Death, Taxes, and Cheap Sunglasses (A Tara Holloway Novel Book 8) (36 page)

With that, Nick was gone.

Possibly forever.

But, no. No! If I lost Nick, it would only be after I’d done everything in my power to save him.

“Go north!” I threw out my arm to direct my father onto I-45, forgetting all about my broken tailbone as I climbed over the seatback and into the front. “Floor it!”

Dad did what I asked without question. While keeping an eye on the highway exits, I phoned Lu. “I just heard from Nick!” I cried. “They’re in trouble!”

I told her everything I knew, except how I’d gotten the information. She could make her own assumptions. “I’m headed there now!”

“Are you armed?”

“Am I Tara Holloway?” Of course I was armed!

“I’ll contact the DEA,” Lu said quickly. “You call 911.”

Without good-byes, we ended the call. I dialed 911 and told the dispatcher that units were needed northeast of Southfork Ranch.

“Where, exactly?” he asked.

“I don’t know for certain.” The octave of my voice rose with my mounting hysteria. “All I know is they passed Southfork Ranch and took a left about a minute later. Tell the officers to look for a Budget Rental truck. And tell them to hurry!”

“Got it,” the dispatcher said. “I’ll send units to the area.”

In what felt like an eternity but was in reality less than three minutes, we reached the Parker Road exit. Dad turned on his emergency flashers and honked his horn as he flew down the shoulder of the exit ramp around the slower traffic.
Honk! Honk-honk! Hooooonk!
When he reached Parker Road, he turned right, tires squealing as the truck careened around the corner.
Squeeee!

We made the five and a half miles to Southfork Ranch in less than four minutes. As we approached the ranch, I spotted a Collin County Sheriff’s Department cruiser turning left down a residential street just past the ranch. A Parker PD patrol car came up the next street on the left.

“Go farther!” I shrieked at my father, motioning with my arm.

It was possible the members of the cartel planned to take Nick, Christina, and Alejandro to a house, but I had my doubts. Even though these homes were situated on large lots with substantial space between them, the violent thugs would probably want more privacy to carry out their killings. These were professional murderers, not the type to take unnecessary risks.

We drove on for another twenty seconds when I spotted a county road on the left, just before Lavon Lake. Something told me this could be the place. “There!” I hollered. “Turn there!”

Dad took the turn as fast as he dared, taking out the speed limit sign with a loud
ping
as his truck slid in the caliche. After zigzagging wildly for a moment, the two of us being thrown side to side as if on a carnival ride, Dad regained control of his truck and straightened out.

With no streetlights on this stretch of pavement and only a thin sliver of moon, the truck’s headlights provided the only illumination. It wasn’t enough.
It wasn’t enough!
In the darkness we could drive right past the rental truck and not notice it. With lives ticking down, we didn’t have any time to waste.

I threw off my seat belt, leaned over the seatback, and reached into the gun case for my night vision scope. Putting it to my eye, I scanned the countryside. All I saw were dozing cows, scraggly brush, and an occasional fence post.

We’d driven a mile or so when my eyes spotted a copse of cedar trees in a pasture about a hundred yards off. I was about to move on when shapes began to appear among the limbs and branches
.

Is there something hidden in the foliage?

I squinted through the scope.

Yes!

The Budget Rental truck was parked sideways behind the trees, portions of the logo visible. The silver Dodge Avenger belonging to Carlos Uvalde, the convicted heroin dealer, sat next to it, along with the Sequoia I’d followed to the Waffle House and Motley’s pickup truck. Keeping the scope to my eyes, I pointed through the windshield. “The truck’s over there!” I informed my father. “In those trees!”

I didn’t see Nick or Christina, but they couldn’t be far away. The only question now was,
Are they still alive?

“Cut the lights,” I told Dad. With the headlights on, we’d be easy to spot and target. We wouldn’t be able to help Nick and Christina if the cartel’s thugs opened fire on us and took us out.

Dad turned off the headlights on his truck and turned into the field. Thick weeds and brush slapped at the truck as we bounced across the uneven terrain. He stopped behind another stand of trees not far from the other vehicles and we hopped out of his truck. Dad grabbed the bag of weapons from his backseat. I scurried into the trees, dropping to my knees at the base of a scrubby evergreen. Scanning the field with my scope, I spotted movement to the right of a dilapidated barn in the distance. Squinting, I stared until the image became clear.

Five men milled around. Given their relative posturing and gesticulations, they seemed to be arguing, two against three. The two were Vargas and Motley, the men I’d seen in the Waffle House. Of the three who seemed to be in accord, one of them appeared to be in charge, the other two looking to him as if for guidance. The leader wore a leather jacket with an excess of zippers and biker boots with thick chains encircling the ankles. His head was shaved, his face criss-crossed with scars.

El Cuchillo.

My heart turned a back flip in my chest and my throat swelled shut in terror. Gulping to clear my airway, I shifted the scope to take in the area around them. In front of the men, Nick, Christina, and a man who had to be Alejandro knelt side by side, blindfolds over their eyes, duct tape over their mouths, their hands tied behind them. Directly in front of each of them lay a freshly dug shallow grave.

Holy shit!

They’re going to be killed!

Execution style!

“Ohmigod!” I wheezed out on a breath, beginning to hyperventilate.
Wuh-uh-wuh-uh-wuh-uh.
“Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Ohmigod!”

“What?” Dad asked, dropping the bag and kneeling down next to me. “What do you see?”

Paralyzed by my fear, I was unable to speak, unable to move, unable to think.

My father grabbed the scope from my hands, looked through it, and gasped. “Those men are gonna kill ’em! My God, they’ve dug graves already!”

For a moment my mind remained frozen, unable to think or react, my synapses misfiring and sparking uselessly like a frayed electrical cord. But then my mind thawed just enough for me to remember the fortune cookie.

Conquer your fears or they will conquer you.

The cookie was right.

I couldn’t let my terror control me.

I had to do this.

I had to save Nick and Christina.

“Time to gun up, Dad. We’re going to war.”

I reached for the bag of guns, handed my father his hunting rifle and his night vision scope, and retrieved my own long-range rifle. Dad returned my scope to me and I slid it into place on my rifle, raising it to my eye.

“We can’t shoot yet,” I said quickly. “I don’t know who’s who. Some of those men might be undercover DEA.”

I had no idea how many other agents were working this case with Nick and Christina. And given the limited lighting and distance, I couldn’t confirm which of the two men siding with El Cuchillo might be Uvalde. We wanted to save Nick and Christina, but we couldn’t risk killing another agent with friendly fire. We could only shoot if it became a hundred percent clear there was no other option and that the man we shot was a member of the cartel. At this point there was the possibility, however remote, that if any of the five men were undercover agents they would somehow be able to save Nick and Christina.

My gut twisted and writhed while I waited, hoping for things to become clear. Who were the good guys and who were the bad guys? Were they
all
bad guys? If so, we shouldn’t be waiting, we should be doing something right now!

In my hyperalert state, every nerve ending tingled. The crickets seemed to be chirping at a million decibels and the musty, earthy smell of the thick undergrowth overpowered my olfactory senses. I was also aware of every breath my father drew next to me, every blink of his eyes. His presence, though, was calming rather than irksome.

Without taking my eye from my scope, I said in a hitching, quavering voice, “I’m really glad you’re here, Dad.”

It was true. Though I feared for his safety, I knew he was a good shot. Hell, he’d been the one to teach me how to handle a gun. He was every bit as good, if not better, than many sharpshooters. And if there was ever a time a girl needed her daddy, this was it.

“Happy to help,” he said, following his words with a mirthless chuckle. “But let’s keep this from your mother, okay?”

As my father and I stood there side by side with our rifles at the ready, watching through our scopes, El Cuchillo said something to the two men allied with him. In an instant, the two whipped handguns out from under their jackets and shot the other two men point-blank—Vargas in the chest, Motley in the face—the gun flashes bright in the dark night, the
bang-bang
traveling across the wide field to our ears.

The now-dead men snapped backward, arms flailing like those nylon fan-blown dancers used to get attention at car sales. They collapsed to the ground in bent, bloody heaps. I could only hope neither was a federal agent.

“Lord!” my father squeaked. “Holy Lord!”

My gut roiled and I had to fight the urge to vomit. I’d seen lots of terrible things in my job. But, until now, I’d never witnessed anyone being killed. I fought the urge to scratch out my own eyes. But I knew it would be futile. Once you’ve seen something that horrific, you can never
un
see it.

My lungs locked up as El Cuchillo stepped up behind Alejandro. He pulled open his jacket, revealing a sheathed knife strapped to his chest. He yanked the blade from the sheath, the metal glinting in the moonlight. His lips spread in a grin so unfeeling, so evil, so devilish, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see flames shoot from his mouth.

He pressed his knife to the informant’s throat. The other men made no move to stop him. Instead, one of the remaining men stepped up behind Christina, whose shoulders were shaking with sobs. The third man stepped up behind Nick. The men aimed their guns down at the back of Christina and Nick’s heads.

Now I was certain.

None of these men were DEA.

I realized that shooting the men posed the risk they might reflexively pull their triggers as they fell and shoot Nick and Christina. But what choice did we have? If we didn’t shoot the men, Nick and Christina would definitely die. If we did shoot the men, my boyfriend and friend stood a chance of surviving …
however small that chance might be.

An odd calm and clarity settled over me, as if I were having an out-of-body experience. I knew then and there I would soon be taking a human life. I could only hope that I’d be saving one, as well.

“I’ve got Nick’s man,” I told my father, “you take Christina’s.” I hesitated only a split second before adding, “Shoot to kill.”

My father shifted his gun slightly to the right. “Got ’im in my sight.”

“Okay.” I steeled myself, saying a quick, silent prayer and taking a deep breath.
“Now.”

My finger squeezed the trigger.

Blam!

My father’s finger squeezed his trigger.

Blam!

The two bullets sped through the air, racing across the field and into the foreheads of two worthless wastes of human flesh. Two more men performed the arm-flailing act, the dance of death, the Macarena of
muerte,
the hokey pokey to the hereafter. They dropped to the ground not far from their earlier victims.

El Cuchillo instinctively ducked at the sound of the gunfire, putting his hand, still clutching the knife, to the ground beside him. Nick, Christina, and Alejandro reflexively dove to the dirt, inadvertently falling face-first into their would-be graves.

When he’d gathered his wits, El Cuchillo quickly scanned his surroundings, trying, unsuccessfully, to determine where the gunfire had come from. He leaped to his feet and took off running toward the vehicles, apparently intending to attempt an escape.

Operating on pure instinct now, I dropped my rifle and grabbed Nick’s samurai sword from the bag. I could’ve taken El Cuchillo out with a single gunshot, but that would have been too good for him.

Too quick.

Too painless.

Too impersonal.

He didn’t deserve better than his victims.

I pushed through the dark toward the rental truck, swinging the sword left and right to hack through the underbrush that impeded me. My father ran after me, calling for me to stop, but the thick, thorny underbrush caught on his clothing and slowed him down.

I arrived at the truck three seconds before El Cuchillo. Stopping at the driver’s door, I turned to face outward, the sword clutched tightly in my hands, the blade extended in front of me, a foot crooked up against the vehicle behind me to provide leverage.

With the trees providing cover, the thug didn’t see me until it was too late. He ran full speed right at me, momentum carrying him forward. His eyes went wide as he realized he wouldn’t be able to stop himself in time.

If you live by the sword, you die by the sword.

His hate- and horror-filled eyes met mine as fate propelled him toward the blade. The sword penetrated his flesh with a
pop
and eviscerated his internal organs with a moist and squishy
skluck,
the force rocking me backward.

The sound of the human shish-kabob being skewered was the last thing I heard before my world went black.

chapter thirty-five

A
Stitch in Time

El Cuchillo was lucky enough to survive, if you could call surviving an impaling only to face the death penalty lucky. The doctors had been able to sew his internal organs back together, though with all the scars he’d have on his abdomen he’d never wear a bikini again. Not that there were many opportunities to wear a bikini in a maximum-security federal prison. Or that it would be advisable to do so even if there were.