CHAPTER 15

They were cutting it so close to the actual time of the ceremony, Carly felt she could barely breathe.

But they had to cut it this close, Hawk had explained to her, and she both understood and fully agreed. Understood that their biggest asset here was the element of surprise, and the timetable for that had to be precise. Since the front door was no longer a viable option, she and Hawk would be gaining access to the community center from within, via an old, long-unused underground route.

She’d all but forgotten that it even existed.

There was an old network of underground passages threading their way beneath the various buildings erected in Cold Plains. Since none of the passages were remotely straightforward and had been dug almost two hundred years ago, not many were aware of their existence, and the few who were had no occasion to mention them.

But Carly did.

She suddenly remembered the stories her mother had told her years ago, passed on from her grandfather, about how the tunnels were initially dug to protect the early Wyoming settlers from the wrath of outraged Native Americans looking to rid their land of the scourge that had oppressed them: the pioneers who were settling all over their precious land.

“And I know that there’s one right under the community center,” Carly had told Hawk yesterday as they were trying to come up with a way to rescue Mia from what Carly considered a fate worse than death. “It comes up right into the old storage room at the back of the building.”

“Great.” That gave them a way into the community center, but that still left the little matter of getting into the tunnel to begin with. “Do you know where that particular tunnel starts?”

Carly did her best to remember. Vague fragments, mosaic pieces from her childhood, tumbled about in her mind, like a kaleidoscope, at first refusing to come together to form any whole.

She concentrated harder, refusing to give up and eventually, it came to her. “One of the ways into the tunnels was this old, abandoned mine shaft right outside of town.”

That sounded vaguely familiar to him, like something he’d seen when he was a kid here. “They struck a vein of silver back at the turn of the last century,” he recalled abruptly. It surprised him how easily memories from his childhood came back to him, despite all his efforts to block that part of his life—both man and boy here in Cold Plains—from his mind.

But then, he reminded himself, he’d never forgotten a single thing about Carly, and she was a huge part of that time.

She nodded. Tales of the silver mine were as close to a legend as they had in this little town—before Grayson and his crew came.

“I think I remember my mother saying that the mine stayed open almost twenty years before it was boarded up. People kept hoping to find another mother lode, but all they ever got were just a couple of small veins that wound up petering out.”

“We played there as kids.” At the time, he’d never thought to go much farther than the mouth. It was during a period of his childhood when ghosts had held a real threat for him.

Hawk paused now, thinking about what might be ahead. Taking Carly along was just putting her life in jeopardy. “Listen, Carly, this could get really dangerous.”

They were already in his car, ready to leave. “What’s your point? I already know that.”

He shifted in his seat to look at her. “Maybe what you don’t know is that I don’t want to risk you getting hurt.”

Then don’t leave when this is all over, she thought. Annoyed with herself and her moment of weakness at a time like this, she pushed the thought aside. “It’s my sister we’re rescuing. If anything you should be the one staying behind.” She gazed at the makeshift sling she’d insisted he use. “You’ve only got one good arm.”

“One’s all it takes,” he assured her. One hand to aim and shoot.

Hawk took out his cell phone and glanced at the screen. For once, the indicator said he was receiving a decent signal. He’d already gotten in touch with Jeffers, Patterson and Rosenbloom yesterday, instructing the agents to get a SWAT detail out as quickly as possible from Cheyenne because they were going in to take down a potential killer. He even had the excuse covered for going in: it had conveniently been provided for him by Charlie Rhodes. Since Carly had identified Grayson’s second in command as the man who had tried to kill him, they were coming to arrest him, wedding ceremony or no wedding ceremony. Attempting to kill a federal agent was not a crime to be lightly shrugged off with a slap on the wrists. If convicted—and why wouldn’t he be?—Charlie could be facing a great many years in prison.

With backup alerted, all that was left was to execute the main plan—which hinged heavily on gaining access to the center from within.

“You sure I can’t talk you into holding down the fort here?” he asked one final time. He really did have enough on his mind without adding someone else to worry about to it.

There was no reason to “hold down” anything and they both knew it. Anyone who was anyone would be attending this wedding—at Grayson’s behest. And no one crossed Samuel Grayson.

In response to his query, Carly gave him a long, penetrating look, which felt as if it went clear down to his bones. “What do you think?”

“I think I’d feel better if I had eyes in the back of my head, because I really don’t like taking you into the thick of things like this,” he said, setting his mouth hard as he stared out through the windshield for a moment. He didn’t like the idea of actually bringing her to a potential crime scene. A crime scene, ironically, that had yet to become one.

“You’re not ‘taking’ me anywhere,” she informed him as they finally started heading to the cave. “If anything, I’m taking you,” she pointed out. “I’m the one who remembered the tunnels and knows how to get to them.”

There really was no point in arguing. He would lose, and it was just a waste of time. “I keep forgetting how damn stubborn you are,” he said under his breath. The statement was accompanied by not-quite-silent grumbling.

“I like the word resourceful better,” she informed him.

Potato, po-tot-toe, he was still not happy about having her come along with him.

They arrived at the mine shaft in a short amount of time.

Carly was right, he thought. She knew every short-cut in this underdeveloped region. Armed with flashlights, they went in. Hawk insisted on going in first. This way, if there was trouble, he’d be the first to know. That left her room to escape—as if she would even try. Carly had already proved that she was the type to stand shoulder to shoulder with someone she cared about, not flee at the first sign of trouble.

It was, Carly thought at one point, like moving through the bowels of hell. The area was stuffy, dark except for the twin, thin beams of light cast by their separate flashlights. She just knew they were sharing the crammed space with umpteen rodents, which could come swarming around them at any moment.

She’d had great affection for all animals, big and small. But when it came to rats, she and the animal kingdom parted company. Rats made her flesh creep.

A little like the way Grayson did, she now thought. How could that man hold so many people under his thumb? It had to be some kind of aberration of nature.

They continued walking.

An uneasiness began to grow as she started thinking that perhaps she hadn’t been right, that the mine shaft just led farther and farther into the mine and not into the center of town. Just when she was about to voice her concern to Hawk, suggest that they turn back, she heard a strange, thundering noise echoing overhead.

She looked at Hawk, a question in her eyes.

“Sounds like footsteps to me,” he acknowledged. “Lots of footsteps.” He let out the breath he’d been holding. “I think we’ve arrived, Columbus. Have to admit I had my doubts there for a while.”

The man was nothing if not honest. And she hadn’t been when she sent him away, she thought as the guilt flared inside her.

“You weren’t the only one,” she murmured more to herself than to him.

Light was seeping in up ahead, coming in where the storage room door didn’t quite meet its frame. She was about to open it when he put his hand up, silently cautioning her to stay where she was. He might not be able to talk her out of coming, but at the very least, if for some reason they wound up walking into a trap, then he wanted to be the first one to go down, not her. It would buy her enough time to get away.

Not that he was about to say any of this to her, because it would only result in yet another argument. The woman just didn’t know the meaning of the words staying safe. But he intended to teach her—if it was the last thing he ever did.

Reaching the door, he turned the doorknob ever so slowly and eased the door open. They were in a storage room all right. It appeared to be a catchall for discarded items that had lived out their usefulness from the various rooms and offices. Apparently someone didn’t seem to have the heart to throw them out just yet.

That was how pack rats got started, he thought. As for him, he was a minimalist. The less he owned, the less those things owned him. Turning, he beckoned for Carly to follow him—not that he actually had to. She’d seemed practically one step ahead of him all morning.

The hallway looked clear, so they advanced, making their way to the room where the ceremony was about to take place.

As they turned a corner, they surprised one of Grayson’s henchmen—obviously playing the part of a groomsman/guard. Momentarily getting the drop on the man, Hawk acted swiftly, grabbing him by the head and twisting it—hard. Fresh pain shot through his bandaged shoulder.

There was a sickening snap.

Carly didn’t ask if the man was dead. She knew. When Hawk released him, the guard fell bonelessly to the floor.

Carly waited a second, thinking that a surge of remorse would overcome her at any moment but it didn’t materialize. These were the people who had come in and stripped her friends and neighbors—her sister—of not just their worldly possessions and their integrity but their very souls. She felt nothing about eliminating them before they had a chance to do the same to people she cared about. Death here was the great equalizer, not unlike the weapon she still carried with her.

“You okay?” Hawk asked, his eyes sweeping over her face.

“Don’t worry about me,” she told him, waving him on. “We’ve got a wedding to stop.”

It seemed almost like poetic justice that the words, “If anyone knows why these two should not wed, speak now—” were the ones being said just as Hawk pushed open the doors, causing everything to come to a stunned, crashing halt.

“Everybody freeze,” Hawk ordered. “I’m a federal agent!”

“I do,” Carly cried, addressing Grayson who, under the guise of “minister,” was performing the ceremony. “I object.”

She noted the angry look on her sister’s face a second before she heard Grayson whisper something to the best man. Color drained from Mia’s face. She’d heard what was being said.

The next moment, as if in slow motion, Carly saw Charlie Rhodes pull a gun from beneath his tuxedo jacket—he’d apparently tucked it into the back of his waistband, she realized—and fire in her direction.

She heard Mia scream her name just as she slammed against the floor. Not because she’d been hit but because Hawk had thrown himself over her, protecting her with his own body as he pushed her out of the line of fire.

“Told you to say behind!” he bit off as he rolled forward to return fire. Charlie hadn’t been the only one who had brought a gun to the ceremony.

It still might have gone very badly for them, Hawk reflected later, had he not thought to “invite” his own “guests” to the wedding.

Just as the gunfire began being exchanged, the doors on the other side of the room burst open and Rosenbloom, Patterson and Jeffers, along with several other FBI agents, all wearing Kevlar vests, took over the room.

“Nobody move!” Hawk ordered again, getting up from the floor. This time, caught between two lines of fire, everyone obeyed. Hawk paused, his eyes and weapon trained on Grayson as he extended his hand to Carly.

Wrapping her fingers around his hand, Carly rose to her feet.

“You all right?” he asked.

She was bruised where she’d hit the floor, but she wasn’t complaining. All things considered, she’d gotten off lucky. “Never better.”

“Carly! Carly, did he—did Charlie—did Charlie shoot you?” Mia cried almost hysterically. Her arms filled with taffeta and organza, her sister came rushing over to her as fast as she could. Her face was still as pale as her wedding dress. “He tried to kill you,” she said, stunned and clearly very shaken by what she’d just been forced to witness.

“Not exactly a quality one wants in their best man,” Carly quipped. She wrapped one arm around Mia and hugged her. That was when she realized that Mia was trembling. “Are you all right?” she asked, even as more agents kept coming in, surrounding the wedding guests and ordering everyone over to a corner of the banquet room.

“I don’t know,” Mia answered honestly. She seemed dazed and confused as she looked up to meet her sister’s eyes. “I thought everything here was finally so perfect. That my life was going to be so perfect.” A bottomless sadness became evident in her voice. “He was going to kill you,” she repeated numbly.

It was unclear if she meant Charlie or Grayson, but now wasn’t the time to ask. It was enough that Mia finally understood that there was a viciousness here that threatened her very existence.

“I know,” Carly replied quietly, keeping her voice at a calm, soothing level.

Mia appeared to sink further into her confusion and feelings of remorse and depression. “You came to save me, didn’t you?”

“I told Mom I’d take care of you,” she reminded her younger sister. “This was part of that promise.”

She looked at Mia, trying to get a handle on what was going on in the younger girl’s mind. Mia looked as if she was very close to a breakdown. And why not? Paradise had just blown up in her face.

Her sister would need help processing all this and coping with it, Carly thought. Grayson had done a number on Mia’s head. It would take someone professional, versed in deprogramming, to bring her sister around with a minimum of consequences, she decided with regret.

But at least they’d gotten her out of Grayson’s clutches. And Mia hadn’t married Carrington. All in all, this was a very good day, Carly silently congratulated herself.

“Why don’t we get you out of that dress and into something a little more comfortable?” she suggested to her sister.

Mia stared down as if she wasn’t sure what she was wearing. “There’s blood on it,” she murmured, noticing the thin line of red across the bodice. “Is it Charlie’s?” she asked.

Acting quickly, Hawk had brought the baby-faced man down with a single shot. Carly pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yes.”

“Good,” Mia said with feeling, then quickly raised her eyes to Carly’s before lowering them again.

Maybe more than a little help, Carly thought. Her sister appeared as if she was retreating into a shell.

Looking around, Carly saw the agent Hawk had introduced to her as Tom Jeffers nearby, and she called him over now. When he crossed to her, asking if he could do something for her, she turned Mia over to him.

“Could you please take my sister back to her room?” she requested. “She needs to get out of those clothes.”

About to protest that this wasn’t part of what he was doing right now, Jeffers took one look at the distraught young face and changed his mind.

“Sure.” Jeffers put his elbow out in an exaggerated fashion, indicating that Mia should take it for support. She looked as if she needed it. “Why don’t you show me where it is?” he coaxed.

Mia nodded. “It’s upstairs,” she told him. The agent very gently led her away.

With Mia taken care of for the moment, Carly searched for Hawk. She finally saw him talking with several other agents. He was clearly the one in charge, and she felt a sense of pride watching him. Her initial instinct to make the supreme sacrifice and send him away had been the right move to make after all. Hawk was very much in his element here. This was where he belonged, leading people who ultimately made a difference and took pride in doing it.

Hawk was born to be what he was, a special agent with the FBI.

Drawing closer, she immediately recognized one of the men.

Ford McCall wasn’t one of Hawk’s people, he was from around here. A local deputy. One who, she now realized after she’d heard him making several arrests, was not corrupt the way that the police chief, Fargo, clearly was. The latter belonged to Grayson. Ford was obviously his own man. Thank God.

Nodding at Ford now, she turned toward Hawk. “How’s your arm?” she wanted to know.

“Aches, but I’m still standing.” And after what had just taken place in the past half hour, that was definitely an accomplishment.

As she looked around, it occurred to Carly that Grayson was nowhere in sight. Had he left? Or better yet, had he gone down in the cross fire? “Are you arresting Grayson?” she asked.

A frustrated expression came into his eyes as he did his best not to change his expression. “Right now, we don’t have anything that’ll stick.”

She looked at him, stunned. “But he’s behind all this,” she cried. “Behind the murders. Maybe he’s even had Susannah killed,” she said, thinking about the conversation she’d had with Samuel the other day.

“Believe me, I’m not part of the man’s fan club, either. I’d take him down in a heartbeat, if I could,” Hawk told her. “He probably had his own brother killed. It wouldn’t be the first time one twin murdered the other,” he added grimly.

There’d still been no word from Micah. As soon as he got finished here, he would personally hire a private investigator to try to locate the missing would-be informant. He still firmly believed that Micah wouldn’t have called him, then just vanished without a word.

Hawk surprised her by changing his tone of voice and looking directly at her as he said, “Looks like I’ve got a lot to keep me here in Cold Plains.”

Was he saying more than she thought he was saying? “For how long?” she asked.

He spread his hands wide. “Right now, it’s open-ended. I’m still trying to find out who killed those women and why. Jane Doe’s identity is still a mystery, Grayson’s brother is still missing—”

“Don’t forget Susannah Paul and her baby. They couldn’t have just disappeared like that,” she reminded him.

“Right, there’s that, too,” he agreed. Drawing her over to an empty corner, Hawk lowered his voice as he continued talking. “Samuel Grayson is the key to all of this, and I’m not going anywhere until I find out just how he’s connected. And when I find out, I intend to take him down.”

She liked the sound of that. But she liked something else more. “So I guess I’ll be seeing you for a while.”

“I guess so.”

Looking away for a second, Hawk blew out a breath. He was playing it safe again. Damn it, he was tired of playing it safe. He hadn’t played it safe earlier when he’d put himself between Carly and the bullet meant for her. Somewhere, on some invisible tally, he was certain that he was running out of second chances, so he had better take advantage of this one before his luck ran out completely.

“Especially if you marry me,” Hawk said to her out of the blue.

It was a minor accomplishment that she’d kept her jaw from dropping like a brick. It took her a good, long second to collect herself. When she did, she stared at him.

“Did you just say—”

“Yes,” he answered, cutting her off.

No, not this time. This time, the Is were going to be dotted and the Ts were going to be crossed. Just this once, their abilities to end each other’s sentences wouldn’t cut it.

She needed this spelled out.

“Let me finish,” she insisted. “Did you—” She stopped abruptly as she pressed her lips together. Her mouth had suddenly gone dry mid-word. Regrouping, she tried again. “I think my hearing’s going, because I thought I just heard you ask me to marry you.”

He grinned at her, amusement dancing in his eyes. “Well, if your hearing’s going, maybe I’d better reconsider my question. But for the record, yes, I did ask you to marry me.”

“Why?”

“Why did I ask?”

“Yes.” She nodded for emphasis. “Why did you ask?”

He thought a moment. “Because dragging you by the hair to my cave isn’t the way it’s done anymore.” Before she could comment on his Neanderthal reference, he took her hand in his and became very serious. “I got a second chance when I wound up coming back here. And another second chance when you saved my life the other night. The way I see it, whoever’s in charge of handing out second chances is going to think they’re being wasted on me, and I’ll be left out in the cold. I don’t want to be in the cold anymore,” he told her sincerely. “I want to be with you. If that means spending the rest of my life as a farmer in this two-bit town, I’ll adjust.”

“No way,” she told him adamantly. “I like the idea of my husband being an FBI special agent.” She smiled and succeeded in lighting up his entire life. “It has a nice ring to it.”

“Your husband,” he repeated, savoring the way that sounded.

She watched his face, trying to get a handle on what he was thinking as she answered, “That’s what I said.”

He raised his eyebrows hopefully. “Then your answer is yes?”

For once in her life, she wasn’t going to be straightforward. For once, just once, she was going to be cagey. “Depends on the question.”

Now he really didn’t understand. “But I just asked you—”

“No, you didn’t,” she pointed out. “You mentioned it. In passing. You didn’t ask.” She turned her face up to his. “A woman likes to be asked. Formally.”

He could understand that. “All right.” He took her hand. “Carly Finn, I’m tired of feeling as if something’s missing. I’m tired of missing you,” he said with feeling. “Will you marry me and make me whole again?”

She slid her arms up around his neck, and he held her to him with his one good arm. Her eyes danced. This was fun, and she savored her moment. “What do you think?”

“I’ve learned not to second-guess anything,” he answered honestly.

“Okay,” she said. Tilting her head up, she told him, “Then read my lips.” Before he could pretend to look at them closer, she rose up on her toes and pressed her mouth against his.

Hawk had his answer.

He made the most of it.