A Dangerous Tryst (The Inheritance Book 3) Page 13

  No, she had to deal with this right now. Alone.

  Madalina reminded herself that women took charge in situations like this all the time. Women trained in self-defense, women in the military. They would step up and assert themselves with their weapons. She wasn’t extensively trained, but she could aim and pull the trigger, and really, wasn’t that all she needed in this moment? More than anything, she needed to make the men believe she would do the unthinkable if they didn’t do what she asked them to. Make the men believe she would pull the trigger.

  Be aggressive. Don’t show fear. Don’t back down. Attitude is everything. In the middle of her silent pep talk, she took five steps forward into the middle of the pathway. Raising the gun level with the ground, she aimed it at the man on the left, centering on the spot between his shoulder blades. She judged she was perhaps three yards behind them.

  With authority, in a low and even voice, she said, “Stop right there. Don’t even think of reaching for a gun or I’ll blow both your heads off.”

  Cole didn’t want to fan out in the darkness, into the underbrush or farther down the road, before securing the remaining three homes. If he woke people up, then he woke people up. “I think we’re going to have to check the other houses. Whether they’re occupied or not, we have to clear them before we move on.”

  “I’ll take the next one. It’ll go faster,” Damon said.

  Cole split off from Damon and headed around the front of the building. Rust-colored paint had worn so thin in some parts that Cole glimpsed raw wood beneath. The slanted roofs overlapped one another rather than making up one solid slab, and he discovered there was actually a ten-inch space between the units rather than a connecting wall. Not enough room for anyone to hide in and make a surprise attack.

  He passed an upside-down shoe, a battered woven basket, and an ancient-looking rocking chair sitting on the dirt under a window. Walcot sure had a thing for out-of-the-way residences. Or storage spaces. Cole wasn’t sure what he used 18 Hillside for, but it was off the beaten path.

  Stepping up to a faded, hunter-green door, Cole knocked hard three times. Damon was at the door to the end unit, also knocking.

  Suddenly Damon took up a shooter’s stance, gun raised, and crossed the threshold fast.

  Cole ran to the door, swinging around to face the interior, gun raised. There was enough light spilling in through an uncovered window to allow him to see the vague shape of his brother. Damon slanted an annoyed, somewhat wry, look back after he bent to pick up a dirty, dusty sock doll off the equally dusty floor.

  “This must have fallen off the shelf. The door was already cracked open when I knocked, and it swung inward. After I heard the thump, I thought Brandon might be in trouble in here,” Damon said.

  Cole lowered his gun. He still had bursts of adrenaline coursing through his system, and he’d yet to get rid of that odd tingle on the nape of his neck. “I think these are all empty. Look at the layers of dust. No one’s lived here for years.”

  “I think you’re right. Doesn’t hurt to check, though,” Damon said.

  Cole retreated to check the remaining residences, finding one with its door open and one with the door closed. All three in the row of four appeared to have been abandoned years ago.

  Brandon wasn’t in any of the units.

  “Let’s check number eighteen,” Cole said. “Then we’ll fan out around the property.”

  With Damon crowding his back, Cole forced the front door on Walcot’s unit. Like the others, the latch gave easily. Unlike the other units, however, Walcot’s was much less dusty. In the gloom, Cole could make out a bed at the far end of the rectangular-shaped room, a desk against the front wall under the window, and a hutch next to a tiny kitchenette. This unit was laid out similar to the others as far as space. It took Cole no time to discern that Brandon was not inside.

  “Brandon’s not here,” Cole said, backing out of the unit. Damon retreated with him. “We’ll have to search the place thoroughly later.”

  “You want to split up? Cover more ground?” Damon asked.

  Cole glanced back along the road to the curve. Madalina waited on the other side, out of sight. He wasn’t sure why he suddenly became fixated on the Jeep, on the fact that she was alone over there when Brandon had gone missing. Despite the fact that he’d left her with a gun, Cole suddenly needed to reassure himself that she was all right.

  “You know, let’s go back and check on Madalina; then we can look. I don’t know where Brandon is, but if we have to expand our search radius, I don’t want to leave her by herself. Not when we can’t yet account for Brandon,” Cole said, already stepping into a jog for the curve.

  Damon said, “Right behind you, brother.”

  Madalina took two steps closer when the men stopped in their tracks. “Lay the man down. Gently. Then throw any weapons you have to the side.”

  The men didn’t move. One looked to the other.

  Madalina thought that was a bad sign. They were trying to communicate silently, debate a course of action. Upping the edge in her voice, but not the volume, she said, “Now!”

  Brandon landed a little harder on the wet earth than Madalina would have liked. But he was down, head turned to the side, arms awkwardly angled. “Three, two . . .”

  She didn’t get farther than that in her faux countdown—she didn’t know what she would do if they called her bluff—before the men each tossed a gun to the side. That was good. Wasn’t it? She licked her lips, gripping the gun tighter. Moving forward until she stood a short distance from Brandon’s feet, she said, “I want to know what you’ve done to this man and why. Don’t make me wait or repeat myself.”

  “Got the jump on him and coldcocked him in the head, missy,” the man on the left said. “No man has eyes in the back of his head, no matter how much we wish we did.”

  Madalina processed the information, then said, “You left something out.”

  Here, she encountered stubborn silence. Both men balked, shifting uncomfortably on their feet. She didn’t dare shoot into the ground as a warning. If there were more of them, it would bring them running. The authorities, too.

  It would tip Cole and his brother off to her position and situation, however.

  “I said, you forgot something.” She added a dire weight to her voice that time, choosing a less drastic action than firing the gun.

  “We were scouting the area,” the man on the right said.

  “Scouting what, specifically?” she demanded.

  “A location.”

  “Stop stalling and answer the question.” Annoyed with their evasive tactics, she gripped the gun tighter, hoping the slight rustle would encourage the men to reply.

  “One of those residences around the corner,” the man said.

  So it was a residence. Walcot must have had little hidey-holes all over the world. “The address?”

  “I think you know what address,” he said.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you must be Madalina. Who else would be here at this time of night?” he retorted.

  “I want to know how you beat me here.” Madalina knew Lance hadn’t had time to call anyone with the full address. He knew early on that the address was in Pokhara, but not the street.

  The man on the right inhaled and exhaled, as if exasperated. He said, “Because we were sent ahead of time.”

  It took Madalina a moment to realize that Lance had sent these men to Nepal before they’d even left California. He sent them with the knowledge that, eventually, he would squeeze the information out of her and pass it on to someone in the vicinity. Get their hands on whatever Walcot left and have the details relayed back. Lance had known when they left the house in California that they were heading to the Islands to attend to other business first and covered his tracks by sending a team here in his stead.

  “I see,” she said, and did. It all made sense. “Did you find anything? Besides Brandon.”

  Silence.

 
“I asked if you found anything,” she repeated. It was important for her to know whether the men had the dragons. That would mean that she, and the rest of her group, might be expendable. If they didn’t need her any longer, the team might bring a permanent end to the debacle.

  “You can come check our pockets and find out,” the man on the right said. He had a vague accent that Madalina couldn’t place.

  Annoyed at the almost cajoling, nonchalant tone, Madalina narrowed her eyes. “Get on your knees.”

  The men stiffened in unison, as if the command surprised and startled them. Madalina took a step forward, lowering her voice, and repeated the order. “I said, get on your knees.”

  With a sudden bend, the man on the right reached for something attached to his thigh. He was fast—so fast that all Madalina had time to process was that he meant to launch a counteroffensive . . . and attack.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Cole stared at the front windshield as he approached the Jeep, intent on making eye contact with Madalina to let her know that he wanted her to remain quiet and to exit the vehicle. Except there was no one in the driver’s or passenger’s seat. Frowning, he switched from a jog to a run and yanked open the driver’s door. It hadn’t even been all the way closed, he noticed as he scanned the interior.

  Nothing.

  She wasn’t draped across the front or back seats, wasn’t anywhere in sight. He’d held out a little hope that she might have slumped over and fallen asleep.

  “Maybe she had to relieve herself in the brush,” Damon said, taking in the situation with one glance.

  “Spread out. We can’t call to her; it might alert anyone else in the area. Check a twenty-yard radius; I don’t think she would have gone farther than that,” Cole said. He split off from Damon and took the side of the road that led into a slope. Quiet as he walked, looking for clues and signs, he contemplated the odds of both Brandon and Madalina going missing within minutes of each other.

  Pausing when he thought he detected voices, he cocked his head to listen.

  There. Voices. Male and female.

  “Damon.” Cole used his brother’s name in a hushed voice that should carry across the road and no farther. Sure that he’d caught Damon’s attention, he stalked through the undergrowth, passing leafy bushes with as much care as he could. He didn’t want to alert anyone to his presence.

  In short order, Damon appeared at his flank and accompanied him toward the noises that grew a little louder as they got closer.

  He made a gesture to Damon that he wanted to hang back a moment to gauge the scene, make sure they weren’t walking into an ambush. Damon nodded his head once; he understood and agreed.

  Near the edge of a smaller, winding trail, Cole halted as a group of people came into view. To his surprise, he found Madalina with her gun turned on two men. A third man lay prone on the ground. Cole recognized Brandon and experienced a moment of panic, thinking he might be dead.

  Cutting off the emotion before it could cloud his judgment, he listened as Madalina ordered the men to get on their knees. Her tone brooked no argument. Cole hadn’t ever heard her sound . . . deadly.

  If she was bluffing—and she had to be—she was doing a damned good job.

  Just as he was about to break cover and take control, he saw one of the men make a fast grab for a gun strapped to his thigh. Eternity passed in the space of a second as he imagined the gun being raised, aimed, fired. Madalina collapsing onto the damp earth, her own weapon falling from her fingers.

  Metal glinted in Cole’s peripheral vision as a knife flew through the air at lightning speed. Stabbed cleanly through the back of the hand, the ruffian howled in agony and fell to his knees.

  Damon’s reaction time and aim were as sharp as ever.

  Cole didn’t waste the opportunity to rush out of the underbrush and, gun raised, said, “Don’t move. Throw your guns and weapons on the ground.”

  The injured man’s compatriot froze when he heard Cole’s voice.

  “Cole!” Madalina lowered her gun and rushed to his side.

  “Put your safety on,” Cole whispered to her as Damon marched toward the men. “What happened here? Is Brandon all right?” Cole approached his brother while Damon secured the men’s hands and divested them of every conceivable weapon.

  Cole holstered his gun for a moment so he could turn Brandon over and smear mud off his cheek. He gave Brandon a shake after feeling for a pulse. Thank God. He was alive.

  “They hit him with the butt of a gun,” Madalina explained. “Lance sent them here before we left California so that all he would have to do was call with the address.”

  “Brandon, c’mon. Wake up.” Cole tapped Brandon’s cheek as he listened to Madalina give the details. Brandon groaned as he came around.

  “Good, good. You let them get the jump on you, little brother. You’re slipping,” Cole said, helping a groggy Brandon to his feet.

  “How many of you are there?” Damon asked the men, casually picking up his knife and wiping the blood on his pants. He sheathed it while interrogating.

  “It’s just us,” the non-injured man said.

  “Two of you?” Cole asked, brushing Brandon off and checking his eyes to make sure his brother was coming fully around. “Seems like Lance would send at least one more.”

  “He didn’t think he would need it. Hey, this guy needs medical attention,” the man complained, glancing at the stab wound on his companion.

  “It’s a scratch. He’ll live,” Damon said. “But I can add an ‘accidental cut’ to you, too, if you’d like. Are there more of you?”

  “No.”

  Cole released Brandon when he was positive his brother wouldn’t take a header into the ground. Brandon swayed but remained upright, rubbing a spot on the back of his skull.

  “Madalina, what happened?” Cole asked. He listened as she detailed the events, how she’d left the Jeep after seeing a flicker in the brush and came upon the men dragging Brandon along the trail.

  Later, Cole meant to delve deeper into her actions; for now they needed to get a move on.

  “You didn’t see or hear anyone else?” he asked her.

  “No. I also didn’t hear them talking about someone they left behind. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t a third person lurking out here somewhere,” she replied.

  Proud of her deduction, Cole helped Brandon sit on a rock away from the two contained men and said, “Damon, Brandon, you stay here and watch them. We’re going back to Walcot’s place to search it. I doubt we’ll have a lull in visitors for long.”

  “We’ll herd these two back toward the buildings so you won’t have to shout if you need us,” Damon said.

  “Excellent. Let’s go,” Cole said to Madalina. “We don’t have any time to waste.”

  The rustic house Walcot must have used as a layover point in his travels didn’t surprise Madalina with its plain interior and lack of décor. She suspected that her grandfather rarely spent time indoors even when he visited a place for weeks or months, preferring to be out in the elements. His penchant for keeping a low profile—most of the time, anyway—lent itself to out-of-the-way homes, affordable homes, that he could keep in several countries.

  There wasn’t as much dust here as there could have been, as there was in the other homes according to Cole, which meant Walcot had visited here not too long before his death. A quick search turned up nothing in the more obvious places: under the little sink, under the bed, in the single dresser.

  “Whatever it is we’re supposed to find, he hid it like he hid everything else,” she finally said. “We’ll have to move the dresser and check for any loose boards beneath.”

  “I’ll do that while you pull the drawers out and check behind and beneath,” Cole said, tugging the dresser away from the wall.

  Madalina set to the task, noting how Cole glanced at the front and back doors often. Despite Damon and Brandon sitting nearby, watching the surroundings, Cole was still on high alert. As he should be, s
he thought. As she still was. The adrenaline rush from the confrontation with Lance’s men had yet to abate. She couldn’t think too hard about what she would have done if Cole hadn’t shown up when he did on the trail. Whether she would have pulled the trigger or not was a subject to contemplate later, in a calmer, less-stressed state of mind.

  Upending dresser drawers, she felt along the bottom of each for hidden latches or clasps. Walcot was famous for hiding everything important to him, up to and including simple correspondence.

  The drawers proved to be a dead end.

  “Anything?” Cole asked, crouched near the wall, checking the floorboards with his hands.

  “Not yet. I’ll test the back of the cupboards above the sink,” she said. There were only two. It wouldn’t take long.

  Five minutes later, with no note, no dragons, no clues, Madalina stood in the center of the small space with her hands on her hips. Stumped, she glanced at Cole. “There doesn’t seem to be anything here. We’ve checked everywhere.”

  “Not everywhere. We’re missing something.” Cole scanned the interior, frowning.

  “We’ve thoroughly checked every piece of furniture, the cupboards, the bed. Even the floor, which hasn’t turned up any loose boards or hiding places. I wonder if Lance’s men found it first and just won’t admit it,” Madalina said.

  “There would have been more signs of disturbance, I think,” Cole replied. “Like with us. Now you can see our fingerprints and smudges on some of the dustier surfaces. If they’d gotten in here, they probably wouldn’t have left things in order.”

  “Maybe not. The only possible places I can think of are in the mattress itself. Or the ceiling—but there aren’t any ducts or electric fixtures to pull out that the dragons might be behind.” Madalina stepped over to the front window, curled her fingers around the lower half of the sill, and gave a proprietary tug. “The window—whoa.”