Page 84 of Deserving Cora
Cora held her breath. This was so nerve-wracking. It was easy to hear the worry in Stone’s tone.
“What? What’s wrong?” Pipe asked.
“Someone’s coming down the street,” Stone whispered. “I had to jump over the perimeter wall. I don’t think they saw me.”
“Lay low. Can you get eyes on them? Who is it?”
The seconds dragged by as they waited for Stone to speak. He was still whispering when he responded.
“It’s not Michaels. This guy is stocky. Blondish hair. Tall. He’s headed straight for the Jeep. Shit, he’s slashing the tires.”
Cora closed her eyes as she leaned against Pipe. He was her rock right then. With every minute that passed, things seemed to get worse and worse. With the car out of commission, they wouldn’t be able to get away from the house quickly.
“That’s Carter,” Pipe said.
“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Stone said.
“What’s he doing now?”
“Preparing a distraction,” Stone told them. “He opened the gas tank and stuffed a rag in there.”
“He’s gonna blow it up,” Pipe said.
“Probably. Wait…huh. That’s interesting.”
“What?” Pipe asked, impatience in his tone.
“He’s making a call. Do you think…maybe he doesn’t know the jammer was disabled. If he’s out here using his phone, maybe he thought it wouldn’t work in the house.”
“It’s possible,” Pipe agreed.
Then they all heard a sound in the background that made Owl’s head jerk up from where he’d been staring down at Lara.
“What’s that?” Pipe barked.
“Chopper,” Owl and Stone said at the same time.
“That’s our way out of here,” Pipe said firmly. “You need to get to that chopper, Stone. Lara can’t walk, so extraction’s gonna be tricky.”
For the first time since the call had started, Stone sounded confident. “Ten minutes,” he said. “I’ll be waiting. Owl?”
“I’m here,” he said.
“Remember what we did when we realized help had finally arrived for us?”
Cora watched Owl sit up straighter on the bed. “Yeah.”
“That’s your way out. I wish I could be there to help, but I’ll be in the cockpit waiting for you to be my wingman. Okay?”
“Deal,” Owl said.
“Ten minutes,” Stone repeated. “Do what you have to do, Pipe, to get out of there. If you don’t…” His voice trailed off.
Cora looked up at Pipe. His lips were pressed together tightly and he nodded. “Right. Ten minutes.” Then he clicked off the phone and looked at Owl. “What’s the plan?”
As soon as Owl explained how their rescue had gone down several years ago, Cora wasn’t sure it would work. But they literally had no other choice.
“You okay with taking her?” Pipe asked as he nodded at Lara.
