Special Assignment Page 16

  She could crouch in this small space. That was bigger than any grave she’d heard of. And that also meant there was air. At least more than she’d find in a buried pine box.

  So where was she?

  Judging from the dank smell, the rock walls and the size of the space, she’d guess one of the abandoned gold mines in the area. Just as good as a grave. Only instead of suffocating, she’d die slowly of dehydration.

  The glow of a flashlight shifted toward her. Its beam bounced through the narrow burrow and illuminated the rough rock walls. Shadows long and short writhed as the light drew closer.

  The light hit her face, blinding her. She shut her eyes and braced herself for whatever happened next.

  Moment stretched after moment. Finally, she opened her eyes.

  Grady crouched in front of her, focusing down at something in his hands. If he’d spoken to her, she’d missed it. Not that it mattered. He could ask from now until Christmas and she wouldn’t give him the key to decrypt her computer contents. Not since she was certain he’d kill her anyway. Even if he promised to leave Evangeline alone at this point, she wouldn’t believe him. But there was something she wanted to ask him. Something she really needed to know. “How could you do this?”

  He glanced to the side, his hands still on whatever it was he was fiddling with. She could see the movement of his lips in the flashlight’s glow. “Money.”

  “I mean how could you do it to Mike? You’re his partner. You’re supposed to back him up, not—” Her throat tightened.

  “Kill him?” Grady shook his head. “I didn’t want to. I knew his association with your company would bring him into this case the moment Evangeline Prescott needed a cop at her beck and call. So I tried to head it off.”

  “Head it off? How?”

  “I arranged it so he would lose his gun and be suspended.”

  “But his gun…you used it to shoot Kardascian.”

  “Blame yourself for that one. You and Evangeline. Mikey was out of the picture until you two sucked him back in. If you hadn’t hired him on at PPS, he never would have had anything to do with this. Deputy Chief Lawson wouldn’t have been shot and Mikey would still be alive.”

  Her throat constricted. Her chest ached. Here Mike had been so worried that he’d endangered her, yet it had been the other way around. She’d endangered him.

  Some backup she’d turned out to be.

  “You know, that’s the real reason I’m going to kill you. You made me turn on my own partner. You made me kill a man I’ve admired my whole career.” He stood, half-crouched to avoid hitting his head on the mine’s low and uneven ceiling. “So think about that when this little device goes off and the rock is falling in around you. If it weren’t for you, Mike Lawson would still be alive.”

  A sob worked its way into Cassie’s throat, choking her. Was he right? Was it partly her fault?

  She watched Grady and his flashlight disappear up the sloped and uneven floor of the mine shaft, leaving her in darkness, leaving her to die.

  She didn’t want to die.

  She didn’t know where the voice came from inside her, but she knew she had to listen. She’d never given up. Not her entire life. And she couldn’t let herself give up now.

  Tensing stomach muscles toughened by pilates and yoga, she jackknifed her body into a sitting position. Stretching her arms as long as she could and bending her back, she slid her butt through the circle of her arms. The handcuffs bit into her wrists, awakening her numbed arms and making them scream with pain. She wiggled her weight from one hip to another, easing her hips through, following with her legs, until her arms were bound in front of her instead of behind.

  She wasn’t going to die stuck in a mine shaft. Not if she had anything to say about it. And although she had no earthly idea how she’d get out of this situation, she’d think of something. She had to.

  She just hoped this brilliant plan presented itself before she was buried alive.

  EVEN FOR AN AMATEUR like Mike, the tracks in the fresh snow were easy to follow. He moved as quickly as he could, using part of the broken deck rail as a walking stick. But as hard as he pushed, he knew it wasn’t fast enough.

  He found Grady’s Jeep parked off the road, about a mile from the cabin. According to the tracks, they’d split up at the Jeep. Two likely getting into another car and two continuing past and winding back into the mountains. The tracks moved along the ridge before descending down a less steep slope to another ridge below.

  If it was someone besides Grady leading this expedition, Mike would have almost thought they’d lost their way, wandered into nowhere. But Grady hunted this area. He knew it better than he’d known the rough neighborhoods in Denver when they’d worked together on patrol. He was heading somewhere, all right.

  The question was, where?

  And could Mike make it all the way there?

  He gritted his teeth, willing his legs to keep moving, his mind to ignore the sharp pain that ripped through his side with each heavy breath.

  Over the next rocky outcropping, he spotted a structure protruding from the side of the next slope. Ancient and weathered, the wood that made up the sloppily built shack appeared to be a hundred years old and ready to blow over in a stiff wind.

  An abandoned gold mine.

  He didn’t have to walk a step farther to see that the tracks he was following led straight to the structure’s entrance.

  A bad feeling shifted into his gut. Abandoned mines like this from the Colorado gold-rush days dotted this region of the mountains. Every so often, the newspapers would contain stories of careless explorers falling down fifty-foot stone shafts and getting crushed in cave-ins. Tragedies. But tragedies that were witnessed. The victims’ loved ones knew what had happened, even if the reality was horrible indeed.

  If Grady had his way, Cassie would never be found. Once the light coating of snow melted, there would be no sign that they’d ever been here.

  Mike could only pray he wasn’t too late. That Grady and the Dirty Three hadn’t already dropped Cassie down a deep shaft or caved in a tunnel. That she wasn’t already dead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Mike heard the click of a lighter flicking to life. The scent of cigarette smoke drifted to him on the light breeze. He flattened himself to the side of the structure just as Kurt Stevens emerged from the abandoned mine.

  Glancing around the valley, the wiry cop took a drag off his cancer stick as if this was any other day, any other circumstance—as if he wasn’t conspiring to commit another murder.

  Mike’s pulse pounded in his ears. The thought that a cop, any cop, could murder innocent people turned his stomach. No, it made him mad. Damn mad. And somehow, regardless of the “brotherhood of blue” and all that other bull, he doubted any cop would have a problem with what he was going to do now.

  Hell, after all this, Stevens, Fisher, Rodriguez and Grady didn’t deserve to call themselves cops. They deserved to call themselves inmates.

  He grasped a good-sized board from the spot where it lay near the structure’s entrance. He’d only have one shot at this. In the shape he was in, if he missed, Stevens could disarm him with little problem. It would all be over for him and for Cassie.

  If it wasn’t already.

  He blocked that possibility from his mind. He had to focus. He had to make this work.

  Hands shaking, he lifted the board, holding it like a baseball bat, ready to hit it out of the park. Pain shot down his side, making it hard to breathe. He gulped in air and held it. He stepped behind Stevens. He swung.

  The dirty cop whirled around. He raised a forearm, blocking the blow. Wood cracked. Bone cracked. A bellow broke from Stevens’s lips.

  No time to think, Mike released the board. He showed his right hand under Stevens’s raised arm and jabbed his fingers into the man’s eyes.

  The bellow turned into a scream. Stevens clawed at his hand.

  Mike’s legs wobbled. His ribs were on fire. He had to find a way t
o put Stevens out. Now. If he didn’t end this quickly, Stevens would. Mike countered with a punch to the gut.

  Stevens doubled over.

  Bringing his knee up, Mike connected with his skull.

  His head snapped back. He sagged to the ground.

  Mike followed with a kick to the head, and Stevens went still.

  Scooping a breath into his aching lungs, Mike grabbed the pair of handcuffs Stevens had on his belt. Dragging the compact but damn heavy man to a nearby aspen, he circled Stevens’s arms around the trunk and secured his wrists. That done, he pulled the dirty cop’s weapon from his belt, checked to see that it was loaded and headed back to the structure’s entrance.

  Where were the others? Judging from the tracks, two had driven away. That left one. The only one who knew the area well enough to find his way to this mine.

  Grady.

  Mike crept back to the structure’s gaping doorway. The sun was now climbing in the morning sky, melting snow and streaming in stripes through the gaps in the wood. He focused on the dark hole in the side of the mountain…the gold mine itself.

  His heart slammed against his ribs, shooting pain through his side with each beat. He was tired, too tired. His vision was starting to swim. Pain and injuries were taking their toll. Sweat stung his eyes and made Stevens’s pistol’s grip slick as ice in his hand, even though the air was cool.

  He couldn’t stop now. He had to keep going. He had to find Cassie before it was too late.

  He walked to the mouth of the tunnel. The opening was small and irregular, likely cut and blasted into the mountains over a hundred years ago when the gold had already been panned from the streams and miners started burrowing into rock to find their fortunes.

  Damn, but it was dark. The blackness was impenetrable. He needed a flashlight. There had to be one somewhere. Stevens couldn’t have negotiated these tunnels without one. He must have set it down when he lit up.

  Mike turned around. Hand on the wall of the tunnel, he stepped back toward the entrance.

  A footfall sounded behind him. A barrel pressed against his temple. “So you didn’t die, after all.”

  Mike’s stomach hollowed out. “What the hell are you doing, Grady?”

  “Holding a gun to your head and ordering you to drop yours. So drop it.”

  Mike opened his hands. The gun slipped out and clattered on the rock. “I mean this. All this. What are you doing killing people? You’re a cop, damn it. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

  “Wake up, Mike. Those days of idealism and public service, they’re over.”

  He couldn’t believe Grady was saying this. Grady. The man who’d been as idealistic as Mike back when they were patrolling the streets. No, more idealistic. “That’s what the job is about. Protecting citizens. Upholding the law.”

  “Really?” Grady’s voice was hard as the rock around them. “And when those citizens and their politicians cut our pay to the bone so they can have a little tax break, we’re just supposed to take it? And when they start whittling away at health care for us and our families? Are we still supposed to put our necks on the line and cheerfully pay those hospital bills ourselves?”

  He knew where this was coming from. Janey. The runaround Grady had gotten from insurance companies unwilling to pay for experimental drugs that might have saved her life. The bills he was left with after her death. But even though his gripes were legitimate, they didn’t come anywhere close to justifying what he had done, the path he’d chosen to follow. “This isn’t the way to change things.”

  “I’ve given up on changing things. I get it now. This is the new way, Mikey. Survival of the fittest. Everyone has to take care of his own. No one is going to do it for you. Not even the Denver PD.”

  “So who did you sell out to? The Russian mob? Who?”

  “I sell my services to the highest bidder. Whoever is most willing and able to pay. The taxpayers are too busy looking out for themselves to pay for law enforcement? Fine. Any smart cop will start looking out for himself, too.”

  “Any dirty cop.” Mike grimaced from the taste of bile crawling up his throat at Grady’s warped view of the world.

  “We enforce the law. We can decide what’s dirty and what’s just smart business.”

  “When is killing smart business, Grady? When is killing anything but murder?”

  Grady’s fist jabbed Mike hard in the kidney.

  Mike choked back the groan pressing at the back of his throat. His eyes watered. He had to find a way to escape Grady. But how? After the beating his body had taken, he didn’t have the strength to overpower a man who lifted weights every morning of his life. A man who happened to be holding a gun. He had to find a way to distract him. And until he did, he needed to keep him talking. “So how are you planning to murder me, partner?”

  “Believe me, Mikey. I didn’t want to kill you at all. I wanted to keep you out of this. But now that you’re in it, I can’t see you just walking away.”

  Damn straight. Mike would never walk away. He had to do the right thing. Not just because he’d promised Tommy. He had to do the right thing for himself. “What have you done with Cassie?”

  “Funny you should ask. I was just setting Ms. Allen up to disappear. There’s room for two.” He prodded Mike in the back. “Walk.”

  Mike’s legs wobbled under him. He stumbled, hitting his head on the rough-hewn ceiling.

  “A little tired, Mikey? Climbing out of the gulch wear you out?” He stepped down the tunnel from Mike and pulled him to his feet. “I have to admit, you’re one tough bastard. I always liked that about you.”

  A shadow loomed behind Grady. Before Mike could make out what it was, it slammed into Grady’s back, knocking him forward into Mike.

  Mike’s knees hit rock. He braced himself on Grady, preventing a headlong sprawl.

  Grady twisted, shining the flashlight on his attacker.

  Spotlighted in the beam, Cassie raised her bound hands. Gripping the small rock, she attacked again.

  Grady threw up his hands, blocking her second blow. The flashlight fell, its shaft of light bouncing crazily around the rock walls. Something else clattered to the ground. Grady’s gun?

  Mike groped the floor with his hands. He had to find that gun.

  His fingers touched nothing but rough rock.

  Next to him, Grady started to rise. He pushed up, shoving Cassie back, sending her stumbling into the darkness.

  To hell with the gun. Mike launched himself at Grady. He hugged his legs, tackling him.

  Grady fell forward. Catching himself with his hands, he kicked back.

  A boot plowed into Mike’s face. Pain jolted through his neck and echoed along his nerves.

  Grady kicked again.

  Mike’s head snapped back. His thoughts swam. He couldn’t black out. He had to pull it together. Knowing he couldn’t take another hit, he released Grady’s legs.

  His partner climbed to his feet, backing into an offshoot of the main tunnel, nothing but gaping black shadow behind him. The flashlight rolled along the floor, coming to a rest at the far wall. Its light illuminated Grady’s face from below, making his lowered brows and gap-toothed grimace look like a kid telling a slumber-party horror story. But he was no kid. And this was certainly no story. He started to raise his hand, his pistol in his fist.

  Mike launched himself. He plowed into Grady’s legs.

  His partner stumbled backward into the shadows. Suddenly he was falling, screaming. The gun fired. Its earsplitting report echoed through the tunnel.

  Deep within the mine, an answering explosion sounded.

  Cassie scrambled to her feet. She grasped Mike’s arm, pulling him up. “We have to get out of here! Grady! He set explosives!”

  Explosives. To seal off the mine. To bury Cassie alive.

  Mike grabbed Cassie’s bound hands. Half-leaning on each other, they ran. Behind, rumbles joined with the original blast, gaining in volume, chasing them. Clouds of dust overtook them. Feet slipp
ing on loose rock, they pushed their legs as fast as they could go.

  They emerged from the structure as the boards started to go. Lumber rained down, accompanied by rock from the slope above the entrance. Mike grabbed Cassie’s hand and ran with everything left in him. They emerged from the structure as the wooden wall beside them collapsed.

  Just beyond the last wood wall, Mike’s legs gave out. He went down on his knees, Cassie beside him. For a few moments, they remained there, waiting for the next rumble, the next shift. Afraid to move.

  A crash shook the structure as another part of the tunnels underground gave way. “It’s still unstable. Let’s get away from here.” Mike’s legs wobbled with fatigue. He stumbled.

  Cassie slipped under his arm, propping him up.

  “The Jeep. It’s up that ridge.” He tried to lift his other arm. Halfway up, his muscles gave out and he let it fall to his side.

  “Okay. Let’s go.”

  “I don’t know if I can make it, but you can. You can bring back help.”

  “I’m not leaving you.”

  “You have to. It’s the only chance. For both of us. Let me down here.”

  She did as he said, dropping to her knees in order to lower him to the ground gently. But instead of continuing in the direction of the Jeep, she turned back to the mine.

  “Go,” he urged.

  “I have a better idea.” She scrambled to her feet and started back toward the mine.

  “Cassie.”

  She kept walking, not able to hear him. For the first time he noticed the cuffs on her legs, a steel loop attached to each ankle, the chain between smashed.

  As she drew close to the half-caved-in structure, a rock slid down from the slope above.

  Mike’s chest seized. The explosion might have made the rock formations up the slope unstable. Even the wooden building itself still had pieces balancing precariously on one another, large pieces that could fall.

  “Cassie, stop! It’s too dangerous!”

  She kept walking, oblivious to his shouts. She reached the spot where Stevens was cuffed to a tree. Bending down, she picked something out of his coat.