Bitter Truth Read online

  He knew the rational thing was to let her go, let her remain divorced from emotions that might cloud her judgment. But to hell with rational, logical thinking. He needed her; refused to accept the possibility of a life without her in it.

  “Promise me,” he urged her, their bodies pressed together. “Promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid, that you’re going to play it safe. Promise me you’re going to make it back.” It was the one thing she prided herself on, never making a promise she couldn’t keep. “I need to hear the words. Lucy, promise me.”

  “Now who’s putting their faith in magical thinking?” she chided him, even as her fingers stroked his cheek. “Nothing I say, no words, will make a difference.”

  “They will to me. Promise me.”

  He hated her hesitation. In those few seconds lay the destruction of all their hopes and dreams. Not just his and Lucy’s, Megan’s as well. Finally, she raised her chin as if defying every god in heaven, looked him in the eye, and said, “I promise.”

  And then she was gone. She removed the walking stick and the trap door lowered, cutting off what little light he had, leaving Nick alone in the dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  With the help of the walking stick, Lucy climbed to the top of the ridge, aiming for the path that led to the Holmstead house. Once off the scree with its shifting ground, she felt more secure and was able to move fairly silently, if slowly, through the forest. She sensed animals moving but couldn’t see or hear them. Nothing seemed to be coming close—if anything, they were headed away from the ravine and the bear trap. Then she heard the distant growl of an ATV coming up the trail Gleason had used this morning. No, make that two all-terrain vehicles coming from the direction of the house. Davenport and his men.

  At most she could expect four bad guys. Three, if Amy and Gus were still alive and one had been left to guard them. But best to count on four. If she took care of them, she could deal with everything else.

  The trick would be to get them to reveal themselves, then for her to get close enough to take them out one by one, using the Beretta as the last resort—the sound and muzzle flare would give her position away.

  No food, no water, no ankle brace to support her leg on this rugged terrain, no jacket, no Kevlar, no backup…at least none coming anytime soon. It would depend on when Gleason received Nick’s message and how long it took him to get here. She reassessed her assets. In addition to her Beretta and folding knife, she had what was left of the roll of duct tape, the map of the bear traps that Gleason had given her, her MagLite and walking stick, belt, holster…oh! She wore it every day; how could she have forgotten? The bracelet Megan had given her—it was made of woven paracord. Perfect.

  She released the bracelet’s plastic clasp and pocketed the handcuff key secreted within—Megan had initially added it as a joke, but that handcuff key had saved Lucy’s life back in January—and unwound the black paracord. For some reason, clutching the length of thin rope in her hand she felt stronger, more confident about the outcome.

  True, the bad guys were fighting over a priceless treasure and maybe also trying to get away with murder, but Lucy was fighting for something so much more precious: her family.

  Davenport and his men didn’t stand a chance.

  First, she needed to lead them away from Nick. No; first she’d set her traps. Then draw them in before they reached Nick.

  She scrambled down the forested side of the hill and staked out a chokepoint where the trail narrowed and she found two trees just the right distance apart. She tied the paracord at neck height, stretching it taut. The black cord was invisible in the darkness. Then she found a place for her ambush—a slight rise in the trail just before the choke point. She bent a long, flexible branch down, fastened her belt around it, then anchored the belt with a rock on the side of the trail. She could just make out her belt buckle glistening in the faint moonlight.

  Then she sidled silently down the trail until she reached a sharp curve. Once she rounded it, she jogged as fast as she could, heading directly behind the path of the ATVs that, from the noise, weren’t far away at all.

  When she grew close to the ATVs, she turned her MagLite on and used it to light her way, purposefully waving it so they’d see someone there but not well enough to aim accurately. She hoped.

  Finally, one of the men spotted her light reflecting from the treetops and shouted to his companions. The ATVs slowed to a stop. Lucy could see the men turning toward her, their faces pale in the dim light. The ATV closest to her held two men. Lucy aimed her light directly into the passenger’s eyes as he turned around in his seat and raised his weapon. Then she spun, turned off her light, and raced back down the trail. The whine of the ATVs gunning their engines as they turned around on the narrow trail to follow her filled the night sky.

  Her bad ankle almost tripped her up—without the brace, her toes tended to drag on the ground—but the walking stick kept her upright, and she managed to reach her belt just as the ATVs sped around the curve. She tugged on the belt, releasing the tree limb so that it sprang back hard enough to rustle the brush while she dove into her ambush site on the other side of the path.

  She drew her pistol and waited, quieting her breathing.

  “Where’d she go?” A man’s voice sounded over the noise of the ATVs.

  “There’s movement in the trees.”

  “Cut her off!”

  The first ATV, the one carrying two men, sped up while the second slowed and its driver fired his AR-15 into the shuddering bushes across from where Lucy lay in wait. Then came the scream of a man as the first ATV’s driver was caught by her paracord clothesline.

  Lucy came up beside the second ATV, whose driver was now facing away from her as he aimed into the trees. “Drop it,” she told him.

  He started to lower his rifle but the third man, who’d been riding behind the driver on the lead ATV, appeared in her periphery. Before she could do anything, he began to fire. He had his semi-automatic rifle on burst and let loose a volley of shots in rapid succession, all hitting wide of the mark as he lost control, going wide and high.

  Lucy dove, using the ATV for cover and the muzzle flash to target the shooter. The man above her cried out as the flurry of bullets ripped through him and fell forward, motionless.

  She fired at the shooter. Two quick shots, center mass. He grunted in pain, dropping his weapon as he slumped to the ground. Cautiously, she crept toward the stalled lead ATV. Its driver was nowhere to be seen—the clothesline maneuver may have stunned him, but it clearly hadn’t incapacitated him.

  She turned back to the man on the dirt between the two ATVs. He had the AR-15 with the thermal imaging scope. He was still breathing but in short gasps, blowing blood-tinged bubbles with each breath. She took his rifle, but before she could raise it to sight through the scope, a burst of gunfire from the trees beyond her drove her back behind the ATV for cover. Damn, the last man must also have night vision capacity. And he was a much better shot than his partner. There was a rustle of bushes as he left the trail, taking cover himself.

  The all-terrain vehicle was low to the ground, but Lucy was skinny enough to belly crawl under it. She sighted into the bushes with the rifle, searching for a heat signature—while hoping that the ATV’s engine would help to conceal hers. Nothing, nothing, nothing… He couldn’t be moving, she’d see that, so he must also be behind cover. She chose the largest tree, the one she’d choose if she was searching for cover, and kept it in the center of her sights.

  She was rewarded. As the engine cooled, ticking away the seconds of camouflage it could provide, the white figure of a man’s heat signature emerged, sighting his rifle directly at her. She fired first. Single shots, one, two, three, all aimed center mass. He lurched back, his arms flailing up, and then fell.

  Lucy crawled out from under the ATV. Her ears were ringing, making the forest seem otherworldly in its silence. She methodically checked each man. All dead. She took one dead man’s magazine
from his weapon and used its rounds to top off the magazine of the rifle she kept. They had satellite phones, so she called 911 and got Harriet and quickly explained the situation.

  “Judith’s already headed that way,” Harriet told her. “She might even be at the house—she got a text alert from one of Gleason’s bear traps and tried to reach him and couldn’t, so she knew he’d be out there.”

  “Why would Judith get alerts for the traps?”

  “If an animal’s injured, she has to be prepared.”

  “Call her, tell her to find cover, stay put, and wait for backup. She could be walking into a hostage situation. There’s at least one more armed man out there.” Davenport hadn’t been with his partners. Lucy could only hope that he had kept Gus, Amy, and Gleason alive to use as bargaining tools.

  “I’ll call you back.” Harriet hung up.

  Lucy started the ATV and began down the trail towards the Holmstead house. She wasn’t intending to do more than surveil the situation and wait for backup, but then Harriet called.

  “Judith isn’t picking up, and it will be twenty minutes at least before I can get anyone to you—probably longer because the deputies are out ferrying search volunteers all over God’s green earth.”

  “Call the state police, get them moving. And EMS—they can get Nick out of the bear trap. But tell them not to come anywhere near the house until the scene is clear.” Lucy cut the ATV’s engine as she reached the burnt out tree that marked the turnoff to the main house. She climbed off and moved as quickly and quietly as she could down the gravel path toward the house.

  “What are you going to do?” Harriet asked.

  Lucy was still a hundred yards out when she heard two gunshots. Damn. No time left.

  “I’m going in.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When Lucy drew closer to the house, she saw several vehicles now parked out front: a pickup truck and a large SUV. The house and surrounding buildings were all dark. She scanned for heat signatures, but the only ones she saw came from the engine of the pickup truck and a person inside the cab.

  Keeping her pistol handy, she carefully and quietly approached the truck. It was Gleason’s. The front windshield was shot out and the rear one starred with bullet holes. She reached the driver’s side. The door was open, Gleason slumped over in the seat.

  He was breathing, but there was blood gushing from his right chest. Lucy backed away, moving around to the passenger side. She eased the door open, thankful that there was no interior light to give her position away to anyone in the house, and crawled inside.

  “Who?” Gleason moaned.

  Lucy didn’t answer, but instead opened the glove compartment hoping to find a first aid kit. Nothing. She crawled around her seat to search the narrow space behind the seats. Bingo—a field kit was stowed behind the driver’s seat. She also spotted a blown out hole in the seat that corresponded to Gleason’s wound.

  “This is good,” she told him in a low voice. “The bullet went all the way through. Are you having trouble breathing?”

  “Just the pain. Think it cracked a rib.”

  A high-powered rifle, it had probably done a lot more than that. But he was talking okay, so that was a good sign.

  She opened the field kit, grabbed some gauze, and packed his exit wound where most of the blood was coming from. Then she used a square of gauze still sealed in its plastic coating to create a makeshift flutter valve over the entrance wound, taping it on three sides. “This will let any air build up release. Just leave it; don’t cover it.”

  “Amy and Gus—”

  “I’m going now. You just stay tight.” His radio had fallen to the cab floor. Probably a good thing since there was a base station in Gus’s kitchen. She handed him her sat phone instead. “Call Harriet and keep her updated.”

  He nodded, clutching the phone with both hands. Lucy squeezed his arm and left. Using the two vehicles as cover, she reached the front porch. She crouched low, skirting around the house. She tried to look into the windows, but they were all over her head until she reached the bay window at the rear, which was low enough to the ground that she could peer into the kitchen.

  The only light was coming from the bulb over the stove, but it was enough for her to see Davenport where he’d taken up position beside the refrigerator, its bulk protecting him from any assault from the rear of the house. He’d positioned a wall mirror over the microwave, angled so he could see all the way to the front door, enabling him to cover both sides of the house.

  She ducked back down. No sign of Gus or Amy. It had to be Judith’s SUV out front, but there was no sign of her either. Maybe they were all dead—but their absence gave her options. She could shoot Davenport and probably kill him, but then she’d have no answers about what had happened to Bill. Or what Davenport was after. Plus she was already responsible for three men dying tonight; no reason to add a fourth if she didn’t need to.

  “Drop the weapon, Davenport,” she called to him, taking a position to far side of the bay window, between it and the kitchen door.

  His answer was a burst of gunfire that shattered one of the large windowpanes. “You drop yours, Lucy! Otherwise Gus and Amy die.”

  “Talk to me—what’s going on?”

  “They have a radio; I heard the call for the cops and state police. So don’t waste my time. All I want is a way out of here and enough time to grab what’s mine.”

  “You mean the gold?” She was guessing, but it was the only thing that made sense. “Is that why you came after me and Nick?”

  “We found it. But that girl came waltzing in on one of those damn llamas and saw us digging it up. Plus the boss stranded us down there with no way to get it out—didn’t trust us. So we brought the girl up to the house to take their SUV. Stupid old man had to put up a fight and it took longer than it should’ve—the others wanted to just shoot ’em both, but I figured a few bargaining chips stashed away couldn’t hurt. Guess I was right.”

  Until Lucy and Nick had come along at just the wrong time and ruined everything. Had they also gotten Gus and Amy killed?

  “Are Gus and Amy okay?” Lucy asked, holding her breath for the answer.

  “He and the girl are fine. For now.” He raised the hand not clutching his rifle, revealing a cell phone. “But all it takes is a little det cord and a blasting cap to change that.”

  Had he turned the Wi-Fi back on? She didn’t have her cell phone to check to see if there was service, which meant she had to take his threat seriously. She’d seen the SWAT team blow through metal doors with a few feet of det cord—she didn’t want to imagine what it could do to a human body. The only good thing was that there was no easy way to rig a dead man’s switch using a cell phone. But all he needed was a split instant to press a button and send the trigger message to his IED.

  She rested her rifle beside the kitchen door and kept her Beretta holstered. Her collapsed walking stick rested in the side pocket of her cargo pants. Maybe it wasn’t as good as an ASP, but it could still make for an effective weapon.

  “I’m coming in.” All she had to do was buy enough time for backup to arrive. Or maybe give him what he wanted—given that there was only one road in or out, he was as good as caught already. She extended both hands, nudged the screen door open with her hip, and sidled inside, keeping her back to the wall. “Tell me where Gus and Amy are and I’ll let you leave.”

  “In the basement.” He trained his rifle on her. “If you’re here, my guys are gone, aren’t they?” He nodded to the radio base station on the desk beside the kitchen table. “I heard chatter about three being down. That was you?”

  “I thought you were in a hurry to leave. Go on, no one’s stopping you. But you don’t have much time. You’ll need to take the SUV—you shot up Gleason’s truck, so I doubt it will run. But before you go, tell me where Bill Beachey is.”

  “What are you talking about?” He frowned, as if suspecting a trap. “What SUV?”

  Before Lucy could answe
r, a shot cracked through the window. Davenport rocked back against the refrigerator and then slumped to the floor, his brains leaving a bloody trail on the white enamel. Lucy drew her Beretta and spun. Judith was standing at the window, holding the rifle Lucy had left behind.

  Lucy ran to grab Davenport’s cell. No message sent. Then she turned to Judith, who had entered the kitchen, still holding the rifle at the ready, her expression blank.

  “Put the rifle down on the floor, Judith,” Lucy told her in a calm, steady voice, even as she edged away from the muzzle. Slowly, Judith complied, just as the sound of approaching vehicles sounded. “Go outside and tell the others it’s safe. Get help for Gleason. I’m going to check on Amy and Gus.”

  Judith nodded in slow motion, her eyes still fixed on Davenport’s corpse. Then she turned on her heel and ran out the door, gagging like she might vomit.

  Chapter Thirty

  By the time the State Police finished with Lucy and Judith, it was well past midnight. Amy and Gus were fine, just a bit shaken after their ordeal, while Gleason and Nick were being flown by helicopter to the Harborview trauma center in Seattle, the same hospital Gleason’s mother worked at.

  They took her Beretta but promised to get it back to her after they were done with ballistic testing. Finally, Lucy found herself riding in Judith’s SUV headed back to the motel.

  “I’d offer to fly you to Seattle, but we still haven’t given up on finding Bill,” Judith said. “Did Davenport tell you anything helpful?”

  “I asked him about Bill, but he didn’t seem to know anything. He talked about a boss, though. Made it sound as if someone had sent them after the gold. I’m guessing it’s someone local—how else could four guys from North Dakota know where to look for buried treasure?”