Agent Undercover (14 page)

“D
ylan! We need a place to take cover. A tornado may be touching down nearby!”

Dylan held up a hand and closed his eyes. “Hear that?”

“Sounds like a train.” She knew what that meant. Growing up, Mama Ida warned her if there was ever a tornado predicted, and she heard something that sounded like a train, to find a safe place.

Like a basement.

Only they didn’t have a basement.

“We need to get out of here!” Another kind of fear took over as she realized that the bad guys might win after all. Thanks to an act of nature.

“Follow me!” Dylan hollered as he grabbed the flashlight and pointed it in a direction only he seemed to know that would lead them somewhere.

Without question, she grabbed the wrist that held the flashlight and ducked her head against the deluge. Will grabbed Dylan’s neck in a choke hold and held on while his uncle raced toward a place Paige couldn’t see.

But he’d grown up here. He knew this mountain. And she trusted him.

With her life.

Pounding past the burned shell of his sister’s house, he ran toward the trees.

The train came closer.

Wind whipped her hair into her eyes and across her cheeks, stinging her skin.

And still they ran.

She heard Will crying, Dylan’s reassuring yell that it was going to be okay.

Her breath whooshed out as she hit a particularly rough group of branches. She yelled a warning. Dylan would knock himself unconscious before he’d let go of that little boy.

“There!”

She saw where he was headed.

A bridge.

The noise grew louder. Closer.

Together they fought the increased winds, pushing, straining to reach their goal even as the wind fought back, struggling to keep her from safety.

“Please God,” she whispered in a pant. “You’ve brought us this far. Don’t let go of us now.”

Branches whipped around her. One slapped her across the back, and she gasped at the pain spiraling up her.

Another caught Dylan in the side of the head, and he reeled, blood dripping from the gash.

“Are you okay?” she yelled at him.

“Fine! Go! Go!” He stayed hunched over the child in his arms, protecting him for the flying debris, even as his other hand pulled on hers.

She ran.

“Get under the bridge!”

She dove under, hit the ground—and the ankle deep water in the creek the bridge covered. “Oomph.”

She felt Dylan fall beside her. His breaths came in pants. “Climb up underneath as far as you can.”

Scrambling, grasping at whatever she could get her hands on, she pulled her way up. Wood finally surrounded her as she sat huddled, shivering.

Dylan stumbled up next to her, holding tight to Will. With the flashlight still working, she could see the little boy tremble, the tears on his cheeks.
Dear Lord, hasn’t he been through enough? Please get us out of this alive.

Reaching out, she grasped his hand. “It’s going to be fine, little guy, okay?”

He nodded and gave her a tremulous smile.

She prayed like she’d never prayed before and thought she could see Dylan’s lips moving. The flashlight bobbed in his hand.

And then all was still.

The sudden silence seemed loud, making her ears ring.

Dylan’s raspy breaths filled her ears.

And then, once again, she felt his lips on hers.

She kissed him with all the relief she felt at being alive. With all the love she had pent up begging for release. Whether she would admit it or not.

And then his arms closed around her, bringing her as close as possible with Will still squished between them. Will’s sudden giggle was the best thing she’d heard in her life.

The resilience of children.

“Is it over?”

She squeezed him again. “Sounds like it.”

Dylan’s breath puffed over her left ear. “Let’s go home.”

Together, they crawled out from under the bridge and surveyed the mess left by the storm.

Fallen trees and scattered debris lay before them, highlighted by the weak light of the flashlight.

“Wow,” Paige breathed.

“And that was a small tornado,” Dylan agreed.

“It’s going to take some work climbing over all this stuff.”

“I wonder how the town fared,” he murmured.

“Maybe it just hit the mountain.”

“Let’s go find out.”

Paige rose early and dressed without thinking about it. They’d discovered that the town had fared remarkably well. In fact, the tornado had only hit the little mountain with minimal damage and no casualties.

As a result, life went on.

And so did their plans for the day.

Her mind went to Will’s actions from the night before. The little boy had been willing to place himself in the hands of the bad man in order to save the uncle he loved.

She marveled at the fact that a six-year-old would understand the concept of sacrifice like that. Shaking her head, she clipped on her badge in a place that would keep it hidden until she needed to pull it out and shove it in the face of the one wreaking havoc in the lives of those she loved.

She froze.

Loved?

A tremor shook her. Okay, she had to admit it. She loved them. The little family had wormed its way into her heart and taken up permanent residence. And the tornado had made her finally face it. She’d almost lost it all last night.

Not just her life, but Dylan and Will. The thought made her nauseous.

So what did that mean for the future? For her and them?

She wasn’t sure. “Just focus on catching the killer first. Then you can worry about your future.”

Saying the words aloud spurred her on to the school where Eli would meet her. They planned to sit down with the principal and fill him in on everything. From all of her observations, Tom Bridges was innocent of any wrongdoing going on in his school. His background check had come back clean even before she started this assignment.

She wished she had a specific suspect that she could zero in on, but she didn’t. Checking the IDs was her only hope right now.

Once in the principal’s office, she asked, “How many staff do you have out today?”

The shock of who Paige really was had yet to wear off, but thankfully, Tom Bridges managed to gather himself together and be a help and not a hindrance. He whirled his chair to the computer screen and tapped a few keys. Then he said, “We have four teachers absent.”

Eli said, “Write down their addresses, if you don’t mind. I’ll have my deputies go out to their homes and request permission to check their IDs.”

Principal Bridges did as requested and handed the short list to Eli. The sheriff excused himself and stepped from the office to call it in to the deputies.

Paige said, “We don’t want anyone to know what we’re doing. I’m going to go room to room and ask for the badges to ‘reprogram.’ That way the students remain calm and none of the teachers suspect anything. We do have extra security and police surrounding the area and in the building
undercover posing as parents and volunteers. They’ve already gotten their badges and are in position.”

Principal Bridges nodded. “All right. What else do you need me to do?”

“If we find what we suspect we’ll find—a tampered ID badge—then whoever it belongs to may not surrender quietly. We’ll need to make sure the classrooms can be locked down immediately if necessary.”

“They can be. We have lockdown drills.”

“Good. But that’s a last resort. We’re going to try and do this peacefully, with no one the wiser.”

Pulling in a deep breath, the man nodded and stood. “All right. Anything else?”

Paige stood beside him. “No sir, I think that’ll do it.” She gazed at him. “I’m sorry for the deception. We just felt like we didn’t have a choice in this matter.”

“I understand. I don’t like it, but I do understand.”

Paige smiled her relief. “Thanks.”

She stepped out of his office, adjusted the gun under her arm and went to work.

Dylan settled Will into his car seat under the watchful eye of Deputy Callum McIvers. Eli had asked him to make sure they got safely out of town. Only then would Cal report to the school to be ready in case he was needed.

Dylan climbed into the vehicle, looked back at Will, who gave him the first real smile in a long time. “We’re out of here, dude. Okay?”

Will gave him a thumbs-up. Dylan took that as a good sign.

Then a frown crossed the little boy’s lips. “Wait. I gotta go to school.”

“What? Why?” A glance in the rearview mirror showed Cal following at a distance.

“’Cuz I forgot to tell Paige something.”

“But Paige is busy catching the bad man, remember?”

The jaw so much like his own jutted at him. “I gotta tell her.”

“Tell her what?”

“Is she gonna get hurt?”

“I … no … she’s not.”

Tears welled up in Will’s eyes. “I gotta tell her! You have to let me! Please, take me to school. Nothing bad ever happens there.”

Exasperated, Dylan couldn’t decide what to do but this was obviously very important to Will. “Can I just call her and let you talk to her on the phone?”

“No! I gotta see her!”

The sheer desperation on Will’s face made Dylan pause. This wasn’t a normal, run-of-the-mill demand. This was something Will felt very strongly about.

What did he do?

“If I take you, I’m getting your books and all your work. We’ll pop in the office, then right back to the car, okay?”

Will palmed the tears away and calmed down. “Okay.”

Dylan shook his head. He couldn’t fathom what was going through the child’s mind and was really too tired to try and figure it out at the moment.

Finally at the bottom of the mountain, he turned right and headed toward the elementary school.

At the stoplight, he pulled his cell from the cup holder and dialed Cal’s number.

The cop answered on the second ring. “What you need, Dyl?”

“I need to stop at the school.”

“That’s probably not a good idea.”

Dylan launched into the explanation of why. Grudgingly, Cal acquiesced and followed them into the parking lot of the school.

By this time, Dylan had dialed Paige’s number twice with no answer. Slipping his phone into his pocket, he climbed out and got Will from the car.

Looking around the school, everything appeared normal. A parent exited and nodded to him. Dylan forced a return smile and held Will’s hand as they walked through the door.

At the front desk, he greeted the secretary. “Good morning. Could you let Paige know we’re here in the office? Will would like to say something to her before we take off for a few days.”

“She’s been awfully busy coming back and forth, reprogramming the IDs. Why don’t you have a seat and wait on her?”

Dylan didn’t want to wait. Everything in him was ready to get on the road and get out of this town that had almost destroyed his entire family. He looked down and froze.

Will was gone again.

This time exasperation hit him. He could see he was going to have to have a little talk and reinforce that Will needed to stay with him and not just walk away any time he felt like it.

Worry niggled inside him, but not the raging fear he’d felt when Will had disappeared last night. This was Will’s school. He was comfortable here.

Dylan just had to look in a logical place, find the child, then get out of town.

Simple enough. Dylan walked out of the office and went to locate his wayward nephew.

However, no matter how much he tried to reassure himself that Will was fine, he couldn’t help the niggling sense of foreboding that he was walking right into trouble.

Paige handed the badge back to Jessica, hiding her frustration. She’d been in and out of every classroom, “reprogramming” badges. Each one had been tamper-free.

Jessica thanked her. “I haven’t seen Will today. Is he all right?”

“He’s fine,” Paige assured her. “He and Dylan are just taking a little trip this week.”

“He’s missing school?”

“Just a few days.”

Jessica shrugged and walked back into her classroom.

Children scampered past Paige in the hallway, a few stopping to give her a hug. In spite of her frustration at her lack of success in finding a tampered badge, she smiled. She’d made some friends here.

Paige pulled the list of staff members from her back pocket and checked off Jessica’s name. The last deputy had reported in. The four absent staff members’ badges had also not been altered. She checked those names off.

Six names left. Including office and maintenance staff.

“Any luck?”

Tom Bridges rounded the corner, new lines on his face suggesting he wasn’t dealing well with the stress they’d laid on him today.

“No, sorry, not yet. Six more.”

She showed him the list. He nodded. “I’ll take these three, you get the last three. Sam Hobbs is waxing the cafeteria floor, Lila Johnson was vacuuming the library and Stacy Dobson was sweeping the back hall.”

“Got ‘em.” The cafeteria was two doors down. She’d start there.

Dylan ground his teeth, his anger at himself barely under control. How had Will managed to slip off again?

Exasperation consumed him. He looked at the secretary. “Did you happen to see which way Will went?”

“Toward his classroom, I think.”

His classroom and Paige’s office were off the same hall. Adhering the name tag to his left shoulder, Dylan exited the office and headed toward Will’s classroom. He’d stop in at Paige’s office and see if she was there.

Looking in the door, he was almost shocked to find it empty. He’d fully expected to see her and Will in conversation, Will telling her whatever he’d been so adamant about stopping by the school for.

“Huh.” He turned and made his way toward Will’s classroom.

Paige watched Eli approach, his footsteps moving him down the hall at a rapid clip. The look on his face didn’t bode well. “What is it?” she asked.

“Right after the accident with Alex, I had my deputies start running plates of every white car they came across to see if it matched up with anyone that might be a potential suspect.” He grimaced. “You wouldn’t think there would be that many in a town this size, but there are. That’s why it’s taken us so long.”