Ruthless Game

CHAPTER 3

“Go!” Kane commanded as he settled into the passenger seat, pulling his gun from beneath his shoulder.

Rose slammed her foot on the gas and took off as fast as possible in the old sedan. The doors and windows rattled as the battered vehicle shuddered its way onto the street. She didn’t glance in the rearview mirror to see if they were drawing attention. She wanted to get off the streets as fast as possible and onto the trail leading into the desert. To do that, she had to outrun anyone chasing them.

The sedan belched smoke and shuddered as she whipped around a corner and took a second one sliding. “Are they following?”

“Keep going,” he instructed, the grimness in his voice the only answer he was giving her. He crawled over the seat and smashed out the back window.

Rose took another turn and then a fourth. She glanced in the rearview mirror. “Are you certain?”

“They’re trying to catch up.” And they had better and faster cars. Kane kept that to himself. Their only advantage was that whoever was pursuing them was uncertain if the occupants of the sedan were racing to a hospital as had been reported, or if they’d really seen something suspicious.

“We’ll ditch the car if I can get some space,” she said. “I planned an escape when I first moved here. Of course, I thought I’d have a better vehicle choice.”

“If I forget to tell you later on, Rose, you’re one hell of a woman.”

She laughed softly. “You might hold that thought until we actually get away clean.” She jerked the wheel again. “Can you see anyone?”

“Just glimpses. They aren’t on us.”

“I’ve been running without lights. I don’t think they’ll see us take this trail, but if they backtrack, they’ll find the tire tracks.”

Before Kane could ask what she was talking about—he didn’t see any trail—she’d spun the wheel again, throwing him across the backseat. The car slid in a wide arc, fish-tailed, and spit sand into the air. She didn’t let up on the gas but drove even faster. Kane cautiously lifted his head to peer out the back window. The woman was going to lose him if she kept it up. He’d nearly gone flying.

“Climb back up here. We’re going to have to jump.”

She stated it so calmly he almost didn’t comprehend. His head snapped around. “Are you out of your fucking mind, Rose? You’re pregnant. You can’t jump out of a moving car.”

“Well, it’s that or go with it into the ravine. I prefer the sand. Move it, soldier. You’ve got about fifteen seconds.”

She wasn’t kidding. The woman was insane, already opening the driver’s door and bailing before he could stop her. Kane kicked open the backseat passenger door and dove. He hit hard and rolled, his lungs burning for air. The sand clogged his mouth and he spit, staring up at the night sky, wondering what the hell had just happened.

The sedan continued forward, shooting off the cliff to fall into the deep ravine carved from hundreds of years of flash floods. He heard the crash as it bounced off rocks and scrub trees, but strangely, the sound was somewhat muffled. He rolled over and came up on his knees, looking frantically around for Rose. She lay thirty feet from him in a fetal position, knees drawn up to her chest, her hands locked around them. His heart jolted hard.

He ran to her and crouched down beside her. “Rose?”

He swore he could hear each separate beat of his heart. She groaned softly, and he let out his breath. She slowly turned onto her back. Blood smeared her face from the sand burning it as she hit the ground. She’d obviously covered her belly instead of her face. Her breathing was loud and ragged as she fought for air.

“Don’t move, Rose.” His voice sounded strangled. Without the enhancements of her illusions, she looked like a broken doll, smashed on the sand. His first instinct was to gather her in his arms and just cradle her against him where she’d be safe, but it was too late for that.

“Give me a minute,” she gasped.

Pain didn’t show on her face, but it was there in her eyes. And fear. She was very frightened. He smoothed back her hair. “Don’t be afraid, Rose. I’m not going to let anything happen to you or the baby.”

She swallowed hard and let out her breath. “I’m counting on that.”

He could feel the tension ebbing out of her. Grateful that she was beginning to trust him a little, he swept his arm around her shoulders to help ease her into a sitting position.

She managed a small smile. “I think I should have thought that particular part of the plan through a little better.” She looked around her. “We’ve got to get moving. I’m hoping we can disturb the sand enough to cover our tracks, and they’ll think we went into the ravine with the car.”

Kane looked around him. Sand stretched out for miles. “This could be bad, Rose. The farther we get away from the city, the more chances are we’ll get caught out in the open.”

“Not if you know where you’re going.”

He sighed and reached down to help her to her feet. She swayed unsteadily and clung to him. That small show of fragility shook him. Rose was such a mixture both ultra-feminine and ultrasoldier. She didn’t flinch from combat, yet she leaned into him, so soft and vulnerable, his heart ached.

“Enlighten me.” He sounded gruff, but she’d twisted his insides up, and he wasn’t certain how to react to her. He damn well wasn’t going to force himself on her ever again, but just being close to her made him feel different inside.

She moved, a soft, subtle, very feminine retreat. He felt something hard press against his chest, right over his heart, and he stiffened, glancing down at the barrel of the gun and the absolute steadiness in her small hand. His gaze jumped to hers. Her eyes stared without blinking, no hesitation. The woman meant business. So much for soft and feminine. Fury burst through him, but he didn’t move, didn’t show her anything at all.

“Throw it away, Kane. You’re either with me or against me. If you’re with me, throw the tracker into the ravine.”

There was nothing sweet about her voice. He considered wrapping his long fingers around her neck and strangling her right there.

“If I throw the tracker into the ravine, we have no resources—no backup. They’ll come get us in a few days. We just have to lay low.”

She still didn’t blink. “This child is never going to fall into Whitney’s hands. Not ever. I need help, Kane, and I’m willing to trust you, but only you. You have to make a decision.”

Fury knotted the muscles in his belly. Anyone who knew him would have been alarmed by his calm demeanor and the cool, flat look in his eyes. “What are you going to do, Rose? Shoot me?” His voice dropped lower than ever, softer, even more deceptive. “You’re going to shoot the father of your child?”

She blinked. He slapped the gun away, turning sideways to present a smaller target. His fingers closed in a brutal grip around her wrist and he twisted, dropping her to her knees, extracting the gun from her fist and holding her locked in position. With one hand he engaged the safety and shoved the gun into his belt.

“You ever point a gun at me again, Rose, pull the fucking trigger. Do we understand each other?” He chose not to look at the pain on her face or the tears swimming, turning those dark eyes to soft, melting chocolate. He didn’t let up on the pressure on her wrist. If she moved, it would break. They both knew it. “You don’t know me, Rose. You just think you do. I’m not the sweet, malleable man you took me for. You aren’t going to manipulate me.”

She swallowed and blinked rapidly in an effort to dispel the tears. “Let me up.”

“Are you going to try to stick a knife in me next?”

“If you don’t let go, I’ll most likely consider it.”

He eased the pressure on her wrist, allowing her to get to her feet, but he was much more careful, not trusting her now. She pulled away from him and put both hands protectively on her swollen belly. She was trembling, but her eyes met his steadily, even defiantly. They stared at one another.

“We don’t have all night,” he reminded.

“No, we don’t. But I’m not moving until you throw away the tracker. I’m more scared of Whitney getting my baby than I am of a drug cartel. I’ll go down fighting, Kane.”

He clenched his teeth. Damn, she was stubborn. He could tell by the set of her jaw, her raised chin, and the flash of fire in her eyes that she wasn’t bluffing. She planned on staying right where she was..

“You are aware these people like to chop off heads.” That should make any woman reasonable, let alone a pregnant one.

“I’ve seen them do it. It’s not a pretty sight,” she answered, her chin raising a notch.

Okay. Maybe pregnant women weren’t reasonable. It wasn’t like he’d ever been around a woman about to give birth. It could be they were all nuts. And every good sense he had was flying out the window. He should have put her over his knee and taught her a lesson, especially after she had the audacity to pull a gun on him, but instead, he wanted to kiss that little chin.

“Rose.” He used his most logical and sensible tone. “If I toss the tracker, and something goes wrong, we aren’t going to have a ride out of here.”

“I’m used to relying on myself. Don’t worry, if you’re afraid, I can take care of both of us. I know you surround yourself with that big, bad team ...”

She broke off when he took a step toward her, the taunting laughter fading from her eyes. He noted one hand had slipped inside her jacket, fingers curling around the hilt of her knife.

“Don’t piss me off any more than you already have,” he snapped and ripped the tracker out of the lining of his shirt. He threw his lifeline into the ravine. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“There’s none inside your body?”

He gave her his blackest scowl, and this time, he really was on the edge of losing his temper. “You’ll just have to trust me.”

She had the grace to look ashamed. Rose turned and walked out into the night, head up, body confident. They were walking away from any road he could see. He followed without comment until he reached the top of the first rolling dune. Turning back, he raised his hand to the sky. It was incredibly difficult to move air when there was little breeze to “push,” but he’d done it a time or two. Rose had remembered from their conversations in her small prison room.

The wind tugged at the grains of sand, filling in their footsteps and the places where they’d both landed and rolled. He took his time, making a thorough job of it. The tire tracks were smudged in places, but it certainly would look to the world as if they’d gone into the ravine with the sedan. If anyone went to recover the bodies—and he was certain they would—their ruse would be discovered, but it would be too late.

He turned his head to look at the woman carrying his baby. She had continued walking, trusting him to get the job done. There was some satisfaction in that. She didn’t want him, but she needed him. He stretched his legs a little to catch up, but her shorter strides made it easy. Every now and then he sent the air skimming over their tracks, just to ensure their safety.

Rose walked briskly at first, her spine stiff, but after the first mile, she eased the pace, glancing back at him. “I’m sorry about the gun, Kane. I didn’t know what else to do.”

His heart twisted. Damn her anyway. She was tying him up in knots, and he was in grave danger of buying into her feminine frailty all over again. He thought it best not to look at her. Instead, he studied their surroundings. She wasn’t in the best of shape; he could hear her breathing begin to grow heavier. She stopped on the pretense of looking around as well, but he knew she needed to rest. He didn’t make a comment on her lack of physical fitness, after all she was pregnant. But surely even pregnant women could walk a mile without breathing hard.

She shot him a glare he couldn’t fail to catch even in the dark without his night vision. She breathed in and out twice as if trying to remain calm when he was annoying her. “You’re shouting your thoughts, and rather rudely too.”

His eyebrow shot up. “I’m not the one breathing like a racehorse at the end of the race. Aren’t women these days supposed to be in great shape even when they’re pregnant?”

She dropped her hand to her belt, and he stepped close, his fingers curling around her wrist with a loud slapping sound. She winced and glared at him again. “I might want to shoot you, but the noise might attract the cartel. Actually, I’m getting my GPS out just to make certain we’re on the right course.”

“Are you going to tell me where we’re going?”

“A while back I met an elderly man,” she said as she consulted her GPS and then turned slightly to the right to lead them more directly into the desert. “We became friends of sorts. He was ill and there was no one to help him, so I did.” She slipped the GPS away and began walking briskly again. “He had no family and was dying of cancer. He had moved to the apartment near mine. We talked all the time, and in the course of the conversation, he told me about the home he and his wife had built in the desert.”

Kane shook his head, easily keeping pace with her. A slow smile started somewhere in the pit of his stomach. That was his woman—resourceful.

“You can barely see it from the air, and it looks small, abandoned, and nothing more than an old, broken-down roof lying in the dirt and sand. It’s perfect. I’ve been bringing supplies to it about every three weeks. I haven’t gotten a lot, but I didn’t want to leave evidence that anyone had been around the place.”

He flashed her a quick, appreciative grin when she glanced at him. “I’m going to have to watch out for you. You’re smart and always thinking, aren’t you?”

“I had to think about the baby, and I didn’t know he would have a secluded house in the desert no one knew about. Did I mention the dune buggy?”

She sounded a little smug, but he supposed she had the right. She certainly took care of business. They walked in silence for another couple of miles, and she stopped abruptly, hunched over a little, one hand pressed tight to her side, as if she had a stitch. Her breathing was ragged again. He waited in silence, noting she seemed not to want him to notice. He had to quit making comments on her being out of condition. He stared up at the clear night sky instead, pretending interest in the stars, but the scent of her enveloped him.

Now that they weren’t running for their lives, his body insisted on reacting to hers. It was physical, he reminded himself. They’d talked months ago, conversing in low tones or using the more intimate telepathic communication when they feared the guards would overhear them and report back to Whitney. Kane had been impressed with her courage. Mostly he respected that she treated him as if he were a human being and not a monster bent on rape. She could have been crying and screaming, but she had cooperated, trying to relax, even going so far as encouraging him despite the circumstances.

He pressed two fingers to his throbbing temples. Every time he thought about her first time with him, he got a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. For him, their union had been paradise, her body hot, velvet soft, so tight he thought he was in heaven. But he knew, no matter how slow he’d gone, how careful he’d been, he’d hurt her.

She straightened up, breathing deeply. “I’m sorry. I just need to rest.”

He handed her water and watched carefully to see that she drank it. She looked exhausted and the smears of blood along with the sand burn on her face bothered him more than they should have. He used water on the hem of his shirt to gently wipe the smears from her face. She stood without protest, allowing him to clean her face.

“Does it hurt?”

She sent him a small smile. “In the grand scheme of things, no. I’ve been thinking about the kid. We just left him there for the cartel to slice and dice while they questioned him.”

“Javier has the kid,” Kane soothed, slipping his arm around her shoulders and bringing her close to his warmth. Maybe everything was just too much for someone so fragile. She was disoriented and couldn’t remember things clearly.

She shook her head. “The teenager. The one tied up. I felt his pulse, and he was alive, but he was unconscious, maybe dying. There was a lot of blood on the floor around him. I should have done something. You know they’ll kill him.”

“Sweetheart,” he said softly, “we had no choice. We couldn’t have taken him with us. He didn’t see us. Hopefully they’ll realize that and let him go.”

“They were never going to let him go.” She turned her face up to the sky.

Rose looked so sad his heart gave a curious shiver, and it took great effort not to pull her into his arms. He had to keep reminding himself, what he felt for her had nothing to do with emotion, and she felt nothing for him. He thought of her as his woman. The one woman. The only. She belonged to him, and he wanted to comfort and protect her, to hold her close to him and make her world a wonderful place. She would be appalled if she knew how he felt—not just appalled but frightened. And if he was entirely truthful with himself, she might have cause to be afraid. He planned on courting her.

He hadn’t gotten off to a very good start. She’d already tried to shoot him, and she definitely had considered shoving a knife into him. The remark about her being out of condition hadn’t helped his cause either. Kane frowned. So far, his scorecard read pretty much zero. A big fat zero, to be exact.

“No, they were drunk and they wanted el presidente’s nephew to kill him. I’m sorry we couldn’t save him, Rose, but we had no time, and we had to get the five-year-old to safety.”

“I know. It’s just hard to think of his mother waiting for him to come home, knowing those horrible monsters took him from her for no reason other than their own amusement.”

Kane didn’t know how to comfort her, so instead, he took her hand and set a much slower pace, catering to her short legs and lack of physical fitness. The terrain changed from pure sand to patches of saw grass. A few hearty flowers tried to grow among the thick stalks. Rocks formed a rough terrace along several of the rolling hills of dirt and sand. This was barren country, without the natural beauty of the desert. The land was so stark, he couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to build a home in the middle of such a wasteland—unless they were in hiding.

“Who exactly was this man you befriended? To come out here, he must have a lot of enemies.”

She didn’t look up at him, but he caught her smile. “He was in his eighties, and let’s just say he lived a very full life opposing the government. He lost his children and his siblings to the fight and eventually his wife.”

Kane closed his eyes for a brief moment, trying to hold on to his sanity. “You befriended a rebel wanted by the government.”

“Well, yes,” she confirmed. “He was very adept at hiding his presence. I was on the run, he was on the run, it was sort of natural. And he needed help.”

She didn’t know it, but she damn well needed Kane. She didn’t have any sense in her pretty head. None.

“You do realize even a man in his eighties could kill you, Rose, if he thought you were a threat to him, especially one who spent an entire life killing those he perceived as enemies.”

She walked in silence beside him, choosing not to see his logic or answer his charge. He scowled down at the top of her head. She was so headstrong she just blazed a path straight to trouble. He was going to have to put a stop to it, that was all. She definitely needed looking after, whether she thought so or not. Satisfied that he wasn’t just being selfish, he walked up the sloping hill, noting the vegetation was thicker in the area than most of the surrounding dirt and sand.

“You’re about to walk right up the roof.”

He halted abruptly. “You’re kidding.”

She looked pleased—and a little smug. “Yes, it’s right there. Take a look around. The place is amazing. To get here, you have to know the GPS location. He was always careful to come in different ways and leave no tracks. There is a dune buggy, and he dragged a carpet behind it to cover the tire marks in the dirt and sand. That was how he would get his supplies. He has a truck parked in a garage in the village right on the edge of the desert. He drove the buggy across the sand and left it in the garage when he shopped with the truck.”

“Clever. And no one ever betrayed him?”

“According to him, everyone who knew about his desert retreat is dead.”

“Just who is this saintly man?”

“His name was Diego Jimenez.”

Kane felt something inside him go still. “And he just happened to tell you about the place?” Diego Jimenez led a shadowy group of rebels determined to overthrow the previous government. They did so by bombing oil and natural gas lines. They had a reputation for killing locals who didn’t agree with their policies. Jimenez had lived by the sword, betraying everything humanity stood for. He had an extensive family, and Kane doubted that they were all dead. He was evil, pure and simple, and Rose couldn’t see beyond a dying old man. Leopards didn’t change their spots, and snakes were snakes.

He took a careful look around, using night vision. The night seemed still, but what had been a place of refuge suddenly felt hostile.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I took care of him until he died. He gave me the location and the keys. He knew I needed a place to lay low until after the baby was born.”

She gestured toward the dirt- and grass-covered roofline. He could see the low rectangular stone structure was situated between the two sloping hills. The way the house had been built, it would catch natural light and crosswinds. From the front the structure looked like a half-buried ruin, which, he was certain, was the entire idea. The shrubs on the roof had been planted and carefully cultivated to look part of the natural surroundings. The dirt looked as if the wind had blown it there, again all natural. Kane walked up the slope to inspect the roof. He had to really look to find the portals that allowed light into the subterranean rooms below. The entire structure looked more like an ancient bridge built between the two slopes, now buried in soil and shrubbery and tall grass stalks.

They walked down the sloping ground to the front door. The walls showing were quite thick.

“The glass in the windows is bulletproof,” Rose said as she unlocked the door.

He caught her shoulder and shoved her none too gently behind him. She didn’t protest, but he heard her sigh overly loud. It didn’t matter. He knew she didn’t—couldn’t—see Jimenez as evil, but he knew better. He didn’t trust rebels, not even eighty-year-old dying rebels. It was just too generous a gesture to hand over the keys to the desert retreat. Something was going on here, something he didn’t trust or understand, but she wasn’t just walking into that house without him clearing every inch of it first.

He handed her back her gun and stepped inside. The interior of the house was cool without being cold. He moved easily in the dark, staying along the wall as he moved through the wide entryway that spilled into a large living room. The furniture was sparse, a couch and two chairs, but they appeared well made and in good condition. A low coffee table was cleared of any magazines or objects. The room held no ashtrays, and the air seemed clean.

He noted two separate arched doorways leading to other rooms and made his way to the nearest one in silence. The floors were hardwood with handwoven, very expensive rugs thrown artistically in front of the couch and chair. The room he entered was a single bedroom. A large double bed with a carved wooden frame came out from the center wall with a large, low chest at the end of it. Bookshelves surrounded the headboard, forming a bridge up around the wall. He could see beneath the bed that no one hid there. A closet drew his attention, and he slipped inside the room and moved to the side of the door. In one move he turned the knob and pulled it open. The space was empty of everything, even clothes.

Rose wouldn’t get the significance of that. Or of the fact that no paintings hung on the wall, and that there were no objects on shelves, no books. She had been raised in a military compound, a stark life that didn’t encourage owning art and beautiful things. This had been Diego Jimenez’s hideaway, supposedly his last line of retreat. This would be where he would keep his most prized possessions, and yet the entire residence was empty of everything but the starkest furniture, as if it had been prepared for Rose—or someone. This situation had all the warning signs of a trap.

He cleared the bathroom, a much more spacious room than he would have thought the underground living quarters would have, and moved on to the kitchen. Again, the room was large. A dining table and chairs for six sat beneath an ornate chandelier. That bothered him even more. If the chandelier was real, and it certainly looked like a work of art, this “rebel,” who should have been poor and on the run, was incredibly wealthy. This was no hovel, dug out in the middle of the desert. An architect had designed the home, taking into consideration light, space, and crosswinds. That took money.

A man on the run would have a secure room, a place he could go to hide if the law was closing in as well as an escape route. He went through the kitchen back into the living room and studied the layout. Not in the common room; it would have to be the bedroom where Jimenez and his wife slept.

“I’m coming in,” Rose declared and stepped inside the open foyer. “There’s a generator. It’s very quiet. It will heat the water, and we both can take a shower.”

She sounded so hopeful, it took effort not to sweep her into his arms. She looked exhausted, dried blood on her arms and scratches down one side of her face, a badge of courage, where she’d protected the baby instead of her own head. That made him mad all over again.

“Who the hell jumps out of a moving vehicle eight months pregnant?” he demanded.

“Someone who doesn’t want to get shot.” Her eyes flashed the most interesting little sparks there in the darkness. “And if you had taken care of the guard before he fired his weapon, we might not have had to jump.”

“Which I might have been able to do had you not interfered.” As excuses went, it was pretty damn lame and childish. She’d managed to be very helpful, but that wasn’t the damn point. She had no business going into combat pregnant. “You don’t have much sense, do you?”

If the furious sparks in her eyes could have found fuel, he would have been in trouble. As it was, he reached out and took the gun from her hand just to err on the side of caution.

“The only stupid thing I’ve done so far is to pick you as a partner. I’m tired and I want a shower. Get out of my way.”

“Not until I clear his safe room and the escape tunnel.”

She went still. Her tongue darted out to touch her lower lip, drawing his attention to the full, angel-like bow. “Safe room?” She pushed strands of hair away from her face. Her hand trembled. She put it behind her back.

She’d definitely recognized the significance of what he’d said.

“There isn’t a safe room.”

“Why? Because he would have told you?” Damn it all, was she going to believe him or some lying old man who had his own agenda? All Kane wanted to do was protect her ... Well, okay, that was a fucking lie. That wasn’t all he wanted from her, but his intentions were noble. Damn it, maybe they weren’t all that noble either. She was tying him up in knots. What the hell kind of woman did the things she did?

“Oh, Kane.” Her voice shook.

She looked as if she crumbled right in front of him. She sank into the chair, pressing her hand to her swollen belly, taking long, slow, deep breaths.

“There’s no need to hyperventilate,” he said as gently as possible. “We’ll be fine. I’ll check the room. Take your gun, and don’t shoot me.”

She sent him a wan smile as her fingers closed around the butt of the gun. “Tempting thought,” she murmured, her expression both rueful and apprehensive, “but I’ll restrain myself.”

That little smile turned his heart over. He touched her face with gentle fingers before he could stop himself. She didn’t jerk away. Her skin was soft, like the petals of a rose. His knuckles brushed the silk of her hair. Immediately the memory of her body beneath him filled his mind. His body reacted, hard and full and aching for her. He ignored the urgent needs as best as he could, brushing the pad of his thumb along her cheekbone and down her jaw, tracing the beautiful bone structure, oddly grateful she remained still beneath his exploration. He needed to touch her, and maybe she understood he really had no choice.

“Stay right here, Rose.” He gentled his voice. She really did look exhausted, and the walk in the desert had obviously taxed her endurance. Unless ... He frowned. “Did you get hurt when you jumped from the car?”

“Just go clear the room.”

“And the tunnel. He would have had an escape out of here. A man like Diego Jimenez would never have allowed himself to become trapped.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes as if her head were pounding. “I should have thought of that. I don’t know why I just accepted what he told me.”

He crouched down beside her, his fingers curling around the nape of her neck. “You needed to hear you had a safe place to go, Rose. That’s human nature.”

She looked directly into his eyes, and every cell in his body reacted to the pain he saw there.

“I’m responsible for our child. You trusted me to take care of her. I told you I would.”

The naked mixture of stark honesty, guilt, and exhaustion was nearly his undoing. He had to stop himself from pulling her into his arms and kissing her until they both were sated—which would probably be never for him. Instead he grinned at her. “I throw males. I’m damned sure of it. We’re having a boy. I’ll be right back.”

He heard her soft laughter as he swaggered away from her, back to the bedroom. He had to get this done, ensure they were safe for the night, and then they’d have to find somewhere else to hole up until he could get word to the GhostWalkers. He had no doubts that when the political bullshit was gone, Mack and the team would come looking for him. They wouldn’t stop until they found him alive or found his body. They wouldn’t believe the tracker in the ravine. With no evidence of bodies in the wreckage, they would know he had walked away alive with Rose.

Kane examined the walls carefully for any evidence of difference. With a subterranean structure, it wouldn’t be difficult to excavate enough dirt to provide a hidden room. There had to be an entrance, and one that was fairly easy to get to in an emergency. It wouldn’t be positioned where anyone bursting through the door could readily see. It wouldn’t be on the wall the bed was against. He ran his hands over the remaining two walls. Neither felt different. He couldn’t find a crack that might indicate a door. Puzzled, he stood in the center of the room, frowning.

He couldn’t be wrong. Diego Jimenez was notorious, and the bounty on him had been astounding, in a country where poverty often overcame good sense. El presidente would have sent the entire military at his disposal after the man if he knew his hideout. So there was a back door. He studied the room again, aware of Rose’s restless movements in the next room. He had to make certain there was no enemy in the panic room or waiting in the tunnel.

There were no cracks, so what did that mean? The door had to be there, so ... He stepped close to the wall he would have chosen. It was situated in the farthest end of the room that, if used, would take them deeper underground and away from the front opening that was aboveground. He ran his fingers along the actual corner seam of the room. It seemed to blend flawlessly, yet when he looked at the ceiling joint, he realized this had to be the door, cleverly blended. There was no heavy furniture to cover anything, just a solid wall.

He ran his fingers along the edges, looking for a way in. It had to be easy. There would be no time for a combination. Jimenez would want fast access. Could it be that easy? A spring-loaded door that fit snugly but was made for a fast exit? The family wouldn’t hide there. They would run. They could barricade the door from inside the panic room. There was no need to do so in the bedroom. Gun in his fist, finger on the trigger, he put his palm flat on the edge of the inside seam and pushed.

The door swung inward soundlessly. He crouched low and scanned the interior. Inching inside, he took stock of the room. It was built with thick walls, and one side housed a case filled with guns of every caliber, ammunition, and grenades. Nothing had been touched. He frowned over that. If the old man had removed his valuables, why hadn’t he taken the weapons? He could see the metal bars, three of them, that fit across the wall from inside this room. An arched doorway led to the escape tunnel.

Kane followed the passageway all the way to the exit point, grateful he had excellent night vision. It was damned dark, but the tunnel had been formed for a quick escape, and the floor was smooth. Markers, painted in white, gave distance so anyone running could clearly see where they were at any given time. Simple but effective. He was beginning to admire the old man. He didn’t waste time and effort on elaborateness.

Kane followed the winding tunnel about a mile and came out on the other side of the sloping hill. He couldn’t even see the house from where he was. Just inside the tunnel, hidden from view, was an army Humvee. He knew the engine would be gleaming. This Hummer was an M1165 with frag armor and bulletproof windows. More, it was outfitted with the latest weaponry, the CROWS system. He sighed. This scenario became worse with every passing moment. How the hell did a man like Jimenez manage to get his hands on that?

He spent some time booby-trapping the exit, just in case the old man had set Rose up in some way. He had no answers for the why of it, but that didn’t matter so much. Keeping her safe was the main mission. He went back to her, satisfied they could spend the night and get some rest.

“I think we’re good, Rose. I found the escape tunnel in the bedroom. I’ll start the generator, and you can take a shower and get some rest.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, her voice almost hoarse. She stood up with a groan and immediately bent over, taking slow, deep breaths and letting each one out carefully.

“Are you hurt? Don’t lie to me, Rose. If you hurt yourself when you jumped from the sedan, you need to admit it, not be ashamed. It was a dumb plan, but we got away.”

She gritted her teeth, breathing through her mouth. When she could speak, she made a strangling sound deep in her throat. “I’m not hurt.”

He glared down at her with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Nothing is wrong with me. This is called having contractions, you big oaf,” Rose snapped back, her glare maybe outdoing his by a shade.