His Personal Mission Read online

  Sasha grabbed the printout. “Go ahead.”

  “Page two. Chris or Rick Myers. About halfway down.”

  She ran a finger down the column, found the name, check marked it.

  “Same page. Dennis Carlton, near the bottom.”

  She did the same with that name.

  “Ron Nichols, top of fourth page.”

  She repeated the process. “These are the silver ones?”

  “Yes. There are four others, I’ll give you those, too, just in case.”

  She marked those names with a dash as he read them off.

  “Where are you?” Rand asked.

  “Nearly to the school. But I’m thinking we should check the addresses first, now that we have them, while these people are most likely at work.”

  “I agree,” Rand said. “I’m going to head that way.”

  Sasha sensed something in his tone. She’d heard a great deal about Redstone Security, first from Zach and later from Reeve. She knew what it took to build a reputation like theirs, around the world.

  She also knew she’d be a fool to ignore the instincts of one of their best, as Reeve had said Rand was. And so her next words were not really a question.

  “You think this is the right track, don’t you?”

  “My gut does,” Rand said. “I’m about forty-five minutes out, over on the island. I’ll call you when I’m close.”

  “All right.”

  “Sasha?”

  “Yes?”

  “Keep him out of trouble, if you can. He’s on a razor edge right now.”

  “I know.”

  “If it were my sister,” Rand began, then trailed off.

  “I understand,” Sasha said.

  When she’d closed her phone, Ryan glanced over at her. “He thinks we’re right?”

  Sasha nodded. “He said his gut does.”

  “That’s good enough for me. Redstone Security didn’t become legendary for nothing.”

  As soon as they passed a road sign that told her where they were, Sasha went back to the map program, finding the pins for the three addresses. Selecting the closest one, she gave Ryan directions.

  “Not quite the GPS,” she said, trying to lighten his mood, ease some of the tension she could feel building in him.

  “But easier to listen to.”

  Surprised, she flicked a glance at him. He must have seen it out of the corner of his eye because he lifted his right shoulder in that half shrug she’d come to know.

  “I like your voice. I always did.”

  It was a different enough compliment that it made her smile. “Thank you.”

  “I liked everything about you,” he said, and suddenly they were in much deeper waters. “I admired what you do, your dedication, your drive, your energy, the way you can talk to people, empathize with them.”

  She was staring at him now. All he’d ever said when they were together was the typical surface stuff about her looks, her smile, her laugh.

  “Why didn’t you ever say so?”

  “It sounded…too phony to me, then. Like a line, trying to impress you.”

  “Then why say it now?”

  “Because I’ve always wondered if you would have stayed if I had said it then. Because I finally figured out that those are things that mean more to you than ‘You look great.’” The half shrug came again. “Because it’s true.”

  Oh, yes, very deep waters.

  But where they had once been too cool for her liking, they now seemed warm and welcoming, and Sasha realized with a little jolt she was seriously considering jumping right back in.

  The first address was an ordinary house tucked into a stand of tall evergreens, somewhat reminiscent of Rand and Kate’s home. The silver hybrid from their list sat in the driveway.

  And a man in a wheelchair, his left leg in a cast and propped up on a leg rest, sat on the front porch.

  Ryan was a bit taken aback when Sasha told him to stop, and more so when she hopped out and walked up to the man, who watched her with equal amounts of curiosity and appreciation. The first made him wary, the second, simply irritated.

  He could hear the conversation as Sasha easily obtained the information, after asking for directions to the nearest gas station, that the man had broken his leg skiing three weeks ago, and that he was about to go stir-crazy, and his wife was ready to break his other leg.

  When she got back in the car, his first question was, “Do you believe him?”

  She nodded. “There were a bunch of signatures on his case. A couple of them mentioned the date, and they were all at least two weeks ago.”

  “So he’s out.”

  She nodded. She didn’t seem bothered by it, and he guessed she was accustomed to useless exercises.

  “Process of elimination,” she said, as if he’d spoken his thought. “It’s the biggest part of the job.”

  He knew she was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to rein in his urgency.

  Trish, he thought, fighting the ache that rose in him. His little sister was out there somewhere, possibly—probably, he made himself admit—in a very bad kind of trouble.

  “We’ll find her, Ryan. I promise you.”

  Ryan nodded. He knew she meant it. They would find Trish.

  He just didn’t know if they’d find her in time.

  The second house was also a fairly ordinary-looking, wood-sided two-story, set on a large cleared lot amidst a grove of big trees that made the setting seem secluded. But this house was made rather spectacular by an intricate, perfectly maintained formal garden. There was a gravel path that ran arrow-straight from the street to the front door, not even a sprig of green daring to poke through and mar the groomed surface. On each side was a matching semi-circle of plantings, in matching order, and bordered by matching curved hedges that, Sasha suspected, would be exactly the same height and width if measured.

  “Someone’s got way too much time or money,” Ryan muttered.

  “I would have thought the symmetry would have appealed to you.”

  “Exactness is necessary for computers,” he said. “In real life, it’s a bit…”

  “Boring? Oppressive? Anal-retentive?”

  “All of those,” Ryan said, managing a slight smile.

  He got out as she did, but hung back as they’d discussed; she was simply less likely to set off alarm bells and send their guy running. And since he had no way of knowing who she really was or what she was after, Sasha insisted she was safe enough. But Ryan still got out of the car, and he’d be watching like the eagle they’d spotted on the way here.

  “What are you going to say this time? I mean, the directions were a good ploy with the guy already outside, but knocking on the door?”

  “Why, I’ll say I just had to stop and compliment them on their lovely garden.”

  He’d been right, he thought as he watched her walk casually down that perfect path to the front door. If you could design a computer to work the way her mind did, you’d definitely have something amazing.

  No one answered the door. She walked to one side of the house, toward the equally pristine gravel driveway, and headed toward the back of the house. Ryan moved then; he didn’t want her out of sight. He caught up with her near the garage at the end of the drive. There was a large combination shed and greenhouse next to it, both empty of anything but gardening supplies and plants.

  “Whoever it is, they’re beyond a hobby. This is a lifestyle,” Sasha said as they walked back to the car. “And not a bad one to have, I guess. Those flowers are gorgeous.”

  “I always thought my mom was a gardener, but this is another level altogether.”

  “Frankly, I like your mother’s garden better. It’s…friendlier.”

  He was surprised at how the appellation fit, but knew she was right. His mother’s garden was a slightly out-of-control profusion of whatever she liked, and as a result welcomed rather than impressed.

  He was even more surprised at his own thoughts; he’d never analy
zed such things before, just accepted what was and went on.

  He still, it seemed, had things to learn from Sasha Tereschenko.

  The third address had his radar humming the moment they found the battered mailbox with the street number. The same tall evergreens were thick, but here surrounded the house. Beneath the trees grew countless graceful ferns that looked like the kind his mother nursed and babied year-round in Southern California, but that apparently grew wild here, lush and tall and very unlike their spindly-by-comparison cousins to the south.

  But what really got his attention was the padlocked, heavy metal gate across the driveway with the bold, stern “Keep out.” There didn’t seem to be any fence, however, the concern seemed mainly to keep vehicles out.

  “Well, now,” Sasha said. “That’s interesting.”

  When she looked at him, Ryan saw an odd gleam in her dark eyes. And he realized suddenly he was seeing another side of her. This was the woman who had dedicated her life to finding missing children, the woman who attacked the job with fierce determination.

  This was the woman who wasn’t going to let a little thing like a locked gate interfere with that job.

  Even as he thought it, she gave him a smile that seemed equal parts resolute and reckless.

  “Wanna go for a walk in the woods?”

  He couldn’t have said no to those words in that voice under any circumstances. Under these, he was out of the car even before she was.

  It wasn’t easy walking, the undergrowth was so thick. And when they spotted the first building, the radar’s hum increased; the house was ramshackle, run-down and painted in various patches of color as if they’d used whatever they had or could find thrown in a Dumpster somewhere. Its roof was literally green with thick moss.

  There were also at least two outbuildings he could see, one that looked like a newer, small barn, and one a smaller shed-like structure with a moss-encrusted shingle roof that echoed the one on the house. Next to that was parked the car that had led them here.

  And around it all was a shiny new chain-link fence.

  He was startled out of his concentration on the layout when Sasha took his hand. For an instant, feeling her fingers curve around his, he forgot to breathe.

  “We’re just a couple out for a romantic ramble in the woods,” she whispered. “Too stupid to realize we’re trespassing.”

  He was annoyed at himself when her words calmed his suddenly racing pulse. Not that it slowed, but that it had sped up to begin with.

  They worked their way closer, but stopped at the trumpeting bark of a very cranky-sounding dog. They froze as a man suddenly appeared in the doorway of the building.

  It wasn’t the man in the photo. But that didn’t matter at the moment.

  What mattered was the rifle in his hands.

  Chapter 17

  Ryan’s heart was hammering as they crouched down, now grateful for the thick undergrowth. He was also happy for that brand-new-looking fence. But somehow he had the feeling it wasn’t just to keep the large dog—some blend that resulted in a massive chest and head and a lean, muscular body—contained.

  The dog’s nose was pointed right at them. A few minutes spun out as they barely dared breathe. The dog clearly knew they were there, but as is typical with some people, the armed man trusted his own much weaker senses; when he saw and heard nothing, he snapped at the dog and walked back inside.

  Ryan heard Sasha let out a long breath. “That was close,” she whispered. “Come on, let’s get back to the car.”

  Ryan’s head whipped around. With an effort he kept his voice down. “Back? But—”

  She reached out and took his hand again, and started to move back the way they’d come. He had little choice but to follow, or risk having the man with the rifle back outside, taking the dog’s warning more seriously.

  “We can’t just leave,” Ryan burst out when they were back at the road and the car.

  “We’re not. We’re going to wait for Rand,” she said as she pulled out her cell phone.

  “But Trish could be—”

  “I know, Ryan,” she said patiently. “But do you really want to go up against a man with a rifle? And if he’s got that, there could be more. And he wasn’t the man in the picture, so he could be here also, and also armed. Not to mention the dog.”

  He couldn’t argue with a single thing she said, but with every cell in him crying out to move and move now, listening to her reason was one of the most difficult things he’d ever done.

  “Do you want to help Trish, or get yourself killed trying? Rand’s the pro, and he’s got the tools.”

  “Tools?”

  She lifted a brow. “I’m assuming what he took out of his car before he loaned it to us were weapons of some kind. That was a pistol case, anyway.”

  He’d forgotten that, the small zippered case Rand had removed from the back of the SUV before he’d turned it over to them. And the metal box. Ammunition? he wondered.

  He looked back into the woods while she made the call. He heard her update Rand on what they’d found. Heard her ask if she should call the local sheriff’s office. She listened for a moment, then said, “All right,” before ending the call.

  “Cops?”

  She shook her head. “He said not yet. Since a man with a rifle and a guard dog out here isn’t that unusual, we’d need more to involve them. If we find evidence Trish is there—”

  “Then let’s go. We can at least watch.”

  “Somebody needs to wait up here for Rand. He said he’ll be here in less than ten minutes.”

  “Then I’ll go. Sasha, I have to do something.”

  He knew he sounded desperate, but then, he was.

  “Wait.” She reached through the driver’s window and hit a button.

  “Sasha—”

  “No, I mean wait just a minute.” She walked around to the back and opened the rear cargo doors. Ryan followed, wondering if she thought Rand had left a weapon of some kind. When he got there, she was already rummaging through the equipment locker that, given it had been open, Ryan guessed was empty of weapons after all.

  “He’s stocked up for everything here,” she said. “Tools, first aid, water, so maybe…”

  After a moment Sasha came out with a leather case that clearly held binoculars.

  “Brilliant,” he said, leaning in to take them. And that was his undoing, leaning in. She was so close, he could feel her warmth, smell the roses…He kissed her.

  The jolt that went through him almost made him drop the binoculars. For an instant she stiffened, in shock he guessed, but then her mouth went soft, yielding. Heat singed along his nerves as the question he’d been carrying for so long was answered in fiery letters a foot high.

  Yes. Yes, Sasha Tereschenko still sizzled his blood. She always had.

  “Oh,” she said when he finally broke the kiss, his pulse hammering. “That’s…interesting to know.”

  He raised his brows in inquiry; actual words seemed beyond him at the moment.

  “That it’s still there.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he managed. “It’s still there.”

  He made himself concentrate on silently moving as he made his way back through the trees, her warnings and the promise she’d extracted from him to do nothing more than watch—and since he had the binoculars, from farther back—echoing in his mind. He’d keep that promise, he thought. As he’d told her, unless he saw Trish. If he spotted his little sister, all bets were off. And somewhat to his surprise, she’d accepted that.

  “If it were my sister or brother, no one could stop me, either,” she’d said.

  As promised, he stopped short of where they’d been. Then worked his way to the right, where he’d have a better angle on that new building. It was the only clearly securable building on the property, and between that and the armed man, it had to be the place to watch. He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and zeroed in.

  All seemed quiet. There was a window in the side of the building,
but it had been masked off with what looked like a cut-up sign of some sort. But around the edges, here in the shadows of the tall trees, he could see light seeping through around the edges of the blockage.

  Photography lights?

  The idea hit him suddenly and nauseatingly. Could one of that man’s twisted photo shoots be going on right now? Was the reason Trish wasn’t up on his sick Web site because the pictures hadn’t been taken yet? Were they being taken right now, while he sat up here like a frightened rabbit?

  The promise he’d made Sasha tugged at him. His common sense told him the fact that lights were on in that building wasn’t evidence that Trish was there. But his gut was screaming, and he didn’t think he could rein it in much longer.

  You’re just a tech-head, he told himself. What the hell can you do? This isn’t a game. We’re talking real guns here.

  He’d never felt more useless in real life. Maybe Sasha was right, had been right all along. He’d lived too much in the virtual world, and not enough in the real one. He’d—

  “Anything?”

  He nearly yelped as Rand’s voice came from almost directly behind him. Rand was a big guy, and he hadn’t heard a thing.

  “No. Except there are lights on.”

  He turned as he gestured toward the window. Only then did he notice the green camouflage jacket Rand had on, and he suddenly realized how effective the dappled clothing was. There was a leather case, about twice the size of the binoculars case, around his neck.

  “Give me a few minutes,” Rand said. He pulled a green knit cap out of a pocket and put it on, apparently to mask the gleam of his pale hair. To Ryan’s surprise he unrolled the brim down over his face, and it became clear it was a ski mask that made him seem to blend into the greenery even more.

  “There’s a dog,” Ryan warned.

  Rand nodded; Sasha must have told him. Sasha, who was hopefully waiting safely up by the car, Ryan thought as Rand moved away with a silence that seemed impossible. He didn’t want to have to worry about two of the women he loved—

  Damn.

  Had he really thought that? After barely two days back in her company, was he in even deeper than before? He’d spent more hours with her in their short time together than any woman he’d ever dated. He’d liked her then, more than he’d ever liked a woman. Wanted her even more than that. Whether that added up to love was something he hadn’t had time to figure out before she’d made her decision and walked out.