“DEA! Open up!” Dante fired one shot into the key hole. He dragged Bolton by the arm, toward the door, and slammed his boot beside the handle. Bolton took the moment to drop Tristan’s badge on the ground outside the door. Dante was distracted enough he didn’t notice, just as he hadn’t seen Bolton take it from the dead DEA agent on the plane.
The door swung open and a woman inside screamed. She huddled with a man, both dressed like they’d spent a day at the country club. The man cowered, like he was trying to hide behind the woman instead of protecting her. “What are you—”
Dante shot both of them.
“Your stay here is over.” He pulled Bolton past the current owners of Bolton’s house, stepping over the prone bodies. “Now tell me where you hid the stash.”
Bolton glanced over his shoulder and saw the man’s eyes were still open. Blood was smeared low across his chest. He wasn’t dead, but a gut wound was never a good thing. He let the man see all the terror that had settled in his gut. Dying by Dante’s hand wasn’t supposed to be part of the plan. Not for Bolton, and not for these people, either.
The man started to reach for a cell phone that had fallen on the tile as his gaze darted around, still feeling the surprise of having been shot. Bolton sent up a prayer that the phone wasn’t broken. That the man wasn’t hurt too badly, that he could call and get help in there.
Cops.
Bolton had never wanted to see a police officer so badly in his life. He could have cried aloud for it. The pain in his body eclipsed almost everything else, and every step was agony.
Dante twisted around and fired one shot. The home owner’s hand slumped and the phone clattered on the tile again. The screen was illuminated, but before he could read it, Dante shook him, his face right in Bolton’s. “Where?”
Bolton blinked. “Give me a second.” He was ready to throw up. His back and leg hurt so badly. Had the owner’s call connected? Were the police on the open line—were they coming?
Dante let go, and Bolton hung his head. “There’s a basement. Off the hall between the garage and the laundry room.” Not that it was where he hid the stash, but it gave him the chance to stall until the owner’s call got the cops there. If it connected. Please, God.
He wanted to lie down, but hours sitting still on the plane hadn’t helped. Bolton needed a hospital, but he had no ID, no insurance, and no way to contact the marshals. What he needed to do was kill Dante before or at the point that Dante killed him. That was the only way out of this. Problem solved. Too bad Dante had the only gun.
“Open it.”
Bolton grasped the door. Blood on his fingers left a sticky mess on the handle, but he got it open. He needed to wipe that off if he got the chance to leave here, right? Too many questions would be asked if his fingerprints or DNA were run. He wasn’t supposed to show up back at his house. Bolton’s head spun with the possible outcomes and what he’d have to do to contain this as much as possible. He’d managed to keep a low profile so far, but Tristan leaking his identity to the press hadn’t helped. Not if there was a chance he might live and need to disappear.
The stairs had been repaired, the wood now bare pine where before it had been painted because, despite never once venturing down here, Thea had insisted they keep up appearances. Dante shoved one hand against the middle of Bolton’s back.
The stairs rushed up and hit him in the face.
Bolton tumbled, side over side, until he hit the concrete floor at the bottom of the steps. The next thing he knew, Dante stepped on his back. Bolton’s yell echoed in the cavernous, empty basement.
“Get up!”
Bolton couldn’t move. Unconsciousness teased the edges of his world like a black hole about to suck him into the abyss of nothing. It would be easier. Just surrender to it and leave Dante to his fruitless search. At least Bolton wouldn’t be hurting anymore, because he wouldn’t feel anything at all when the final bullet came.
Dante pulled on Bolton’s arm until he sat upright, then he let him slump against the stairs. “Seriously? It’s one shot to the leg. I always knew you were worthless. If you worked for me I’d have killed you by now for being a waste of perfectly good air.”
Bolton wasn’t going to explain that Dante’s last attempt to kill him before Sanctuary had put him in the hospital with a spinal injury or that the surgery from days ago hadn’t healed. Or that Bolton was having trouble moving his toes. His legs were cocked at a funny angle in front of him. Bolton stared at them, as though the force of his will could make his legs move.
Finally, he managed to get his shoe to twitch.
Bolton pushed out a breath. He hated even the idea of being helpless. Facing down Dante while essentially paralyzed wasn’t going to be a good idea. He didn’t need to give Dante that much of an edge. The man couldn’t know that Bolton could barely walk. At best.
Sweat ran down his face to sting his eyes. He lifted a leaden hand to wipe it away and felt the grit on his skin.
“Where is it?” Dante stood over him, gun aimed straight at Bolton’s head. He may as well have put the thing away, for all the effect it had.
There weren’t a whole lot of hiding spaces down here. Should he tell Dante he’d buried it under the floor? He’d have to go steal a jackhammer and break up the concrete. That would take a while. The other alternatives were less destructive.
“I can’t see. It’s dark down here.”
Dante shone his cell phone around until he found the switch. Fluorescent lights washed the room in light, bleaching out everything. Bolton squeezed his eyes shut for a second while his brain processed the stabbing sensation of so much light at once.
He squinted at the room and saw the air vent panel in the corner. “Got a screw driver?” He motioned toward it. That was a logical hiding place, right? Tucked away in the basement, hidden even when Bolton left the real world to hide out in a secret witness protection town.
Dante circled the room, found a tool box, and rummaged for a screw driver. He left his gun on the bench beside the dryer. Did he know Bolton couldn’t get it? When he strode to the vent, Dante sent him a smirk. A dare to go for it or be a coward who couldn’t fight back. All Dante did was challenge people, it was a wonder he’d survived prison for as long as he had.
Bolton glanced back at the top of the stairs.
The clock was ticking on his life. There were only seconds until Dante found nothing behind that vent.
Dante tossed it to the side. It clanged on the floor and the sound echoed at a deafening level. Hand in. Reaching around.
He pulled out a stuffed manila envelope Bolton had never seen before. “It better all be here.” Dante up-ended the envelope. Two bundles of money and a passport. Dante looked at the picture. “This is for Thea.”
Dante stormed over and threw it in Bolton’s face—the reality that his wife had forged a new identity for herself so that she could finally betray him one last time. Instead she’d left him and gotten herself a place to live in Hawaii, while Javier grew up to hate him. Bolton would never know if the boy was his son or not, and maybe he didn’t want the chance to be disappointed. She’d twisted his emotions against Bolton regardless of who his father was.
He punched Bolton over and over in the face, and then he spat on him. “You’re not even worth the bullet it would take to kill you. Nothin’ but a cheat and a liar who thinks he can win when I’m the one who calls the shots. Always.” He knelt beside Bolton, grabbed his hair, and shoved the gun under his chin. “No one would miss you. Not your wife, not that little Jesus-lover girl. The kid isn’t even yours. Marshals can’t help you now. There’s no one to cry to, Farrera. It’s just you and me.”
He moved the gun, pressed it into Bolton’s left shoulder, and adjusted his grip, ready to fire.
The doorbell rang. Someone pounded on the door.
Then the doorbell rang again.
Dante raced up the stairs. Bolton leaned his head back on the steps and tried to breathe. Tried to muster the strength to get up, to get away from Dante.
“DEA Agent Tristan Sanders?”
“Sure am,” Dante’s reply was chipper.
“I’m Officer Michaels, this is Officer Sands. Is everything okay?”
“Got an unruly suspect in here. You’ll have to excuse the mess I’m in. Not my best day.” His laugh echoed all the way to the basement.
“Need any help? My partner and I can back you up if you’re having some trouble.”
“I got it. Everything’s cool.” Just another day on the job. Didn’t these guys recognize his face? He had to be famous. Dante’s picture should be all over every news agency, except he was the DEA’s biggest disappointment. Keeping the story of his escape under wraps was probably a full time job for someone high up, someone who didn’t want to answer a whole lot of uncomfortable questions about why Dante had ever been hired in the first place. Tristan, probably. But the man was dead now.
“You’re sure?”
Bolton lost the next couple of exchanges. He tried to rally against the pain, but it was getting harder. Any second now Dante would shut the door on those two cops, and they would never know he was down here. They’d never know there was a dead couple laying on the floor right behind the door.
Bang.
Bang.
Boot-steps. The stairs shook with each pounding footfall. “Stupid cops can’t mind their own business.”
Bolton’s only way out. His rescue.
And Dante had killed them.
**
“Thanks.” Ben hung up the phone. He’d landed the plane in Miami, and was the only one who hadn’t slept. But if he was tired it didn’t show.
Nadia had hoped his mood would have improved having spent enough time with Will during the flight that he might have some closure. Or at least a decent plan that didn’t feature “wait and see” as the main element. But she was disappointed. “The marshals are waiting for you and Javier,” he said to Colt. “They’ll explain what’s going to happen to you next. Let you weigh your options.”
Colt nodded.
Ben turned to Will. “Stay with the plane and call Remy. See if she can help you get a location from the photo or any of the calls back and forth with Dante.”
“Dante was never with them. They originated from a third party.”
Nadia prayed for him. Dante had bigger things to worry about now, and he didn’t need Will’s family, which meant they could very well be dead. Or he’d done to them what he had done to Nadia. Either way, it was up to computer-genius Will to look for them. And this mysterious “contact.” With God’s help the impossible became possible. She’d seen that happen before, and it could again.
She’d seen an assassin find forgiveness and freedom. She’d seen traumatized people find peace. She’d felt the condemnation, of the things she had done and the choices she had made, disappear in the light of God’s grace and His love for her.
What Nadia didn’t understand at all was a man who could be all torn up and then just give up. So it was hard. Wasn’t everything in life? At least the parts that were worth fighting for. Which made her wonder again about the woman who had bought her back from Earnest. What was her connection to Ben? Was she the woman he had given up on ever having, the way Will seemed to have lost faith in getting his family back?
“Let’s go.”
Nadia nodded and followed Ben. The marshals shook hands with Colt and Javier. They would be okay, or safe at least.
A driver was parked beyond the marshals’ vehicles. A black town car, the older man dressed in a suit and black cap with driving gloves on looked like Bruce Wayne’s guardian. Nadia could have smirked.
Ben put his hand on the small of her back, and the driver opened the rear door as they approached. “Alan.”
“Good afternoon, sir.”
Nadia climbed in and didn’t wait for Ben to buckle up before she said, “Please tell me we’re going to Bolton’s house.”
“What do you expect to be able to do when you get there?”
“That’s why you’re coming,” she said. “I don’t want to face Dante again, not after the last time. But I can’t just sit around and do nothing when Bolton’s life is in danger. Once Dante gets the stash, he’ll kill him.”
“Or he’ll kill him because it’s not at Bolton’s house.” Ben’s expression didn’t change. It was like he was discussing the weather. “He’s not dumb enough to hide it at home.”
“Then why are they there?”
“I don’t know, but Bolton is probably stalling in the hopes rescue will come.”
“So let’s go!”
Ben said, “That’s why I’m not letting you go by yourself. This is dangerous stuff, Nadia. Rushing in won’t serve the situation well. It will only cause more problems.”
“And Bolton being dead because we took too long won’t be a problem?”
“I know you want to save him, but a grown man must face the consequences of his actions. He has to see this through, or he’ll never be able to move on.” He stared at her with that infuriating knowing look. When did he decide he knew everything? “Nadia, if you rush in and rescue him then you rob Bolton of the chance to end this himself. You can’t fight his battle for him. I know you understand what I’m talking about.”
“It doesn’t mean I agree with it.”
She’d felt the need to contact Dante and make a deal, but it hadn’t helped. She’d only made things worse. So why was she doing the same thing now? Rushing in and saving the day wasn’t exactly what she was trying to do. She couldn’t fight Dante for Bolton’s life. But neither could she sit around and wait for Bolton to call because it was over. Or not. God had put her here to do something. Not nothing.
Was it just to pray?
She looked at Ben and frowned. “All those skills and abilities, and you won’t use them to save a man who is supposed to be your friend?”
“Sometimes even I can’t save someone. Not when they don’t want to be saved.” He sounded so lost Nadia might have cried. “Bolton has to make that choice for himself, otherwise his life means nothing.”
Nadia shook her head. She didn’t even want to think about that. Bolton had allowed her to be part of what was happening to him, but he’d never said he wanted her there with him. He hadn’t asked for her or pursued her. Nadia had been the one who stayed in his life of her own choice. And even tried to help him.
In return, he’d been there for her some. He’d cared, but Bolton had never indicated it was anything more than that for him. A couple of stolen kisses that maybe didn’t mean more than the fact he’d gotten caught up in the heat of whatever moment they’d had. Maybe he didn’t even want to be with someone forever. Perhaps Thea had killed that desire for him when she betrayed him so thoroughly.
Nadia didn’t know what it was like to be that closed off to the beauty of what this life could hold. If all she ever saw was the darkness—the life Earnest had tried to place her in, or the pain she saw around her and in the people she cared about—then there would never be light. But she’d found a light to look to in the Lord.
Bolton was still in darkness.
The car pulled over, outside a mansion with a giant circular driveway filled with vehicles, news vans, and a SWAT truck. A couple of helicopters even circled overhead.
“What on earth?” She got out, and Ben followed, looking grim.
“Seems like they’ve attracted some attention.” Ben knocked on the trunk. His driver, Alan, opened it remotely from the front. Ben rummaged in a duffel bag and slipped a black wallet into his pocket before he shut the trunk again.
Alan drove away.
“He’s leaving us here?”
“He won’t go far. If we need a ride, I’ll call him back.”
“Oh.” That life, the one where other people were payed to be at her beck and call, was a million years ago now.
“Come on, partner.” Before she could ask what that meant, Ben strode to the nearest official looking person and pulled out the wallet. He flashed a gold shield at the uniformed police sergeant. “Special Agent Woodrow Barton, FBI. What’s happening here?”
The sergeant frowned. “Four people dead, the homeowners—” He looked down at his notepad. “Tilly and Barrett Freese, as well as the two officers who first responded to the 9-1-1 call. Came from Barrett Freese’s phone, and what we think was the kill shot was recorded. Then he killed the two officers who showed up to investigate. Now the killer is inside, and he isn’t responding to our attempts to make contact.”
The front windows of the house had been shot out, but Nadia couldn’t see anyone on the ground floor. Where was Dante? “Just one man in there, the killer?” There should be two others.
“No. And it’s interesting that you ask that.” The sergeant cocked his head to the side. “What did you say your name was?”
“She didn’t. She’s with me.” Ben paused for a second. “Special consultant to the FBI.”
The sergeant glanced at Ben. “I’m supposed to believe that? The FBI is already here. Now you know only what the media knows. Except for this, after which you will tell me everything you know, and not just what you think might be helpful.”
Ben didn’t nod or give any other sign he agreed.
“Please tell us.” The desperation was there in her voice, but Nadia didn’t have anything else other than the need to know if Bolton was okay.
The sergeant looked at her. “A man we believe to be a crooked federal agent, an extremely dangerous fugitive the DEA has been hunting for years, is holding one of their agents, Tristan Sanders, hostage inside that house. A house which used to belong to him.”
Bolton wasn’t the fugitive. If he was in there, he was the hostage. Who was in there with them? And who had been left behind?
Nadia opened her mouth, but Ben put a restraining hand on her arm. She shrugged him off. “Where is Bolton Farrera?”
The sergeant frowned. “Who?”