“Have you met my wife?” He grinned even though his instinct sharpened at the McGee’s words. Something was off...but he didn’t know what. He briefly remembered Hope’s late night visit the other day, her wondering who knew about the marriage, who could have put him in jeopardy.
“I suppose you’re right. She’s not the kind of woman who backs off, is she? Lucky for you, I guess...you know, because she didn’t give up on you. She waited.”
He looked at the lights of downtown, his heart heavy with memories that he hadn’t wanted to remember for months, thoughts rattled with broken promises and questions.
Chapter Fourteen
Dawn lightened the sky above the Rocky Mountains, making them appear like black chalk drawings against a sherbet colored background. Hope shifted in the confines of Devon’s hybrid. Every muscle ached. Knots gripped her shoulder blades. More than that, every gut feeling she had insisted she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Out of sorts, she shifted again and pulled at the seat belt pressing against her chest.
They’d spent all night following a van from the construction site outside of Saint Mary’s Glacier to Grand Junction, on the completely opposite side of the state from where they’d begun. She was tired, smelly, uncomfortable, irritable and hungry.
“I hope this doesn’t turn out with us being listed as missing people,” Devon muttered before turning off the ignition. “What do we do now? Sleep in the car? Get a hotel room?”
“I vote for sleep,” she said with a grimace. “I’m getting too old for this. I need a massage, a facial, a hammock and sunshine. In that order.”
“Don’t forget the rum.”
“Thought that was a given.”
The van had parked in the lot of this hotel, its drivers disappearing inside the main lobby. Cold permeated the early morning air, proving it was not yet springtime in Colorado. She winced and pulled her leather jacket closer around her body and wished she had a hot cop of coffee.
She dropped her head back against the seat and watched the glass doors of the lobby. “Where are these guys going?”
“I hope not to all the way to San Diego.” Devon shot her a glance. “Is this worth it? We don’t know what they’re up to...do we stay or go? We only have Angel’s word about this entire story, some photographs to back her up, sure, but with Rourke’s death, there’s not much else to confirm it. Right now it’s all circumstantial.”
“Well, let’s wait a few minutes, see if they’re staying or going before we make a decision.” A look at her cell phone reminded her that she had a timetable today. Michael was coming home. Supposedly. She had forms to fill out and plans to make. Skulking in a parking lot at dawn had not been on the schedule. Her hand shook as she tapped the phone against her knee.
“We should have had Marshall come with us,” Devon said, her voice sounding overly loud in the car.
They settled into a companionable silence. She crossed her arms across her chest in an attempt to stay warm in the early morning cool.
“We saw these guys leaving the construction site…either we’re on the right track, or there never was a track to begin with,” Devon said.
“We’re on the right track.” She tapped her fingers against her thigh. “They’re not coming out. Maybe we should get a room, take turns watching the—”
The two men jogged from the lobby and returned to the van. In a matter of minutes, they had driven to the side, out of view. There was no way to follow without giving themselves away. One black eye a month fulfilled her quota.
“What do you think they’re doing?” Devon asked.
“Nefarious activities, I hope, or else this little adventure has been a horrible waste of time.” She grabbed the handheld camera she’d been using on and off since they’d parked outside of the construction site around midnight.
“Here they come,” Devon said. “Looks like they loaded up. Make sure you get the name of this hotel on the video.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“You’re the reporter not the cameraman—remember that.”
Van returned to the road, riding significantly lower than before.
“How could I forget? You’ve mentioned that at least a dozen times in as many hours.” Irritation hovered just below the surface of control. “Looks like they’re going back to Denver. Want me to drive?”
“We’ll switch off at the next gas station.”
She nodded and twisted in her seat again. “I bet there are illegals in there. We need more on film. What’d you get last night again?”
“Nothing incriminating. What about your research?”
“I’m getting there,” she muttered, flipping open the laptop again. The usual adrenaline rush of chasing a story failed to stir. Nothing, not even a spark. She stared blankly at the screen before giving up. “Dev, I’m tired.”
“Sleep then.” Devon followed the van, careful to leave several cars between them. “I’ll wake you at the next station.”
“Not that kind of tired,” she confessed, focusing her eyes toward the foothills. “The kind of tired that makes a person want to disappear for months at a time. The kind of tired that makes me want to curl into a ball, turn off my phones and pretend the outside world doesn’t exist. The kind of tired that makes me want to simplify. That kind of tired.”
“Wow, that’s tired.” Devon smiled. “Is this about the Colonel?”
She closed her eyes, leaned her head back and grinned at nothing in particular. “We used to dance. My head only came up to the middle of his chest when we danced.”
“Sounds nice. Where did—”
“In my hotel room. Our entire relationship existed between four walls. Outside of that room he was a soldier and I was a reporter. Those were the rules.”
“So you danced in your hotel room…” Devon sounded wistful. “Tell me about it.”
“Not much to tell.” She hugged her arms around herself. “Dusty room. Us in the moonlight. We’d dance while we talked about what we’d do when we got home, what our favorite movies were, our favorite foods, you know, mindless stuff. So you see…” she opened her eyes to look at her friend, “it wasn’t all about the sex. We talked.”
“I never said it was all about the sex.” Devon didn’t take her gaze from the road.
“I forget how tall he is,” she whispered. “I look at him in that damn wheelchair and forget that he used to toss me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing, forget that he used to stand a head taller than the rest of his unit so I could always spot him from a distance, forget that I used to watch for that tall man in a crowd when he’d been gone for too long. Is it bad that I forget that?”
“You haven’t forgotten. You just told me.” Devon glanced at her. “What aren’t you saying, Hope?”
“I want…” Tears blurred her vision. She resented being tired, being weak.
“What do you want?”
“I want him to hold me like he used to. I want him to fight to get his life back. I want him to order me around. I want him to toss me onto the bed and fuck me again…hold me and fuck me.” She blinked the tears away, determined not to cry.
“Have you told him that?”
“No way.” Eyes wide, she concentrated on the van in front of them. “He’s obsessed with what he can’t do, that would make everything worse.”
“You should tell him that you remember him tall, how he made you feel, how you used to look for him in a crowd. Maybe he wants someone to remember him without the chair.” Devon shrugged. “Just a suggestion. I know I would want someone like that telling me those things if I were in his position.”
“Maybe.” She closed her eyes and kept quiet.
“What aren’t you saying?”
“He’s agreed to go to outpatient therapy and come home with me. If we ever get home, that is. That freaks me out a little because I have never lived with anyone, not even in college. And we…even though we are technically married, we never lived together full-time. What do I know about
being married? Look at where I am right now. Do I look very wifely to you?”
“Wifely? I don’t even know what you mean by that. Listen, relax. You two are unconventional, isn’t that what you like about each other? You’re both home now. It’s time to make it official. You’ll adjust. If anyone can make it work, you can.” Devon winked.
An hour passed before the van veered off the interstate and stopped at a gas station. Finally. A bathroom slash soda break. They jogged inside the gas station while the van lingered on the opposite side of the lot.
When they exited, the van pulled out of the parking lot. She paced while Devon filled the car with gas. From her position, she could see the van pull back onto I-70, headed East toward Denver. Instinct told her something was wrong. Sunglasses in place, she looked at Devon’s car. Habit had her reaching into her bag for her floppy Bermuda hat.
“Check the tires,” she told Devon as she inspected the ones on the passenger side.
“Something wrong?”
“A feeling.” Her hands smoothed over the tires, looking for a slash, a nail, anything suspicious. Blood thickened as the feeling that something was wrong intensified.
“Nothing. C’mon. We’re losing them.”
Remaining silent, she climbed into the passenger seat and picked up her cell phone.
“Who are you calling?”
“Just checking messages. I can’t shake this feeling. Something is wrong.” Only Becky had called to say she had taken Dude with her to work instead of leaving him after his morning walk. “Do you think we lost them?”
“No, but you’re freaking me out with all of this feeling stuff.” The car accelerated.
Hair stood up on the back of her neck. She started running her hands beneath the seat, turned and looked in the back seat, opened the glove box.
“For God’s sake, Hope, knock it off. You’re making me nervous.”
“Someone was in this car when we went inside.”
“Are you psychic now?”
“No, I’m telling you…” She gave up trying to explain. “I’m just glad I took my bag with me.”
“And the laptop is in your bag?”
“Of course.”
Devon shot her a curious look. “You never leave that damn bag behind, do you? Did you get in that habit when you were in the Middle East? Never leaving anything behind?”
“Don’t analyze.” Someone had been in this vehicle, she knew it even if she couldn’t prove it. “There they are. See? They’re turning off in Glenwood.”
“I wonder why…” Devon muttered beneath her breath.
“Something bad is happening.” Instinct had her on the phone to the office. She wanted the newsroom prepared…just in case. Internal alarms were on high alert.
“I told you to stop saying that. What are you going to tell Marion? That we’re following a van to and from Denver and that you have a bad feeling? We’re supposed to be laying low, remember?”
The van veered from the town toward the National Park and popular hiking trails. She relayed the information to a production assistant before snapping the phone closed. With one hand, she set up the laptop. With the other, she balanced the handheld camera on the dashboard.
“Where’d they go?” Devon asked, the forest creeping in on them. “What’d the office say? That you’re crazy?”
“Shh…pull over near that trail head. We’ll walk through the woods the rest of the way.”
“Oh, good plan. Ditch our protection to walk through—”
“Park.” Instinct had taken over. She smelled danger.
Tossing the camera to Devon, she stuffed the cell phone and laptop into the bag before leaping from the car. Leading the way, she hurdled a few downed logs until they were several feet from the road. Staying low, she walked up the mountain toward the main trailhead.
She heard voices raised in anger. Immediately she was on her stomach. Devon crawled next to her until they had a view of the van from the trees.
The two men they’d been following paced behind the van. The tall one kept motioning behind him toward the road. His baseball cap and sunglasses hid most of his face. The shorter Hispanic male pounded a fist on the side of the van, face also hidden by a cap and glasses.
“Zoom in on them,” she whispered to Devon.
“Already done.”
“Can’t get a signal. I need to go further up.” She shook her cell phone, resenting the mountains for their unpredictable cell phone reception.
“Calling the police, I hope.”
“Yeah, although I still don’t know what the hell is going—” she froze at the sight of the men dousing the van with gasoline. “Oh shit.”
“Yeah, oh shit. Call the cops. If there are people inside that van, they’re about to be fried.”
“Keep filming. Make you sure you get these guys’ faces.” Nausea rolled in her gut as she half-crawled, half-ran further up the hill, until the cell phone registered a signal. “This is Hope Shane of Channel 9 News, I need police at the Hanging Lake trailhead in Glenwood Springs, I am witnessing…men suspected of transporting illegals might be…they’re going to blow up the van. Now. Now.” Her hands shook on the phone until it dropped to the ground.
With a shake of her head, she blinked at her hands in the dirt. Fear quaked her entire body. In her mind, dirt transformed to sand and it wasn’t a van about to explode it was a war zone on fire. The smell of burnt flesh, sounds of gunfire, the taste of her friend’s blood on her lips because she’d been screaming when his head had exploded. She slammed her forehead into the ground and forced herself back to the present moment. She had no time for going insane, too many people depended on her. Damn it. She clawed her fingers against the rocky soil until she forced the past into the recesses of her brain.
She spit dirt from her mouth and blinked against the earth. Chest heaving from adrenaline and fear, she counted silently to twenty before pushing herself into a kneeling position.
Unsure if she had given the 9-1-1 operator the right information, she reached for the phone and checked her sent calls. Numbers blurred before her eyes through unshed tears. The ground seemed to rock beneath her knees.
Now was not the time to panic. No time. Fingers curled around the phone before stuffing it into her back jeans pocket. Devon. Left alone. She slipped and stumbled back to where she had left her friend. The men were still arguing, obviously debating the welfare of their cargo. They kept looking toward the road as if expecting company.
“They knew we were following them,” Devon whispered. “Maybe they did search the car to see if we were police or not.”
“I called the police. Have no idea when they’ll get here. If they’ll get here.” Fingers curled into the dirt beneath her shoulders. “We need to do something, stop this from happening. What if these people die because we were following these guys? Their deaths are going to be on us, do you understand that?”
“What do we do?” Devon looked away from the camera, eyes searching hers. “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Anything.”
“I could go down there, distract them while you try to get the people out…”
“That’s stupid. What are you going to do? Stroll up like you’re a lost hiker or something? They’re expecting us.”
“Good idea. Lost hiker. Perfect.” She slapped Devon on the back before running back up the hill to get to the opposite side of the parking lot, toward the trailhead.
Before going down, she zipped her bag closed, twisted the straps so it looked more like a backpack, shoved sunglasses over her eyes, braided her hair and stuffed it beneath her cap. With a deep breath, she started descending the trail toward the parking lot.
The men still stood there, arguing, gas can now out of sight. And then she heard the crying from inside the van and her heart twisted like a dishrag. Chest rattled with a ferocious heartbeat. So she hummed, masking her fear with exaggerated casualness.
Behind the sunglasses, her eyes scanned the hillside for Devon. She didn’t see
her.
“You guys are a sight for sore eyes,” she said with a smile. “I thought I was on the right trail, but I’m completely lost, can’t find my jeep, been hiking since last night, slept up there, thought I was going to be cougar food. Any parking lots further down? I don’t know if I lost my way or…” she shrugged, knowing she sounded like an idiot.
The tall man stepped closer, face expressionless. The Hispanic man remained motionless.
“Any ideas?” She swallowed the excessive saliva that pooled in her mouth. “I only planned on a day trip and this is turning into quite the adventure.” Well, that wasn’t a lie.
“We drove past the lower lot,” the man said, voice low and slow. “Didn’t see any jeep.”
She widened her smile. “That’s bad news. Just means I’m more lost than ever.”
“Maybe you should just keep walking down, usually the safest way off of a mountain.”
“Down. Right.” Smile slipped. “Or stay on the trail.” She motioned over her shoulder and took a step back. “Maybe I’ll run into a Ranger now that it’s morning.”
Neither man spoke, just looked at each other.
Her peripheral vision caught sight of Devon slipping toward the van.
“Are you two going camping?” She forced the question, needing to keep their attention. “Nice time of year to do that, not too hot yet. Good for you.”
“Are you a local?” The Hispanic asked.
“Denver local, not Glenwood local.” She took another step back toward the trail. “City girl.”
Again the two looked at one another without answering her.
Oh, God, she wanted to throw up. She stepped back again, noticing that they mirrored every step she took.
“You must have been cold last night, camping in the woods without a coat.” The tall man focused in on her. “Lucky you survived.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Lucky.” Every nerve ending in her body screamed RUN, but she forced herself to stand her ground.
Devon peeked from around the front of the van, arms wide in a helpless gesture, face twisted with panic.