Shirlee McCoy - Exit Strategy

Lark stood a few feet away, watching intently as he began typing in code. “You’re a man of many talents, Cyrus.”

“Not many, but the ones I have are useful in situations like this.”

“Would they be useful in opening this?” She pointed to a file cabinet.

“If it was necessary.”

“It’s necessary,” Lark responded, tugging at the handle.

He ignored her. They didn’t have time to play seek-and-find.

“Cyrus,” Lark said, waving a hand in front of his face. “Did you hear me? I said it was necessary.”

“Your idea of necessary and mine aren’t the same. To me, necessary is shutting down the security system and getting us both out of here in one piece.”

“You’ve been on the compound for how long?”

“About a week.”

“So, you’ve seen the trucks coming and going in the middle of the night?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re not curious? You don’t want to know what’s in them?”

He sighed, looked up from the computer screen and met her eyes. Gray eyes. That’s what Essex had said. It was hard to tell from the photographs and impossible to see in the darkness. “Yeah. I’m curious, but not so curious that I’m willing to die to find out.”

“It will only take a—”

The sound of a door opening silenced her and made every nerve in Cyrus’s body jump to life.

Footsteps tapped on the tile floor, John’s toneless whistle filling the church.

Cyrus flicked off the computer, turned on a light, nearly tossed Lark into the chair.

“Play along,” he hissed.

She barely had time to nod before John was there, moving into the room, his dark gaze jumping from Cyrus to Lark and back again.

“What are you doing in here?” he snapped.

“Getting the information you asked me for,” he said coldly.

“The door was locked for a reason, son.”

“I’m not your son, and you said to bring her wherever I wanted, do whatever was necessary.”

“I didn’t mean break into the church office.”

“Then, you should have been clearer. Fact is, this is the farthest away from people that we can get. You don’t want anyone hearing her, right?”

John hesitated, something in his face going just a little soft as he looked at Lark.

“Right,” John finally said.

“Then how about you go, and leave me to do what I do best?” Cyrus offered his best predatory smile, the one that had made tougher men than John back down.

“I think I’ll stay. If you’re such an expert at getting information, I might learn something from you.” He dragged a chair over, sat it right in front of Lark.

“You’re going to tell us what we want to know. Right, doll?” John said. “You’re going to make this easy on everyone. It’s what Joshua would have wanted.”

“I guess you’d know,” she replied. “You were one of his best friends.” There were freckles on her cheeks and nose, dark circles under her eyes. She was closing in on thirty, but could have passed for twenty, her dark red hair curling around an unlined face.

Delicate.

That’s how she looked.

Maybe that’s why John leaned forward, touched her cotton-skirt-covered knee. “You took something that belongs to Elijah. Where is it? All you have to do is tell us, and you can go back to your life.”

“Like Joshua was allowed to go back to his?”

“Joshua died in a terrible accident,” John said with a scowl. “The police investigated. They agreed.”

“What about Ethan?”

That was a name Cyrus hadn’t heard before, and he forced himself to relax, to let the conversation play out. There was a lot going on that he didn’t understand, and that could be dangerous.

John’s scowl deepened. “He’s probably living life somewhere far away from Amos Way.”

“He would never have left his wife and children.”

“He was always looser in his morals then the rest of the group. Joshua knew that. You knew that.”

“What I know,” she said quietly, “is that you’re a pawn in whatever game Elijah is playing, and that you’re paid plenty of money to be one. You betrayed the group. You betrayed my husband. You’re the reason why he’s dead. I don’t know if you pulled the trigger or if one of your hired men did, but—”

“Shut up!” He lunged toward her, his fist raised, his intent obvious.

Cyrus had no choice.

He pounced, tackling John to the ground, struggling as the other man reached for his gun, tried to free it from its holster. John was strong and outweighed Cyrus by a good seventy pounds, but if he won, it was all over. No backup was coming. No help was on its way. For the first time since Cyrus had joined HEART, he was on his own. It was the way he’d wanted it. He had a feeling he was going to regret that choice.

He wrestled John into a choke hold, managed to keep him from freeing his gun. Was panting hard, trying to force him into submission when something heavy whizzed by his head, glanced off his shoulder, slammed into John’s face.

There was a grunt, a crash. And then there was darkness.

THREE

Lark stumbled across the dark room, slammed into a chair that blocked the path to the door.

She pushed the chair out of the way, raced to the door. Escape. That’s all she wanted.

But Cyrus had risked his life for her, and running meant leaving him behind. Injured? She didn’t think so. She’d tossed the lamp at John’s head, saw it make contact a split second before the room went dark. At least, that’s what she thought she’d seen. She wasn’t sure. Her hands had been shaking. Her body had been shaking, all the adrenaline and fear pouring out. She might have missed her mark, seen what she wanted to see rather than what was.

She reached the door, could have run through the hall and out back, raced through the cemetery and climbed the fence, been in the woods and heading toward civilization in minutes.

But she couldn’t leave Cyrus.

No matter how much her brain was screaming that she should.

She ran her hand along the wall, found the light switch and flicked it on. Turned to face the men.

Cyrus knelt beside John’s prone body, his eyes dark, his expression unreadable. He looked tough and hard, his black security jacket hanging open to reveal his shoulder holster.

“Is he dead?” she managed to ask, her throat so tight she barely got the words out.

“Not even close.” He took the handcuffs from his belt, turned John onto his stomach, yanked his arms up behind his back and cuffed him.

“I hope I didn’t hurt him too badly.”

“I hate to tell you this, Lark, but hurting McDermott is the least of your worries.” He removed John’s gun belt. “You know how to use a firearm?”

“Yes.” Joshua had taught her to load a rifle and a handgun, and she’d become a decent marksman in the years she’d lived in Amos Way. Owning firearms, understanding how to use them, that was part of a sustainable lifestyle, part of self-reliance and living off the grid. It had been a while since she’d been out shooting, but she hadn’t forgotten.

“Put this on.” He thrust the gun belt into her hands.

Obviously, he wasn’t worried about her using the gun on him.

She took the belt, buckled it around her waist. John wasn’t a small guy, and she wasn’t a big woman. Especially not now. Three months in Amos Way reliving all the good times and that one really bad time, a week in the prison trailer avoiding drugged food, and she’d lost any extra weight she’d ever had on her.

The belt slid to her hips, and she pulled it back up.

“Come here.” Cyrus grabbed the front of the belt, dragged her close, used his knife to dig a hole through thick leather. “Try that.”

It was perfect.