[B.S. #3] Claiming Laura (20 page)

“Fuck, Clay, you’re right. I wasn’t thinking.” James reached back in his pocket and removed his cell phone.

Clay walked to each of the men and was handed their phone. Taking them over to the computer table, he laid them down on it. When he was safely back inside the tunnel with the others, he nodded his head at Jared.

Jared turned a crank and a cement slab from above came crashing down on the computers, printers, and small tables they had been working on. Jared wiped his hand on his pants and hurried after the group, pulling the last switch after he got in the tunnel, which sealed the door shut.

Laura, Avery, Cyn, and Janet were scared out of their wits and had had enough of the men shoving them around and not telling them anything. When they had been herded like sheep from the kitchen into the basement and the safe room, all of them had been too shaken to demand answers. The men hadn’t even tried to talk to them or explain what was going on. After the cabin had shaken from some kind of blast, they were determined that the men were going to take the time to clue them in.

When the door of the safe room was opened by Stan, they allowed him to lead them into a tunnel of sorts. But when Stan and Brad tried to grab their arms and make them take seats in the golf carts, they stood firm. All the women became dead weight.

Laura used to always stay in the shadows, but this time she spoke up. She knew all this was happening because of her. She couldn’t let the others take the blame for causing a disturbance and demanding answers. Friends didn’t do that to each other.

Spotting Clay loading the back of one cart with guns, she walked over to him and grabbed his shoulder.

“What’s going on, Clay? Tell me what’s happening or I’m going to go back out there and find out for myself. It’s the General, right? He caught up with us. Didn’t he?”

Clay, after unloading his arms full of guns into the cart, turned to Laura and took her arm. He led her to the side of it and tried to get her to take a seat. “It’s not the time to get into it right now. Just get in the cart and when we are safe, I will tell you everything.”

Laura turned when she heard Avery squeal and looked around. Cyn had cornered Angel, and Janet had Jared and Stan’s attention. Avery was held up in James’s arms and was being soundly kissed. Brad and Grant just carried on loading the carts, ignoring the men and their ladies.

Clay, noticed her attention was diverted by the others and looked around for himself. He knew the ladies had questions, but they didn’t have time for them right now. First thing they had to learn was to follow orders and leave the questions for later. Clay put his fingers in his mouth and gave a shrill whistle. Everyone stopped at the noise, but before Clay could say anything the cabin was rocked again.

“Shit, Angel,” James said as he lowered Avery to the floor. “I think that’s your motor home now. It’s a good thing we only leased them.”

Clay gave James a dirty look. “We don’t have time for this. All this chitchat will just have to wait. Stan, you and Jared should drive. You’re the only ones who know where this leads. Ladies, if you all don’t want a sore ass when this is over, you will all hurry and take a seat in a cart on your own man’s lap. Let’s get out of here.”

“What about my lap? What about Grant’s?” Brad said as he jumped into the back of one cart. “It’s just not fair.”

Clay glared at him, then picked up Laura, took a seat in the cart, and sat her on his lap. Finally everyone was in the carts so they could leave.

Stan and Jared took off with only the cart’s small headlights to guide them through the passage.

Three quarters of an hour later they emerged into a large underground parking lot. There they found two older-model, dusty black SUVs parked, waiting.

Handing the ladies out as soon as they stopped, the men joined them and all stretched their muscles after the confining cart rides they’d just had.

“This is quite some setup you have here,” James told Jared as he looked around the neat underground lot.

“This is still my uncle’s doing. He wanted a way out. As for there being two trucks parked here, he wouldn’t keep only one. He was too paranoid of one not starting and leaving him trapped. He was eccentric to say the least. Let’s gather our stuff and get out of here and see if we can clean up this mess.”

Laura stopped Clay with her hand on his chest, as they were walking toward the truck. “Where are we going to go, Clay? If the General found us way up here, he’s going to find us no matter where we go.”

Clay picked up her hand and brought it to his lips giving it a kiss.

“Laura, please trust in me and the rest of the guys. We will be able to get the bastard in the end. He’s only won round one and even then we got away. Just leave it to us, OK, baby? Let’s get you in the truck and I will find out from James where we’re going and tell you.” Clay helped Laura in the truck that held the other women.

Closing the door, he made his way back to where James and the others were gathered after they had seen their women safely in the trucks. He heard James curse that their office wasn’t even safe because of Grace’s betrayal.

“We can use our home or office “Jared offered.

“Thanks, but I don’t think they’re an option. The General found your cottage, so he probably has your office and home under surveillance too,”
James said,
running his hand through his hair in frustration.

Brad spoke up. “I just bought a house. The paperwork is just barely dry. We can go there. I know it won’t be in any system yet.”

“Don’t tell me that you finally listened to us and bought a house?” Angel razzed him.

They had been after Brad to buy something permanent for years. But he’d always said he didn’t want to get tied down and a house would make him feel old.

“Ya, well don’t rub it in. I took your advice and looked at all the rent I had paid over the years. With that money I could have bought a couple of houses. So I finally broke down.”

“We all have to grow up sometime,” Angel told him with a smirk.

“Where is it?” James asked. “I don’t want to be too far from the city. We have to go in tonight and make sure there are no surprises in the office or my place. Or any of our places for the matter. Grace has access to all our places, and she or the General just might have left us some calling cards. After he gets wind of us getting away, which he should be receiving news of shortly, he will be out for blood. What better way than to blow up our office or our homes where we feel safe? And knowing the General, taking out a few extra hundred innocent people along the way will be the icing on the cake. It will be one more thing he can pin on us.”

“It’s not far from Angel’s house. Let’s go. I will drive the first truck and you follow.” Brad nodded at James as he made his way to the first truck in line.

Clay and the other men agreed that this would be the best place for a temporary office until they had time to regroup and make a plan.

“First thing when we get there, we have to phone the Army and get them off their tails,” James said as he strode to the second truck.

“I can just imagine the red tape we will have to unravel when we do,” Clay said, climbing in the truck and pulling Laura on his lap.

“I love you,” he whispered to her.

Laura looked away quickly, saying nothing and barely holding back her tears.

She had made a mistake by allowing people to get close to her. Ever since she had first seen that bank statement, she had gotten a target on her back. She knew no matter what that the General would always be after her. Tonight her new friends had lost their home, and the rest were lucky to still have their lives.

She decided that as soon as she could, she would disappear again. She would cut her hair, get a new ID. Laura wouldn’t exist anymore.

She had to do it. She wouldn’t let anyone else suffer. And she wouldn’t let Clay love her. No matter how hard she tried, she would only bring him pain.

The next couple of weeks were spent sleeping in sleeping bags at Brad’s new house, while the office and all of their homes were checked out carefully for bombs. As they feared, some were found set in the Braden Security office and in James’s apartment. It kept the men busy, trying to anticipate the General’s next move. Laura and the girls tried to make the best of it, but hated that they couldn’t do much to help.

The army had thoroughly questioned the men for days. Thank God no one was arrested. But with all the evidence, the hidden bombs, Laura’s information, and what Braden Security laid out with the help of the PIs, the army was finally coming around to believing their theory about the General.

The only thing was that after spearheading the mission to capture the so-called terrorists, the Army didn’t want to hear that they had been duped. With all the time taken to question them, it allowed the General and Grace to disappear.

Laura felt that it was all her fault. If only she hadn’t been such a chicken and ran years ago, they might have been able to dig up the information sooner and the General wouldn’t have gotten away with so much. He was guilty of the murder of the troops stationed in Colombia that were led on wild-goose chases to cover up the drug trafficking. Just as he was guilty of any deaths caused by the drugs the he had been paid for allowing into the country.

Clay had tried to reassure her that nothing could have been done differently. Still, the guilt was wearing her down. After all the dust had settled and everyone was allowed to go back to their lives, Laura had a hard time looking at Clay or getting near to him. She just felt that in some ways the guys blamed her.

Clay didn’t know what he could do to reassure Laura that nothing was her fault. He had tried anything he could think of for weeks after they left Brad’s house. The more he told her that she was innocent, the more she pulled away from him.

He tried everything he could think of to win her back. In the end, she stopped acknowledging him at all. He tried and tried until he just couldn’t try any more.

Chapter Nineteen

Finally, Clay had had enough. He began to hanging around the VSP club, much to Lance’s dismay.

Lance liked his friend, and since he had helped them save Cyn, he couldn’t throw him out. But Lance was getting fed up of Clay turning up every night and sitting at the bar on the Spice side nursing a beer and scowling at anyone who approached him. He was such a downer that the people who had come to play were starting to complain. Lance tried to get him to at least move over to the vanilla side, but Clay wouldn’t budge.

The Vanilla side of the VSP was where he had first met Laura. He knew that she wouldn’t be there, but he didn’t want to take the chance of meeting any of Laura’s friends. He knew they wouldn’t come into the spice side, so he was safe there.

Being at his wits’ end, Lance called Angel and explained the situation to him. “I’m really starting to worry,” Lance told Angel.

Angel agreed and told Lance “We also noticed that Clay was more closed mouth than usual. He doesn’t let on that anything is wrong. We have tried to get him to talk, but he just changes the subject or walks out of the room.
Lately he’s started taking the most dangerous jobs that have come down the pipe line, and we’re starting to worry. He justifies it by saying now that James and I are married, we have responsibilities, which he doesn’t, so it is better for him to take any chances.

Grant and Brad always keep tabs on him, but they told us it is getting out of hand, he’s taking chances that he normally wouldn’t think to take.

Leave it with us and I’ll see what we can come up with to stop this nonsense.”

Angel, after ending the call, walked over to the couch where Cyn was waiting for him to continue the movie that they had been watching. When she saw his expression, she turned the TV off. She turned on the couch with one leg under her and faced Angel as he sat down.

“What’s wrong? Is it Clay again?”

“Yeah, he’s been acting cold, colder than normal for him. He has been short with all of us, sometimes almost biting our heads off if we ask if he is OK. But that was Lance on the phone. He says he’s worried because Clay has been going to the club most nights, sitting in the spice side of the bar drinking. That’s not like him at all. We are going to have to do something.”

“Sorry, Angel, I didn’t know. I leave the club at four every day and Lance has not said anything to me about it. If he had, I would have tried talking to him myself.”

Angel pulled Cyn into his lap. “Thanks, but I don’t think he would have listened to anything you would have to say. Lance probably tried, too, and didn’t get anywhere. That’s why he called. We all know Clay just can’t let Laura go and it’s eating him up inside. I don’t know why she is so set in taking all the blame on herself for what happened, and about the General getting away. You’re a good judge of people—what do you think? You girls got to know each other pretty well when we were all staying at Brads.”

“My opinion is that she is full of guilt. By her and Clay not being able to hash it out right away, with everyone staying at Brad’s, it festered in her. After all, we were there for a full two weeks. They had no alone time. I know none of us did, but we weren’t in the same situations as them. Every night all the talk was about how the General got away and how you and the guys couldn’t catch a break. Nights were spent with the girls in one room and the guys in the other. Oh, I know we had to do it with Brad’s house being so small, and we needed the third bedroom for a computer office and base. At least James and Avery took off every once in a while, just like we did, to have some alone time. But Clay and Laura didn’t. Clay wouldn’t take the chance with Laura’s safety. I noticed a few times when Clay would approach her, she would lower her eyes and find something that needed her attention. I could see Clay’s frustration. She wouldn’t talk to us either. She just kept saying how sorry she was that she had put us through all of this.”

Angel hugged Cyn closer. “So what do we do? Laura won’t talk to the women and Clay won’t open up to us. Do we just give up? I really like the big guy. Hell, we all do. The unit has been through so much over the years that we’ve become a family. We have to come up with something.”