Addie looked at the send to addresses. “And the ‘Denver Post’?”
“Yeah,” Carl said, looking up at Addie. “I wanted them to know that this time I had a real story. A noteworthy story. One that will hopefully do some good.”
“You’re all right, Carl,” Addie said, giving him her seal of approval.
“Yeah,” everyone else agreed.
“Are we about ready to leave?” Hal asked. “Should I lock up everything?”
“Do we take the files out of here? Or leave them here, now that we’ve scanned them and sent them to the news agencies?” Addie asked.
“Let’s leave them here, secure for now. Just in case, I sent all the documents in the files to all the cougars in our area for safekeeping,” Dan said.
“I love your town,” Addie said, giving him a big hug.
“I love you.” Dan hugged her back, and kissed her. “I’m sorry for all you’ve had to go through, and hope this is the last of it.”
“What about the flash drives? Should we take those?” Bridget asked.
“No, let’s hide everything back where we found them,” Addie said, and began to put the files back in boxes.
Chase, Dan, and Hal returned the files in the hidden place in the vault’s floor and moved the locker back in place. Addie returned the laptop to its secret place underneath the table. And the flash drives were all hidden in their respective hiding places. Once everything was secure, Addie locked everything up.
Carl swore under his breath. Afraid something bad had happened with regard to his contacts, like they’d all be arrested and the information they’d sent them confiscated, she realized it wasn’t that at all. Not when he began stripping off his clothes.
“Do we wait for him to change back?” Bridget said.
“No, it could be hours. He can run as a cougar to the vehicles and get there even faster than us,” Dan said.
“Yeah, much easier to trek like that,” Chase agreed.
Bridget gathered up Carl’s clothes and stuck them in her backpack. “Ready? Let’s go.”
Looking all growly, Carl was at the door, waiting for someone to open it as they all got their backpacks on. It was his fault he got involved with them!
16
Before they left the storage facility, Chet was watching the news on his phone and said, “Well, Fox News and the other stations are running with it now. Only problem now is they’ll be all converging on Yuma Town for the story.”
Dan shook his head. “We didn’t have much choice. We had to stop this now.” He got a call from his dispatcher and put it on speaker.
“Stryker’s got a media firestorm here. Calvin’s hotel is booked, and so are Chase and Shannon’s cabins and every other place far and wide with news media, looking to get the story. Uhm, Roger and Milly Haverton wanted to know why they didn’t get the news first,” Amy said.
Dan chuckled. “Don’t tell them I said so but they’re too small to deal with the fallout. In other words, I didn’t want them getting hurt over this.”
“Okay, that’s what they thought, but I just wanted to warn you.”
Hal agreed with Dan. “Mom and Dad don’t know what we’ve been up against.”
Amy said, “Right, well, they want to discuss this with you too.”
Hal chuckled. “As soon as I get home.”
“When are you returning, Dan? Stryker said he can’t deal with the media. And he sure doesn’t want Calvin talking to them. So far, Stryker’s managed to tell them, ‘no comment,’ until you can get back here.”
“We just finished up, and we’ll be getting some sleep and heading out in the morning. We won’t be arriving until the next morning. Stryker will just have to hold down the fort until then. No comment works for now.”
“Mrs. Fitz has been having a ball, selling her pastries and such. She’s been talking a lot to the reporters, which means everyone’s over there getting whatever story they can from her.”
Addie frowned. “She knows about all this business already?”
“No, just about what you’ve been through—the assassination attempts, etcetera. I think she believes if she tells the world how they’re trying to silence you, that will keep them from trying to any further.”
Addie got a call then and saw it was from her boss. Former boss. “Yes, sir?” She put it on speaker so everyone could listen in.
“Got to go,” Dan said to Amy. “Give you a call later. Or call me if you have any further trouble.”
“Yes, sir,” Amy said, and ended the call.
“Hell, you could have given me a heads up about this,” Briggs said to Addie.
“For what it’s worth, your name wasn’t mentioned in any of the documents, so as far as I can tell, you’re clear of any wrongdoing.”
“I could have told you that. In fact, I think I did.”
“True. I didn’t know we’d find anything when we had a hunch and looked into it. The other thing was no one’s protecting me, or the rest of my team.”
Several gave her a thumbs up. Dan hugged her.
“And, I didn’t call you because I no longer work for you. I was fired. Remember?”
“My boss got a call from the Director, who wants to know what in the hell is going on. He wants you reinstated.”
“I’m a whistleblower. It won’t work out. I’m staying where I am.” Or at least she was once she returned to Yuma Town. “Who put us all on the same team? Did you know that the man who was following my mother before she was killed was Paris Pepion’s dad? Coincidence that she was on the team with me? Here’s another: Dirk Carter’s mother was the last one to see my dad alive. And then he’s on the team with me. Who put the team together?”
“Alicia did. Damn it, Addie, why didn’t you tell me about all this before?”
“Why did she hire Dan to work as my husband on some jobs?”
“As a safety precaution for you, in the event the agents on your team weren’t watching your back?”
“Or as a ruse, to pretend she was trying to protect me. Except this time, she didn’t think either of the last cases I was on warranted Dan’s being there.”
“What would her motivation have been? I don’t see the tie-in.”
“What if she was a woman scorned?”
Briggs didn’t say anything for a moment, then said, “I don’t see it.”
“In my dad’s documents, he said she was assigned to him right after Mom died, supposedly watching him, to see if he knew anything. But what if Alicia had a dual purpose in mind—she wanted to do the FBI’s bidding, maybe believing it was for National Security, or maybe they had something on her and used it against her. And maybe she had a thing for my dad.”
“You have proof?”
“Dad said she left him when he started seeing other women, all FBI agents who were also keeping an eye on him. How has she reacted to all the news?”
“She’s furious with you and can’t understand how I could have let this happen.”
“Did you fire me, or was it her call?”
“I fired you. And if you have to know, I assumed the men and women protecting you seemed to be doing a hell of a lot better job at it than we could, so that’s why I fired you. To get you out of here before someone took you out for good.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What are you going to do about Paris and Dirk?”
“Look into it. I can’t fire them without finding evidence that supports your theories.”
“Like they were there when I was nearly killed and they didn’t even report it?”
“They’ve been good at covering their tracks. I’m sure they’ve had help. I’ve got to go. The media blitz is calling for my head.” He hung up on her.
“Do you really think Alicia was in love with your father?” Chase asked.
“Yeah, I do.” She opened the door and Carl ran out as a cougar and disappeared into the brush.
She hoped he didn’t get lost. Everyone moved out
of the building, and she locked the door. As soon as they began the trek in the dark, they heard a cat cry out in fury. Everyone hurried to spread out, guns out.
Carl might have run into another cougar, or something else out here and scared himself, or he’d run into real trouble. How could anyone have known they were here, if they were?
She didn’t think they could have tracked her laptop in the storage facility. Their cell phones? Yeah, possibly.
They should have swept the vehicles and their clothes for bugs.
What about Carl? And the clothes he was wearing? What if they’d bugged them? Since he was working for them, but he didn’t know about that.
Great.
With their cat’s night vision, they spread far apart so they wouldn’t all be shot in a barrage of rounds, crouching, trying to stay low to the ground. In that instant, she wanted to be a cougar, but she was such a good shot, she thought she would do better with her gun. Dan stuck too close to her, and she wanted him to move farther away from her. She knew he wouldn’t though, afraid for her after the last few times.
She heard everyone moving forward, though she only heard them because she had a cougar’s sensitive hearing. She prayed Carl was okay when she didn’t hear anything more coming from the direction where she’d heard the cry. No shooting, nothing.
Her heart was pounding like crazy. She wished Carl would come bounding back to them so she knew he was all right.
She couldn’t see the others now for the woods and the brush. Then she heard another cat off to the south crying out. Hal had moved in that direction. Though it might have been Chase. And then a cat cried out north of their location. She frowned, still moving forward, slowly.
Shots rang out.
Crap! Someone had to be out there shooting at the cats.
She and Dan rushed forward, trying to keep low when shots were fired in their direction. They both dove for the ground and the cover of the shrubs and tall grass, then rolled and moved again, so that whoever had fired on them wouldn’t know where they were now.
She moved farther away from Dan, hoping he wouldn’t follow her. Another cougar’s cry sounded, only this time, someone had been wounded. She didn’t know the cougars’ voices so she didn’t know who all was running as a cougar or who had been hit. No more rounds had been fired when the cat was wounded, so all she could think of was someone used a knife on him, or maybe a Taser. She heard someone moving in her direction, and she readied her gun.
When she saw Paris moving slowly toward her, Addie couldn’t believe the woman would finally come after Addie herself. Addie didn’t hesitate, but shot her in the shoulder twice, forcing her to drop her weapon. Paris cried out, dropping to the ground for cover. As soon as Addie fired on Paris, shots were fired in Addie’s direction, and she quickly moved out of the area.
“Can you move?” Dirk whispered to Paris.
Paris was groaning. “Just get her, damn it.”
“Stay here. Can you shoot?”
“Just give me my rifle.” Some rustling followed. “Go get her.”
Dirk headed in the direction where Addie had been. These people knew Addie and her team didn’t have night vision goggles and probably thought they couldn’t see anything in the dark. They were so wrong.
Addie fired two shots at Dirk, but another couple rang out nearby, and she thought someone was shooting at her until she saw Dirk fall with a grunt. Dan.
Paris began shooting all over the place, not aiming at anything in particular. Her shots clipped the shrubs all around Addie, and she stayed low, praying she wouldn’t get hit by a stray round. She hoped Dan was keeping just as low and out of harm’s way.
She waited until the agent ran out of ammo. She was pulling out the magazine, and Addie dove in to take her down—alive.
Paris wasn’t in shape to fight her much, though she tried to pull out her revolver, and Addie slugged her in the side of the head with her fist, hard enough to knock the woman out. She checked on Dirk, but he was dead. Then she put plastic ties on Paris’s wrists and checked her for weapons. More gunfire rang out in the distance. Someone moved toward her, and she turned to see Dan holding his arm.
“No, Dan, are you going to be all right?” Addie whispered.
“Yeah, got to have one of these every once in a while, to prove to me I’m not infallible. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, the way she was shooting at everything I was afraid we’d both be killed in the barrage. Who cried out?” Addie pulled Dan’s T-shirt off and tore it up, then wrapped his arm.
“Carl had to be the first cat.”
“And the others?”
“The one south was Hal, Chase was north of us.”
She worried that they hadn’t heard anything more. No shooting, no cat cries. “Can you shoot?”
“Like Paris did.”
“Okay, stay here with Paris and Dirk. I’ll see if the others need our help.”
“I’d rather we go together,” Dan said. “Paris isn’t going anywhere.”
“You wanna bet? As much as bodies disappear around me?”
“All right, but don’t get shot. I need someone to take care of me.”
She gave him a hug and kissed him. “I’ll do that. Keep your head low.”
Then she took off to find the others, worried sick that some of her group had been injured or killed.
More rounds were fired north of her, and she heard someone moving in the brush. Then she saw a woman she hadn’t seen in some years, and couldn’t believe she was here, of all places. Alicia. Her ex-pretend mother for seven years. She was armed with an assault rifle just like Dirk and Paris had been.
She appeared to have been wounded, but when she heard Addie moving toward her, she frowned. “You’ve ruined everything. You and your mother.”
“My dad never loved anyone else but my mother and me,” Addie said, her voice hushed, not wanting to alert anyone else running around in the woods that she was here. It looked like a cougar had bitten her, but where was the cougar?
“I…tried to love you, at least to gain your father’s affection, but he didn’t buy it. I truly loved him.”
“After you had my mother killed so you could be with my dad, you went after my dad because he was seeing other women when he was supposed to be married to you on paper only.”
“Your mother could have put several of us in prison.”
“Which is where you’re going to now. Put the rifle down, now.”
“I can’t. You know it. I can’t go to prison.” Alicia raised her rifle to shoot Addie, but before Addie could react, shots rang out and Alicia collapsed.
Addie looked over to see Dan moving toward her. “I found Carl. He’s been stabbed. Help me get him to the storage facility.”
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Here,” Chase said, then pointed to Alicia. “Who’s that?”
“My ex-pretend mother,” Addie said. “Carl’s been cut. We need to get him to the facility. Dan’s been wounded and Dirk is dead. Paris is wounded and unconscious, for the moment.”
Hal hurried to join them. “I took out another man. I checked, but couldn’t find any others.”
“Where’s Bridget and Chet?”
“Here,” Bridget said. “Chet and I were searching for any others and chased one man headed back toward our cars. We took him down.”
Hal and Chase carried Carl back to the facility, while Addie made sure Dan didn’t collapse on her. Bridget and Chet went to locate Paris, found her and carried her to the facility, though Addie hadn’t wanted her to see the inside of it. “Can you bandage her outside of the facility?” she asked Bridget.
“Sure thing.”
Chet went inside and got a lantern and a first aid kit and left again to help Bridget with Paris.
“Sit,” she told Dan as he wanted to help with Carl.
“You might need me to help hold him down if he comes to and tries to bite us,” Dan said.
“All right, but don’t pass out on me.”
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Chase and Hal smiled at Dan.
Then Addie got another first aid kit out, and gave the cougar a shot to knock him out. Then she cleaned the wound and began to stitch it closed. She swore Dan looked like he was swaying on his feet a little. “Dan, we’ve got this. Go sit down.”
“I think your mate’s right,” Chase said. “You look like you’re ready to pass out and if you fall against this concrete floor, no telling what damage you’ll do to yourself.”
“Hell,” Dan said, and collapsed on one of the chairs.
Addie paused to look at him, hoping they could get everyone to the vehicles and back to Chet’s place safely. They had to gather up all the bodies too though.
Then again, the police would want to know why the bodies weren’t left where they were so that investigators could learn the truth of the matter.
No matter what, that was going to be hard to figure.
“What do we do about everyone?” she asked Dan.
“We turn them over to the feds and let them deal with it,” Dan said. “Including taking Paris into custody. We’ll testify against them.”
“And Carl?”
“He wasn’t there.”
She finished stitching Carl up. “You really want me to call the feds?”
“Yeah, I don’t see any other way to handle this.”
“Then they’ll want to search the facility.”
“It’s not in your name. It’s just an old metal building.”
“So why were we here?”
“Someone said they were calling on Alicia’s behalf to meet with you in the woods to discuss this business, but you took us with you to protect your back, not trusting whoever these people were. A gunfight ensued, and we came out the victors. We don’t mention the storage facility.”
“Everyone got that?” Addie asked. “We’ll have to tell Carl the story when he wakes.”
“Got it,” Bridget said.
“Same here,” Chet said.
“Then I guess we need to move this to the cars. Carl and you need to return to your house, and we won’t let on that either of you were here, Chet,” Dan said.
“All right, works for me. I’ll just park in the garage and when you can return, you can help me carry him inside, unless he wakes enough to walk in himself.”