Broken Trust (28 page)

forty-three

Despite the broken boot
heel and the snow-dampened hair, Sylvia knew she carried herself with class as she led Daniel through the darkened kitchen to her office suite.

There, she laid out the maps of Ecuador showing the Cotopaxi volcano and the oil fields in the
rainforest
. He was suitably impressed by her brilliance.

At first he acted angry. She assumed that was because he felt inferior to her genius as he struggled to understand the difficult principles behind the plan.

He studied the maps on the banquet table in front of him. “If you actually make the volcano erupt
…
”

She kissed the back of his neck. “Oh, it will.”

He ducked away from her kiss. “You will kill thousands of people.”

They weren’t the kind of people who mattered
, but it was better to accentuate the positive
. “But the Cubrero family will be rich. We can have whatever we want, whenever we want it.”

He walked to her desk where her monitor showed a diagram of the tower on M
ount
Evans and the angle of refraction of the beam that would send it directly into the volcano. “When will this event occur?”

She ran her hands through her hair
,
pulling her arm back to give him a view of her breast outlined through her cashmere sweater. She sauntered to where he leaned over the monitor and hiked a hip on the desk. “It’s scheduled to activate at dawn. About
three
hours from now.”

He stepped back from the screen and paced across the office. “And you are the only one who knows of this?”

He was starting to understand how special she was. “I designed it. I set it in motion. Yes, my love, it is all mine.”

“My father paid for all of this and yet does not know about the dawn launch?”

She sprang to her feet. “Eduardo! He’s so unreasonable
, you know
. I tried to tell him but he hung up on me. Hung up!”

“And sent Juan.”

She purred. “But you saved me.”

Daniel frowned. “If you’re doing
my father’s
bidding, why does he want you dead?”

She couldn’t stay still and strode across the office. Her skin suddenly felt too small. “He’s irrational. He thinks I killed Darla
as well as
Mark and that I stole Trust money. And when last night’s launch misdirected and killed birds, he wouldn’t listen to me.”

His face froze and he stared at her. “You killed Mark? And you are behind the birds dying?”

She hurried to him and slid an arm around his neck. She snuggled her cheek into the warm spot where she felt his heart beating. “But you can talk to him. You can tell him about our love and how I am doing what he wants.”

“Can you stop this beam or whatever it is?” He lifted her hand from his neck and stepped back.

“
Of course
I can, but why would I?” She couldn’t stop it, though.

He ran a hand back from his forehead across his short, black curls. “What if someone tampers with the tower?”

She waved her hand toward the window. “It’s snowing. Petal was up there earlier today and it’s working correctly. Believe me, it’s safe.”

“Does Petal know of your plan?”

She tickled his chest just above the button of his shirt. “She might suspect something but she’s not bright enough to figure it out.”

“But she could be out there now.”

A warning flashed in Sylvia’s brain. “Petal. You’re right. She hates me. She and Nora are out to get me.”

Daniel grabbed her arms. “Why does Petal hate you?”

“Because I won’t give her mother unlimited money. Because she thinks I stole her ideas. She thinks
she
deserve
d
the credit at HAARP for taking Tesla’s technology forward. But she worked for me. She couldn’t have done it if I hadn’t nurtured her. If I hadn’t given her the opportunity.”

He glared at her. “Petal developed this?”

No.
He would
not
dismiss her the same way they did at
HAARP
. “No.
I
did it.
I’m
the one.”

He spun toward the door and strode into the kitchen. “I’ve got to stop her.”

Sylvia ran after him, tripping on her broken heel. “Yes. Go. Don’t let her destroy my tower.”

She hurried after him from the kitchen to the dark lobby. She bumped into his back. “What?”

Daniel stood motionless.

Sylvia shoved him to send him to the mountain. But he wouldn’t move.

Sylvia stepped around to pull him forward and she suddenly understood what stopped him.

Nora Abbott stood just inside the front door, pointing a gun at them.

forty-four

Great. Now that Nora
was pointing Abigail’s gun at Daniel, she didn’t know what to do. Fake gun, fake bullets, fake courage. “You aren’t going anywhere.” She sounded a lot tougher than she felt.

Sylvia whirled around and raced through the kitchen.

Daniel backed up, keeping his eyes on Nora. “Why are you here?”

Good question. “To stop you.”

Daniel held his palms out. “You don’t understand, Nora. I’m not the bad guy.”

Was Sylvia getting a gun? A butcher knife? Nora was out
-
numbered, out-experienced, and
—
wielding a SkyMall Special
—
out-gunned. With Sylvia probably on her way back with a Katyusha rocket
—
or just a real gun
—
Nora had to come up with something.

Nora spotted the old-school landline on a side table. She walked to it, keeping the gun pointed at Daniel. She picked it up and pushed 9, heading for the 1. She took her eyes off Daniel for the splittest of seconds.

He
charged.
H
e rammed into her
w
ith all of his sexy muscle, sending her flying several feet.

She cracked a hip and her elbow when she landed against the fireplace and slid to the floor. Blood filled her mouth where she bit her tongue on impact. Amazingly, she still gripped the gun.

He came at her again and she raised it as if taking aim. “I’ll shoot!”

It didn’t faze him. Maybe he suspected she’d never fire on him. Or maybe he wasn’t afraid of a toy gun.

He dove on top of her and clawed for the gun. She raised it above her head and he boosted himself across her with his knees to reach for it.

“Uff.” It felt as though his knees pushed all her organs out of the way and ground her spine into the floor. His hand closed on the wrist that held the gun.

Nora twisted beneath him. She pushed off with one foot and kicked the knee of her other leg. She knocked him in the back, causing him to lose balance and tip to the side, slipping off her.

She rose to her hands and knees and scrambled to get away.

He grabbed her ankle and fell on her again.

This time he grabbed her gun hand with both of his. He slammed her hand onto the ground and wrested the gun from her grip. Pain shot through her forefinger as though he
’d
snapped it from her hand.

He sprang to his feet, waving the gun at her. Abigail’s fake-out fooled him.

What did it matter if the gun could kill her or not? Even without a weapon
Daniel
was bigger, stronger
,
and more lethal than Nora.

He stood above her
,
hesitating. Nora readied herself to jump up, grab his ankles, tackle him to the floor. And then?

She might bring him down but Sylvia would show up to kill her any minute. Nora anticipated the bullet ripping into her, shredding her kidneys, mangling her guts. Blood would splatter across the fireplace and soak into the carpet.

The sound of a gunshot tore open the night.

Bullets didn’t shred Nora.

Abigail said it was a fake gun but that was a real gunshot. Nora rolled to the right before Daniel could fire again.

But the shot hadn’t come from Daniel’s gun. She realized the sound hadn’t
even
come from this room.

Daniel’s head jerked toward the kitchen. He hesitated only a second then he sprinted to the front door, yanked it open
,
and dashed into the night.

The old farmhouse fell silent. Nora lay still, straining to hear Sylvia rushing from the kitchen ready to fire off more shots. This time, the
bullets woul
d find Nora.

Nothing.

forty-five

Nora got to her
knees and pushed herself up. Someone had stolen her femurs and her legs wobbled. She considered following Daniel out the door and heading directly to the police station.

Instead, she tiptoed to the kitchen. The back door stood open allowing flakes to blow into the narrow passage. The brisk air washed away the smell of burnt toast.

With careful steps she snuck past the door heading toward the light spilling from Sylvia’s office. Her footsteps caused the old floors to creak. She inched closer to the lighted office. She didn’t want to see inside.

But she had to.

A smell like spent firecrackers and hot oil hung in the air and Nora froze. She listened to the nothingness around her.

A
bang
-
whoosh
-
groan
made her jerk and catch her breath. The heater kicked to life in answer to the open kitchen door.

Nora focused on the office door hoping to hear something, anything, moving inside. She slid her foot forward and leaned toward the door. She eased around the
doorjamb
and surveyed the room.

The office appeared empty. The overhead light glared, reflecting on the maps spread on the table. The computer monitor on Sylvia’s desk cast a faint glow as if she’d been working. Petal’s chair snugged up to her desk and the lamp with the pink silk scarf was off. The papers stacked neatly on Petal’s desk. Nora stepped into the room and moved tentatively toward the desk. Something creeping along the floor caught her eye. She narrowed her gaze to the floor in front of Sylvia’s desk.

Not creeping.
Leaking
. Deep crimson, it spread like gruesome syrup, dripping from the edge of the plastic chair runner and soaking into the thin carpet.

A low moan escaped from Nora’s throat. She held her breath to silence herself. Fighting every step, she advanced until she saw the whole scene.

Nora fell back against the wall. Part of her fought to deny the image while the other part struggled to understand it. She gagged on the smell of death.

Sylvia sat wedged in the far corner under the desk. Mascara smeared under her eyes and her black curls flopped in wild disarray. Her eyes stared sightlessly at Nora.

A river of blood flowed from the mangled flesh that had been
her
chest.

forty-six

Nora staggered out of
the office. The kitchen door still stood ajar and freezing night air blew in. She slid down from the sink and sat in front of the cold blast.

Earthquakes of revulsion and fear cracked her surface. She couldn’t do this. She shivered and stared into the back
yard.

Get control. Think.

Sylvia was dead. But Daniel, the man who stood to profit from the rainforest’s destruction, was on his way to the mountain to stop Petal from dismantling the tower.

Cole.

He was on the other end of Daniel’s deadly quest. Nora had sent him there
with Petal
. And Charlie had Cole’s phone so she couldn’t
even
warn him
!

She shot to her feet and clattered through the kitchen
and foyer
, out the front door
,
and across the porch. She lurched down the stairs two at a time, slipping on the last one and crashing a knee on the ground. The snow had tapered off and the temperatures weren’t at their winter worst. The
now-
wet snow stuck to the grass in clumps and would be gone before lunch. She bounded to her feet and sprinted toward the Jeep.

The Town
C
ar sat next to hers.

She dove to the ground and rolled under a shrub. Not the smartest move she’d made. If
the man in black had
been in the car he’d have already killed her. Now she was wet and muddy.

The Town
C
ar guy had killed Sylvia and he wouldn’t think twice about doing the same
to
Nora. She pulled her feet under her and crouched next to the shrub. Obviously he’d used the kitchen door to the back yard. Where was he now? At the edge of the house waiting to gun her down?

She had no choice.

Nora dashed to the Jeep. The roar of a pistol did not shatter the silence.
B
ullets didn’t burn into her exposed body. In fact, she made it to the Jeep without incident even if she couldn’t breathe from terror. She jerked open the door, dove inside
,
and turned the ignition key, seemingly at the same time.

Hunched over the wheel to
present
as small a target as possible, Nora punched the gas and sped away. She studied her rearview mirror. Nothing moved at the Trust farmhouse. The black rectangle where the front door stood open gaped back at her.

Since it was
a weeknight
—technically a week morning by now—
it was too late for people to be out and too early for them to be up. She raced through Boulder heedless of the stoplights
now
. The snow had melted on the pavement leaving the streets wet but not icy.

Nora punched on the heat and let it blast from the vents. Her damp jeans and coat made a comforting
,
wet-Abbey smell in the Jeep.

She climbed out of town south on Highway 93 toward Golden. As soon as she dipped over a hill the lights of town disappeared. Starless night closed around her. The Jeep’s heater tried, but in the drafty vehicle it couldn’t keep up with the winter chill. Shivers ran through Nora at irregular intervals, nerves and cold vying for credit.

Two glowing pinpricks at the side of the road alerted her to
a
deer. She tapped her brakes in response. The steering wheel jerked from her hand and the back end of the Jeep swerved to the right. Black ice.

Heart pumping, she counter-steered. The back end slid the other way, gaining momentum like a deadly pendulum. She yanked the wheel back. This time, the Jeep responded with a
swoosh
to the right that kept going. And going. The Jeep spun across the road like a drunk ice skater. It finally stopped with two wheels off the pavement, facing back toward Boulder.

The engine idled. The headlights shone crazily across the center line.
Nora
wanted to break into tears and sit still to gather herself. She needed to take the time to stop her shaking. She felt like tearing the seat belt off and jumping out to walk off the adrenaline pumping through her.

There was only one thing she could do. Nora locked her jaws tight, rammed the Jeep
back
into gear
,
and pulled
back
onto the highway. At least the wild ride warmed her but the sweat would chill her.

She made it through Golden and onto I-70 heading into the mountains. It seemed to take ten years to find the exit from I-70. The whole time she expected death to arrive in any number of ways. She could slide across the median and into oncoming traffic
;
Town
C
ar guy could catch up to her
;
she could keel over from fear alone. Or she might arrive too late to save Cole and Petal.

Nora exited the
i
nterstate and began her long climb up M
ount
Evans.

Another mountain. Another fight for life. Why
does
this
always happen on mountains? Why
does
this
have to happen at all?

White, fluffy flakes started falling again. “Of course,” she said aloud.

Shutters covered the windows of the Park Service toll house and a bar blocked access to the road. Nora eased the Jeep off the road and around the barrier. Shoulders hunched up high enough to be ear muffs, she gripped the wheel.

In daylight, the harrowing road pushed Nora to the limit. At night, the switchbacks, narrow ledges, darkness
,
and ice became a nightmare.

She inched her way along the cliff-side road. Snow accumulated over packed ruts. Cole’s pickup probably made those, followed by Daniel’s Prius. She shifted up and down around each precarious switchback. Her headlights revealed a frustratingly small section of the mountain. She knew the edge dropped forever down the mountain but she couldn’t see it. She stayed in the middle of the road, praying her tires would grip the snow.

What was happening on the dark summit? Her progress seemed like swimming through quicksand. Every time she tried to gain speed she fishtailed. But every second she lost gave Daniel more time to kill.

She pictured Cole smiling at her on the Pearl Street Mall. The fall leaves
a
swirl of golds and reds. He had been shy and uncertain about her but happy to see her.

“You were happy to see him
too.
” She scowled at the shadowy road. “Quit talking to yourself.”

Was
she happy to see him? What about earlier tonight, in her apartment? Didn’t that feel right?

She’d spent the last year wrapped in a cocoon, gluing herself back together.

How long are you going to stay shrouded in self-pity? See, you don’t even need Abigail around to harass you with her sloppy poetry.

She slipped the lever into first gear and pulled around a steep
U
-turn.

What if she died tonight? Or worse,
what
if Cole died? What would all the protecting and taking time to repair her heart get her? She didn’t want to waste any more time shielding herself from life for fear that something might hurt again.

She wanted Cole.

Nora turned the last switchback into the parking lot. She ought to slap her headlights off for stealth but
then
she wouldn’t be able to see. Besides, anyone up here would have heard the Jeep’s engine.

Four inches of snow sat atop Cole’s pickup. Daniel’s Prius still dripped melted
snow from the warm engine.

Nora pulled
in
next to Cole’s pickup, cut the motor
,
and climbed out. The dry, cold air caused her nostrils to stick. The air burned into her lungs and out again in puffs.

The trailhead to the summit should be at the corner of the lot but in the darkness and covered with snow, Nora couldn’t make it out. In a matter of seconds her fingers grew numb and her ears ached. She ducked back into the Jeep. A knitted purple ski cap with bright braids peeked from under the backseat. She yanked it on her head and found a cheap pair of thin knit gloves she kept in the Jeep to protect her from a chilly steering wheel. They wouldn’t keep her hands warm
,
but they’d help a little. Her headlamp rested in the glove box and she pulled it over the ski cap and snapped it on.

The weak beam from the headlamp held the darkness at bay a few feet in front of her. She shuffled toward the trailhead, swinging her neck back and forth to sweep the area for footprints. The fluffy flakes had erased even Daniel’s
recent
tracks.

Though not easy to make out, she found the start of the trail by locating a flat area about three feet wide between two boulders covered with snow. Feeling for each foot step along the bumpy, rock strewn path, Nora started toward the summit.

The headlamp provided a faded glow and snow plunked in her eyes. Her feet slid along under several inches of fluff, stubbing into rocks. She leaned as close to the cliff face as possible, using it to catch her when she slipped.

After two switchbacks she found the terrain becoming increasingly rugged as she headed around the side of the mountain. She must have missed the spot where the trail turned back up
; t
he somewhat level path she’d been following became a jumble of snow
-
covered rocks edging away from the cliff face. She soaked her gloves scrambling over a mound of stones. Her jeans wicked melted snow from the hem and her knees where she’d had to climb on all fours.

Shivering and panting in the thin air, she swung her head to the side. Her headlamp disappeared into nothing. She hung on the very edge of the mountain. Nora swung
the
beam back to where she suspected she lost the trail. She tilted her neck up, gauging
whether it would be better to bushwhack up the side or try to find the trail.

Uneven and full of rocks, the trail wasn’t an easy way to go. Backtracking to find it would eat up valuable time. She held her breathe, listening for voices or sounds of a struggle.

Nothing.

She reached her hand upward to feel under the snow for a solid hold. Her frozen fingers felt like clubs. She searched for a platform for her numb feet and pushed upward.

One movement and pause for a breath. Still, she panted. Despite frozen fingers and toes, sweat slicked her body, creating an even deeper chill. She could only see as far as her next handhold.

She pushed off again. Her sole slid off the rock and she careened to the side.

No!

She flailed at the snow-covered rocks trying to find something to grab. Her fingers wouldn’t grip. Her arms splayed out and her chin whacked
a
boulder under a pile of cold snow, sending a shower of lights behind her eyes. She cried out.

Desperate to keep upright, she scrabbled, but her fingers only raked the icy surface of the rock.

Nora couldn’t get her balance. Her other foot twisted and she toppled to her right. She crashed to her knee and momentarily paralyzed her leg.

Her body sailed onto her side, kicking and fighting, she managed only to skid around so her head pointed downhill.

Nora started to slide.

She threw her arms out
,
trying to wedge them against any rocks. S
till, s
he gathered speed like a luge. If she didn’t arrest herself she’d go over the side. She’d land in a pile of broken bones. Dead. Like Scott. Like Heather.

Like Cole.

Her forehead crashed into a boulder. Her body accordi
o
ned into her neck like a train hitting a brick wall. She stopped in a burst of white hot pain.

She lay with her head slammed against the boulder, her body in a heap uphill. Snow accumulated all around her, freezing her neck and cheek. At least she wouldn’t fall all the way to her death at the bottom of a fourteener.

But she might never walk again.

Nora couldn’t feel anything below her neck.

They’d pull her out of here, prop her in a wheelchair in front of a TV for the rest of her life. Over and over again she’d have to relive her failures and mourn the loss of Heather
. Of
Petal.
Of
Cole.

No more negative talk
. She couldn’t
just
quit. Nora rolled onto her stomach and pushed herself up. Her hands ached with the cold and wet. “Ow!”

Her neck was nothing but frozen pain
, b
ut her arm
—that
gave new meaning to
agony
. Excruciating molten bone somewhere just below her elbow. She wanted to scream. Or curl into the snow and wait for help.

She had to keep going. What choice did she have?

Slowly she maneuvered her legs and feet to push herself to stand. Okay, she wasn’t a quadriplegic
…
yet.

She surveyed the side of the mountain where she’d slid. The rock strewn slope would be a challenge to scale in the best of circumstances. With a
suspected
broken arm
,
it might be impossible.