Against the Wind (22 page)

Once she had thought he was handsome. Now his face looked pure evil. “Why would I think that?”

“Maybe because you didn't think I'd read your emails, find out what you were planning to do.”

“I don't…I don't know what you're talking about.” He couldn't know. She'd been so careful.

He just smiled. It was the kind of smile that made her stomach squeeze in fear, the kind that made her insides roll with nausea.

“I told you we were going to Rio. Did you actually think you were going to take Holly and run away?” His smile looked feral and her stomach rolled again.
“I went directly to the server. I saw what you wrote to that woman.”

She swallowed past the lump in her throat. “It was only conversation.” She had never been specific, only hinted to Patty. But Patty knew what Sarah had suffered, understood as no one else ever could.

Sarah straightened, determined not to let him know how frightened she was. “Holly and I aren't going with you. You can leave if you want, but we're staying here.”

His mouth thinned to a slash across his face. “You really believe you can defy me? You don't remember what happened the last time?”

She remembered. He had beaten her so badly she'd wound up in the hospital. She swallowed, tried to block the memory.

He stepped away from his chair, rounded the corner of his desk. Fury etched lines into his face. Anticipation glittered in his eyes. He liked this, liked to hurt her.

“Andrew, please don't do this.” She forced herself not to back away, to hold her ground and face him. When he just kept coming, she drew the pistol from her purse.

Her hand shook. “Stay away from me, Andrew. I'm warning you.” A noise reached her. Was someone else in the house? “I—I won't let you hurt me again.”

 

His cruel laughter rang in her ears. The hellish sound sent a jolt of adrenaline into her blood and awakened her from the nightmare. A shot?

Or maybe it was Jackson, whose face loomed above her as he reached out and caught her shoulders.

“Sarah? Sarah, are you all right?”

She swallowed past the bile that rose in her throat. Tears welled in her eyes, began to run down her cheeks. She was shaking so badly Jackson drew her into his arms.

“Take it easy, darlin'. It was only a dream.”

Sarah clung to him, hung on as hard as she could.

“Easy,” he soothed. “You're all right now.”

She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, fought to regain her composure. “I'll be okay. Just…just give me a minute.”

“Take all the time you need.” He stroked her hair, held her snugly against his chest. “It was him again,” he said. “Andrew. You called out his name.”

Her eyes slid closed. “Sometimes…” She swallowed. “Sometimes I remember the things he did and I get scared all over again. I wish I could forget, but at night…sometimes I can't.”

She felt his lips against the top of her head. “It's all right, honey. Sometimes the past is hard to forget.”

He talked as if he knew and she remembered his troubled childhood—the father who abandoned them, the mother who drank herself to death. Maybe he was like Patty. Maybe he understood.

They lay back on the mattress, and he curled her against his side, wrapped her in his arms as he pulled up the covers. She thought she wouldn't fall asleep, but his warmth and strength surrounded her, and she did.

The dream did not return. Jackson's presence banished it. But it would come again, she knew.

And if Mercer got his way, the nightmare she would face would be real.

J
ackson was in the shower when Sarah awakened. She heard the stream of water go off in the bathroom and a few minutes later, he opened the door. A rush of steam swept into the room, hiding him for a moment from view.

“I thought I'd let you sleep,” he said. “After last night, I figured you could use a little extra time in bed.”

A fluffy white towel rode low on his hips, exposing a flat abdomen ridged with muscle, a broad chest and powerful biceps. She allowed her gaze to run over him and wished he had awakened her with his lovemaking instead of letting her sleep.

“Keep looking at me that way and I'll take you up on what you're thinking. I'll have you again before we leave.”

She laughed, wishing she could let him. “It's too late for that. We have too much to do.”

He grumbled, and then he smiled. He had the most breathtaking smile. “There's always later.” He walked over to the bed and pressed a soft kiss on her lips. “You'd better get going. We're driving all the way to East L.A.”

She grabbed her silk robe, rolled out of bed and headed for the shower in the other bedroom. Twenty minutes later, she walked back through the door into the living room for some of the coffee and rolls he'd had room service bring up.

She sipped the rich black brew and nibbled the sweet pastry as she talked to Holly, laughing at the story of Rags chasing a big raccoon that turned and chased him back inside the house.

She smiled as she hung up the phone. “I miss her already.”

“Maybe we'll have better luck today and we can go home.”

Sarah hoped so. Last night Jackson had called Devlin after their meeting with Jorge Rodriquez. Dev had asked him to phone again if they found out anything more.

Sarah grabbed her purse, anxious to get started and see what they might discover. “Ready?”

Jackson nodded, walked over and opened the door.

As they drove out of the parking lot, she studied him, thinking of the call he'd made to Devlin. “You're very close to your brothers, aren't you?”

He shrugged, but it was clear it was an important subject. “We're all we've got,” he said, as if that explained everything.

Sarah settled back against the seat. “You're lucky to have them. I always wanted a sister, but Mom had to have a hysterectomy so my parents never had more
children. I have a friend in Chicago who's the closest I've got to a sister. It's crazy, since we've never even met.”

“How did that happen?”

“She was one of the women in the battered women's group I told you about. She was the founder, the one who got the program started. We really seemed to connect.” She told him a little about Patty, how funny she could be and how strong. How she hoped someday to meet her.

“I used to call her from a pay phone whenever I got the chance. She was my rock, the reason I could get out of bed in the morning.” Sarah didn't say more, didn't even tell him Patty's last name. “She's the best friend I've ever had.”

Jackson cast her a sympathetic glance as he took the 60 Freeway and continued along the road. Eventually, they found their way onto Brooklyn Avenue, the location of Southgate's project.

“You got the address?” he asked.

“Right here.” She pulled out a slip of paper, read him the street numbers, and both of them started searching. The location wasn't hard to find. The demolition site was marked by a wide blue sign—Future Home of Freemark Plaza—a large office complex that would be a big asset to the neighborhood.

Just like the day before, one of Southgate's Demolition teams was hard at work. But this time, an Ace company truck sat next to the six-story building being torn down.

And the difference was instantly apparent.

“Oh, my God, they're hauling asbestos,” Sarah said.

“‘Something to do with waste,' Jorge said. The men must have been talking about asbestos.”

Warning signs were everywhere, including on the trucks. Men completely enclosed in white protective suits, gloves, booties, and wearing sophisticated particle masks, worked in the interior of the six-story building which had been opened up on one side.

“The backs of the trucks are fully enclosed,” Sarah said.

“Everything's enclosed, including the men.”

The asbestos being removed were first sprayed down with water, she saw, then dropped through flexible tubing directly into the back of the trucks, or carried in tightly sealed plastic bags.

“Southgate does the demolition,” Jackson said, “but they need special vehicles to haul the waste away.”

They watched for more than an hour, but saw nothing but a group of men hard at work. One of the Ace trucks was finally filled and ready to leave. It had been tightly sealed to ensure none of the toxic particles escaped into the air.

“I don't know much about asbestos,” Sarah said. “I know it causes cancer and lung disease.”

But tonight they could find out more on the subject. Jackson had brought his laptop and the hotel provided wireless internet service.

They watched one of the trucks prepare to leave. The driver, wearing one of the white protective suits, climbed behind the wheel and drove the vehicle out through the chain-link fence surrounding the construction site.

“Come on. Let's see what happens next.” Jackson started the Chevy, waited for the truck to pass, waited a
few more minutes, then pulled in with the traffic headed in the same direction.

“Where do you suppose they dump that stuff?”

“Someplace that specifically handles toxic waste. I imagine the closest location is a pretty good distance away.”

It wasn't as far as they thought, a disposal site located in the City of Commerce. The driver pulled up to a guarded gate, signed something on a clipboard and drove on into the facility. Jackson waited till the truck pulled back out, then followed its return to the construction site for another load.

“I hate to say this, but everything looked perfectly legitimate to me.”

From their parking spot near the site, Sarah watched the Ace truck being filled with more of the wet asbestos. “It's daylight. Nobody does anything illegal in the daytime. I think we should do this like they do on TV—go down to Ace Trucking after dark and stake the place out.”

“Stake the place out?” Jackson chuckled at the term. “You really think—”

“So far Jorge's information has gotten us nowhere. Have you got a better idea?”

He rubbed his jaw. “Not at the moment. All right, we'll give it a try. It'll be a damned long night, but I suppose it's worth a go.”

 

They waited till eleven o'clock before leaving the hotel. Jackson helped Sarah into the car then drove toward the San Fernando Valley. The Ace Trucking compound was easy to spot. Rows of trucks sitting on an asphalt lot surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. A
one-story building, flat-roofed and unimpressive, sat on one side of the compound. Inside, everything was dark.

“They look like they're locked up for the night,” Jackson said, surveying the empty lot lit only by a few tall mercury lights.

“Maybe,” Sarah said stubbornly. “Or maybe that's just what they want people to think.”

Jackson didn't laugh. Sarah was smart. And considering the connection between Ace and Andrew Hollister—the cash payments and Jorge's comments—she just might be right.

The hours slowly passed. “You want some coffee?” he asked. They had stopped and bought a thermos at a Kmart they passed, drove through a McDonald's and had it filled with hot coffee.

“Sounds good.”

Jackson poured some of the dark liquid into the plastic lid and they shared it. They were parked well out of sight, in a spot behind a patch of oleanders growing next to an empty metal building.

They sipped coffee, watched and waited. It was a warm night, only a quarter moon, making it easier for them to remain hidden.

At one o'clock, Sarah gave up a weary sigh. “I guess I was wrong. We might as well go back to the hotel.”

Jackson surveyed the darkness, searching right and left one last time. The hair rose at the back of his neck. “Somebody's out there.”

Sarah straightened in her seat. “Near one of the asbestos trucks?”

“No, just a regular truck and trailer. The guy
just opened the door of the cab. Now he's climbing inside.”

For a moment the dome light went on. “Yes, I see him. Another man just got in with him.”

Jackson watched as the driver started the engine and slowly pulled the vehicle toward the gate. It opened automatically, then closed behind him. The truck continued slowly down the street, its headlights turned off. They didn't go on until the vehicle was nearly a block away.

Jackson waited until the truck turned the corner, then started the car and followed, careful to stay out of sight.

“I don't believe this,” Sarah said.

“It might be nothing. Maybe just a job out of town that requires an early start.”

“Or it might be what we've been looking for. Trucks don't usually drive around with their headlights turned off.”

It was a little odd, he thought as the truck found its way onto the freeway. Jackson followed at a distance, taking the same on-ramp then an off-ramp several miles down the road, traveling the same streets, following a few cars behind. The truck turned into another fenced compound. The sign on the gate read, Hexel Pharmaceuticals.

The truck and trailer disappeared inside the compound, then drove through a huge roll-up door that led into an opening in one of the two-story buildings.

“Why would they need to come here in the middle of the night?” Sarah asked.

“Good question.”

Fifteen minutes later the truck reappeared. When the driver drove beneath one of the lights in the yard,
Jackson saw that both men were wearing hazard suits, but this time the material wasn't white, it was black.

“White stands out too much,” he said.

“Which means they don't want to be seen.”

They waited till the truck disappeared down the street then pulled into the traffic and followed. The vehicle made its way onto the 15 Freeway, northbound.

“This is getting very interesting,” Jackson said. “Not much out here. They may not be planning to stop anytime soon.”

“Looks like we may be having breakfast in Las Vegas.”

Jackson chuckled, thinking it could be true.

But a couple of hours into the drive, some miles east of the small desert town of Barstow in the middle of nowhere, the truck turned onto a frontage road. To maintain his distance, Jackson pulled onto the edge of the freeway just before their car reached the off-ramp and watched the truck until it turned onto a dirt road leading farther into the desert.

Sarah swiveled in the seat to face him. “You aren't going to stop now?”

He released a slow breath, wishing he could, but knowing how important this could be. “We saw where he turned. We'll wait another couple of minutes and go after them.”

They waited, Sarah on the edge of her seat until Jackson took the off-ramp, then pulled onto the frontage road. When he reached the dirt road, he turned off the headlights.

“I hope we didn't lose them,” Sarah said.

But there was no one around for miles out here. The
truck was running with only its parking lights on, but Jackson could easily make it out in the distance.

“It's turning again,” Sarah said anxiously.

“I see that.” He followed, keeping as far back as he could. The truck pulled to a stop. The dome light went on as one of the men got out.

Jackson was a quarter of a mile away when he pulled the car over to the side of the road and turned off the engine. Reaching up, he popped the plastic cover on the dome light and removed the bulb. “You stay here. I'm going to take a closer look.”

“No way. I'm going with you.”

“Sarah—”

She opened the door before he could argue and started walking along the road. Both of them were dressed in black and wearing comfortable shoes. Jackson swore softly and hurried to catch up with her.

“If you're determined to go, let's get off the road so we won't be spotted.”

Sarah followed his lead, staying low, weaving in and out of the sagebrush and cactus that dotted the flat desert landscape.

“What about snakes?” she whispered as they hurried along.

“Just hope we don't step on any.” Up ahead, the truck was parked at the base of a barren mountain where the road came to an end. Now as they watched, the vehicle started up again, drove inside a fenced compound, then into a hole in the side of the hill.

“It looks like a mine,” Sarah said softly.

Jackson nodded. “There are probably a lot of them out here.”

The area was surrounded by fencing, but a lot of it
was falling down. Near the gate leading into the yard, a sign hung at an angle. Dry Springs Mine. Another sign read, Axis Mining Company.

“Oh, my God.”

“Yeah.” Both of them recognized the names. The bankrupt mining company had been listed as one of Hollister's assets.

“I'm trying to remember…” Sarah said. “Andrew mentioned it a couple of times. As far as I recall, it was never productive, just an old, played-out gold mine Andrew's father bought on a whim.” She looked back at the entrance where the truck had disappeared. “They must be dumping something from the pharmaceutical company in there.”

“Biowaste would be my guess.”

She started forward and Jackson caught her arm, stopping her. “We're pushing our luck, Sarah. We need to call the authorities.”

For once she didn't argue. Whatever was going on, it appeared to be highly illegal. They needed to talk to Richard Kemp, tell the FBI what they had seen and let them find out exactly what was going on.

“Come on. Let's get out of here.” Catching hold of her hand, he turned and took a step, came to an abrupt halt as he stared into the barrel of a gun.