To the Limit (42 page)

The fourth person, unmistakable at a distance of around thirty yards, was Richard Edwards. He was dressed in a tan suit. He looked a little rumpled. His combover lifted as the wind preceding the storm front picked up.

"It's Richard," Tiffany breathed, peering over Mac's shoulder. "What's Richard doing here?"

"We've been suspecting for some time that Edwards is in on this," Mac said, pissed at himself because the extra clip for his Beretta was locked in the glove compartment of the rented Jeep.

"What do we do?" Miriam's voice was barely a whisper but thick with fear.

Eve took control of Miriam and Tiffany. "Get away from the window. Get down behind the sofa."

Reacting immediately, Miriam grabbed Tiffany's arm and pulled her down to her knees with her behind the sofa.

"Billie," Eve continued, her voice steady, calm, and forceful. "Keep low, but go lock the back door and any other door or window they might be able to use for access."

Billie took off at a trot.

With his back against the wall on one side of the window and Jas positioned the same way on the other, Mac chanced another look outside. One of the intruders was moving at a run toward the far side of the house.

"You got local law enforcement around here?"

"Sheriff's office is forty miles away."

"Call 'em."

"I'll do it," Miriam said, and scrambling on all fours, headed for the phone. When she reached the phone cord she dragged it off the foyer table onto the floor. "I can't get a dial tone," she said, sounding shaken.

The third intruder rejoined the others, tucking a knife into his black boot, which explained the dead phone line.

"How about cell phones?"

"We're in a box canyon," Jas said. "Gotta ride to the top of the ridge to get a signal."

Mac cut Eve a glance. He had no doubt that their thoughts ran in tandem. No one was going to be riding to the ridge today. If Edwards and the people in black had their way, no one was going to get out of the house alive.

Chapter 27

"YOU PEOPLE IN THE HOUSE!"

It was Edwards. He'd walked forward from the other three in slow, nervous steps.

Mac moved cautiously to look out the window.

A light rain had started falling, but the wind was far from light. Edwards's combover was standing straight up. The lapels of his suit jacket had blown open. His white shirt was plastered against his chest.

"We know that Tiffany is in there," Edwards shouted, tugging his tie down and away from his face, where the wind had blown it.

Eve turned to Tiffany. "Did you call anyone?"

"I thought about it. Even dialed Kat's number, but at the last minute I changed my mind. I didn't want to worry her any more than she was already worried."

Mac glanced at Eve. "They must have found the GPS in the parking lot after the bombing."

Not that they needed it. Seemed the bad guys knew exactly how to find Eve no matter where she went.

"You folks don't need to panic," Edwards continued, his voice breaking. "We just want Tiffany. Everything's going to be fine. We don't want to hurt her. We don't want to hurt anyone, but we need for you to send Tiffany out, and then we'll leave you all alone."

"I was born at night, but it wasn't last night," Mac said under his breath. He didn't buy a word of it.

"I'll go," Tiffany said, standing up. "I'll go with them. That's what they want."

"You'll go nowhere, missy," Jas said with a nod to Miriam, who promptly put her arms around Tiffany and pulled her close.

"I'm putting you in danger."

"We'll sort that out later."

"But you don't even know me," Tiffany said, near tears again. "I can't let you risk your life for me."

"Tell her, McClain," Jas said, and turned back to watch out the window.

Mac's respect for Campbell, which was already high, notched up a couple more rungs on the ladder. He knew the score. The bad guys had three assault rifles. No one was leaving here alive.

"They don't plan to let anyone live even if you go with them," Mac told Tiffany gently.

The girl closed her eyes. Swallowed hard.

"It wouldn't matter," Miriam said. "We wouldn't let you go with them anyway."

Mac had to turn away from the raw wash of emotion twisting Tiffany's face. If they got out of this, it looked like Tiffany may have found, in the Campbells, something her own father had never given her.

"You got any more shotguns to go with that twelve-gauge you use as a greeter?" Mac asked Jas, keeping his voice as calm as possible.

"A twenty- and a sixteen," Campbell said as he hunched over and made his way out of the living room. "Got some rifles, too. I'll go get 'em."

Billie came hustling back about that time, his eyes wide.

"One of 'em did something at the side of the house."

"They cut the phone wires," Jas said. "Come with me, son. I'll need help with the guns and ammo."

"McClain!" Edwards yelled again. "We know you and Ms. Garrett are in there. You know me. You've worked with me. You know I'm not here to hurt anyone. I just want what's best for Tiffany."

"That would be why you've brought the goons with the heavy artillery, right?" Mac yelled back out the open window.

"No, oh no," Edwards said, hands up in supplication. "They're just here for extra security. We don't want anything happening to Tiffany in transport."

"Nothing's going to happen to her, because she's not going with you. Now why don't you and your playmates hit the road before the cavalry arrives. The sheriff and his deputies ought to be here any minute."

Edwards, looking even more frazzled, turned back to the others. A brief round of conversation followed.

When he turned back, he dragged a shaking hand over his hair. "There's no one coming. We all know it. Look," he stated, and took a couple more steps forward, a hand out as if in a plea. "Don't, please don't, delay any longer. I don't want anyone to get hurt. I want to make this all right."

"For who? You? Tiffany? What about Clayborne?" Mac asked as Jas and Billie came back with two more shotguns and two rifles. A lever-action 30
/
30 and a bolt-action 30-06.

"Not exactly automatic weapons, but these ought to adjust a few attitudes," Campbell said, keeping the lever-action for himself and handing Mac the automatic.

No, Mac thought, a couple deer rifles and three sporting shotguns weren't any match for three 7.62mm automatic assault rifles that could fire an entire thirty-round clip in one wide, fast sweep.

"You don't understand," Edwards tried again. "The only way we can straighten this all out is to take Tiffany home. Please." He sounded close to panic. "Just do as I ask so no one gets hurt."

"Not going to happen," Mac assured him, and waited to see what the response would be.

One of the figures in black said something to the guy who had cut the wires. He raised his AK-47 to his shoulder.

"Get down!" Mac shouted. "Everybody down!"

A sharp crack split the air.

Then dead silence.

Hunched down beside the window, Mac looked at Jas. The other man's eyes were steady but questioning. No sound of shattering glass. No indication that a bullet had hit the house.

"Send her out," a deep voice said. It was not Edwards. "Or one of you will be the next to die."

Next to die?

"It's him," Eve said. "That's the voice of the guy who attacked me."

Mac chanced a peek out the window.

Edwards lay facedown in the driveway. He wasn't moving. A dark pool of blood stained the tan-hued dirt around his head.

"Jesus," Mac said, and pulled back, facing a living room full of wild-eyed faces. They had no idea what had just happened.

"They shot Edwards." He looked at Eve. She blinked back at him, still steady, still in control. "What the fuck is going on?"

"I guess we'll figure that out soon enough," she said. "Now we need to figure out how we're going to take them out."

"You have a safe place in the house somewhere?" Mac asked.

Jas nodded. "Take Tiffany and Billie to the basement, Miriam. Fruit room. And lock the door. Don't open it for anyone but us. And stay put until we come for you."

"I'm staying here," Billie said, breaking down the double-barreled 16-gauge shotgun and shoving two deer slugs in the twin chambers.

Jas's jaw was clenched, his jaw muscle popping, as he studied his son, whose face was set with determination. The boy was up to it. And Mac wanted Eve out of the line of fire. From the looks of the artillery those three goons were wielding, they'd be in the thick of it soon. The intruders had shot Edwards in cold blood. As far as Mac could tell, he hadn't been armed. They wouldn't hesitate to kill everyone in this house if they had to to get what they wanted.

Eve had drawn the S & W out of her purse and was dropping ammo in the six-shot cylinder when Mac said her name.

"Billie knows the layout up here—inside and out," he said when she looked up. "You don't. You're our best bet to protect Tiffany and Miriam."

She wanted to argue; he could see it in her eyes. But there wasn't time. They both knew it. And she was a pro. She couldn't fault his logic.

She grabbed the 20-gauge. "Can you use this?" she asked Miriam.

"Damn right I can," Miriam said with a clear, steady voice. "You live on a ranch, you learn how to shoot."

"Give me the 12-gauge," Tiffany said, surprising everyone but Eve.

"She used to shoot trap," Eve said when they all looked at Tiffany.

"Works for me," Mac said with an encouraging grin, and tossed Tiffany a box of shells that Jas had dumped on the sofa along with rounds for the other weapons.

"Get the bastards," Eve said with a meaningful look at Mac before they headed for the basement.

"Watch your back," he said as they disappeared down the hall toward the basement.

For the next thirty seconds all he could do was duck and cover as the AKs opened up and strafed the house with a steady and relentless stream of gunfire.

"Go! Go! Go!" Eve shouted, pushing Miriam and Tiffany ahead of her toward the basement steps. "But Jas! And Billie!" Miriam cried.

"Will be all right. McClain knows what he's doing. And your men look like they can take care of themselves, too," she added, purposefully using the word
men
to help Miriam see Billie in that capacity instead of as her little boy. "They've got their job. We've got ours. Now get us the hell into that fruit room!"

Old house, renovated,
Eve decided as her gaze glanced over dark stone and mortar walls as they rushed through two small dank rooms toward the back wall of the basement. Eve shut and locked the doors behind them.

Above them, a low-hanging unfinished ceiling was bolstered up by ancient wooden beams that had turned gray over the years. Dust clung to cobwebs between the two-by-fours spaced every foot and a half or so that braced the floor above. Once the first door closed behind them, they were in near darkness in a small room that smelled of dank and damp and of years of existence with little sunlight.

"Through here," Miriam said, and opened yet another door.

She flipped a light switch, and a bare bulb that couldn't have been more than 40 watts cast both light and shadows across the room, which was approximately ten by ten. A small window near the ceiling was the only source of outside light.

The walls were lined with shelf after shelf containing glass canning jars full of everything from beets, to tomatoes, to beans and Lord knew what else. They provided the only color in an otherwise cave-dreary existence.

The room was cool and deadly quiet now that the shooting had stopped.

"What do you think it means?" Miriam asked, standing in a corner with Tiffany pulled protectively to her side.

"It means they've stopped shooting," Eve said deadpan, then gave them a tight smile. "I don't know," she said. "But I figure it can only be good. It's three to three up there. We have the benefit of shelter and familiarity—at least your guys do."