Amanda Stevens: The Bodyguard's Assignment

Of course, if she didn’t get the story—if she was caught—Grace figured it wasn’t much worse being dead and stupid than being just plain dead. At least she would have tried to make things right.

But no matter how much she might wish to, Grace knew she couldn’t go back and erase the mistakes she’d made five years ago. Because of her, Lester Kane had eluded a sting operation the Narcotics Division of the Dallas Police Department had been working on for months. And because of that, a cop named Brady Morgan had walked out of her life forever.

Tonight, she finally had a chance to make amends for what she’d done, but she doubted it would matter to Brady. He’d told her back then he never wanted to see her again, and he’d kept his word. In the years since he’d left town, Grace had not heard one word from him.

Glancing around, she assured herself once more that she was well-hidden. The warehouse, one of several owned by Kane, was stacked with rolls of carpeting piled more than fifteen feet high. A row of dirty windows beneath the ceiling allowed in a pale dripping of moonlight, just enough so that once Grace had become accustomed to the gloom, she could make out shapes and silhouettes but little else.

Her contact had left a side door unlocked near the back of the warehouse, and Grace had used her flashlight only long enough to plant a remote microphone and then find a hiding place. There was nothing more she could do now but relax and wait, two things she wasn’t terribly good at.

The minutes crept by. Grace glanced at her watch again. Nearly two. Any moment now…

As if on cue, the overhead door rumbled open, startling her so violently she almost dropped her tape recorder.

Quickly she checked to make sure the switch was on, then settled back, willing the beat of her heart to slow. Her contact inside Kane’s operation was a man named Alec Priestley, who not only worked for Kane, but had been his childhood buddy. They’d grown up together in Grapevine, a small community north of Dallas. Kane had been the best man at Priestley’s wedding. Grace had no reason to trust Priestley except for what her own instincts told her about him. He wanted out. She’d seen the desperation in his eyes, could almost smell his fear when he’d approached her with his proposition. Either he was telling her the truth, or he was a very good actor. In a few short minutes, she would know which.

A black Mercedes sedan swept silently into the warehouse. Instinctively Grace shielded her eyes from the glare of the headlights as she scrunched lower into her hiding place. A second car followed immediately, this one a silver Jaguar coupe that Grace knew belonged to Kane.

As soon as the overhead door closed, the lights on the Mercedes were turned off and three men in dark suits got out. Kane and Priestley climbed out of the Jag and approached the other three warily. They all met in the amber glow of the Jaguar’s parking lights—the only illumination in the warehouse.

Grace shifted her weight until she could see through a narrow opening between the carpet rolls. She recognized Kane and Priestley, but the other three were unfamiliar to her. She thought one of them might be Stephen Rialto, but he kept his face turned away from her. She had to imagine the cruel set of his mouth, the coldness in his eyes. From everything she’d learned about Rialto, she suspected he would slit her throat—or order it done—without batting an eye if he found her there.

He was flanked on either side by the other two men who had gotten out of the Mercedes. Grace couldn’t see their features clearly, either, but she had the impression of dark eyes and swarthy complexions. Bodyguards, she decided. Trained thugs whose orders were to shoot first and ask questions later.

Her gaze shifted to Priestley. He stood at the periphery of the group, white-faced and jittery as he glanced around the warehouse.

Come on, Grace urged. Stay cool. Don’t give us away.

She prayed the others would be so busy forging their unholy alliance they wouldn’t notice his nervousness. But neither Lester Kane nor Stephen Rialto had gotten as far as he had by being careless. Grace couldn’t hear much of what was being said, but she could tell they were all tense.

Kane was talking in low, persuasive tones, and Grace strained to hear him. The other man’s voice rose as he responded tersely, “Then prove your loyalty, Kane. We have to know we can trust you.”

“If that’s what it takes, then so be it,” Kane said.

From her vantage, Grace saw what none of the others could see. Unobtrusively, Kane reached around and drew a gun from the waistband of his trousers. Grace had only a split second to wonder why Rialto’s men didn’t react before Kane swung his arm toward Priestley. He fired the silenced weapon twice. A soft spit, spit, and Alec Priestley, husband, businessman, father of two, crashed back into a wooden pallet, his face and chest a crimson explosion.

Grace clapped a hand over her mouth to keep from gasping in shock. She watched in horror as the other men began to swing back to their cars. “Torch the place!” someone ordered.

One of the bodyguards grabbed a gas can from the trunk of the Mercedes and began dousing the carpet rolls while Kane reversed the Jag from the warehouse. The other two men climbed into the Mercedes and followed. The first bodyguard finished his job, then tossed the empty gas can aside. Running to the open doorway, he stood gazing around for a moment before flicking a lit match toward a trail of fuel on the floor. Then he disappeared through the opening, and the door immediately closed.

As the ribbon of fire raced toward the drenched carpet rolls, Grace grabbed her recorder and scrambled through the narrow channel between the pallets. The natural carpet fibers would burn quickly, but the synthetic rolls were potentially even more dangerous. The nylon would melt and smolder, causing black smoke to build inside the warehouse. The acrid smell already burned her eyes and throat.

The side door was somewhere just ahead of her. Don’t panic, she told herself. She had plenty of time to get out. Just a few more yards…a few more feet…a few more inches…

Her hand closed around the metal knob and she pulled. When the door wouldn’t budge, she gave it a fierce yank, and then another and another, each more desperate than the last until she realized the exit had been padlocked from the outside. Other than the overhead door through which the cars had driven, there was no other way out of the warehouse.

Grace whirled to retrace her steps, but the flames had spread quickly. The entire warehouse was ablaze, the smoke nearly opaque. In another few moments, she would be overcome.

A few yards in front of her, the smoke curled upward, fanned by a breeze. Grace’s gaze followed the writhing trail, and she realized that a pane in one of the windows was missing. The night air was drawing the thick haze like a flue. It was also showing her what might be another way out.

But the windows were a good twenty feet from the ground. Grace wasn’t at all certain she could reach them. Knowing it was her only hope, she began to climb the wooden pallets, her lungs searing in agony. She wouldn’t let herself look down, or think about the flames that were licking toward her, the rolls of carpeting that were melting beneath her feet.

She wouldn’t contemplate the reality that if she died in this warehouse, she would never be able to redeem herself in Brady Morgan’s eyes.…

The landscape was as vast as it was empty, a wasteland of rugged plains made even more bleak by the dead of winter. In the distance, mist settled over the craggy peaks of the Davis Mountains, softening the jagged edges until gray rock melded almost seamlessly with slate sky.