Heston (In the Company of Snipers #25)

Chapter Four

Disgusted with himself and mad at the world, Alex sat alone on the east bank of the White River, a short way from the campground where he and Kelsey had spent their last night. Not their last night. Just last night! They’d have many more nights together. Alex would make damned sure of it. He just had to find her.

Breathing hard from his fight with the river, he shivered. Not so much because night had fallen, nor because a thin layer of frost now glazed his hair, face, neck, and hands. All were good signs he was still alive. He shivered because, in less than a split second this morning, he’d lost the mother of his children, the woman he adored, and his reason for living. He shivered, not from cowardice or fear, but from an anger so deep, he could barely hold it back.

Once again, the mantra of all his past mistakes whispered, “You should’ve been there.”

“I know!” he ground out. Problem was he had been there, had been right there when she’d been hit. Had had both hands on Kelsey. Could’ve saved her. Should’ve taken the hit for her. But he hadn’t done either, had he? Sure, he’d been hit too, grazed, which still seemed an impossible second shot for anyone to have made. If it had been intentional and wasn’t the mistake of a harried sniper like he’d first thought. Or if that sniper had been closer than Alex had estimated. He’d had too much time to think, but think, he had.

Until remorse started eating him alive.

Fortunately, a man and his son had been strolling the edge of the White and had run to help him. Him , a self-made man. Him , the guy in line to be the nation’s next gawddamned VP. Him, the bastard who couldn’t even save his own wife.

Accepting help—charity—was not Alex’s strong suit. He was the strong one, the giver, the protector. The generous benefactor. But he hadn’t yet been able to catch his breath at that moment. So he’d allowed the kindly hand-up and overbearing concern from a stranger, as well as a steaming cup of soup from the guy’s stainless-steel thermos. He’d allowed Tom, whose last name Alex could not recall, to help him crawl up the rocky riverbank and onto dry land. The kindly Good Samaritan had then helped Alex out of his wet clothes, into warm sweats and a pair of sturdy work boots. Thank God, everything fit.

The whole time, Tom’s little boy had sat nearby watching. Kid had to have been around five. His big, brown eyes and tousled, curly brown hair—dry hair—had stabbed a dagger into Alex’s heart. Kelsey had— has, damn it! Has!— brown hair. The same tint. The same lush, dark shine and natural curl. So does Lexie. Her eyes are just as dark brown. Gawddamnit, Kelsey is still alive. Somewhere. She has to be. Alex couldn’t conceive of a world without her in it. Refused to consider the possibility.

Tom had handed over his cell phone then, and Alex had gotten out the briefest SOS to TEAM HQ. The connection hadn’t been clear, but Murphy had answered. He’d heard. Alex was sure of it. At least… he’d thought he was. He’d led with how Kelsey’d been shot, but then the connection went dead. He hadn’t clearly heard Murphy’s answer, but Murphy’d know what to do. He’d send The TEAM. They might even be on their way now. Alex hoped…

Just as his frantic SOS got cut off, Ranger Bates, his name tag declared, arrived on scene. He left his truck running while he ran to where Alex sat, too weak and tired to fight. “Came as soon as I heard. You okay? Where’re you injured?”

For some reason, Tom signaled Alex with a firm headshake, as he and his kid faded into the shadows. Was that a warning? Or was Tom guilty of something? Alex couldn’t tell. Tom was gone before he could ask. But that small tell from the man who’d braved the White long enough to drag him to safety, made Alex think twice.

“I’m not injured,” he lied to Bates, not admitting weakness until he knew what Tom’s unspoken message meant and what kind of man Bates was. “But someone shot my wife. We were up on Emmons Glacier. He hit her left temple.” I think. The longer Alex thought about what he knew, the more he doubted himself. “She fell in the river. I jumped in after her and—”

“You jumped into the White? On purpose?” Bates’ gloved hands splayed over Alex’s wide shoulders, attempting to press him flat to the ground. “What are you, stupid? The White’s never been this high before and—”

“I had no choice!” Alex shoved this joker’s idea of help off.

Glaring, Bates tipped back on his haunches and clenched his thighs. “And you figured drowning would help your dead wife?”

“She’s not dead!”

“You Californians are all the same entitled—”

“We’re not from California! Never mind. Get out of my way! My TEAM’s on the way. They’ll be here soon and—”

“Your team? ”

Pissed at the sarcasm pouring out of this guy’s mouth, Alex began to doubt himself and his TEAM. Surely Murphy or Mark would’ve sent agents to assist by now. Alex had to admit the call he’d made may not have been clear enough. There’d been plenty of static over the connection, and it had failed before he’d gotten a definite reply. Maybe Murphy hadn’t understood the call for help. Maybe he hadn’t heard… anything.

Even if Alex hadn’t made complete sense, Murphy was smart. He’d know what to do. He’d investigate. He’d follow through. He was Alex’s right-hand man. Well, one of them. By hell, Murphy’d move heaven and, well, hell, to find Kelsey—

If he’d understood and had actually heard that poor excuse of an SOS. Suddenly, Alex wasn’t sure of anything. Was anyone from his TEAM coming? What exactly had Murphy heard?

Truth was, Alex had also been shot, but wouldn’t accept aid until Kelsey was found. His heart hurt worse than his shoulder. Not his actual heart, he hoped, but his chest. His ribs. His sternum. They felt broken. Or cracked. Which was concerning. Because beneath that powerful breastbone was his damned heart, and he’d had problems with it before. He didn’t need those problems again. Not today. He didn’t need Ranger Bates’ help, either. Not like he was going to get it. Just a first-aid kit. That was all Alex wanted.

Bates jerked a walkie-talkie out of his parka pocket. “Listen, buddy, you’re not going anywhere. I’ve got the local ambulances on speed-dial. They’ll come from Eatonville or Enumclaw and it’ll take a while for them to get here, so sit tight and—”

“You’re just now calling them?” Alex climbed gingerly to his feet. “They should already be here. You knew my wife was in that river hours. Murphy Finnegan called you guys.” I know damned well he did. He got my message, damn it. He did! “I’m not leaving without my wife. She’s the one who needs help. Not me.” You son of a bitch! “Where’s Search and Rescue?”

“Sorry, mister… Err, what is your name anyway?”

One of many questions Bates should’ve led with the second he’d arrived on scene—if he honestly hadn’t known what happened or what Alex was talking about. If Murph hadn’t understood Alex’s SOS. If no one from The TEAM was coming. Shit. Maybe Bates was the only help around.

“Alex Stewart. My wife’s Kelsey,” Alex bit out, scrubbing a bruised hand over his wet, aching head, not giving into despair. Not yet. This was one time he wished he were Vice President Stewart. Bet Bates would be jumping through hoops to find Kelsey then.

“Well, Mr. Alex Stewart,” Bates replied with plenty of snark. “Stay put. I’m in charge now and I’ve got—” His walkie-talkie crackled with static. Pressing it to his ear, Bates ordered, “You’re cutting out, Wilde. Say again.”

Whoever Wilde was, he, make that she, enunciated slowly but loudly, “Search. And. Rescue. Units. Are. On. Their. Way.” Which told Alex he’d definitely gotten through to Murphy and someone was already searching for Kelsey. Thank God.

“I’m not deaf!” Bates yelled back at Wilde. “Who told you to contact S and R? That’s my call.” When no response came back, he yelled, “Answer me, Wilde. Who told you we needed Search and Rescue, gawddamnit?”

Again, Wilde didn’t respond. Which was interesting—if Alex had time to care about insubordination within USFS’s chain of command. “You’re pissed because someone else called Search and Rescue? Who the hell are you? What’s going on?”

Bates stuffed the walkie-talkie back into his pocket. “You heard. S-and-R’s on their way.”

“They should already be here! You knew damned well that my wife was shot, you son of a bitch!” Alex cocked his right hand back, ready to kill this useless excuse of a human being.

Bates turned toward his truck. “I’m outta here.”

“You call this help?” Alex spat. He stood there in the dark, watching Bates stomp off. He honestly didn’t know where to search anymore. In the river? Along the bank? Was he a fool for believing Kelsey had survived?

“Jesus,” he growled at the Lord. “She believes in you, damn it. Don’t you dare let her die!”

Remorse hit Alex hard. There he was, back at square one, back to the darkest days in his life, when cursing God was all he’d done. All he’d been smart enough to do. Supposedly he knew better now. Allegedly, he was a better, smarter man because of his wife’s faith. Kelsey had shown him a better way. He’d learned to pray, and he actually felt a connection with the Almighty sometimes. But it was easier to believe when Alex wasn’t faced with losing her.

Maybe that was what his chest pain was. Regret. Guilt. They hurt like sons of bitches, and they weighed him down like his water-logged boots had. He’d kicked the worthless suckers off the second he was on dry land. They signified everything he’d lost.

Would Kelsey have any doubt that you were alive if that was you in the river?

Alex had no idea his conscience could be so loud. He dropped back to his knees. “She believes in you,” he told the Man Upstairs. “With all her heart, she believes in you, and she trusts you. Please don’t take her. Take me. Lexie and Bradley need her more than they need me. You know that. Please…”

Alex forced a swallow that hurt all the way to his soul. He was every bit as lost as George Bailey had been, standing on that bridge in a blizzard, wishing he’d never been born, in that black-and-white film from 1946, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

“Please take me instead of Kelsey, God. Please.”

Of course, God didn’t answer Alex tonight any more than he’d answered George Bailey then. God was sly like that. Silent when you most needed to hear His voice. When you most needed to believe. If Kelsey were there, she’d say this was what faith was about. Believing in the dark. Never doubting that He cared or that He heard. Trusting in Him when all others turned their backs on you. Which Bates had surely done.

It was damned hard to be humble, but Alex chose to believe Kelsey, and that God was silent because He was working too hard saving Kelsey to waste time answering.

Okay then. Alex lifted to his feet, a fraction of his energy restored. Or maybe that was his faith. Because God had already given him a sign in disobedient Ranger Wilde. She’d activated the Search and Rescue personnel without Bates’ permission. Good on her. Hopefully, she’d also ordered all available Forest Service personnel to the scene. Wilde was Alex’s miracle, his prayer answered, interestingly, before he’d offered it.

Right on cue, flashlights from other campers pierced the bleak darkness where Alex stood. Holy shit. Strangers were now tramping this side of the White, calling out loud and strong for “Kelsey Stewart!” Beams from their flashlights gleamed across the noisy river, into the late growth of spindly alpine flowers on the opposite bank.

A chill raced up the back of his neck. Every last one of those flowers would freeze in the coming storm. If they lasted the night. If Kelsey lasted the night… She was every bit as fragile as those damned flower petals. A thousand times more precious. And she was in the river—somewhere—not planted safely on some sandy shore. Not warm. Not within reach…

“Son of a bitch!” Alex hissed at the clouds covering Rainier’s three peaks. Like a stupid greenhorn, he’d handed Tom What’s-His-Name’s phone back to him and now had no way to contact his long list of resources. His pack with his gear was on the northern bank of the river. He had nothing but the borrowed clothes on his back.

His lashes fell at the awful truth. He’d saved his life, not Kelsey’s. What kind of man did that make him? A bastard. A low down, sniveling—

“You the bloke what’s looking for his wife?”

Alex glared at the guy asking the stupid question. Bloke? Interesting word choice. Interesting Irish brogue, too. The guy was slender enough to be called athletic and sported a neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, which made him look older, but Alex pegged him at thirty-five, maybe forty. Dressed in spit-polished black boots, black jeans, a black L.L. Bean down-jacket, and a light-gray ballcap, the guy stayed a good ten yards uphill from Alex. Away from the river and behind the nearest pine. Half-hidden in shadow.

“I am,” Alex answered as civilly as his growing despair allowed.

The man reached inside his jacket and pulled out a rolled package, then tossed it to Alex. He caught it one-handed, pissed that he wasn’t even armed. But that was what happened when you were so stricken with your wife’s absence that you lost all track of operational security.

His two pistols were somewhere in the river, swept away in the icy torrent along with his holster rig. Kelsey’s was probably still in her backpack. Which was why she’d sunk out of sight so quickly. Why she’d sunk at all. If she had. He wasn’t sure of anything. The entire disaster, everything that contributed to her death, pointed at Alex. He would carry this new shitload of guilt until the day he died.

“Open it,” the almost friendly, probably not friendly at all, stranger encouraged. “The next step’s up to you.”

A chill ran up the back of Alex’s neck. “What’s going on?” he growled, even as he kept an eye on the guy and let his fingertips slide into the package’s seam. The cloth separated and an embroidered black rose the size of his palm fell out.

Shit. This was why Kelsey’d been shot? The Black Irish Rose Tavern in Boston? The one Lucy Delaney had blown to hell when she’d cleaned house of her criminal father’s faithful henchmen? Sure, she’d wined and dined them first, got them drunk and mellow, made them believe her takeover of Pops Delaney’s illicit business would go down peacefully. But she’d killed them just the same.

Alex thought of his sickly, conniving father, Mel Stewart, and Mel’s continual lies about his relationship with Pops Delaney, Godfather of the Irish Mafia in Boston. Lucy Delaney’s old man. Pops had been a thug and gunrunner straight out of Ireland to terrorize America. In a jolt of pure luck, Alex’s protocol officer, Maddie Bannister ended Pops during a gunfight a year ago. Shortly after, Lucy had died a hard death, courtesy of TEAM Agent Jameson Tenney’s sharpshooting, on that same dock in Boston the same day she’d killed her father’s men. Problem was, Mel had then revealed that Pops was his brother, making the boss of the Irish Mafia in America Alex’s uncle and good old Lucy his gawddamned cousin. Come to find out Pops had changed his name from Stewart to Delaney when he’d run away from home and fled back to Ireland. God, the swamp of lies Mel Stewart had fabricated to excuse the illegal side of his family. Alex’s flesh and blood, damn them.

And to think that old fart now lived on Alex’s dime. In his house. With his children! But only because Mel had Alzheimer’s. He should damned well thank Kelsey for his more than generous circumstances today. Because Alex would’ve turned his back on the son of a bitch, not invited him in to stay and live out his remaining days in comfort. Not after the shit ton of crap Mel had dumped on his one and only son since the day he’d been born.

Thank God Lexie and Bradley were with trusted neighbors for the duration of this damned getaway. Double thank God that Alex had put Mel in an assisted living home before he and Kelsey left on this disastrous adventure. But if Mel’s past was behind what happened to Kelsey today? Mel could rot in that nursing home for the rest of his worthless life. He could and he would. Alex swore it. He never should’ve let the bastard back into his life.

Still fingering the embroidered rose, he lifted it high enough for the stranger to see. Not saying a word. Not admitting anything. Not giving anything away. If this had to do with the Irish Mafia, like it appeared, things could go south in a blistering second. All Alex gave this bloke was his chin.

The man cleared his throat. He was nervous.

He damned well should be.

“D-don’t worry, she’s alive. F-for now,” he stuttered, then cleared his throat again and lifted both palms to Alex, as if warding off an attack. Which he damned well had coming. “You got a decision to make, son, and it’d better be the right one. Understand what I’m saying?”

“I’m not your son! Where is she? What have you done to her?” His body assumed a fighting stance. His borrowed boots spread far enough to balance his weight if he needed to attack this asshat, to strike first. To hit hard. His fists curled into hammers that could and would bludgeon the Irishman to death. All his past agony boiled to the surface. He wasn’t a successful businessman tonight. He was only Kelsey’s husband. Which made him Armageddon.

His body grew taut and hard with a rage so fierce, it hurt to hold it inside. Without her in his arms, his heart was a scorching cauldron, bubbling with revenge. His blood pumped hot and heavy. Maybe that explained the thumping behind his ribs. Maybe his heart had known all along she was gone. That she needed to be avenged. The thought, the merest hint of her being dead, killed, just killed!

When the Irishman didn’t answer, Alex bellowed, “Have you seen her? Did you hurt her? If you—!”

“Wha’d’ya think I am? A bloody wanker who hurts defenseless women?” the imbecile hissed, like he was the offended one.

“Yesssss! You’re a bloody bastard!” Alex hissed back, taking a step forward, needing to choke the shit out of this Irish moron to get the answers Kelsey needed to live. “Where is she?”

“I didn’t shoot her. If you hurt me, she dies. Stay back,” the blithering idiot proclaimed, his hands still up like the coward he was, his clean shiny boots moving him farther into the shadows and away from Alex and the beatdown he had coming.

Alex froze. How’d this guy know Kelsey’d been shot? Alex hadn’t told anyone but Bates. The urge to attack lifted Alex’s hackles, but logic prevailed. No sense driving this moron away. He wasn’t the mastermind behind this new development. Definitely not the shooter. He hadn’t the nerve or the intellect. Now was not the time to lose his temper. Kelsey deserved better, and if this guy was to be believed— if being the key word—she was, at least, alive.

“Where. Is. She?” Alex asked again.

The Irishman dug into his jacket again and pulled out a cell phone. With a toss, he sent it flying in an arc over Alex’s head, high enough he had to stretch to catch it. When at last he had it in his hand, he looked back at the man. The bastard was gone.

Alex bolted forward, pissed he’d lost his one link to Kelsey. The damned phone in his hand rang. By then, he was on the trail that, at his left led to camp, at his right led into the darkening forest. No sound of a vehicle. No sound of anyone running away. Which meant the Irishman might not be as stupid as he appeared. Which made sense. Whoever was behind this attack had planned well. Maybe all they wanted was ransom. Too bad. All they’d get from Alex was dead.

He hit the answer button, lifted the phone to his ear, and spat, “What?”

“Ah, Alex. Alex Stewart. So good to finally hear your voice,” a cultured but definitely male voice purred. His Irish brogue wasn’t thick, just enough to be noticeable. Hell, it might’ve been fake. Alex was too angry to care. “Hope that little love tap I gave you hasn’t caused much trouble. You are still alive, aren’t you? You can breathe well enough to converse, right?”

“You shot my wife!”

“Tsk, tsk. Such hostility in the face of infinite wealth and power.”

“Where is she? Where’s my wife?”

“All in good time, my chap. All in—”

“Where. Is. She?” Alex boomed. “I’ll kill you both! Bring her to me. That’s the only way you and that chicken shit errand boy you sent get to live!”

A sinister chuckle was his only answer before the connection went dead. Because that was all the caller intended, to rub salt in the cuts he’d created. Alex cocked his throwing arm behind his head, hearkening back to the day when fast-balling his cell phone into the nearest wall brought some measure of relief from the rage he’d carried then.

But today was different. He was different. At least, he was a work-in-progress, trying to be different, to be a better man. His arm lowered slowly as he held onto the only link he had with Kelsey, this untraceable burner phone and some nameless Irishman. If he could be believed, she was alive. And if she was, he and that other bastard had somehow orchestrated the entire fiasco. Which meant the Irishman was either an excellent sniper to have hit both marks like he had or that he’d employed one. Or that his cocky boss was the sniper. That he’d tracked Alex and Kelsey early this morning, that he’d planned to drop her into that precise spot along the river. That he’d purposefully put her life at further risk by letting her drown, then recovering her. Saving her. Which he wanted Alex to believe he had. That she was—somehow—still alive.

For an instant, Alex was thankful. But only because he needed to believe that this jerk would keep her alive until he achieved his goal. The temporary rush of gratitude didn’t last. Whoever the guy behind this was, he was using Kelsey to get at Alex. Alex would have to manipulate him, go along with his demands long enough to get her back. Unwittingly, the mastermind behind her attempted murder had just given Alex what he needed. The thinnest shred of hope.