Defiance: A House Divided (The Defending Home Series Book 2) (7 page)

Dale was impressed and the look on his face must have showed it. “So how many banks have you hacked?” he asked Dannyboy, only half serious.

The skinny thief held up a hand. “I plead the fifth.”

“It’s an excellent point,” Dale went on. “All of us were so caught up with grieving Shane’s death that we didn’t think to maintain security during his burial.”

“Maybe we need more people to join us,” Brooke said. “You know, open up diplomatic relations.”

Dale looked at her and nodded. He’d been thinking the same thing.

The meeting finished soon after and everyone left to begin the work assigned to them. Dannyboy and Colton would finish the stairs, while Ann and Sandy would tend to the garden and the livestock. Every few hours, Ann would check in on Walter and change his bandages. As for Brooke, she had won the enviable task of sorting through the ammunition. Meanwhile, Sandy would join Dale out front to begin work on the ditch. Originally, he’d asked Zach to help him, but his brother-in-law told him he was going to take the pickup left by the cartel and see if he could find weapons, ammo or anything else of use. Colton’s immediate impulse had been to go with his father and it had taken some serious cajoling to convince him to stay and finish his work.

Dale asked Sandy, his ditch-digging partner, to stay behind.

“That seemed to go well,” she said with a touch of irony. She was referring to Zach, of course, and his reluctance to fall in line and fully join the group. 

“He’s always had a difficult time with authority,” Dale said, hoping it didn’t sound like he was making excuses. “It’s been helpful having him around, even if sometimes I wanna pummel him.”

Sandy raised her eyebrows. “That bad, huh? What’d he do to ruffle Mr. Hardy’s feathers?” She whisked imaginary dirt off his shoulder as she used to do back when they were dating.

Dale debated whether he should say anything.

“Out with it,” Sandy ordered. “Don’t you think I know when you’re hiding something?”

“He’s been getting a little too touchy-feely for my taste.”

Sandy’s eyebrows arched. “With you?”

“No, not with me,” he corrected her. “With you.”

She grew silent, seeming to replay in her head each of the interactions she’d had with Zach. “He has been friendly, but I wouldn’t categorize it as inappropriate.”

Dale frowned. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.” He started to walk away.

“Dale Hardy, are you jealous?”

He glanced back. “What gives you that idea?”

“You are, aren’t you?” Sandy began to giggle. “Men are so territorial sometimes.”

The comment made Dale smile. Maybe she was right. This was his house and perhaps he’d blown things out of proportion. “Just promise you’ll let me know if he steps out of line.”

“If Zach crosses any lines,” Sandy said, “then I’ll fix him myself, thank you very much.”

Standing in a beam of soft light, she looked even more beautiful. Unable to help himself, Dale crossed the distance between them in two short strides and pulled her in for a long kiss. He felt Sandy go limp in his arms before at last he pulled away.

A radiant smile filled her face. “What took you so long?”

Sheriff Randy Gaines

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T
he morning had begun for Randy with the stark realization that life in Encendido would never be the same. For some time, he lay on his cot replaying the seconds before Mayor Reid’s head was made to look like a dead animal along the side of the highway. That was to say, red and covered in hair, but otherwise unrecognizable.

Ever since Dale’s attack against the sheriff’s office, Randy had ordered that the lunch room at the rear be converted into a temporary barracks. Out went the tables, chairs and the now empty vending machines and in came the army-style cots. There were fifteen of them in total, although currently only eleven were being used. The process of recruiting more deputies was becoming something of an uphill battle, especially after the arrival of Edwardo Ortega and his men. Surely, things would only grow harder once word of the Mayor’s death began to spread.

The cartel’s attack against Fortress Hardy, as some of the folks in town had taken to calling it, had proven to be a total and complete failure. A third of Ortega’s men were either dead or wounded. Before charging off, Edwardo had assured them his men were more than up for the job. He’d even spat when Mayor Reid had suggested the deputies tag along as a reserve force in case he should need them. In hindsight, seeing that look of anger on Edwardo’s face, his nostrils flared, his bloodshot eyes looking like roadmaps, it was clear Mayor Reid had just swung and missed. Strike one. The final strike would come after Edwardo and his men limped back, swearing incessantly in Spanish and firing their guns into the air in frustration.

It was no surprise that Ortega had blamed the mayor for the failure, telling him if his deputies were man enough to be there, they would have slaughtered the defenders and carried the day. It didn’t matter that the mayor had told him to limit the bloodshed, that a surrender was preferable to an extermination. The mayor had given his word and he had intended to keep it.

Keith entered the barracks just then carrying a handwritten note. A few of the other deputies around him were stretching the kinks out of their backs from a bad night’s sleep. Randy stood, rubbed his eyes and took the note from Keith. It was from Edwardo and in broken English instructed Randy to assemble his deputies out front in five minutes.

He glanced up at Keith, who looked just as surprised. “There’s a small crowd gathered. Seems Edwardo’s gone around and collected a bunch of the townspeople.”

“Who gave you this note?”

“One of his enforcers,” Keith said. “Big arms. Scar across his neck. Bandage on his right wrist.”

“El Ventrílocuo,” Randy muttered. “He say what this was about?”

“Contrary to his name, this guy doesn’t say much.”

“All right then,” Randy said, his heart hammering in his chest as he wondered if he was about to witness another execution, perhaps this time his own. “I guess we do what the man says. How bad can it be, right?”

A look of deep concern flashed over Keith’s face. For a moment he looked like he wanted to say something, likely something bad about Edwardo, but thought better of it. Had they already come to the point where even law enforcement had to bite their tongue for fear of being killed? Last Randy checked, they were the ones calling the shots, spreading fear through the population, taking whatever they pleased. Now the tables had turned and with them, so too had the contents of his stomach.

Minutes later, Randy and his ten deputies stood on the steps of the Sheriff’s office. He’d arranged his men into two equal lines. Facing them was Edwardo Ortega and the remnants of his cartel enforcers—at least twenty of them, many bandaged and looking like they’d been through the washing machine spin cycle on high. Behind them were over a hundred Encendido citizens, many with deep looks of concern. Those dour expressions were countered by the grin on Edwardo’s face. Whatever was about to happen right now, the drug lieutenant felt it was a reason to celebrate. Randy fought down that churning feeling in the pit of his belly, forcing a smile at the man who had killed his boss and was clearly up to no good.

Edwardo came forward, flanked by the cherubic El Grande and a rather sour-looking El Ventrílocuo. The rest of his men stayed where they were, carrying high-caliber automatic weapons. With their sun-baked skin covered in tattoos, they made a terrifying sight.

The cartel lieutenant held out his hand to Randy, who hesitated.

“Don’t worry,” Edwardo said. “I won’t bite.”

His men broke into rowdy laughter.

The two men shook.

Edwardo turned back to the crowd. “The people of Encendido have experienced untold suffering and tragedy over the past few months. It seems that God blinked and the world changed.” Edwardo made the sign of the cross. “I’ve brought you all here to assure you that we care about your troubles. We were called in by the late Mayor Reid to provide security and safety for your town and we intend to fulfill that pledge. But security requires unity and above all loyalty.” Edwardo turned back and raised one of Randy’s hands in the air. “Sheriff Gaines, do you and your men swear to keep the people of Encendido safe?”

Randy felt the muscles in his neck stiffen. He watched his arm propped above his head. “We do.”

“And do you swear to follow my leadership and all of my commands in the pursuit of restoring order and peace in Encendido?”

Seconds went by and Randy still hadn’t responded. Some of the other deputies were looking around, perhaps unclear about what was happening.

Edwardo repeated the question and this time the tone of his voice left no doubt there was only one acceptable answer.

The tension among those in the crowd below was nearly palpable. Randy had sensed the shift in power the minute the cartel had walked through the front door of Reid’s mansion. But never in his wildest dreams had he expected to be standing on the front steps of the sheriff’s office, swearing an oath of allegiance to a criminal organization.

Randy swallowed hard, his throat as dry as a desert bone. “We do,” he replied, his voice cracking.

“Louder,” Edwardo ordered.

“We do.” He complied, shouting the words as if he wanted nothing more than to fling them as far away as he could.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Edwardo said, his dead brown eyes twinkling in the summer heat.

He shifted and began shaking hands with each of the deputies. The cartel whooped and hollered while the crowd looked on, stunned, some of them confused, wondering what they’d just witnessed.

With bile crawling up his throat, Randy too was left to wonder whether future generations would study this moment, working out the exact second when Encendido had left the United States and become part of a dictatorship under the cartel’s iron rule.

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A
fter the stunned crowd began to melt away, Edwardo circled back to Randy, an expression of triumph on his face. The sight was certainly a radical departure from the rage Edwardo had exhibited after his defeat at the hands of Dale and his followers.

“I intend to succeed,” Edwardo told him, “precisely where you and the mayor failed.”

Randy watched most of his deputies shuffle back into the sheriff’s office. “I don’t think I follow you.”

“Food, water and shelter,” the cartel lieutenant told him. “Those are the basic ingredients of life. Whenever any one of those is absent, the population grows restless, even rebellious. Our first order of business is to increase food collection. We’ll search houses that haven’t been cleared, and place a goods tax on anyone growing their own produce. Use your imagination. We’ll use the television plant to store what we gather. It’s my job now to see to it that no one starves.”

If Edwardo couldn’t gain the people’s loyalty with respect, he was equally capable of buying it with bribes.

“It’s what you call the carrot and the stick,” he said, seeming to read Randy’s thoughts.

“Finding canned food and taking a farmer’s crops is one thing,” the sheriff said. “But out here, finding water is a different beast entirely.”

Ortega patted Randy’s chest playfully, the way a father might do to a child. “The water, you leave that to me.”

“What about Dale Hardy?” Randy asked and the shift in Edwardo’s expression was immediate. “We’ve got inside information now. I don’t see why we wouldn’t―”

“We need to be careful,” Edwardo said, “to make sure we don’t ruin the advantage we now possess.”

“The note Dale sent us,” Randy said. “It sounds like he’s ready to negotiate.”

“By the time I’m done with that man,” Edwardo assured him, “he’ll be begging us to take his water. Now have your men provide security for the food collection teams I’ve assembled.”

Edwardo patted him on the back, like the two of them were great friends. Ortega had been right, securing the people’s love and admiration was important. Just as important was burying anything that might cast you in a bad light.  Randy would do as Edwardo ordered, but there was something he needed to do first.

•••

T
he Encendido health clinic was dark when Randy arrived. He pushed open the double doors and discovered a waiting room which had been turned into a full-blown convalescent ward. Over and above the regular townspeople, cartel members were being attended to by a small handful of nurses who moved from patient to patient. He’d never seen the clinic this full.

A nurse named Natalie Krueger hurried past him. Blonde and over six foot tall, she had been dubbed ‘the Amazon’ on account of the way she towered over most other women, and even some men.

“I’m looking for Betty,” he said when he finally caught up to her. What he didn’t tell her was the reason why finding her was so important. The aging head nurse knew what Randy had done to Sheriff Joe Wilcox and a handful of others in a power grab Randy and Hugh Reid had orchestrated. If order was ever restored, Randy would be the only one to take the fall.

“She’s not here, Sheriff,” Natalie said, preoccupied. “As you can see I’m low on nurses and high on patients.” She sounded annoyed. Randy figured most of her distaste came from caring for the drug lord’s underlings, especially after they’d been wounded attacking fellow Encendido citizens.

“Any idea where she is?”

Natalie stopped what she was doing and looked at him. She had about two inches on Randy, which meant she was literally looking down on him, something his ego was having trouble with. “Betty left the clinic two days ago and I haven’t seen her since.”

That was around the time Randy had considered making Betty disappear, the way the others had disappeared. But somehow, the thought of Encendido losing a valuable member of the medical profession had stayed his hand. Thinking back, he saw he’d made the wrong decision.

Randy was about to leave when Natalie said something else, almost in passing.

“She left with two men. I assumed they were two of yours, come to escort her home. Nowadays one can never be too careful.”