In the Heart of the Wind Book 1 in the WindTorn Trilogy (7 page)

When she confronted him with what she’d learned, would Gabe finally tell her the truth, or would he invent more lies to pacify her?

“No,” Annie hissed to the empty car. “No more lies, Gabe. No more!”

Lightly tapping her foot on the brake pedal, she slowed the black car down to a crawl as she came to the switchback part of the street where many a car had slid off the road for taking the first turn too fast. Just as she rounded the corner, she gasped, finding a mini-van skewed sideways across the road, blocking the way into the second serpentine curve. Its rear tires were in the ditch.

Again, she tapped the brake, feeling her car slide to the right, but managed to bring the car to a safe, out-of-the-ditch halt. Someone waved to her from the side of the road and Annie recognized her neighbor in the glare of her headlights. She rolled down the window as the man came slipping and sliding up to her. He skied into the side of her car, laughing in embarrassment.

“How you like my new van, Annie?” he teased. “I’m trying out the sideways gear.”

Normally Annie would have shot back at him with the same brand of black humor, but tonight neither her humor nor her patience was part of her. She gazed up at him with a blank look of annoyance.

“How am I supposed to get home, Rick?” she snapped. She turned and looked behind her. “I can’t back up.”

Rick Wilder’s face puckered with hurt. “I’m sorry. I sent my son to Granger’s house to get him to help me turn her around again. It shouldn’t take long.” With a hangdog expression, he looked past her into the car. “Do you mind if I pop in there for a minute? I’m freezing my long johns off out here.”

Annie was about to tell him no when she saw Stuart Granger and Rick’s son, Ned, hurrying toward them. She motioned with her chin. “Your help’s here.”

“Are you all right, Annie?” Rick asked.

“Just get your car off the road, Rick,” she told him, her eyes blazing with frustration.

“Okay,” he mumbled, nodding at her. “Drive safe.” He pushed away from the car, looking back at her over his shoulder before once more slipping and sliding, arms cartwheeling, toward his car on the slick, ice-coated pavement.

Jake Mueller thought
he heard shouting outside his living room window and stood up to pull the drapes aside. His forehead creased in bewilderment as he saw Gabe James come running hell-bent-for-leather across his and Annie’s yard, two men close on his heels. With a grunt of surprise, Jake saw one of the men tackle Gabe, bringing the young man face down in the snow.

“What the hell?” Jake snarled. At first he thought Gabe and the men were just horsing around, but it finally registered with Jake that Gabe was struggling.

And yelling for help.

“What is it, dear?” his wife Alinor asked.

Jake hurried to the front door. “Something’s going on over to the James’,” he had time to explain before he yanked open his front door and stepped out on the stoop.

The air had
been knocked out of Gabe as he came down with a soft thud into the wet snow, his arms splaying out in front of him. He had tried to scramble forward, digging his hands into the snow, but the man who had brought him down grabbed a handful of his hair, lay on top of him, and dragged back his head. Gabe tried to scoot out from under the man, despite the vicious tugging on his scalp, but all he managed to do was scrape the side of his face on something just beneath the surface of the snow.

“Uh-unh, Bubba,” the man hissed at him as fingers tightened in his hair. “Don’t even try it.”

“Help!” Gabe yelled. “Someone help me!”

“You ain’t going nowhere, son,” another of the men growled as he stooped down on the other side of Gabe. Planting his knee in James’ back, he jerked Gabe’s right arm behind him, snapping a handcuff around the wrist. “Give me his other hand, Brady.”

Gabe’s eyes watered as his left arm was forced behind him and he felt the tight constriction of the metal bracelet clamped around his wrist. The heavier man’s knee was digging painfully into the small of his back and he was having trouble breathing for the man who had tackled him was now pressing a hard hand on Gabe’s head as he held it firmly in the snow. His cheeks were stinging from the cold.

“What’s going on here?” Jake Mueller asked as he came across the road. He watched the two men dragging Gabe James to his feet, the two of them struggling to hold on to a wildly bucking prisoner.

“Jake!” Gabe was jerked around so viciously, his voice was cut off.

Jake stepped onto Gabe’s lawn, but one of the men stopped him.

“Federal Marshals, sir. We have a warrant for this man’s arrest,” the bigger of the two men growled.

“Jake, please...” Gabe called, stopping once more as the grip on his arms was increased. He yelped with pain, his head going back.

“Now, wait just a minute,” Jake snapped, stepping further onto the James’ lawn. He’d seen the look of agony flash across his neighbor’s face. “There ain’t no call to hurt him.”

“He’s resisting arrest, mister,” the man holding Gabe snapped. “And if you want to be charged with obstruction of justice, we can certainly oblige you!”

Jake saw Gabe’s eyes in the glare of the overhead street light and even though Jake had spent a lifetime on Guadalcanal, he knew he’d never seen true terror on anyone’s face like he was seeing it that night. He opened his mouth to ask to see the warrant when a dark sedan, its lights off, came roaring out of the night from the east end of the street. He turned to look at it, saw two other men hurrying to get out of the front seat, and looked with confusion back at Gabe.

“What did you do, Gabe?” he asked.

“Call Kramer!” Gabe yelled at him. “Hurry, Jake! Call Kramer! Tell him these men are not—” His words were cut off in mid-plea as the men holding him shoved him roughly toward the sedan.

“Let me see that warrant,” Jake demanded. He wasn’t prepared for the gun thrust into his ribs by one of the men who had bolted from the idling car. Being a gun enthusiast, Jake knew that weapon and he knew it held a .357 cartridge with his name on it.

“Get back in the house, Pops!” The man jammed the gun into Jake Mueller’s ribs. “Or I’ll arrest you, too.”

“Jake!” Gabe screamed as one of the men pushed down his head to get him in the sedan. “For the love of God, call Kramer! You’ve got to help me, Jake!”

Jake stared at the man holding the gun on him. No emotion showed on the man’s beefy face, but a real promise shone in his hollow eyes. He only managed to tear his eyes away from the lethality of that gaze when he heard Gabe begging him to get the car’s license number.

“I wouldn’t if I were you, old man,” the guy with the gun warned. “I’d just mind my own beeswax.” He holstered the revolver in his suit coat and pivoted on his heel, plowing toward the car with long, confident, arrogant strides.

Jake watched as the two men climbed into the backseat, one on each side of Gabe. He could see Gabe struggling, kicking out at the back of the front seat; could hear Gabe’s shouts of both pain and outrage. As the sedan was jammed into gear and the car spun its tires on the slick street before finally digging in with enough traction to propel it forward, Jake’s eyes went automatically to the license plate as the car’s headlights came on, lighting the tag.

Alinor Mueller had just stepped off her front stoop when the dark sedan shot by her house. The car seemed to be heading straight for Annie James’ car as it came down the street.

“Oh, Lordy,” Alinor gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. She stood by in silent fear as Annie jerked her car out of the path of the sedan, her car skidding off the street, plowing through a snow bank, sending the fresh powder in a dividing wave before the front end of the car came to rest in the middle of Jed Hancock’s front lawn.

“Nora,” her husband shouted at her. She reluctantly tore her eyes from Annie’s car. “Call the sheriff! Now!!!”

Alinor didn’t waste a precious moment. She hurried up her stoop, yanking the door open as fast as she could. She had only a glimpse of her husband of fifty-nine years rushing toward Annie’s car as she grabbed the phone to make her call.

Gabe had recognized
his wife’s vehicle. He knew she’d be forced off the road and his heart stopped beating as irrational terror took over. He’d screamed out her name, twisted violently between the two men beside him to stare out of the back window as her car went off the road. As she hit the snow bank and the back end of her car had dug into the snow, he’d called out to her again, thrashing as hard as he could to rid himself of the hands that were now digging painfully into his flesh.

“Annie!!!” His bellow of enraged grief was loud and prolonged in the confines of the car as it skidded around a corner and he lost sight of his wife. He opened his mouth to scream again when something sharp jammed into his neck and liquid fire spread quickly throughout his entire body. He felt himself jerked around as the needle was withdrawn. He stared into the face of the man in the passenger seat, syringe in hand, and with a sinking feeling, recognized him.

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth, Tremayne,” the man hissed as darkness shut out the ugly contortion of anger on the man’s shadowed face.

“Annie,” Gabe whispered as his eyes closed.

Annie James was
flung forward as the car came to rest up against Jed’s squirrel feeder and the seat belt was digging into her left shoulder with a vengeance.

Spitting with fury, she slammed her finger into the seat belt’s release button and shrugged out of the confining strap. As she did, her door was yanked open and she gasped, looked up with shocked eyes to see Jake Mueller framed in the doorway.

“You all right?” the old man asked.

Annie nodded, wondering at the wildness in Jake’s normally placid eyes. “What’s happened?” she asked.

Jake reached into the car, pulling on her arm. “Come on, Annie. There isn’t any time to waste standing out here jawing!” He literally dragged her, unresisting and surprised, from her car, propelling her forcefully across the road toward his house.

“Jake?” she asked, his grip on her arm starting to hurt. “What’s the matter?”

“It’s your man, Annie. They took your man, and unless I miss my guess, they sure as hell ain’t who they said they was!”

Virgil Kramer looked
up at his opponent and smiled.

“You sure that’s where you wanna move?” he asked.

Dean Allen frowned as he looked down at the checker board. His gray eyes shifted over the men staggered about the playing field, and seeing no other alternative worth making, slowly nodded. He looked up at Virgil and groaned. There was defeat staring at him from behind tortoise shell frames.

“You sure now?” Virgil repeated.

Dean’s upper lip curled in resignation. “Ah, go on, Virgil, and get it the hell over with it. I’ve lost and you know it!” Digging his hands deep into his pockets, he slumped in his chair, his face puckered in a little boy’s grim pout of defeat.

With a quick flick of his hand, Virgil took the last four of Dean’s men in one fell swoop and picked up his opponent’s king. Bringing the red checkers to his lips, he kissed them, making a loud, exaggerated smack.

“Go to hell,” Dean growled as he pushed up from the table.

Virgil chuckled. “You’re a sore loser, Dino.” He began rearranging the checkers on the board.

The younger man snorted. “I ought to have my ass kicked for letting you sucker me into playing you.” His hand came out of his pocket and he slapped a quarter down on the table. “And gambling should be illegal in the station!” He pushed the coin toward Virgil.

“Mighty obliged,” Virgil said as he pocketed the coin. “Wanna make it best three outta five?”

Dean’s eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to make a vulgar comment, but Milo Afton, the night shift dispatcher, stuck his head in the break room door.

“There’s been some trouble out to Rock Creek, Chief.”

Virgil craned his head around to look at Milo. “What kind of trouble?”

Milo ambled into the room. “Old man Mueller—you know, Thad’s grandpa? Well, his wife called in to say one of her neighbors was kidnapped a few minutes ago right out in his own front yard.”

Virgil’s brows arched upward. “Kidnapped? The hell you say! Did she say who it was?”

Milo nodded, shifted his wad of tobacco from left cheek to right. “That young guy who bought the old Barnes’ place.”

“Gabe James?” Dean asked, glancing at Virgil. “Who’d want to kidnap Gabe?”

“Every woman in Jasper and Poweshiek Counties,” Mavis Long, the police station secretary, commented. She shut up when Virgil sent her an annoyed grimace.

The dispatcher shrugged. “She said they told Jake they had a warrant. Called themselves Federal Marshals, but when old man Mueller asked to see the warrant, one of the men pulled a gun on him and threatened him.”

Virgil shot out of his chair. His eyes behind the obstruction of his glasses hardened as he impaled Dean Allen with a furious glare. “See who the hell sent Federal Marshals out to Rock Creek without letting us know about it,” he snarled. “And you get me the name of that bastard who dared pull a gun on Jake Mueller! I’ll have his damned badge!”