Deception Lake Page 17

  The crunch of footsteps outside the cave entrance stopped him short. Mallory turned to look at him, her eyes wide in the flashlight beam before she extinguished the light. Her hands closed over his upper arms, tugging him closer.

  The footsteps stilled. For a breathless moment, there was no sound except the faint, rapid sounds of their breathing.

  Then a low, accented voice called from the cave entrance, “Ven a mí, querida.”

  A low moan escaped Mallory’s throat, and she tightened her fingers around Jack’s biceps.

  “It’s Carlos,” she whispered.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jack had never considered himself a violent man, despite years of making a name for himself in a physically demanding sport. “I’m a lover, not a fighter,” had always been his mantra, and that attitude had gotten him out of some tight spots in cowboy bars over the years.

  But if losing his sister to a twisted killer had taught him nothing else, it had taught him there were times when a man had to make a stand. Nobody had been there for Emily when she needed help. But he was here now, Mallory was in danger and there was a loaded Colt pistol in a holster behind his back.

  He reached for the pistol and bent to whisper in Mallory’s ear, “If you can get up there and out that cave opening, do it. I’ll hold Carlos off.”

  Her grip on his arms tightened to a painful level. “He’s after me, not you. I’ll go to him.”

  As she tried to slip past him, he wrapped his arms around her. “He’s not going to let me live. You know that. Get up to that opening and see if you can get out of here. Call for help. Type the number seven and hit Send. That’s Riley’s phone number.” He pulled one of her hands away from his arm and gave her the phone. “Hurry. I’ll see how long I can hold him off.”

  There was only a little light seeping into the cave from either opening, just enough to see the fear in her eyes. “What if he’s not alone?”

  “All the more reason to call for help.” He gave her a nudge toward the craggy wall. “Don’t fall.”

  She wrapped one hand around the back of his neck and pulled herself up to give him a hard, swift kiss. “Don’t die.”

  Then she let him go and started climbing.

  He glanced toward the cave entrance, reassuring himself that Carlos was still outside, before he watched Mallory scramble up the cave wall, her fingers gripping the smallest of indentations and outcroppings to keep from falling back to the floor.

  Near the top, where the narrow opening let in a triangular shaft of daylight, a small ledge jutted about eight inches from the wall. She eased her feet onto that rock ledge and tested its strength. Pebbles skittered down, but the rock held.

  She gazed down at him, flashing him the grimace of a smile, then pushed herself up until her torso disappeared through the tight opening. A moment later, she stepped away from the ledge.

  Jack’s heart gave a hard flip as her legs swung back and forth in the air. Then she hauled herself the rest of the way out.

  He tried to catch a glimpse of her through the opening, but movement in his periphery forced his attention back to the cave.

  A shadow slanted across the entrance, unmistakably human in shape.

  “This is your last chance, querida.” Carlos spoke in Spanish, his singsong inflection sending a chill racing down Jack’s spine. “Come out, or I will come in.”

  “She ain’t alone,” he drawled in response, aiming his Colt pistol toward the entrance. He might get only one chance to make a good shot.

  “Ah, the cowboy.” Carlos answered in English that time, laughter tinting his voice. “You think I am some witless bull you can conquer with your nerve and will?”

  “That’s the plan,” Jack called back to him, sparing a quick glance at the opening in the cave ceiling. He hoped it was high enough that Carlos wouldn’t be able to spot Mallory moving around above.

  Please, baby, stay out of sight and make that call.

  “Too sad for you, vaquero,” Carlos called, laughter in his voice. “For I am not alone, either.”

  As Jack tightened his grip on the pistol, three more shadows joined the first, darkening the floor at the cave mouth.

  * * *

  CARLOS’S TAUNTING WORDS carried up the hillside to Mallory’s hiding place behind a clump of wild hydrangea bushes growing near the opening in the roof of the cave. She hunkered there with Jack’s phone, trying to figure out the unfamiliar workings and starting to tremble with panic.

  Carlos wasn’t alone. Jack was. And she was stuck up here, trying to call for help with hands shaking so wildly she could barely keep her grip on the phone.

  Dial seven and hit Send, Jack had said. She followed the direction and punched the send button, lifting the phone to her ear.

  A man answered on the first ring. “Jack?”

  “It’s not Jack,” she said softly. “But he’s in trouble.”

  For a second, there was no response on the other end of the line, and she thought he’d hung up on her. But as the roar of her pulse in her ears became deafening, the man spoke again. “I’m Riley, Jack’s brother-in-law. You’re Mallory Jennings, right?”

  She forced the confirmation past her tight throat. “Right. Jack’s trapped in a cave northeast of Lilac Point Park on Deception Lake. I was able to get out through an opening in the cave roof—”

  “Trapped? By a cave-in?”

  “By gunmen,” she answered tersely, barely keeping the panic bubbling up in her chest from raising the tone of her voice. “More than one. I don’t have a visual. Jack is armed, but he has nowhere to hide. They haven’t gone in yet—”

  “Who are they?” Riley asked.

  “A man named Carlos Herrera, for sure. Not sure who he has with him. We need help. He said your wife’s family has some experience, but there’s really no time.”

  “I’m three minutes from there. I can bring at least two reinforcements with me. Maybe that’ll even up the fight.”

  “Hurry!” She had punched up the GPS coordinates of her position before she made the call; she rattled off the numbers quickly. “Got it?”

  “We’re on the way.” He hung up.

  She pocketed Jack’s phone and edged forward until she could see around the sheltering hydrangea bushes. From this part of the mountainside, she couldn’t see anything that might be happening beneath the rocky overhang that had obscured the cave mouth in its shadow. Though she’d heard no gunfire, she couldn’t be certain Carlos hadn’t already entered the cave and taken Jack prisoner.

  Edging backward, she peered through the narrow breach in the cave’s roof. With the sun nearly overhead at this time of day, the brightness contracted her pupils, rendering the cave interior little more than an inky abyss. But after a couple of seconds, she spotted movement below.

  Jack, she realized, pressing himself as deeply into the shallow recess as he could go.

  Carlos’s voice called out, audible in two directions, both distant where the sound rose over the edge of the outcropping and louder, echoing off the rocky cave walls below. “Send her out, vaquero, and you will live another day. Play hero, and you will die together.”

  “You watch too many movies, Carlos!” Jack called back. Mallory saw a glint of sunlight bounce off the barrel of his Colt M1911 as he shifted the pistol’s aim. “There’s no way I’m getting out of this cave alive if you have any say in the matter. We both know that.”

  He was right, Mallory realized with despair. He was outnumbered, outgunned and completely trapped. There was no way in hell his brother-in-law could form a posse and ride to the rescue in time.

  There was only one way she could make sure Jack didn’t die today.

  She stood up and walked slowly toward the edge of the outcropping, careful not to make any more noise than absolutely necessary. Within seconds, she could see the flattened area just below the overhang, though the rock formation still hid Carlos and his cohorts from view.

  She edged sideways, trying to find a vantage point that wo
uld bring them into view.

  Her shoe hit a patch of loose gravel and slid out from under her, sending rocks and dirt pouring over the edge of the small bluff.

  Gunfire split the air, and she pressed herself flat, rolling to one side to get a bead on whoever was taking potshots at her.

  There. Just inside the shadow of the overhang. A man held a rifle pointed upward, bearing down on her.

  She had one second. One shot.

  She took it.

  As the second round from the man’s rifle zinged past her and smacked into the trunk of a scrubby pine behind her, she took a breath and squeezed off one round. The Smith & Wesson pistol gave a small kick against her palm, easily absorbed, and the bullet flew true, hitting the rifleman center mass. He fell to the ground, blood blooming like a flower across the lower half of his gray T-shirt.

  A howl of pain rose from below, and Mallory fell back against the hillside, feeling utterly sick.

  Gunfire rang from below. Two muffled shots answered in quick succession, coming from inside the cave. Mallory forced herself up again, edging to a different position in search of a better vantage point.

  She saw Carlos on the move, circling around, close to the trees for cover. He was heading toward the rocky incline just east of her position, a large black pistol gripped in his left hand. He was fast with a handgun. Fast and deadly accurate.

  And she was scared and shaking so hard she didn’t have a chance in hell of hitting her target a second time.

  Keeping her eye on Carlos, she tried to aim the pistol and get a bead on him, but the trembling in her hands was proving to be impossible to quell. Giving up on taking a shot, she scrambled backward toward the hydrangea bushes that had given her cover earlier.

  They’d be useless now, she knew, no match for a bullet zinging through their leaves and branches. But they’d keep her from Carlos’s view a little longer, give her time to think what to do next.

  Give her a chance to make sure those shots she’d heard hadn’t hit their mark in the cave below.

  To reach the cave opening, she’d have to move from behind the bushes. Her pragmatic side, the one that had led her to sit outside a house engulfed with fire and cry while her sister’s body burned, screamed at her to stay put. Let Jack fight his own battles. Her life was the only one she had a chance to save.

  But another side of her, a strong, fierce, protective side she hadn’t even realized she possessed, refused to listen. Bracing herself for a flurry of gunfire, she rolled over to the cave opening and peered down into the abyss.

  In the handful of seconds it took her eyes to adjust to the darkness below, a couple of things happened. Gunfire erupted from the other side of the bluff. Jack laid down answering fire, the muzzle flashes bright in the gloom of the cave.

  And running footsteps approached, heavy and swift.

  Mallory rolled away from the cave opening, already swinging her gun in the direction of the footsteps crunching up the hillside toward her.

  Carlos skidded to a stop, his pistol aimed toward her in steady hands.

  Her own hand trembled, but not nearly as much as it had just moments earlier. Maybe her nerves had settled down, or maybe it was just knowing that if Carlos managed to get past her, Jack would have nowhere to hide at all. Whatever steadied her grip, she was grateful for it. She might not be getting out of this standoff alive, she knew, but if she took Carlos Herrera with her, then her life would have been worth something after all.

  “Querida, this is so unnecessary,” Carlos called from his halted position twenty yards away.

  “You think so?” She concentrated on steadying her voice as well as her grip on the pistol. Her voice came out solid, and only the tiniest of tremors in her fingers revealed her fear.

  “You betrayed me. You alone. I have no wish to hurt your friend. Just come to me now. Put down the gun. I will not harm him.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She shifted the gun downward, aiming for center mass again, as Quinn himself had taught her during a half dozen late-night training sessions.

  “Go for the biggest target,” Quinn had told her flatly. “You want to do damage. Center of the torso does it, and it’s not that hard to aim for.”

  He’d drilled her in shooting protocols, over and over, until she could recite them in her sleep. Then he’d taken her to the firing range he’d set up a few miles from the office and coached her through about three boxes of ammunition until he was certain she could handle the Smith & Wesson M&P40 with skill and ease.

  She’d give anything to have Alexander Quinn at her back right about now. He might have secrets. He might be one hell of a good liar. But he’d never let her down when she needed him.

  He and Jack Drummond shared that surprising trait in common. And this was her one chance to prove to both men that they hadn’t made a mistake in risking their lives for her.

  This was her chance to prove she wasn’t a selfish coward.

  She looked up at Carlos, her nerves suddenly rock-steady. Her hands no longer shook. A calm, confident smile spread across her face, her heartbeat slowing down to a normal, even cadence.

  As her panic seeped away, replaced by a bracing dose of courage, Carlos’s feral grin faltered.

  “Put down the gun, Carlos,” she called. “Put it down now and I won’t shoot you.”

  His smile returned, but there was no confidence in his lean handsome face. His gaze flicked from side to side, as he tried to gauge how easily he could make a quick escape.

  And that was when Mallory knew she had the upper hand.

  Carlos’s hands dropped a few inches, then he jerked the gun up again and fired off three quick rounds.

  But Mallory had already started to move, rolling to her left and coming up ready to fire. She answered his three shots with one well-aimed round.

  He froze in place, another shot barking from the gun as his hands slowly dropped. The gun slipped from his grasp and his head finally turned toward her new position, his dark eyes meeting hers.

  Blood spread rapidly across the center of his olive-green T-shirt, darkening the fabric like spilled ink staining a piece of writing paper as he fell facedown in the trail and went still.

  Gunfire continued over the edge of the bluff. More weapons than before, coming from more than one direction, she realized somewhere in the outer reaches of her mind. She heard shouts in English and Spanish. Cries of anger and pain.

  But she couldn’t rouse herself from her crouch, couldn’t lower her outstretched hands still holding the pistol aimed at Carlos’s crumpled body.

  Slowly she realized the sound of gunfire had faded away, replaced by a buzz of voices rising from the bottom of the bluff. Someone had won the gunfight, she thought.

  She hoped like hell it was the good guys.

  “Mallory?” For a moment, she thought she’d imagined Jack’s voice, had maybe heard it rising from the cave nearby, saying something that sounded enough like her name to fool her hazy mind.

  Then he was suddenly there, crouched beside her, one hand closing over hers to remove the gun from her tight grasp. “Are you okay?” He cupped her face in his palm and made her look away from Carlos’s body, his dark eyes searching hers for some sign that she was hearing him.

  “I’m okay.” Her voice came out strangled.

  “You’re not okay. You’re amazing.” He caressed her chin with his thumb, his dark eyes gazing so intently into her own that she thought she could drown in them. “That’s what Riley called you. Amazing. Calm, direct, giving him exactly what he needed to find us—”

  “I like to be thorough,” she said softly.

  Jack stared at her for a breathless moment, then started to laugh softly. He pulled her into his arms, wrapping his body around her until she felt utterly protected. “You are one hell of a woman, MJ.”

  “Mallory,” she murmured against his throat.

  “What?”

  She leaned her head back to look into his eyes. “You can call me Mallory. It’s my n
ame. And I’m kind of tired of running from it.”

  He pressed his lips against her forehead. “As crazy as these past few days have turned out to be, I’m so damn glad I ran into you at that diner in town.”

  “So am I, cowboy.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, fighting back a laugh. “So am I.”

  * * *

  “CARLOS HERRERA AND two of his henchmen are dead. The other two are in the hospital. Both stable but not out of the woods yet.” Alexander Quinn spoke with his back to the room, his gaze directed out the large window in his office at The Gates. Outside, the afternoon was nearly gone, fading into an indigo twilight, outlining Quinn’s profile in soft blue.

  Jack sat beside Mallory in one of the two upholstered armchairs positioned in front of Quinn’s desk, while Riley, Hannah and Hannah’s cousin Caleb occupied chairs one of Quinn’s agents had retrieved from the conference room down the hall.

  “What about the good guys?” Hannah asked.

  Quinn turned at the sound of her voice. He looked tired, Jack thought, but he didn’t know the man well enough to judge whether it was his normal look or a result of the past few stressful days. “One of our agents took a bullet to the shoulder. He’s in surgery, but the surgeons hope the damage won’t be permanent. But that puts us an agent down.”

  “You looking to hire?” The drawling question came from Hannah’s cousin. Caleb Cooper didn’t look much like the other Coopers Jack had met back in Chickasaw County, Alabama. Though tall and fit like Hannah’s brothers, Caleb’s lean, rawboned look reminded Jack more of Riley Patterson. Fair, freckled skin, light green eyes and rust-colored hair set him apart from the other Coopers, as well.

  “I’m always looking to hire.” Quinn looked amused. “But I’m not sure hiring a Cooper is a good idea. Your family has a penchant for finding trouble wherever you go.”

  Caleb grinned, unfazed. “But I’m adopted.”

  That explained it, Jack thought.

  Quinn shook his head. “It’s an acquired trait. But if you’re serious, you can pick up an application at the front desk.” He shot the man a stern look. “And you’ll have to pass a background check.”