What She Saw (20 page)

He couldn’t have. In fact, thinking it over, he had to believe it was an impulse on the part of White Shirt to do it. That couldn’t have been planned. Except he’d sat there after the other truck pulled away. Not long, as it happened, but what if he’d been planning to get Haley when her shift ended? What if he’d intended to wait another hour if necessary, follow her home and do her there?

A crime of opportunity he couldn’t have foreseen. But foreseen or not, he now had to fix it.

Just then a huge tumbleweed, maybe six feet in diameter, rolled out onto the road. Before he could avoid it, it had stuck itself to the front end of the car, blocking his view.

He jammed on the brakes, cussing a blue streak. With every second, Haley was getting farther away.

* * *

Much as she struggled to think of something, Haley came up with no ideas. She’d have to find a way to do something when they stopped. Glancing over at White Shirt again, she wished she had the nerve to reach over and pull the keys from the ignition. But his left hand was still on the butt of that pistol in his lap, and the barrel was still pointed directly at her.

She’d need a better opportunity. She just prayed she would find one.

* * *

Buck pulled the tumbleweed loose, most of his attention on the taillights that were growing ever smaller. His hands got scratched up on the dried, sharp branches, but he hardly noticed. At last he tugged it free and tossed it. The wind picked it up again and carried it straight into a fence, where it tangled even as he was climbing back into the car.

He jammed the accelerator, the car protested, tossing gravel, then gripping the road. Still, it went. Risking his neck, he pushed it up over fifty on the road he couldn’t really see, willing the distance between him and those taillights to close. It seemed to take forever, but gradually they got larger again.

Then the truck turned. In that instant Buck knew exactly where they were going. Plans began to roll around in his mind. He could do this.

He just had to do it before they hurt Haley.

* * *

The Liston farmstead! Haley recognized it even in the dark and from a distance. The house lights were all off, the family still sleeping, but there was a dim light emanating from the barn.

She didn’t know whether this was bad or if it could have been worse. She
did
know she was disappointed in Mr. and Mrs. Liston, although she guessed she wasn’t really surprised about Jim. Not with that fancy car. Not with that certain slickness she had detected. No, she guessed she knew how he made his money now, and it wasn’t selling cars.

But some of her calm seeped away as they turned into the drive and bounced toward the barn. She had no idea who would be waiting. Jim? Most likely. Those three guys? Maybe. Whether she could do anything at all depended on who was there, what was available and what opportunities she might see.

Buck had done this kind of thing for a living, and she wished desperately that he was there to guide her. As it was, she couldn’t even tell if he had followed. She’d caught no sight of a car behind them, and given the dubious state of her car, it was entirely possible that even if he had followed it had broken down.
Please,
she prayed,
let it at least make it this far.

As they rolled toward the opening barn door, she decided that her first need would be to delay whatever these guys intended for her. To find some way to put them off, or make it more difficult to deal with her. She had no real experience of fighting, so she’d have to rely on her wits, wits that had never been tested in a situation like this.

Into the dimly lit barn. The first person she recognized was Jim Liston. Then her heart sank as she saw the other three men. Five men, one with a gun on her.

God, what was she going to do?

The truck rolled to a stop. White Shirt set the brake without turning the engine off and pointed the gun at her. “Get out,” he said.

She was about to comply when the door opened. She nearly tumbled into Jim Liston’s arms.

“Haley?” He sounded shocked. Anger suddenly filled his voice. “Dammit, Cal, what were you thinking? She wasn’t involved in any of this! Now we’ve got a problem.”

“She saw me,” White Shirt said, his voice flat and cold. “I don’t leave witnesses.”

“My God!” Jim took Haley’s arm and helped her out of the truck, none too gently. “You can’t do this! If this woman disappears, they won’t stop looking until they roll up the whole operation!”

The three other guys responded to that, straightening. But it was not Haley they looked at, it was White Shirt. And they didn’t look happy.

“You’re going to cost us millions,” Jim shouted. “You damn fool!”

White Shirt was evidently getting the message. He still held the gun, and now he leveled it at the three men. “She’s mine. The rest is your problem.”

“You just made her our problem,” one of the three men said. He was tall and lanky, and a thin scar ran down his cheek.

“I won’t talk,” Haley said quickly. “I promise I won’t talk. I don’t even know what’s going on!” Calm had completely deserted her, but now adrenaline was rising in huge waves.

“Get over here.” Jim grabbed her arm and dragged her over to a few bales of moldy hay. “Sit and don’t move. I swear, Haley, you give any of these guys cause for concern and there’s nothing I can do.”

“I just want to go home. I told you, I don’t know what this is about.” God, for an instant she loathed how craven she sounded.

“Then shut up.” Jim shoved her down onto the hay and grabbed a rope. He seemed to have a lot of experience tying people up, because he quickly bound her wrists and ankles, and then tied them together behind her back.

She would have loved to fight. Would have loved to jump, screaming, at just one of these guys, but even as her heart and mind shrieked a desire for action, a more sensible part realized it would only get her killed.

She lay on her side on the stinking, prickly hay, watching, fearful and furious all at once. And behind her back, she struggled to free her hands. The rope began to bite into her and rub her raw. She hardly noticed the pain.

“Let’s get this damn load down,” Jim said. “Haley can wait.” He turned once more to cuss at Cal—White Shirt—before the five of them went to the rear of the truck and rolled up the door.

A ramp was pulled out, and Haley peered over her shoulder, watching as Cal and two of the other men pushed the crate down it. She wiggled her hands some more, wondering if she was imagining that the rope was loosening.

Looking around her in the dim light, she hunted for weapons. Any kind of weapons. Because she didn’t believe that after all of this they would be able to let her go, no matter what she promised.

* * *

Buck pulled Haley’s car off the road into a copse of trees about a half mile from the Liston place. On this chilly, dark night, even at that distance he could see light coming from the barn, even though he couldn’t make out any real detail. He pulled on his outer gear swiftly, masked his face and checked his knives and the fine wire he had hidden behind his belt. Two knives and a garrote. It might be enough.

He paused just long enough to try his cell. He got a bad signal, but he reached Gage’s voice mail again. He left his message in as few words as possible.

“Liston place. They kidnapped Haley.”

Then he turned the phone off, jammed it into a utility pocket on the leg of his pants and set out at a dead run.

The rules had just changed. Haley was in danger. Damn the law.

He’d break every single law on the books to save that woman.

Hell, he’d die for her.

Chapter 17

T
he men were busy inside the barn and
clearly not concerned that anyone might be watching. Buck crept up to the back
side, away from the open door, and began peering through grimy windows.

Having the light inside made it a whole lot easier to see the
interior. No flashlight bounced back at him off the cloudy glass. While the
filth on the windows didn’t exactly help, it no longer prevented him from seeing
anything.

His heart slammed when he saw Haley tied up and lying on the
bales. He could tell she was trying to free her hands without moving too much.
He wanted to run in there and scoop her up immediately, but he wasn’t that
stupid and he was better trained than that.

Tamping down every bit of patience, seeking the cold and
calculating part of him that would help them both survive this night, he began
to prowl around the outside of the barn, learning where everyone and everything
was.

There were five men in there, he soon realized. Not bad odds.
He’d faced worse in his day and faced men who were better trained than most of
these goons. Still, it wouldn’t pay to underestimate any of them.

Jim and another tall man, Scarface, stood to the side and
watched as the three others struggled to move the crate out of the way so the
truck could back out. It was headed for exactly the spot where he had suspected
a crate was hidden under the tarp the other night.

From the pigpens came squeals and other sounds of disturbed
pigs, but no light went on in the house. The senior Listons evidently wanted to
know nothing about what their son was doing in the barn. Good.

Oddly, only one man, White Shirt, appeared to be armed. He
thought about that for a moment and found it hard to believe. Did they really
all feel that secure out here? Including the three who had come from out of
town?

He was reluctant to believe it.

Coming around to the side of the barn farthest from the road,
Buck saw the blue pickup and two black SUVs. He crept up on them and tried the
doors. Two were locked, but the third one was not. Standing on the passenger
side, he didn’t think he could see a key in the ignition.

While the men inside struggled to move the heavy crate, he
quietly opened the door and was grateful the ignition-key alarm didn’t sound.
Then he leaned in and began to search.

He found two pistols in the glove box, both Glocks. He pulled
out the magazines and tucked them in his pocket. Then he took both guns and
emptied the chambers. Useless now. That’s the way he liked them.

Both the other cars were locked, which was fine, and they
didn’t have car alarms. Very stealthy, these guys. He found some pieces of
metal, jammed them into the door locks and hoped that they hadn’t somehow
improved cars so that jamming the locks wouldn’t prevent keyless entry from
working.

He checked out the barn again and saw that Haley was still on
the bales, still tied up. The men were busy trying to pry the crate open now
without doing obvious damage. Five minutes?

He took the time to check Jim’s car. It wasn’t locked either
and contained no weapon. He took a moment’s delight in ripping some wires from
under the dashboard, putting the car to bed.

He had just moved back to the barn to plan his move when he saw
headlights coming down the road. Hell.

He checked out the interior scene again, assured himself that
no one was paying attention to Haley yet, then drew back into the shadows,
waiting. In a last-minute decision, he decided to grab one of the Glocks from
the unlocked SUV and reload it. Quietly.

God knew what was going to happen next.

A white Suburban turned into the Listons’ drive and came
bouncing boldly to the door of the barn. An older man, Murdock Bertram, he
assumed, climbed out.

“I see things are back on schedule,” he said as he walked into
the barn. “Who are these guys?”

“My guy sent them,” Jim said. “I told you he didn’t like
delays.”

“Well, obviously nothing is delayed then, is it? Is the
shipment okay?”

“We’ll see in a minute.” The men were still prying the crate
open, taking forever because they couldn’t damage it.

Then Murdock swore. “What the hell is that girl doing
here?”

“Ask him,” Jim said, pointing to White Shirt. “He screwed
up.”

“She
saw
me,” White Shirt argued.
“No way I’m leaving a witness.”

“Well, now she’s seen
me,
too,”
Bertram said. “She’s seen all of us. You damned fool! You can’t just disappear
someone around here. Not someone like her. She doesn’t even take mountain hikes.
They’ll be looking for her before tomorrow night.” He swore again.

“I’ll make it look like an accident,” White Shirt said.

“Like I believe that.”

“I swear,” came Haley’s quivering voice, “I won’t say a word.
Who would believe me, anyway?”

A pang pierced Buck’s heart as he listened to her. He hated
hearing her plead for her life and hated himself for having put her in this
position. Although maybe he hadn’t. Maybe White Shirt had wanted her since he
learned she had reported the cargo exchange to the cops. And where would he have
learned that? From Claire. The wife of the man who was standing there right now,
cussing.

“You freaking idiot!” Bertram said. “I ought to put you six
feet under. Nobody would miss
you
.”

Buck peered in through the window nearest the door. His mind
slipped into gear again, figuring sight lines, vectors, stamping himself a
mental image of where everyone was standing, including the one guy who had a
gun.

They finally got the crate open. Buck judged there was no hope
of the cavalry arriving in time. It was just him. Blood flowed to every part of
his body as it readied. He was going to need to be explosive, and if there was
one thing he’d always been, it was explosive.

He squatted, stretched, shook himself loose.

“You’d better go put those Canadian plates on your car,”
Bertram said to White Shirt as one of the others pulled some packing foam loose
and revealed a cavity containing two large black leather bags.

Game time,
Buck thought as the man
headed toward the barn door.

He waited, plastering himself against the wall until the guy
rounded the corner. Then, almost faster than the eye could see, he slammed the
blade of his hand into the guy’s windpipe, and the fingers of his other into his
solar plexus.

White Shirt dropped without a sound, strangling silently,
unable to suck any air through his crushed windpipe. The solar plexus had just
been added protection.

Down to five. He picked up the dying man and dumped him behind
one of the vehicles. Then he resumed the position.

“Go see what’s taking him so damn long,” Bertram finally
snapped. “God, how long does it take to screw on a license plate?”

It was Scarface who came this time. He paused at the corner of
the barn, trying to adjust his eyes to the darkness of the night. Buck didn’t
give him time.

His hand snapped out to grab the guy’s collar and yank him
around into the darkness. Again the blade of his hand to the throat, a
satisfying crunch.

Four to go.

But he couldn’t wait any longer. In another minute everyone in
the barn would realize something had gone wrong. They wouldn’t come out singly,
and he wouldn’t put it past any of them to get nervous enough to use Haley as a
hostage.

She lay on the bales. Near the edge. He just hoped she was in a
condition to obey a barked order.

Hefting the Glock, he made his way to the door.

* * *

Haley heard Buck’s voice, and for an instant she froze
in disbelief. Then the words penetrated. “Haley, hit the floor!”

At once she rolled off the bales, getting the wind nearly
knocked out of her. She struggled against her bonds and felt one wrist come
free. She hardly noticed it was now wet with blood.

Twisting, she tried to work at the ropes and in the process saw
Buck, practically a blur because he moved so fast, going after the four guys.
God, he was outnumbered! She fought harder against her bonds, trying to pick a
knot apart with one hand, and heard a gunshot.

Time seemed to stop. She froze and stopped breathing. Then,
lifting her head, she looked and saw one of the men on the floor, a gun
nearby.

And Buck. Moving like a ninja or a karate expert or something.
She’d never in her life seen a real person move like that. He seemed to be
everywhere at once.

The three remaining men converged on him, but at least two of
them were next to useless as far as she could tell. A roundhouse kick caught
Murdock Bertram in the side of the head. A punch to the gut brought Jim to his
knees.

The last guy, though, looked like he knew how to fight. She
fought harder against her bonds, needing to help, to do something, and got her
other hand free.

* * *

It was almost with pleasure that Buck saw the last guy
knew what he was doing. The rest had been almost too easy, and he had a little
mountain of fury he needed to work out.

It never entered his head he might lose. He never lost. He’d
been trained to take on the best of the best.

They circled each other, getting ready, looking for
opportunity. The other guy’s hand flashed toward his belt and a knife came out.
A switchblade.

Buck pulled his barong from his own waist and the fight
engaged. Jabs and parries, one after another, never holding still, almost
dancing like boxers. A flash as the other guy’s knife stabbed toward him. He
jumped to the side and the blade met air.

And then he saw his moment. The other guy was slightly
off-balance now, his feet out of position. Buck moved to the right and snapped a
foot into the outside of the man’s knee, hearing the crackle and pop of tearing
ligaments. His attacker crumpled with a scream of pain and rage that ended when
Buck drove the heel of his hand into the man’s jaw. The attacker was unconscious
before he hit the ground.

Buck waited, breathing heavily, for someone to move, to come at
him again. Then he heard the most beautiful sound in the world.

Haley asked, “Need some rope?”

* * *

A week later, Haley sat at the counter at the truck
stop, sipping coffee, eating blueberry cobbler and being questioned by Hasty as
fiercely as any of the cops who had talked to her. Well, maybe more so.

“I want every detail,” Hasty said. “I knew something was going
on, but I didn’t know what. And when that Jim Liston came in here and started
asking questions, I called him, you know.”

“You did?”

“You better believe it. I told him I didn’t care what was going
on in my parking lot, but he’d damn well better stay clear of you and make sure
nothing happened to you.”

Haley felt astonished. “Really? You knew something was going
on?”

He snorted. “I don’t miss much, but keeping my mouth shut is
the way I keep my business. But look at you,” he said, pointing to her bandaged
wrists. “They hurt you.”

“Well, Jim didn’t,” she said fairly. “I think he was trying to
protect me.” Which was as kind as she was going to be.

“He better have been. I can’t imagine how terrified you must
have been.”

“I was,” she admitted. “But maybe not as scared as I could have
been. I knew Buck was coming, and I thought the sheriff wouldn’t be far behind.
Only it turned out that something was wrong with the cell-phone tower, so only
Buck was coming. But he was enough. Quite enough.”

“I heard he killed two of the guys. Is that true?”

Haley hesitated.

“He was protecting you,” Hasty said kindly. “In my book that
makes it okay. You don’t have to tell me, but I want all the details.”

“I can’t tell you everything,” she answered. “I’m not supposed
to say too much and anyway, I don’t know
everything
.
I guess it’s not all finished yet.”

“Then for God’s sake, give me the outline. I never would have
figured Claire for a criminal.”

“I’m not sure she is.” Haley sighed. “It’s a mess, Hasty.”

“Just tell it however it comes out.”

“From what I can tell, Murdock Bertram needed a lot of
money.”

“Alpacas,” snorted Hasty.

“That was at least some of it. From what I heard, when he saw
Jim come up last spring, he figured out Jim was making a lot of money.”

“That car of his kind of advertises it.”

“It does,” Haley agreed. “So anyway, he put Claire up to
getting Jim to telling him how. Getting him in on a deal.”

“I don’t want to know how he did that.”

“Neither did I, but it wasn’t pretty. Anyway, Claire had this
thing with Jim, found out what her husband wanted to know. Then Murdock
threatened Jim’s family. His mother, actually. Jim loves his mother.”

“Not enough, judging by what happened to his brother.”

“Jim didn’t do that. I don’t think he had any idea Ray would
get killed. But somehow Bertram had this contact in Seattle at the trucking
company, which helped get the whole ball rolling, and he got Ray a job to keep
him quiet about what was going on at the Liston place. Other drivers were
involved, though, because it would have been too obvious if only one driver was
delivering mixed-up shipments. That’s what Buck is working on back in Seattle.
See? I told you I don’t know everything.”

“It’s enough,” Hasty said, leaning an elbow on the counter.
“Keep going or we’ll get another wave of drivers in here. So Ray shot his mouth
off about coming into money and that’s what got him killed?”

“Evidently. Claire denies she knew she was poisoning him when
she poured his coffee that night. She swears Bertram told her it was just some
stuff to make him sleepy so he’d pull over somewhere, because they wanted to
have a talk with him.”

Hasty shook his head. “If she believed that, she’s dumber than
I thought. Then what?”