Invisibility Cloak (36 page)

“What?” Sophia’s left shoulder turned at an angle, and she frowned. Mimi stared wide-eyed at Sophia as she cried out, “What is going on here?”

“What are you talking about, Sophia?” Mimi finally asked.

“No!” Sophia raged until a sound slid through the air. The whiz of a bullet slammed into the dry, brown dirt next to Sophia’s snakeskin loafers.

Sophia cried out, “Oooh!” and jumped back.

Amanda. She was here, her tiger-like attitude wrapped around him and her feistiness cloaked him like a blanket. He smiled and then he frowned.

Damn little hellcat! Didn’t she know she could be killed!

“Ah?” Ryder cleared his throat. Sophia and Mimi turned to look at him. “Untie me, now.” He spoke in a dark, lethal tone, “Unless you want to be riddled with more bullets and this time they won’t miss your toes or your head.” Ryder tilted his chin up and looked around for any distinguishable sign from Amanda. She was around there
somewhere.

Mimi scampered over. “Ryder you have to help Sophia.” She spoke quietly as she sliced at the rope that bound his wrists.

“Come again?” He arched an eyebrow up. “I hope you are joking.”

"Who is here?” Sophia called out from where she stood and waved her gun around until she aimed it firmly at him. “Or I could take you to Alejandro. Dead.”

“Sophia, drop your weapon my team is already in place.” Ryder rubbed his wrists to restore the feeling back to his hands.

She raised her eyebrows as she cocked the gun’s trigger. “Oh really? I think you’re bluffing.”

Another shot sliced through her foot this time and Sophia screamed and threw her hands up in the air. “Okay! Okay!” She leaned forward and placed her gun down in front of her. Blood seeped out from the top of her shoe and she winced with pain.

“Believe me now?” Ryder picked her gun up and stuffed it in the back of his pants waistband. “Okay let’s go.” He pushed both women around the corner into the white building.

“Down on your knees. Hands on your head.”

When Mimi and Sophia protested, “Ryder―”

He roared, “Now!”

Both women fell silent and did what he asked.

He ran into the room that held the boxes and threw open the lids. He picked up the camo blankets and pulled out his knife and shredded a few into thin bindings and quickly bound their wrists and ankles, even stretching one over their mouth so they wouldn’t talk.

Now he needed to find Amanda. He walked around inside the small building calling out her name a few times. “Amanda?” But when she didn’t answer he figured she must be outside. Double-checking the bindings he put on Sophia and Mimi first before he left them alone, he stalked around the corner to the back of the house. “Amanda?” he whispered harshly before he stopped dead in his tracks. “Ah, shit.”

“Fubar,” she croaked out before the large guard tightened his arm around her neck.

“Let her go.” Ryder held both hands up. “If you let her go, I’ll let you run.” He gestured out to the open space behind him. “Run?”

“No,” he grunted. “
Coche
.”

Ryder furrowed his forehead trying to think what that meant.

“Vroom, vroom,” the man said loudly. “
Coche!”

Car. He wanted a car. Ryder pointed over his shoulder behind him. “
Si, coche
.”

The guard dropped his hold around Amanda and pushed her ahead of him.
“Las llaves del coche!”
Pulling his black brows down, he snapped his fingers out in Ryder’s direction.

Ryder ground his teeth together. This guy was impatient? Curling his hands into fists, he wanted to break the SOB’s neck, but instead he inclined his head indicating to go around the building.

Forcing himself to calm down―he’d get the asshole when the time was right.

As soon as he turned the corner of the house, Ryder was knocked to the ground with the wind knocked out of him.
What the hell?

A bullet hissed through the air and he looked up and prayed it didn’t hit Amanda. The big dark-haired guard dog that held her in front of him, dropped to the ground while Amanda was flung out to his left. A red hole blossomed right between his lifeless eyes as he lay sprawled out on the ground.

“Amanda!” he called out. Pushing off the ground he ran over to her and picked her up, cradling her to his chest. “You’re not hurt are you?”

“No, I’m fine,” she rasped out. “What happened?”

Jeremy clasped Ryder on the shoulder. “See? I got here just in time to save your pretty little ass.” Detective Coolman shook his head at Amanda. “I assured you I had this. Is anyone hurt? Do I need to call an ambulance?”

“No.” She looked over at Ryder. “Oh, maybe you should, but for Ryder, he was limping earlier.”

“I’m fine, Sophia just grazed my leg.” Ryder grinned. “Good timing, ass-wipe.” He walked over and angled his head down at the ground to the man who seconds ago was calling the shots. “Why’d ya kill him, Jer? We could’ve got some intel out of him.”

“I didn’t.”

“I did, men.” General Holmes came around the corner with a sharpshooter rifle.

Ryder cursed under his breath, what was the damn general doing here? And now?

“Damn it, General Holmes.” Detective Coolman said, “All due respect, sir.”

“I saw the man pulling a gun. I had to do something.”

Ryder didn’t see any firepower. He rubbed the back of his neck. The general obviously didn’t want any loose ends. He needed to get Amanda and her kids out of here ASAP.

“Where’s Nick and Sammie?” Amanda asked lifting her head. “Are they somewhere safe?”

“They’re out front. Your son intercepted me on ‘The Nine’ as I was going back to find Ry.” Detective Coolman’s black eyebrows popped up. “I thought I told you to go home, Ms. Harris.

“Detective,” Amanda said in a rush, “I had to do something. I saw them drive off with Ryder. I had to save him.”

“And she sure as shit did.” Ryder played it cool in front of the general, but urgency to leave was forefront. “Let’s get the kids and go home.” He took a few steps then stopped, remembering the women. “Shit―almost forgot. Jer, I got Edgington and Carlyle tied up inside.” He jerked his head to the old white clapboard building.

“Parker Edgington and Roger Carlyle? You’ve got to be shitten’ me.” Coolman walked to the front door, readying to yank it open. He took his hands off the door and asked Ryder. “Do you want to fill me in on a few things?”

“Ah, no, Jer.” Ryder followed him. “That would be Sophia Edgington and Mimi Carlyle.”

“What? That’s even a bigger pile of shit!”

“I’ll take them off your hands, gentlemen.” General Holmes opened the front door and they all filed into the small house.

Ryder looked over at Jeremy’s perplexed expression and mouthed, “Outside” when the general stomped ahead of them.

Mimi and Sophia looked everyone over, but stopped at the general’s face. Their eyes widened and fear flicked across their faces.

“Detective Coolman, I’ll take it from here.”

“Oh, don’t bother General Holmes, I’ll take them downtown.” Detective Coolman pulled out two pairs of handcuffs.

“No problem.” The general narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the two women bound on the chairs. “I’m headed down there myself, anyway.”

Ryder heard the click of the gun chamber. General Holmes. That’s why Sophia was waiting here. The general was in to his eyeballs with Castillo. And unless he got Amanda and Jeremy out of here fast and let the general take away the two women, they’d both be in a morgue drawer next to the big Mexican the general just took out.

Ryder laid his hand on Jeremy’s arm. “Let him take them in buddy, we’ve got some other stuff to do.”

Jeremy cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Yeah, matter of fact, there’s something I need to show you right now.” Ryder tugged on Amanda’s hand and walked back to the front. “We’ll see you at the station, General.”

Mimi and Sophia shrieked out muted protests behind their gags.

After Ryder shut the door on the general and the two hostages, he turned to Jeremy. “Man, you can be denser than shit sometimes, you know that?”

“Detective Coolman pulled down his brows. “What am I missing here?”

“Why do you think Edgington came to this hell hole in the first place? She was meeting the general here. Did you see him drive in, Jer?”

Coolman shook his head slowly. “He was here already. Said he saw some suspicious suspects lurking around this abandoned building.”

“How long have you been a dick, dude?” Impatiently Ryder corrected what he said, “I meant to ask you how long have you been a detective, ass-wipe?”

Coolman muttered, “Damn it, Ry, this is General Holmes, head of the United States of America Strategic Command.”

Ryder looked him straight in the eye. “Yeah, so what?”

“Ry―”

Ryder cut him off. “You trying to tell me buddy, you’re hesitant to believe me because he’s employed by the Government?” He shook his head.

“Point taken.”

“Now, I need you to go back in there and tell him that Amanda and I took off. You need to call the ME’s office anyway to get the body tagged and bagged. After I collect some surveillance equipment from your car, I’m going to take care of the general, myself.”

“G
et in the car,” the general growled before he pushed them into the backseat of his sedan. Only their hands were still bound too tightly with the material Ryder shredded earlier. Her brown eyes followed General Holmes as he stepped back up to the other tall, dark-haired man. He shook his hand and nodded.

“Wasn’t he a friend of Ryder Stevenson’s? Maybe we could plead with him, so the
espeluznante, viejo hombre
will not take us away.”

“Creepy, old man, you say?” Mimi cast her a side-ways glance. “He is worse, much worse than that.”

“I could still plead to him; maybe I could find a way to persuade him to take us with him.”

“It’s too late for that. Look around, we must find something,
anything
to cut through these ropes.

Sophia looked futilely around the backseat for something to work at the bindings with. “Try see-sawing the cloth on the seatbelt.”

Mimi stomped her feet on the floor and ground out, “Oh! If only we could get at the weapons in the trunk!”

As soon as Ryder and the Harbor Falls police detective left the building they were tied up in, the general loaded up all three boxes from the pick-up point into his car trunk.

“We’ll―” Sophia quickly clamped her teeth together when the driver’s door opened.

A second later General Holmes slid into the seat, turning on the ignition. “Isn’t this fancy meeting you two out here?” He didn’t turn around as he spoke to the women in the backseat, just talked louder. “I was expecting a different kind of pick up. Girls that are about thirty years younger.” He glowered at them in his rear view mirror and turned left on Highway 9. “If you get my drift.” He stopped talking and drove a few more miles, before taking a right on Highway 136. “I know just the place―a setting that will prove intimate enough for all three of us. And then we can talk.”

The majestic, jagged peaks of the Potrillo Mountains rose into view. Fear as sharp as the mountain range they were driving to, got lodged inside her throat. She drew in a deep breath before asking, “You are going to kill us, aren’t you, General?”

“Ah,” he turned around to meet her eyes. “Not until I’ve had some fun with you. Maybe I’ll let you both persuade me to keep you alive.”

“
Nunca cerdo, asqueroso
.”

“Never, say never.” The general leered at them in the mirror and drove silently until he turned down a dirt road closer to mountain range. Finally slowing the car, he stopped the sedan on a dirt path. He turned around to the two in the backseat. “This is the end of the road, ladies.”

She waited until General Holmes came over to open the car door. Yanking both of her bounded feet up together, she kicked at him. The elderly man was taken by surprise and he teetered backward. Scrambling to get out of the car, so she could pounce on him, her body swayed back and forth as she tried desperately to lever herself out of the car.

“
Arggg!
” Landing on the ground, the general yelled, “Bitch!” He carefully got back up and lunged at her, slapping her with his left hand, while his right held her steady in the back seat. “You won’t die quickly for that little antic, you slut!”

“No!” She spoke out quickly, “I’m only fighting for my life, General Holmes.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “I want to live. Tell me what I have to do.”

“Yes, I do too,” Mimi’s voice chirped out next to her. “What do we need to do to stay alive?”

General Holmes stood up taller and narrowed his eyes at them. “Now that’s more like it!” He paced back and forth in front of a cluster of flowering cacti before he stopped. Finally turning back to them, he said, “Girls. I need young girls.” He shook his head. “God knows why, but my clients want young, virgins. Preferably blond-haired girls.”

“No!” She shook her head. “I cannot do that!”

“Well, then you’ll die. Right here. Right now.”

Reaching into the front seat, he grabbed his gun. “Out of the car, now,” the general ordered both of them, pointing the gun at their faces.

“No!” She pulled her head back. “If I’m going to die, then it will be in your car! Not in the desert, you dirty, old man!”

His thumb touched the chamber and a decided
click
took up the silence. “Fine. I need a new car anyway.”

R
yder was thankful that no one could see the sweat dripping down his face as he sat inside General Holmes’ car waiting for the SOB to get back in it. There wasn’t much he liked less than traitors to his country. Oh wait . . . yeah, there was. Scum-sucking traitors that sold little girls and their country’s secrets topped them all. He fingered the small video device Jeremy Coolman gave him to get the evidence he needed to put Holmes away for a long, long time.

He got every word on tape and video.

It was time to wrap this drama scene up.

A
s the general pointed a gun at the two of them, the front passenger car door swung open. All by itself.

The general turned.

And then the door slammed shut. All on its own. It was as if a ghost swirled among them as well.