Eyewitness Man and Wife Page 3

  The sound of shots being fired nearby had caused her to duck into the shrubs. Could she circle back to the truck near the family home? Could she risk calling Quint? He could be hiding somewhere and even the slight buzz of his cell could give him away.

  She couldn’t risk it no matter how badly she wanted to reach out to him, to know he was safe. Their recent romantic relationship had nothing to do with how much her heart was hammering her ribs at the thought something had happened to him. He’d used himself as a distraction so she could get to Ivan’s family.

  Police sirens had abruptly stopped. Cops were on the scene. Since they were still undercover, no one could know about their ATF affiliation, so it was best for her to hide for now. Otherwise, she would be arrested along with Quint if he wasn’t already in cuffs. They would have to go to jail, leaving Laurie and Ariana vulnerable to the next attack. And there would be another. News was already out about Axel turning witness based on the fact Speed Runner came after Axel’s family. It was the only logical conclusion after Speed Runner showed up.

  Laurie nudged Ree at the sight of two officers walking across the street, checking bushes. The hopeful look in her eyes said she had no idea. The so-called cops wore black uniforms, not navy blue. And they had on white sneakers, a dead giveaway that they didn’t work for the DPD. Officers there wore black shoes. Their belts were all wrong, too. All they wore were badges and shoulder holsters. These men were imposters. Ree needed them to keep moving, as they continued to poke sticks into shrubs far away from the ones she and the Ivans were in.

  How long could they stay hidden?

  Ree gave a slight headshake to Laurie. Her brown eyes grew wide as she pulled her daughter a little closer. The teenager was a mini version of her mother, with a slightly longer nose, no doubt inherited from her father.

  The Ivan women were beautiful, though. They could model for the Italian version of Vogue—both had brown eyes, long, slicked-back ponytails, and were tall with some curves along with olive-colored skin. They were the picture of perfection, all high cheekbones, small nose and soft lips. Their silky black hair framed their perfectly symmetrical faces. Laurie was dressed in a silky cream-colored pantsuit that hugged her figure to perfection while Ariana had on a jumper that fell to midthigh. Laurie’s clothing could be described as sexy without crossing the line of being vulgar.

  Axel was a beast of a man from the pictures Grappell had just texted to her, large frame, large head, and large nose. He seemed to hold those old-fashioned, gender-biased rules that meant a man was the sole provider and protector of his family. Ree couldn’t relate to any of it, but to each his own. Some women wanted to be protected. Some women wanted to be handled like breakable china dolls. Some women wanted a credit card without a limit and all the free time in the world to look and be some wacked-out version of perfection.

  Ree preferred the messy chaos of her own closet. She threw outfits together that sometimes worked and sometimes undeniably did not. Perfection was unattainable and, quite frankly, boring.

  But that was just her opinion. She had to admit perfection looked pretty great on the Ivan women.

  The fake cops moved from house to house, and it was only a matter of time before they would head this way. The street was quiet. If anyone was home, they seemed afraid to step on their front lawns. Rightfully so, since a police chopper was overhead. There’d been the screech of rubber burning, gunshots fired and police sirens in the last fifteen minutes. She didn’t blame everyone for locking their doors and staying inside. In fact, she preferred it. There would be less chance of a civilian being in the wrong place at the wrong time and ending up with a bullet in their chest.

  Come on, Quint. Why hadn’t her partner called?

  Ree held on to her phone, using the camera feature to zoom in and snap a few pictures. They would most likely be too grainy to get anything usable, but it never hurt to try. Her stomach clenched as she thought about any of those bullets ending up in her partner.

  She checked her cell. There was no word from Quint or Grappell.

  Laurie nudged Ree again. She looked up in time to see the “officers” cross the street, coming onto their side five houses down. It wouldn’t be long before they were right on top of the trio.

  Ree nodded and tried her level best to give a reassuring look to Laurie. Ariana’s eyes were still squeezed shut, as she looked like she was blocking out the world. One look at the kid said she’d been overprotected to the nth degree, but this also demonstrated how much Axel Ivan loved his family. Ree couldn’t stand her family’s overprotective side, but she appreciated the amount of love and care he’d put in. The pair of them seemed to love him just as much. Laurie’s first question once Ree had established her identity was whether or not her husband was all right. The concern that had etched lines in the near-perfect woman’s forehead had been real. To her, Axel was like any other businessman who worked and took care of his family. It seemed easy for her to forget that he was on the wrong side of the law.

  The second thing that had come out of Laurie’s mouth was that her husband was a good man and couldn’t possibly have killed someone in prison. Her argument was that he’d gone to mass every week before prison. Strange argument for a criminal’s wife to make on behalf of her husband. Apparently, moving weapons that killed others into the hands of very bad people who used said weapons to murder and maim didn’t register as bad in Laurie’s book. As long as her husband wasn’t the one pulling the trigger, she seemed fine with his line of work.

  This didn’t seem like the time to educate his wife on the fact that Ivan would have had to kill for his boss if asked to, and probably already had. Ree decided to let the woman live in her fantasy world. It wasn’t Ree’s job to educate a criminal’s wife. It was, however, her job to keep the woman and her daughter alive.

  The fake cops were three houses down and time was running out. Ree had no qualms about outrunning the men in “uniform” herself. Laurie and Ariana didn’t seem like the fast running types. She needed a diversion or a break. Since luck hadn’t exactly been in her favor of late, she figured a distraction was her best shot.

  Glancing around, she searched for something she could throw. She’d played enough softball in her youth to realize she could chuck a rock across the street. If she could get Dumb and Dumber over there to look in the opposite direction, maybe she could get Laurie and Ariana to run around the house to the backyard.

  Then what?

  “How well do you know your neighbors?” Ree asked.

  “We keep to ourselves since Axel went to prison. We used to throw amazing parties...” She paused in dramatic fashion, like her life was somehow harder than most because she could no longer fire up the barbecue and have the neighborhood over for dinner now that her husband had been busted.

  Sorry. Ree left her sympathy for criminals who deserved to go to jail at home.

  Two houses. Ree could always point her gun at the men and hope like hell they listened to her when she made them handcuff each other. Oh, right. There were no handcuffs on their belts, either. Another dead giveaway.

  She texted her exact location to Grappell and begged for a squad car to circle the street. Then held her breath and prayed he would get the message in time.

  * * *

  OUT OF BREATH, Quint pushed his legs to keep going despite the burn in his lungs. Ree had to be around here somewhere. She couldn’t have gone too far without the truck. Could he text her without putting her at risk? She hadn’t reached out to him. The annoying voice in the back of his mind picked that moment to remind him that she would if she was able to.

  The thought wasn’t exactly reassuring.

  Quint figured Ree had two options—the trees in the back of the neighborhood, or get to Frankford Road, a busy six-lane street that led back to the tollway to the west and Preston, another busy street, to the east.

  The path she chose would have depended largely on the situation. There was no way to reason it out. She would follow the path of least resistance. Trees or road? At this point, it was a coin toss.

  Of course, he could go back to his truck that, by now, would most likely be guarded by cops along with the Acura with the shot-out tires. A neighbor might be able to identify Quint in his ball cap. He took it off, and tucked it inside his back pocket. The guard shack might have a security uniform he could “borrow” for the time being.

  Quint circled back toward the gate. A street over, he stopped in his tracks as he saw two cops smacking shrubs with a stick.

  “Hey,” one of the cops shouted, but something wasn’t quite right about the guy. Even from halfway down the block, Quint could sense something was off. The uniform? The way the guy walked as he moved toward Quint? The cop didn’t have the usual swagger. There was also another indicator. The belt was a little too light, and missing a few key tools.

  Quint took off running, circling back to the way he came. He figured he could run a couple of blocks over, get these guys on the wrong track and then head back to the guard shack from a different angle.

  As he turned the corner, he caught sight of something in the shrubs near one of the fake cops, a bright floral print of some kind. Could it be Ree and the Ivans?

  Since only one of the “cops” was following him and the other was moving toward the shrubs in question, Quint needed a new plan. He spun around, pulled out his Glock and aimed at a mailbox on the opposite side of the street. He fired a round, figuring it would get their attention.

  The move worked as planned, so he booked it out of there. With both supposed officers on his tail, he needed to hop the wall blocking the neighborhood off from Frankford Road so he could get the lay of the land. His cell
buzzed inside his pocket and relief washed over him.

  Continuing in a dead run, he fished the phone out of his pocket and checked the screen. It was her. He answered and tried to speak through labored breaths.

  “Thank you,” she whispered, and he could hear the rustle of shrubbery.

  “I’ll bring these guys out to the front of the neighborhood. Can you get to the trees?” he asked.

  “No can do,” she said. “Cops are already there.”

  “Then I’ll get these guys over the wall and to the strip mall across the street. I’ll lose them in the grocery parking lot,” he offered.

  “I’m already requesting a car to meet us at the gate,” she stated, sounding winded.

  “If I’m not there in ten minutes, leave without me,” he instructed.

  “Got it,” she said before ending the call. Neither could afford to take their attention off the goal. Hers was to get the Ivans to the guard shack safely. His was to lose the jerks following him and join up with Ree. Easy peasy.

  Quint knew he was in trouble when he started whipping out corny lines. He’d been ignoring the red dot on his shirt that was flowering like lilies on a sunny morning after a spring rain. There was no way he was seriously hurt. The bullets had flown near him, some getting a little too close for comfort, but he would have registered a hit.

  Exhaustion was setting in because he’d been running, then in a fight, and now back to running without much in his stomach in the way of food. Or caffeine. He never got a chance to finish his cup of coffee at Ree’s, he thought as he leaped over a bush. He misjudged the height, caught his toe on a vine and went down face-first.

  Branches stabbed his arms, torso and neck as he tried to tuck and roll out of the shrubbery. Whoever planted that thing deserved to be shot. But he couldn’t allow himself to wallow in self-pity because the fake cops had rounded the corner and their smirks told him everything he needed to know about what they planned to do to him if they caught up.

  Pain be damned, Quint untangled his shirt from the grip of the shrub and pushed up to his feet. There wasn’t anything to grab hold of as he got hit with a bout of light-headedness.

  He tried to take a step forward, but did a face-plant instead, eating grass and dirt. This was not good. This wasn’t part of the plan. This wasn’t supposed to be happening to Quint Casey, one of the ATF’s finest agents.

  The sounds of heavy footsteps and panting breaths drew closer as Quint tried to force open his eyes. Darkness tugged at the back of his mind, but he refused to give in. Shake it off, Casey.

  Why couldn’t he?

  Chapter Four

  Quint had distracted the fake cops. Ree stayed put as the text from Grappell said Dallas PD was coming. An SUV rounded the corner as she stepped out from the bushes. She waved her arms in the air, uncertain where Quint had gone. This scenario had gone south and Grappell had been forced to divulge information about her and the Ivans. As of now, Grappell was working on a safe house.

  The officer stopped the vehicle. Over the loudspeaker, he asked for the three of them to come out of the bushes with their hands up. Ree’s were already held up high.

  “Do as the officer says,” Ree urged Laurie and Ariana. The teen clung to her mother as though her life depended on it. They complied as the officer exited his vehicle.

  “I understand the three of you are in need of a ride,” he stated as they walked toward him.

  “That’s correct, sir,” Ree said. “However, there are four of us.”

  “I was told three.” The officer shook his head.

  “I’d like to verify the information once we’re en route,” Ree stated. Bjorn must want Quint arrested if she didn’t make provisions for him yet. He might be able to get information while in jail.

  “I’m Officer Reinhart. I need to pat you down.” The tall officer with a runner’s build wore Ray-Ban sunglasses. “My SO said I need to put on a show for the neighbors.”

  Ree gave a slight nod.

  “Hands on the vehicle,” Officer Reinhart demanded.

  She gave a slight nod to the Ivans before walking to the front of the vehicle and placing her palms on the hood. Laurie and Ariana followed suit, daughter sticking close to her mother.

  The officer gave a quick pat-down, nothing to cause concern of abuse of power. Ree climbed in the back of the vehicle along with the others. She slipped her cell phone out of her pocket, careful to hide the fact she was texting to any watchful eyes. She bent forward, resting her elbows on her knees as the officer took his seat. A tow truck passed by on the road behind them. It was the same direction Quint had taken off to.

  She texted Grappell that the three of them were safe inside the back of the SUV. And then she asked about Quint.

  When Grappell commented on her and the Ivans but not on Quint, her heart sank. It meant there was no word from him. This seemed like a good time to remind herself he was a professional who was the best at his job. He’d most likely been in stickier situations than this and would come out the other side just fine.

  Pinching her nose, Ree leaned back in the seat as the officer finished typing on the laptop that was affixed to his vehicle. He drove off as she kept an eye out for her partner.

  “Where are we going?” Laurie asked in barely a whisper.

  “To a safe place,” Ree commented. She couldn’t tell Laurie what she didn’t know—an exact location. She could only pray Quint had been picked up and was on his way to the safe house, the same as them.

  The officer pulled onto the North Dallas Tollway, NDT, and headed south. Ree read the signs as they passed. First Campbell. Next, Arapaho, followed by Beltline. Then Spring Valley to Alpha. Reinhart took the Alpha Road exit then made his way to Midway Road and headed north again toward the Addison Airport, where he navigated his way into the parking lot of Million Air Dallas.

  “This is the end of the line for me,” Reinhart said, nodding toward a waiting Suburban with blacked-out windows.

  “Thank you,” Ree said, then added, “but you’ll have to open the door for us if you’re ready for us to exit the vehicle.”

  The officer exited the driver’s seat and then opened the door. “If you ladies need further assistance, I’m sure your boss will let mine know.”

  “My name is Henry and I’ll be driving you today. Agent Grappell said to make you comfortable,” the driver said through a rolled-down partition. All she could see was a traditional blue chauffeur’s hat along with mirror-lensed glasses. “There’s cold water in the cooler, sealed bottles.”

  “Thank you. We’re good,” Ree said before the partition came up and they were effectively sealed off from the outside world. The Ivans made themselves at home immediately, relaxing in the leather seats. Laurie pulled two bottles of sparkling water from the small cooler, handing one over to her daughter as she exhaled.

  These two looked like they belonged riding around in a vehicle like this with a driver at the ready and refreshments at arm’s reach. Ree couldn’t decide if she was sad for them. Everything in their world seemed manicured and catered A strange ache filled Ree. She’d come to resent Sunday suppers at her mother’s ranch due to her mother’s disapproval of Ree’s career, but they’d been good once. Thinking back, it was a tradition her father had started since long before she could remember before he died when she was eleven years old.

  Ree pulled out her cell and palmed it, praying for a message from Grappell about Quint. She started to request an update but realized she would probably be the first person he contacted the second he received word.

  Rather than try to sit back in her seat, which she realized was impossible under the circumstances, she leaned forward and checked her inbox. Scrolling through names that barely registered, her thoughts kept drifting back to Quint. If he was safe, he would have made contact by now. The fact he hadn’t checked in with Grappell after luring away the fake cops distressed her.

  Was he still in the neighborhood? She’d watched for him on Frankford Road, past the apartments to the right and the shopping center with the Albertsons grocery store and her Tex-Mex favorite at the end of the mall. There’d been no sign of him on the brick wall encasing the neighborhood to the left. She’d kept an eye there as well.