Page 77 of The Death
“Strickland here. The kid is back, and it looks like he brought Quinn with him. I lost sight of them, but they can’t be far.” He jiggled the phone. “Hello, why aren’t you talking? Is something wrong with my phone? If you send a few guys back, we should have no problem rounding them up.” The man paused. “Hello? Are you there? Hang on, I’ll send you my location coordinates.”
Whippp!
Joe’s knife sailed through the air and sliced cleanly into the man’s chest. He slumped to the ground, dead.
Joe dragged the man several feet off the trail and covered him with two large bushes. Then he checked his phone. No response. Another indication that something was disrupting cell phone service. Evidently these guards hadn’t been in contact, so he’d just continue as planned. He moved back to the boulders, where he didn’t immediately see Michael. Oh, shit! He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to—
“Dad!” Michael popped up from behind the largest boulder and ran over to greet him. “What happened?”
“You were right. There was a man ahead who spotted us.”
Michael was gazing at him intently. “What did you do to him?”
“Only what I had to, Michael. He was about to report our position. We never would have found your mother if I’d let him do that.”
Michael thought about this for a moment and then nodded slowly. “I understand. You had to weigh what was best. We have to take care of Mom.”
“That’s right.” Joe put his hand on Michael’s shoulder. “And I hope we don’t have to make another decision like that anytime soon. But it was my decision, not yours. Remember that.”
“I will,” Michael said. “But you always give me a choice in what I do,” he added soberly. “And I have to remember that, too.”
“I’m not sure I like where this is going,” Joe said. “Let’s save this discussion for a time when we’re not so stressed.” He patted him on the shoulder. “Come on, let’s go look for your mom.”
They walked another quarter mile until they approached the shed that Michael must have known all too well because he froze in shock when he saw it.
“Michael?” Joe murmured.
“This is it.” Michael moistened his lips. “I know it. It’s bigger than the other houses in the village, and there’s the well where I’d go for water. If we go in that main door, it will connect with the bedroom and the room where Mom worked on the queen.”
“Stay here,” Joe whispered. He unholstered his automatic and fired up his pocket flashlight. He went inside.
Blood.
Joe inhaled sharply.
Blood everywhere!
Please God, no. Eve…
“Joe?”
He went rigid with shock as he heard that voice he knew so well. “Eve?”
Then he was bolting back to the door and running outside. Eve was kneeling on the floor against the far wall with her arms around Michael. Joe crossed the room in a heartbeat and then she was in his arms. “Eve… I thought…”
“I know what you thought.” She kissed him and then hugged Michael closer. “I was hiding down in the basement. I had to be sure that it was you before I took a chance on showing myself. Caldwell’s men have been through here. All that blood. Not my fault. Celine did it.” Tears were running down her cheeks.
It seemed almost too good to be true that not only was Eve now with him, she was holding their son tightly in her arms, both safe after all the horror he’d been imagining could happen to them today. “It was Celine? Talk to me.” Joe didn’t want to let them go so he threw his arms around both Eve and Michael. “I saw all that blood in there, and it scared the living hell out of me.” He kissed Eve once, twice, three times before finally drawing back. He was trying to think. “You said Celine? Is she okay?”
She nodded. “That bloody mess is Jossland, Celine’s handiwork. Caldwell’s men were here less than an hour afterward, and I’m sure Caldwell has been tearing this jungle apart looking for us ever since. After we escaped, we called Kontara totell her where we were heading. She was already in the hills tracking Caleb, but when she heard I had something I wanted her to take to him to decipher, she came back and took the weapons and phones with her. She told us you were heading in this direction and to hide here on the property until you made contact with them.” She paused. “But that wasn’t an option for Celine.”
“Why not?”
“Because the first thing that Caleb had told Kontara when he saw her was that Caldwell had sent word to all his soldiers that he’d put a bounty on Celine’s head because he’d found she’d killed his old friend Jossland. He was going to give her to the priest for punishment.”
Joe gave a low whistle. “Which would give Caldwell exactly what he wanted: the chance to please Zakira, take over his guerrilla armies,andsteal him blind.”
Eve shook her head. “Do you think that Celine didn’t realize that the minute she heard what Kontara said? I was supposed to go with her when we escaped to the hills, but as soon as she heard what was going on, she helped me find this hiding place. And she refused to let me go with her because she was afraid that I’d be compromised.”
