Colton Showdown Read online

  He didn’t tell her that he kept it that way because that made it easier to see if something had been disturbed. It was how he could tell if his living quarters had been compromised or not.

  The same precautions applied to his dresser drawers. The contents of the drawers were arranged so that he could place an old volume of Shakespeare’s sonnets in them without having the book touch anything else in the drawer. If it did touch something else, that meant that someone had been going through his things and had put everything back carefully—but not carefully enough.

  Rather than go into any of this, Tate simply replied, “The nanny was strict.”

  Hannah looked at him, her interest piqued about this outsider more than she knew her brother and the others would think seemly. Secretly, she didn’t care.

  “You had a nanny?” she asked Tate in wonder. “Where was your mother?” She couldn’t imagine one of the women in her village entrusting someone else to look after her children for anything more than a few hours. Certainly not on an ongoing basis.

  “She was helping my father build a proud foundation,” he answered.

  Since the rooms were clear, he went about his final test—checking the volume of sonnets in the drawer—and found everything where it was supposed to be. Finally relaxing, he turned to look at the young woman he’d just brought into his world.

  It occurred to him that Hannah and he could not have been more different. Her world was one of simplicity, of tranquillity and almost monasticlike dedication, while his was infused with danger and criminals, never mind the underlying social complexities he and his siblings had grown up with.

  They were as different as night and day. And had just as much of a chance of coming together on any level as the sun had of swallowing up the moon.

  Even so, he could finally understand what the French meant by their age-old expression, Vive la différence.

  An image of the country mouse and the city mouse—a story one of the nannies had told him eons ago—suddenly flashed through his mind.

  He’d never once thought that the country mouse could be so compellingly attractive.

  Learned something new every day, he thought to himself with a broad smile.

  Chapter 7

  Tate flipped the three locks on his fireproof door one at a time, securing his apartment—at least for the time being.

  Even so, he was aware that, as far as time went, they didn’t have much of it.

  Still, there was enough available to address a few basic amenities.

  “Are you hungry?” he asked Hannah.

  She shook her head, her long wavy red hair gently echoing the movement a fraction of a second afterwards.

  “No. I am a little cold, however,” she ventured shyly, as if she felt it was thoughtless and self-centered of her to complain about anything after Tate had risked his life to save hers.

  “Right.” And why shouldn’t she be cold, he realized. The jacket he’d given her was more like a pup tent, but underneath it Hannah was only wearing what amounted to colored scarves in the dead of winter. “Follow me. Let’s see what I can come up with,” he told her, leading the way into his bedroom at the rear of the apartment.

  Opening his closet, he paused and shook his head. There wasn’t exactly much to work with. He was a good nine inches taller than she was, as well as wider. Anything of his would fit Hannah at least twice over, if not more so.

  “I’m afraid I don’t have anything in your size,” he apologized. Feeling out of his element, Tate stepped back from his closet and gestured toward it. “Why don’t you see if there’s anything you can do with what you find?” He saw the uncertain look on her face, as if she didn’t feel right about touching anything. The young woman was really amazingly polite, given the circumstances.

  “No, I couldn’t,” she demurred.

  They were going to have to leave soon and he knew they wouldn’t get very far with her all but immobilized from the cold.

  “Yes, you could,” he told her firmly, adding, “Feel free to take anything you find,” he urged. “I insist.” He jerked his thumb back toward the front of the apartment. “I’m just going to be out in the living room, calling my team to find out if anyone knows what happened.”

  With that, Tate left her to make her choices in peace.

  Damn, for a man who was always in control of the situation, Hannah made him feel as if he was tripping over his own tongue. So much for being a savvy police detective, he thought cryptically.

  But then, he couldn’t remember ever coming across anyone like Hannah Troyer before, he thought. For all intents and purposes, the young Amish woman represented another world to him. A less complicated, more honest world.

  There were times, such as now, when he had to wonder if progress, which had gotten them so far away from that simple world, was ultimately worth it, despite all the perks it had to offer.

  Maybe Emma had the right idea after all, turning her back on this fast-paced world.

  That wasn’t his to debate, Tate reminded himself. He didn’t have the time. What was his to do, he thought, was to check in with his team and find out what the hell was going on—and just where they were supposed to go from here.

  He swallowed an oath when his call didn’t go through the first time. The signal was too weak. Trying again, he was rewarded with an icon that declared his signal bars were stronger.

  The second he said “Hello,” he thought his eardrum was going to be shattered.

  “Tate?” Emma cried, shouting his name into the phone, a mix of joy and anger evident in the single utterance. “Where the hell are you?” she demanded, then, before he could say a word, she breathlessly demanded, “Do you have Hannah with you?”

  Tate was glad he could give his sister some sort of positive news.

  “Yes, she’s here,” he acknowledged. “Safe with me for the time being. Your turn,” he declared, indicating that it was her turn to answer a question. “What happened with the sting?”

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Emma countered. “Why didn’t you give the signal for the SWAT team to storm the warehouse?”

  She didn’t know. He would have thought that Miller would have filled her in—unless he couldn’t, Tate suddenly realized. Had Maddox killed him?

  “I didn’t get a chance,” he admitted. “Miller blew my cover.”

  “What?”

  He could almost envision the surprise on Emma’s face. She and Caleb had been the ones to trust Miller in the first place, and urged the members of the task force to do the same.

  “I don’t know how, but Maddox got wind of the fact that I was a cop. I think he planned on shooting both of us.” He realized how vague that must have sounded to Emma and was quick to clarify the ambiguity. “Hannah and me.”

  “So you shot him?”

  There was no missing the hopeful note in his sister’s voice. Was that because she was asking him if he was the one who killed Maddox or did she just hope that the organization’s kingpin had been taken down even though he was still among the missing?

  “No weapon, remember?” he reminded his sister. “I shoved Maddox into one of his henchmen and his gun went off. After that, I don’t know what went down,” he admitted. “Did you get Maddox?” The pause on the other end of the line turned into a lengthy silence and it wasn’t because he’d lost the signal again. The bars were dark and plentiful.

  Tate had his answer.

  Damn!

  Still, he asked, on the minuscule chance that he was wrong. “You didn’t, did you?”

  “No.” It cost her to admit that. Emma didn’t tolerate failure well, especially not her own. “From what I can gather, Maddox and a couple of his guys managed to get away.” She paused a moment and Tate knew what was coming. She was trying to find a way to tell him.

  They’d both found that straightforward had always been the best way.

  “He’ll come looking for her,” she warned.

  Tate knew Emma was talking about H
annah. After all, from what they were learning about the operation, it was quite possible that Hannah had been privy to everything that had happened. He had a feeling that it would only take the memory of her dead girlfriends to get her to testify against the kidnappers.

  That fact made her an immense liability for Maddox and it placed her life in immediate danger.

  From now on, until they caught Maddox or eliminated him, his only assignment was to keep Hannah safe. Nothing else mattered.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  He paused for a moment, thinking. He could hear his closet door moving along the runners in the bedroom. Hannah was trying to find something to wear and most likely discovering that he had nothing she could use. But desperate times called for adjustments and so far, Hannah had been a trouper. He hoped that she would continue to be one awhile longer.

  “I’m going to have to take off for a while until you and the team can find Maddox and bring him down,” he finally said to his sister.

  He heard Emma laugh shortly. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  There was a noise behind him and Tate instantly whirled around on his heel, the weapon in his hand raised and ready to fire.

  He lowered it when he saw Hannah’s terrified expression.

  “Sorry,” he apologized, then said to his sister, “Hold on for a minute, Em.”

  Hannah really looked like a teenager now, he couldn’t help thinking as he looked at her. She was wearing one of the old blue T-shirts he used to knock around in. She’d gathered it at her waist and tied it tightly so that it didn’t look as if she was wearing a potato sack. She also had on a pair of his old, worn jeans rolled up at the cuffs and securely tied at the waist with a scarf just beneath the T-shirt.

  He guessed that she must have found the jeans lying discarded somewhere in the back of his closet. He’d been meaning to donate those things to the local charity. Good thing he hadn’t gotten around to it.

  Just looking at her made him ache.

  Rousing himself, he nodded his acknowledgment of her ensemble. “Not bad.”

  The smile on Hannah’s face was sweet as well as shy. “You’re being kind,” she told him. “I hope you don’t mind my wearing these things. I promise to wash them when I’m done.”

  He shook his head. “Wasn’t really worried about that,” he assured her.

  For someone who’d been abducted and had encountered more evil in the past couple months than she’d ever dreamed existed in the world, Hannah seemed to be holding up remarkably well, he thought.

  He suddenly remembered something Hannah had said to him regarding her brother. She’d asked if he’d seen Caleb and if her brother was well. The single question encapsulated the sort of person she was: not a thought about herself, only about others.

  Mumbling “Excuse me for a second,” Tate turned his back to her and took his hand off the cell phone’s mouthpiece. “Emma?”

  “Still here, Tate,” he heard his sister answer patiently.

  “Is Caleb with you?”

  Officially, the man wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near the now-failed sting, but knowing Emma and her soft heart, she’d probably not only allowed Caleb to come along, but was probably even now reassuring the man that his sister had been rescued.

  “Yes, why?” Emma asked, lowering her voice.

  Tate slanted a look toward Hannah before continuing. “I thought he might want to say a few words to his sister,” Tate answered. “I know she’d really like to hear from him.”

  “Hold on a second,” Emma responded. He could hear the excitement in her voice. It told him all he needed to know about her relationship with Caleb. Though she wouldn’t say it, he now realized that Emma was simply crazy about the man.

  Listening, Tate heard some kind of noise in the background, as if she was walking somewhere. And then he heard Emma calling to Hannah’s brother. For his part, Tate caught Hannah’s eye and beckoned the young woman over to him.

  Hannah approached, her beautiful eyes filled with curiosity. Without a doubt, he could very easily spend the next hundred hours or so wading in those mesmerizing blue-gray pools.

  The next moment, he upbraided himself for letting his thoughts stray so drastically from the path he needed to follow. He was supposed to be protecting Hannah, keeping her out of harm’s way, not drooling over her like some lovesick pubescent idiot.

  “Yes?” Hannah asked when he didn’t say anything enlightening to her.

  “I think there’s someone on the other end of this phone who’d like to talk to you,” Tate told her.

  He offered her his cell phone. She took it from him uncertainly, holding the small item as if it was alive and could leap from her fingers at any moment. That was when he remembered that Hannah probably didn’t have the vaguest idea what to do with a cell phone. Or a landline for that matter.

  Given her lifestyle, she would have had no reason to have any experience with either one.

  “You listen on this part,” he told her, pointing out the cell phone’s upper portion. “And talk into this.” He indicated the tiny holes on the bottom of the cell.

  Very gently, he placed the cell phone against her ear. She covered his hand with her own and for a second, he left it right where it was, savoring the contact and absolving himself because he hadn’t initiated it.

  After a moment, he slipped his hand away and let Hannah hold the phone herself.

  “Hannah?”

  Her face lit up like a Christmas tree as she recognized her brother’s voice coming out of the strange device.

  “Caleb! Oh, it’s so good to hear your voice!” she cried enthusiastically. The next moment, she fell silent, earnestly listening to what her brother was saying. Tate saw her smile. “No, no, I’m fine. Really. Tate is taking good care of me.” She turned her eyes toward him and her smile deepened. “He rescued me, just as he said he would. He told me you sent him, Caleb,” she went on. “I confess I didn’t believe him, but now I see I was wrong to doubt him. I am safe and unharmed.” She was holding the phone with both hands now, as if that could somehow anchor her brother to her. “When can I see you, Caleb?” she wanted to know.

  It was time to interrupt, Tate thought, even though he hated to do it because she looked so happy to be reunited with her brother. But the longer they delayed getting out of here, the more of a risk they ran of being discovered.

  “Soon,” Tate promised her, gently removing the cell phone from her hands. “Very soon.” Putting the phone to his ear, he made a request of the man on the other end. “Caleb, I need to have a word with my sister.”

  “One moment” was the restrained, polite reply. Tate heard the phone changing hands. Within seconds, he found himself on the phone with Emma again.

  Before he could say anything, he heard her telling him, “That was a very nice thing you just did.” Since Emma wasn’t in the habit of giving compliments, Tate took her words to heart. “It meant the world to Caleb to get a chance to talk to Hannah instead of just having me reassure him that his sister was all right.”

  “I’m a very nice kind of guy, remember?” Tate countered wryly. “Look, we’ve got to get ready to take off,” he said abruptly. “I’ll be in touch when I figure out where we’ve landed.” That was a lie, because he’d already figured that out. He’d just said that in case his line was being tapped or his apartment was being bugged.

  He left the rest unsaid, but he didn’t have to elaborate. They both knew that the less said, the less chance he ran of their being caught. Right now, Hannah’s safety was paramount to him, not just because the entire case against Maddox could very well rest on her slender shoulders if the other girls wouldn’t come forward as witnesses, but because he just couldn’t bear the thought of any harm coming to her.

  Ever.

  “You be careful,” Emma cautioned.

  He heard the concern in her voice, heard the catch in her throat that told him she was trying hard not to let her emotions get the better of her.

  It w
asn’t an easy life either one of them had chosen. The only difference was, Emma would be out of it soon. As for him, he usually thrived on this sort of thing. It was just every now and then that he caught himself wondering what it might be like to have a regular life like the people he saw going about their business every day.

  There were times he couldn’t help envying some of them. But the truth of it was, he loved what he did and wouldn’t have left that world for anything.

  “Always,” he said belatedly, responding to Emma’s order that he remain safe. With that, he ended the call.

  He was using one of those disposable phones and at this point, it had served its purpose. He tossed it on the ground and deliberately stepped on it, destroying all chance of the phone’s signal being traced.

  The young woman beside him gasped and looked at him, a wariness entering her eyes.

  She probably thought she’d witnessed a fit of temper, he guessed.

  “We don’t want to risk being followed,” Tate told her. “And that phone would have given off a traceable signal.”

  “Like a telegraph?” she guessed, trying to relate what he’d just said to her to something she was remotely familiar with.

  Tate did his best not to grin as he nodded. “Something like that,” he said, even though what he’d actually been thinking of was a GPS.

  Hurrying into the bedroom, he pulled a backpack out of the closet and quickly threw some basic items of clothing into it. Then he picked up a winter jacket and held it out to Hannah. “This might fit you a little better than my jacket did,” he told her. The jacket was by no means small, but it had fit him when he was less muscular than he was now, since weight training had become a central focus in his life. It was definitely smaller than the jacket he’d draped over her shoulders earlier and she was going to need something substantial to help shield her from the cold.

  Hannah took the down jacket from him and slipped it on. As expected, her hands disappeared beneath the sleeves. A quick glance in her direction would have pegged her—mistakenly—as a waif instead of the brave young woman she actually was. Hannah seemed to take all that life threw at her in stride and with a smile.