for me."
She was still grasping his arms, studying him. Fading bruises marked his lean face, and obviously he was exhausted and underfed. Dried blood—way the hell too much—on his torn clothes, a bandaged wrist. His hair, black and silver, was long and wavy, if rather unkempt at present; his beard was full and had a lot of gray, but all of this only accentuated his vivid blue eyes and despite his nine long damned days of captivity, Karen thought he was the most wonderful thing she'd seen in a long damned time.
"I had to," she said. "Let's get you out of here."
"Decker wants to—"
"I don't care what Decker wants. We're going home before this storm hits." She tugged on his sleeve, and probably because he was too worn out to argue, he followed her back to the Jeep.
Decker came out of the cabin, calling her name with enough force to make her pause, but only after Carlton was in the vehicle.
"Leave him alone," she commanded.
"The hell I will. We need him. There's a lot to be worked out here, and Lassiter—"
"Lassiter has been held captive for nine days. He can't possibly know anything more than he knew before he was taken that he hasn't already told you since you rescued him."
"Vick—"
"Have you fed him? Have you given him any water? I can see his wrist's been bandaged so obviously he got some medical attention, but has anyone done anything else for the human being he is, more than just the source of information you want?"
"Look here," he began angrily. "You need to remember your place in this mission."
"I do remember it," she shot back. "I'm the one who loaned you a damned good officer so you could get him kidnapped and nearly killed in the course of bringing your mission to a successful close."
"And I appreciate that, but we are not done with him yet!" He started for the other side of the Jeep, and Karen grabbed his arm to stop him.
"Enough. Do you hear me? You can finish your debriefing on Monday. I'm sure he's given you everything you need right now, and if he remembers anything else, guess what? We have telephones in Santa Barbara. Email too. Hell, we even have video conferencing, and in a pinch, Decker, I'm sure I can put together two really cutting-edge cans and a long-ass string."
As if to accentuate her decree, thunder cracked ominously above them.
Decker glared at her, long and hard, but finally shook his head, accepting defeat. "You're something else, Vick."
"Yeah. I've heard." With a curt nod—being "something else" was part of her job—she climbed into the Jeep and got it turned around.
Carlton leaned back against the seat, a faint smile curving his mouth. "That was a hell of a show, boss. But you didn't have to do that. I could probably have lasted a little longer."
Karen eyed him. "Maybe, but you shouldn't have been asked to."
She was just so glad to have him in her sights—within sensory range—she was almost thankful for the distraction of the storm. God only knew what she might say or do this close to him now after thinking the things she'd been thinking the past month.
A few hundred yards down the road, she stopped the Jeep again and reached into the small ice chest she'd brought along just in case, producing a Coke and a convenience-store chicken salad sandwich.
He smiled as she handed them over, along with some Keebler cookies. "You have no idea how good this is going to taste."
"I think I do. Now relax if you can, Carlton. I'm planning to get us out of this forest before we drown in mud."
. . . .
. . .
