Always a Hero Read online

  “What?”

  “Melissa, the other sister, died a few months ago. There’s an obit online. Cancer. Sucks.”

  Melissa. Jordy’s mother. She had her answers.

  “Thanks, David.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You having a problem with this guy? Want me to come kick his ass?”

  She thought it much more likely it would go the other way around, but she didn’t say so.

  “Not that kind of problem, but thanks for the offer,” she said. “He’s just been…less than forthcoming about who he is. Or was.”

  “Maybe he’s got reason,” David said. “Sounds like he could have some nasty memories piled up.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, thinking of the first time she’d seen him, of the exhaustion she’d noticed even then, dulling the eyes that were so vividly green in his son.

  Pill counter indeed, she thought. But she was beginning to see, perhaps, why he’d gone for such a mind-numbing job. Maybe he’d wanted exactly that, his mind numbed into forgetting.

  She thanked David again, and after reassuring him once more that she was all right, she hung up. And for a long time simply sat there, a little numbed herself. She couldn’t believe this. She, the one-time rebel, had fallen—and fallen hard—for an ex-fed.

  There was a time when, flush with youthful rebellion, she might have been angry that he’d been a cop. But she’d outgrown that some time ago, and what she valued had grown up as well.

  He’s a freakin’ hero….

  David’s words echoed in her head. A hero. No denying that.

  She could even picture it, how Jordy had happened. The long hours of tension about her missing sister, the relief, the promises of no recriminations, no strings. She could believe it now that she had the last missing piece.

  She jumped to her feet, unable to sit still any longer. At last the anger had broken through. Not at what he had been, but that he had kept it so hidden. Not just from her, although that was perhaps the worst. She had the right to know exactly who she had handed her heart over to, didn’t she? Who she was having body-blasting, life-altering sex with?

  She was barely aware of pacing the room. Or gradually going faster. Her thoughts were still racing far ahead of her actions.

  It wasn’t just her, he hadn’t told anyone. He’d let all of Deer Creek think he had just vanished out there after college, doing nothing of note. Certainly not being a hero.

  He hadn’t told his own son.

  He used to be a paper pusher and now he’s a pill counter…how lame is that?

  Boring.

  Maybe he had his reasons for keeping his heroic past a secret. But couldn’t he at least have had the decency to acknowledge he was doing it? A simple “It’s there, but I don’t want to talk about it,” would have done. Maybe “I have a past but I haven’t done anything criminal or immoral.” Maybe even just, “I was one of the good guys, Kai.” That would have been nice. Didn’t she have the right to know at least that much?

  She was building up a good head of steam now, and was about at the end of that fuse she’d worked so hard to lengthen over the years. Maybe she was more upset than she realized about…not being lied to, at least not directly, but not knowing who she’d fallen in love with.

  Because she most definitely had fallen.

  And she wanted some answers.

  She quickly changed into heavier shoes, and grabbed up her jacket and a scarf; the days were still end-of-summer warm, but the nights held the scent and coolness of encroaching fall.

  She belted down the stairs. Glanced at her car, sitting and dutifully waiting.

  No, you should walk, she told herself. Get a grip on your temper. Burn some of it off before you jump down his throat.

  And figure out how you’re going to explain that you went snooping into a part of his life he obviously wanted kept secret. Yeah, that was a problem.

  He was just going to have to understand. And if he didn’t, or couldn’t, or wouldn’t, well, better she know it now, before she got in any deeper.

  Yeah, right….

  Even to herself the sarcasm was sizzling.

  It didn’t take her long to cover the few short blocks. The main street still had some activity on this Friday night, but the residential streets were quiet and calm, as befit the near-rural little town. There were no streetlights out here, but with the almost full moon it was hardly necessary; the lighting was stark and silver, but she could probably read by it if she had to.

  Her steps slowed as she got close enough to see the house. The house was dark except for one faint light in an upstairs window. Had he already gone to bed?

  Tough, she thought; the walk had taken the edge off her anger, but only just.

  She sped up again. She would confront him anyway. Wake him up if she had to. Make him talk to her. You just didn’t keep that kind of secret from somebody you were intimate with.

  Unless, of course, you didn’t feel the same way.

  Her steps slowed once more as she reached the foot of the long driveway. Maybe that was it. He hadn’t told her because he wasn’t all that emotionally involved with her. Maybe it was just all hot sex for him. He’d never said anything to indicate it was anything more. She was the one who had—

  A movement caught her eye, somewhere near that lit window. She narrowed her gaze, trying to see in the moonlight that exaggerated the shadows. She changed course and walked up the driveway; the walkway veered away from that side of the house, the side where Wyatt had been chopping wood that day.

  Heat flooded her, warding off the night’s growing chill easily. She’d thought he was fit and lean and taut that day.

  Now she knew exactly how right she’d been, inch by glorious inch.

  Stop it, she ordered herself. You’re not going to get this done if you can’t stop salivating over the guy.

  And then she stopped dead, finally able to see what had caught her eye.

  Jordy. Dropping from the big tree beside the house to the ground, obviously having climbed out his bedroom window. She nearly called out, then stopped herself; she was far enough away that if she made enough noise to catch his attention, she’d end up waking the whole neighborhood. She doubted Wyatt would appreciate that.

  She hurried up the long driveway. Saw Jordy dart into the garage through a small side door. He came out wheeling a bike she’d seen before. He never even glanced her way, even though by now she was barely twenty feet away. He jumped on the bike and took off, not as she’d half expected, toward town, but to the west into the woods behind the house, the small red light on the rear of the bike glowing.

  She did call out then, but Jordy either didn’t hear or ignored her. He’d left that side door open, and she instinctively went to close it. And stopped.

  This made no sense. He never, ever left Jordy home alone. But there was no denying the simple, obvious fact that the garage was gapingly empty. No black SUV was parked inside.

  She glanced back at the house. Up at where the light still gleamed in the window.

  The broken window.

  She took a step closer, but there was no doubt that the bottom half of the window glass was broken; the edge of a blue curtain was fluttering through to the outside.

  She looked toward the woods, where Jordy’s red light was growing fainter. Go, she thought. Doing nothing was not an option; for her it never had been. Not even now, as angry and confused as she was.

  She had to do something. Because she couldn’t deny one simple fact, whether it made sense or not.

  Wyatt was gone, and Jordy was alone.

  Chapter 25

  Amateurs, Wyatt thought.

  Definite amateurs. And that bothered him. If an illegal drug manufacturer had survived to the extent that he felt capable of both expanding to larger quantities and going after the ingredients to do it, he would have expected a little more polish. But then, he would have expected them to have their own talent, and not hire local. Espe
cially not clearly inexperienced local kids like Max and crew.

  He admitted his specialty had never been drug enforcement, but he’d come across enough of it, since it was frequently used to finance other types of operations. And this just didn’t feel right.

  He braced his left arm on the large limb of the tree—nearly a twin to the one next to the house—and leaned forward with the small monocular lens in his right hand. Even without the night vision capability, the moon was so bright he’d figured it could help. He’d picked out this spreading tree days ago, when he’d first realized what Max was planning. When skulking around where they shouldn’t be, especially outside, people tended to look around, behind, over their shoulder and ahead, but rarely up.

  Unless they were pros, which Max and his buddies certainly were not. They’d arrived in an unmarked bobtail truck painted a bright white that gleamed in the moonlight, about as concealable as a neon sign, and instead of parking some stealthy distance away as he had, they’d driven all the way to the edge of the HP property.

  They’d tried to pull it off the road and into the trees, but the box of the truck was too tall to go very far that way, and there was some significant noise as branches scraped along the top and sides. Plus, they nosed it in, so that the more difficult backing out would have to be done if they were discovered.

  Wyatt had already been here and in position when they’d arrived. He’d been used to much longer, often uncomfortable hours of patient waiting. Being in a rush had killed more agents than anything else but poor planning or being just plain stupid.

  And he tried not to dwell on the fact that too many times, smart agents got stupid when emotions were involved. And Jordan was in this, even if only on the fringes.

  At least, he hoped it was only the fringes.

  Wyatt knew he was going to have a hell of a lot of explaining to do when he got home. Talk about stupid, he should have realized when he’d seen the boy’s music player on the desk in the den that he’d be coming back down for it once he realized he’d forgotten it. He seemed to live half the time with earphones on, blocking out the world.

  More likely blocking you out, he told himself sourly.

  His mouth tightened. Locking Jordan in his room, even locking the window with a warning that if he tried to leave he would regret it for the rest of his possibly shortened life probably hadn’t been the best approach, but he didn’t know what else to do. The thought that what he’d done was worthy of his own father’s approach was something he was trying not to think about.

  Just as he was trying not to think about that stunned look on his son’s face as he had silently watched his father dig out the past he’d hoped never to see again.

  Yes, a lot of explaining. And not just to his son. If he’d told Kai the truth, he could have left Jordy with her. But it was all too much to explain when seconds were critical.

  It was not something he was looking forward to. He’d wanted to put that life behind him and keep it there. He wished he could do the same with the memories, wished he could regain the trust and faith in his fellow man that let most people function in a much more pleasant world.

  Like Kai.

  Maybe I just don’t want to live my life assuming everyone’s guilty until proven innocent.

  Yes, just like Kai.

  He fought down the ache that rose in him. He didn’t want to think about how this might affect her, affect them, either. Would she be angry, stunned, or repelled by who he really was? He had little doubt that she’d be all of those if she knew some of the things he’d done, and no amount of telling himself it had been necessary, and even believing it, could assuage the fear that he was going to lose them both, before he’d ever really had either of them.

  Later, he muttered to himself, and shoved the confrontation that was sure to come into its own compartment until this was over.

  He waited. If it had been him, he would have gone in through the roof vents, secured only with a pressure latch. But he was guessing these guys would go for the side door that faced away from the main packaging building.

  That seemed to be their intent when, wearing ski masks, they carried a large pair of wire cutters to the fence that surrounded the HP property. They argued—loud enough to be heard by anyone within fifty feet—over who was going to make the cuts. In the stark, high-contrast moonlight, it was a bit like watching a very old black-and-white cartoon, and in the old days Wyatt might have been grinning to himself.

  Now he just wanted this over.

  They cut a path through the chain-link fence. Instead of doing it low and harder to notice, they simply cut a big gap, obviously not caring if it was found.

  They went through the fence relatively quietly. This is where it got tricky, because they were now in the very dark shadow of the metal building, and in their dark clothes and ski masks—they’d thought of that, at least—they were for all intents and purposes invisible.

  Wyatt dropped from the tree, landing with the faintest of thuds in the spot he’d already cleared of betraying leaves and sticks. In a crouch he moved quickly to his pre-chosen spot, just above the fence and behind a large juniper bush. He heard one of them say something, but they had apparently realized their error and were whispering now.

  He heard movement, and it seemed to him that it was farther away, but now was the time he really missed the night vision capacity; he couldn’t see a thing. But then he heard the sound of metal on metal, a push-pull kind of sound, and he guessed they were trying to poke a hole in the metal of the building. He focused on that sound as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the small cylinder he’d taken from the locker.

  The sound changed then; he heard them start on the door, apparently using the hole they’d made to insert the same wire cutters to cut through the metal sheeting around the door lock. Not a bad idea, if you had unlimited time. Which apparently they thought they had.

  He gave them enough time to get thoroughly focused on the job. Then he moved, edging forward until he was within range of an easy toss. He lobbed the flash-bang.

  The stun grenade landed neatly between the two working on the door. Wyatt turned away and covered his ears to avoid the blinding flash of light and the explosive, ear-splitting sound. A split second later he was moving, drawing the HK as he went. The man with the wire cutters was howling, rolling around on the ground with his hands over his ears. His partner had staggered back against the metal wall of the building, completely disoriented.

  Wyatt had them rounded up and flex-cuffed before they fully recovered from the shock. He swiftly fastened them with more plastic ties to an intact pole of the fence, his mind screaming all the while; the third man had vanished. That was the movement he’d heard, after the whispering.

  He yanked the ski masks off the two he’d caught.

  Max. Max was the missing man.

  He swore under his breath. “Where is he?”

  Neither man answered.

  “I don’t have time to play nice with you two,” he said, leveling the HK at the one who looked like he was recovering faster from the shock of the stun grenade. “Where’s Max?”

  The man looked so shaken Wyatt wasn’t sure he was even comprehending. He jammed the barrel of the HK up under his chin, digging it in deep, until the man gagged.

  “He…saw something move,” the man choked out. “Over in the trees.”

  The man jerked his head toward the thick stand of cedars at the far corner of the building.

  “Is he armed?”

  “He’s always got his knife.”

  Well, he may have a knife, but it wasn’t his knife, because I’ve got that, Wyatt thought. He pulled back the HK, slid it into the holster at the small of his back, and took off in a low, crouching run in the direction the man had indicated. He wanted this wrapped up tonight, and until Max was where he should be, this wasn’t over.

  The shadows in the grove of cedars were different, in some places just as dark as beside the building, but some places lighter
where moonlight shone through. All his newly reawakened instincts were screaming, and the skin at the back of his neck was tingling in the old way that used to warn him someone was watching. The motion of the branches in the slight breeze made it even more difficult, and he slowed to move carefully.

  “Stop right there, asshole.”

  From his left, Max’s voice. Laced with a confident, even arrogant tone that said he knew he had the upper hand.

  Wyatt spun around, weapon raised into plain sight. If Max indeed had only a knife, best he knew he was literally outgunned from the get-go.

  And then relative armament, and everything else, became a moot point. Because even in the oddly dappled shadows Wyatt couldn’t deny the grim truth of what he saw.

  It was Max, all right.

  He indeed had a knife.

  And it was pressed to Jordan’s throat.

  Chapter 26

  Jordan had been struggling, so strongly that Wyatt’s throat tightened; Max wasn’t that good and he didn’t want him slicing the boy by accident. But he wasn’t sure his son would listen if he told him to stay calm. Hell, he wasn’t sure if he’d listen if he told him to breathe.

  He kept his weapon rock-steady and high; Max was a half a foot taller than Jordan, so there was plenty of clear target.

  But there was also that knife, a near duplicate of the one he’d taken from him. He guessed Max didn’t want anyone to know about that. Or maybe he lost them all the time and bought them by the dozen. He should have been doing research on the guy, he thought in disgust. He should have been assessing the enemy, but instead he’d been…

  His mind, which had been racing at light speed, threatened to seize up at the memories of how he’d been spending his afternoons.

  “I should have known you’d try to mess things up,” Max said. “I knew you were gonna be trouble.”

  With a tremendous effort Wyatt made himself shove it all aside, everything but the moment and keeping Jordan safe.

  “Since I told you what would happen if you came near my son again? You should have believed me.”