Heston (In the Company of Snipers #25)

Chapter Six

Alex took a step into the dense, unforgiving primeval forest the Pacific Northwest was known for. Didn’t it figure? Instead of that damned Irishman, he ran into the guy who’d pulled him to shore earlier, Tom What’s-His-Name. Alex should’ve been suspicious, given the timing of Tom’s arrival and the Irishman’s departure. But what sort of killer brought his son along with him?

“Hi, Mister,” the kid said brightly. As dark as it was in the trees, he looked a lot like Lexie. Sparkly brown-eyed with the same dark undertones in his chocolate hair. He wasn’t as stocky as Lexie, but he had her wide-open smile. He had… Kelsey’s smile.

Alex’s heart pinched tighter. His breath caught in his chest. Felt like he’d swallowed a rock. How could he ever tell his little girl that her Mom was… that Kelsey was…?

No. Just no.

The little guy rattled on, “Daddy and me is still looking all over for your wife, Mister, and Mommy said maybe you could use some coffee and some hotdogs, and maybe you’d like to come sleep with us in our camper tonight, too, cuz” —he sucked in a belly full of air, then blew a hearty puff into the chilly night— “it’s warmer in there than it is out here, and I can even see my breafff! See?” His cheeks puffed with a very big ‘breafff’ indeed.

It wasn’t lost on Alex how the boy’s mitten-encased hand wrapped tightly around his father’s gloved fingers, or how his father smiled lovingly down at his son. Or that the little guy liked to talk. “And you can even sleep in my sleepin’ bag if you—”

“Hush, Jackie,” Tom interrupted gently, his gaze keen on Alex. “Mr. Stewart, you don’t know me, and I wouldn’t be offended if you told me where to go, but you can’t trust Bates.”

“Never did. He’s lying. Acted like he had no idea my wife’s in trouble, but I know damned well my TEAM alerted the Forest Service. He should’ve done something. Anything!”

“Yeah, he’s worthless. Gave me trouble when he saw I was carrying. Showed him my conceal carry permit, but he still threatened me. Said if anything happened while we were camped here, he’d see me hang.”

“Hang what, Daddy?”

Tom winked at his son. “A Christmas wreath, Jackie. Now zip your lips and let me and Mr. Stewart finish talking, okay?”

Jackie mimed zipping his lips—just like Lexie would’ve done if she’d been there. Alex’s heart broke all over again.

“Anyway, here,” Tom said, pulling a hefty pistol from his inside jacket pocket and handing it over, grip first. Next came a twenty-count box of nine-millimeter rounds along with a preloaded magazine. “Take these. They’re not much but they’re yours now. I know you won’t rest until you get your wife back and… Oh hell, here.” Tom shrugged out of his jacket and handed that over, as well as the backpack he’d previously dropped on the ground. “There are protein bars in the outside pockets, handwarmers and bottled waters inside. My cell phone’s in there, too. Password’s JackieNTommy , all one word, all lower case except capital J, N, and T. If you need anything else—”

Alex finally heard what Tom was saying. The planet tilted on its axis. His knees nearly buckled at the joining of Kelsey’s murdered sons’ names. Jackie and Tommy Not Tom but Tommy? Why those names? Why here? Why now? Black spots swarmed his vision. His focus faltered, zoomed in and out like a camera lens that couldn’t keep up with the fast-moving picture it was recording. Because—

Jackie and Tommy? Was it even possible? Hell, no. Couldn’t be.

“You’re kidding me, right?” Alex managed to get out before he slapped his free hand against the scraggly pine beside him to catch his balance. What was God doing? Messing with his heart? His mind? Why those particular names? Was it in any way possible He’d actually sent Kelsey’s dead sons, Jackie and Tommy, to help Alex find their mother? Now? When all seemed lost? Was this merely a coincidence or was it an actual, no-kidding sign from God? Or, which was more likely, was it the breakdown Alex deserved? Had he finally lost his mind?

Tom took a quick step into Alex and, stretching forward, settled a hand onto his shoulder. Tom’s fingertips dug into the muscle, his tenacious grip the only thing keeping Alex upright. That had to be the problem. The world was no longer solid. He’d finally lost his mind.

Alex looked across the shimmering space between him and Tom, into the same dark eyes as Kelsey’s. As her dead sons’ eyes. As Jackie’s and Tommy’s eyes. Those were their names. The boys Kelsey’s ex-husband had drowned in frigid Henderson Bay. It happened years ago, but the similarity in Kelsey’s boys’ looks, the color of their hair and eyes, with Tom’s and his son’s, was frightening. Tears for all Kelsey’d lost filled Alex’s eyes. Why those names?!

“You need help. You’re still bleeding, sir,” Tom said quietly. “I’d be glad to search with you, Sergeant Stewart, for as long as it takes. All night if you’re up for it. But you need medical care for that—”

“Do I know you?” Alex interrupted. He didn’t care that he was bleeding. He wasn’t the important one here.

“Probably don’t remember me, but yeah, a long time ago, I had the privilege of spotting for you. We were in Iraq. It was before you were called home. Before you got the news… just before you lost your family.”

Alex had zero recollection of this guy. But the warmth radiating off that sturdy hand on his shoulder reminded him that Kelsey wasn’t warm, that he was wasting time she didn’t have. That it didn’t matter who God sent, they’d better be able to shoot while they ran. He didn’t care that he was bleeding. Didn’t care at all.

“Thank you,” he huffed, straightening his spine, pulling away, once again ready to search all night. Hell, for the rest of his life if needed.

“I’d be glad to go with you, sir. Honest,” Tom offered again. “I’ve got another pistol. It’s my wife’s, but she won’t mind if I take it. She’s just as worried for you and your wife as we are.”

Alex shook the man’s sincerity off. “No, stay with your family. Take care of them. They’re your first priority. I’ll be… I’ll be fine… Tom.”

Taking a full step back, Tom nodded reluctantly, then tugged his son in front of him. “We’ll be here in the morning if you need anything. That camper over there is ours. The red, white, and blue one. Can’t miss it. All you have to do is ask.”

“Me and Mommy will say a prayer for you and your wife tonight, Mister,” Jackie chirped.

Alex looked down at the little guy who could’ve passed for Lexie’s twin. “Thank you, Jackie. I’d like that. Will you also promise to take good care of your mom for the rest of your life?”

“You betcha!” Jackie squealed, as if Alex had asked if he’d wanted a bag full of candy instead of the responsibility he’d so cheerfully accepted. Which good mothers were, weren’t they? The best sort of candy? The perfect blessings. Sweetness and honey wrapped inside kind hands and warm hugs. And now he was waxing poetic? WTF?

Stoically, Alex turned away from the friendship radiating from these two unlikely, shaggy-haired strangers—a man and a boy. Who just might be angels sent from heaven. Alex knew better than to discount miracles. Especially when he needed one so badly.

He faced the wall of pines looming around and over the campground, as dark as the powers of Hell that lurked over good and honest families the world over. Alex didn’t usually drop F-bombs, but tonight was different. Because of the gentle father and son who’d helped him when another had walked away, he didn’t speak it. But he thought it. Hell had better get the fuck out of my way.

First task? Search the campground. Whoever had Kelsey might just be hiding her under Alex’s nose. That was what he’d do. Hiding her nearby made the most sense in this weather. How else could the Irish bastard have gotten away so quickly?

Alex headed for the circular gravel road that branched off into four separate campsite loops, but went the opposite direction of Tom and his son. Rows of skinny alpine firs blocked the views between campsites and campfires. Cedar shavings covered the pathways. Some hikers had tents. A couple had campers. One had a tear-drop trailer, the damned small things he couldn’t abide.

He was well into the second loop when he thought of Murphy and Mark. Son of a bitch! He should’ve called them. He had a phone now. He should’ve remembered! Shit, he’d never been this slow-witted before. Lifting Tom’s phone out of his pocket, he first made sure it wasn’t the Irishman’s burner, raised it up to his face to read the damned numbers, and—

An orange glow glittered from far in the shadows at his right. What the hell? Some idiot had backed a small trailer into the trees, not into a numbered campsite. The orange glow flickered brightly from inside its dark windows. Alex’s heart stopped. The rig was on fire. Too bad! He didn’t have time to care about someone else’s nightmare. Not now. He had to find Kelsey, not waste precious time saving someone else’s piece-of-trash trailer.

His mind replied with something that sounded like what Kelsey would say if she were there. There might be kids inside. Or a dog or someone who can’t save themselves. Maybe someone’s grandmother.

That did it. Stuffing the phone back into his pocket, Alex cursed a blue streak and aimed for the trailer. God, those things were nothing but toxic, gas-filled tinderboxes on wheels, and if there were kids or dogs inside, they’d be helpless. Might already be overcome by fumes.

But Kelsey would want him to help. So would Lexie and baby Bradley and… and Tommy and Jackie and…

“Son of a bitch!” Alex hissed when the trailer’s hot-as-hell door handle fell into his gloved hand. He flung the cheap chunk of metal behind him, then charged inside to rescue—

His heart stopped. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

“Kelsey?” he asked like a dolt.

It was her. On her back. Inside someone else’s burning trailer. On a blanket, not under the damned thing. Her coat was gone. So were her boots. She was dressed in someone else’s jeans, t-shirt, and socks. Except for her wet hair that someone had spread out on the floor around her head, she was dry. The same asshat had folded her arms across her chest, like… like she was dead.

Anguish that she was, that he’d arrived too late, swamped Alex. He dropped to his knees beside her, afraid to hope, so damned sick at heart that he was too late. Sticking a gloved finger between his teeth, he jerked his glove off, then rested his bare fingers against her neck.

Poor thing was as cold as ice and pale, no coloring at all. Even the dark brown hair she’d twisted into a braid this morning, so she could stow it inside her woolen cap, seemed faded, fanned out like it was.

But there it was, thank God, there. Right there. Alex found her pulse. Barely registering. Thready at best, but her pulse, damn it. She was alive.

He shot a quick, discerning glance around the one-room trailer. The fire had been deliberately set in the sink below the front window. From there, it had spread to the countertops made of particle board, engineered from wood chips and highly flammable synthetic resin to bind it, then pressed into cheap lumber that would burn hot and quick, given the chance.

As if agreeing with his condemnation, the countertop bubbled, popped, and hissed. Flames licked their way up the copper backsplash to the walls, then—

Alex didn’t think twice. Just reached as gently as he could beneath his wife’s neck and under her knees, and lifted to his feet. He leaned back on his heels until her head tipped against his chest. There wasn’t time to calculate the damage moving her might cause. Saving her life came first.

By the time he was upright, fire was skittering up the walls like tiny blue-flamed aliens. Alex curled his head and shoulders over Kelsey, took a deep breath, and kicked the door open. As expected, oxygen rushed in and fed the flame behind him. Growling like a beast, he squared both shoulders against the door frame. Just in time. With a great, roaring breath, the son of a bitchin’ trailer tried to blow him out through its narrow doorway. Alex refused the fury at his back, jolting Kelsey just to save himself. It was only a two-foot drop, but—

He would not hurt her!