Not well enough. Crista stared straight ahead and tried to concentrate on just breathing. Dawg was close; she could feel him. Everything would be okay. She repeated it to herself over and over again and prayed she was right.
Dawg kept the van in sight from the backseat of the bright red extended-cab pickup truck Cranston and Dane had been waiting in outside the front of the store.
He was sweating. He could feel the moisture rolling from his forehead and dampening his back.
He had promised to keep her safe. He remembered that. As they drove to Johnny’s, he had promised her that nothing would happen. They were just going to let him know they were onto him, make him mess up. Everything was going to be just fine.
He should have known better. God help him, he should have figured out a year ago that he couldn
’t tempt fate that damned far. He should have known Johnny had an accomplice. Someone close to Dawg. Someone who had somehow figured out he was working with the ATF.
That someone was Jim Bedsford. Ex-military with contacts that Dawg was certain extended into the law enforcement community. Jim had been involved with Special Forces and deep cover investigations during his time in the Army.
“Someone messed up on this one,” he commented as though he weren’t imagining drawing someone’s blood for the mess-up. Particularly Cranston’s.
“We have her covered, Dawg,” Cranston assured him, not for the first time. “We have a tracker on Alex’s vehicle as well as that purse we found in Grace’s house. His tail verified he left the house by the back door dressed as Crista, and he’s driving Alex’s car. We won’t lose him.”
Surveillance video on the detention center had managed to identify the car Johnny had been using to visit his buddies. Alex’s car was supposed to be locked in the unattached garage behind the house he and Crista had grown up in. Johnny had her house keys and the keys to that garage and to the car.
“Do you know how many different ways I’m going to kill you if you do, Cranston?” Dawg asked him softly.
Cranston cleared his throat uneasily. “I don’t have a worry, Dawg. We have it covered.”
“Grace just turned off the highway and headed up a hunters’ road to the lake,” Greta Dane reported. She pulled up a map on the laptop she held on her lap, the moving red dot indicating the car Johnny was driving.
“Natches, are you getting this?” Dawg asked over the speaker line set on his cell phone.
“I have it here, Dawg,” Natches said softly. “He’s heading toward the old Bridgeland hunting cabin. I’ll circle around and get in place. Don’t worry, Bro. I’ll cover her.”
Dawg heard the complete unemotional determination in Natches’s voice and felt the tight knot of fear begin to uncoil in his belly. Natches’s loyalty was unquestioned, as was his ability with the rifle Dawg knew he kept close by.
“I’m heading there,” Dawg told him. “Don’t take any chances, Natches. I don’t care if Bedsford and Johnny both lose gray matter. Keep Crista safe for me.”
“No fears, Bro.”
Dawg knew that tone of voice. There was every chance in the world that Bedsford and Johnny would end up with a bullet in the head anyway.
“Natches, you follow fucking orders,” Cranston snapped out furiously as he flicked Dawg an enraged glare in the rearview mirror. “We need those two alive.”
The call disconnected.
“Damn it, Dawg,” the special agent snarled. “If those two end up dead, I’ll take it out of your hide.”
“If those two end up dead, I won’t lose a single night’s sleep over it,” Dawg growled in return.
“Don’t fuck with me, Cranston. You knew Bedsford was involved in this, and you didn’t deign to tell any of us. And don’t bother denying it.”
It had taken Dawg a few minutes to put it together, and if he hadn’t known Cranston as well as he did, he wouldn’t have suspected it. But he did know Cranston. Throw a wild card in the mix, and he was killer-cold. Cranston wasn’t cold. If he wasn’t driving, he would be rubbing his hands together in glee.
“How did you figure out Bedsford was involved in this?”
Cranston cursed under his breath. “He’s related to the dead transport driver, Private Dwayne Stockton. There were cell phone calls to Bedsford in the weeks before he was killed.”
“And I didn’t know this why?” Dawg had to force the words past his lips and his hand off his weapon.
“Because he was working for you, and I decided to wait before informing you of the fact.”
Son of a bitch. “You thought I was involved.”
“I didn’t believe you were involved, but I had to be certain. By the time I was certain, Miss Jansen was involved, and I had to decide the best way to handle it. I handled it by watching your back and hers until I knew what was going on.”
“The van is turning off,” Dane said softly. “Natches has directed our men in front of him using an alternate route. Grace is in place, and Natches has him in sight.”
“Turn right at the next road,” Dawg directed them, hating the thought of losing sight of Crista in that damned van. “The next road will keep us parallel to him and put us in place to move on foot to the cabin.”
The Bridgeland hunting cabin had more than one dirt track leading to it due to the four-wheelers often used to access it.
Dawg wiped his hand across his brow, his gaze locked on the van ahead of them until Cranston made the turn. The coil of fury and fear iced in his gut then.
Dawg pulled his handgun from the holster at his back and checked the clip. Replacing it, he pulled the extra clips from the supply Cranston had tossed in the back, checked them quickly, then loaded the bulletproof vest before pulling it on and strapping the sides in place.
God bless Layla Matcher’s heart. If it hadn’t been for her standing at the window and seeing Jim Bedsford forcing Crista into that van, then Dawg would have never found her.
Cranston had been watching for Johnny Grace in the main customer parking lot. It was evident that no one had expected Bedsford to move this fast or to do so without Johnny physically backing him.
“Bedsford had the contacts for the black market buyers,” Cranston told him. “We found that out only in the past twenty-four hours. The Swedish mercenary making the buy finally made a deal with the federal prosecutor. He didn’t have Bedsford’s name, but he had enough information for us to ID him. He spent his time in the Army making contacts in the black market and setting up weapons deals.”
“You should have been on the ball, Cranston.” Dawg strapped a backup weapon to his ankle and stuffed several spare clips for it into another pocket of the vest. “You fucked up.”
“Information was slow coming in.” Cranston shook his head. “Our sources do have other things they’re working on as well, you know.”
“You fucked up. And if Crista gets hurt, then you’ve really fucked up. Because I’ll kill you.”
Dawg didn’t let free the fury burning in a small corner of his mind. He kept it bottled, kept it contained. He couldn’t afford it now, not when logic and clear thinking alone were going to get Crista through this.
His cell phone beeped.
“Give me the goods,” he answered with the order to Natches.
“I’m positioned in one of the pines beside the cabin on the side Bedsford’s van will have to use.
Johnny’s here in full Crista disguise. Hell, Dawg, he looks hot.” There was murder in Natches’s voice.
“Want me to draw a little blood?”
“Hold tight. Cranston has a transmitter in that damned pocketbook Johnny’s carrying as well as in the wig. I’ll be in place before Bedsford gets there. We’ll go in together.”
“Here.” Cranston tossed him an earbud. “We’re close enough to use these. Tell Natches to put his in place now. Don’t fuck with me, Dawg. This is a team play, not a vendetta.”
“Use the earbud, Natches.” Dawg grinned back at Cranston through the rearview mirror. The sight of that smile had the special agent’s gaze flickering.
Attaching the communications device, Dawg activated it, then tested it quickly before disconnecting the phone. Cranston and Dane were both similarly wired as, Dawg assumed, the rest of the team was.
“Now, we’re all here,” Cranston spoke into the device.
“Now I can tell you I’m going to kick your ass personally when this is over, Cranston,” Natches spoke through the ear receiver. “Didn’t I warn you about pulling surprises on us, man?”
Cranston grunted. “Keep your finger off that trigger, Natches, and your eyes on Grace. Let’s at least get a little evidence against these bastards before we start shooting. If you don’t mind, that is?”
“And if I mind?”
TWENTY-THREE
Natches kept his sniper rifle trained on Johnny and his finger on the trigger. That finger twitched. He wanted to kill the bastard so damned bad it was all he could do to hold back. It ate at his gut with a power that nearly gave him indigestion.
Johnny Grace. He was a first cousin. He had been raised with them when he was younger, until he, Rowdy, and Dawg figured out that Johnny was more like Natches’s father than the gentle, smiling father Johnny’d had.
Ralph Grace, before his death, had managed to keep his wife and his son in check. After his death, though, Nadine and Johnny had revealed the vicious, evil streak they possessed.
He caressed the trigger of his rifle as he trained his sights on Johnny’s forehead. Fucking bastard.
God, how he hated Johnny. It was a hatred that nearly rivaled the hatred he had for his own father, Dayle Mackay.
As he stared through the rifle sights, he didn’t see the image Johnny was trying to impersonate, that of Dawg’s lover, Crista Jansen. No, he saw Johnny. Just Johnny. His beady little eyes narrowed as he leaned against Alex’s car, his arms crossed over his fake breasts as he watched the dirt road he expected Bedsford to use.
Natches knew he should have expected this. He should have known Cranston was hiding shit; it was what Cranston did best. And to be honest, he had suspected it; he just hadn’t put two and two together fast enough.
Because he had been too damned busy holding back a more personal fury.
It was bad enough that Rowdy had to be so damned possessive over Kelly, but now Dawg had to go and do the same thing with Crista. That lack of connection was affecting him. He was beginning to feel disassociated, cold. That tight knot of bitter ice inside his soul that he had fought all his life was hardening now.
Rowdy and Dawg had grown up, and they had grown away, though he was certain they didn’t see it that way. Since Rowdy had taken Kelly, Natches had tried to share time with Dawg and Rowdy rather than women. But hell, women took up time, and Kelly was as spoiled as any female ever had been by Rowdy.
Sometimes, Natches thought they lived in each other’s pockets, and now Dawg and Crista were taking the same route. And Natches was left standing on the outside, watching, wondering, and regretting.
He had thought the sharing would continue. He had let himself care for Kelly, let her into his heart, believing that when Rowdy came home that he would be a part of the intimacy, only to find out that Rowdy had found a core of possessiveness somewhere.
And Dawg. Dawg was doing the same thing. No other man would touch Crista without finding himself wishing he had held back. And Dawg was a mean bastard when he was riled.
And this was why Natches hadn’t connected Bedsford and Johnny. Because he was too busy adjusting to changes that he hadn’t expected, too busy trying to find a way to keep the ice around his soul melted.
He wasn’t succeeding. A testament to that fact had his finger aching to twitch just enough to put a bullet in the back of Johnny’s head.
