Nowhere Safe

CHAPTER 37





Ryder paced back and forth, caged in a hotel room. He should tell Sabrina he wasn’t cut out for surveillance. Stick him in miserable weather where he had to sit in the same spot for hours waiting on a target to enter his crosshairs and he was fine, but this private eye shit made him twitchy.

“You’re supposed to be grabbing some sleep,” Dingo said without looking up from the laptop on the desk. He was taking his turn at watching several hidden security camera feeds Ryder had installed in parking decks near the task force offices and inside the task force reception area.

Nick had the current shift covering surveillance at the shipping docks, where a container for High Vision had cleared customs yesterday and no one had collected the contents yet.

DEA had inspected the container. Bunch of parts for lab equipment.

Dingo clicked a couple of keys and suggested, “Watching movies puts me out.”

Sleep had been an elusive quest for a long time. Ryder lived in a perpetual state of unrest, crashing for fast naps when he needed them. He didn’t answer Dingo, who could talk to a stump.

“Reading helps you sleep,” Dingo offered.

No. Spending a night screwing the eyes out of someone like Leanne might help me sleep. But that wouldn’t happen and even if it did he’d only get a few hours respite.

“Yoga is good, too, if you know how to do it.”

Lucky me that Sabrina sent along a sleep therapist. Ryder’s cell phone buzzed. He snatched it out of his pocket before the second buzz, recognizing the number, and answered with his real name. “Van Dyke.”

The man who owned Kearn Industries said, “I got your message about meeting. Does this have anything to do with your father or are you finally going to accept my offer of employment?”

The things Ryder did for his brother. “This is about the contract Hubrecht wants to discuss with you.”

“I’ve already given him my answer, but if you’d like to meet I’ll listen to what you have to say.”

Meet? Shit. Ryder had hoped to avoid that, because Kearn was known for being a master at negotiating in person. He preferred face-to-face contact and would fly across the world, sure of closing a deal.

And return home successful.

But Ryder wanted no part of the business he’d grown up with, in any form. If he accepted Kearn’s cherry deal, Hubrecht Van Dyke would go ballistic and bust harder on Terrence. If Ryder accepted Hubrecht’s standing offer, Ryder would walk back into the snake pit of Van Dyke Enterprises he’d joined the Army to escape.

“Have you changed your mind, Van Dyke?”

“No. I’m in Miami. Give me a time and place.”

Of course, Kearn wanted to meet now at his home in Belle Glade on the south end of Lake Okeechobee, just as Terrence had thought. It would take every bit of an hour to make the drive if he didn’t get caught behind someone on the two-lane parts of Highway 27. Ryder checked his time. Closing in on ten-thirty. He was off for the next three and a half hours. He ended his call and turned to Dingo who didn’t wait to hear what Ryder had to say.

“Sounds like you have somewhere to go. Be back by oh-two-hundred to take your shift watching the containers, mate.”

Ryder did appreciate that about Dingo. No bullshit. He started to ask if Dingo was sure, but figured if Dingo hadn’t been he’d have said so. “Anything changes, call me. I’ll head straight back.”

Dingo nodded, apparently not wasting his therapeutic advice on the terminally indifferent.

Ryder spent the drive up to see Kearn with the music at ear-bleeding level, the only volume for listening to Lagoon 5. His meeting went pretty much as expected, with Kearn offering Ryder more than he was making with Slye Temp and plenty of fringe benefits, but signing on with Sabrina and Slye Temp hadn’t been about money.

He’d needed to be out in the field doing something he considered productive, not boxed in an office where he couldn’t breathe and schmoozing a*sholes who sucked up too much of the world’s oxygen.

Kearn had understood about Ryder’s rejecting the position, but not so much when the conversation turned to Hubrecht. Kearn said he refused to do business with a man who would sell his own mother for a deal.

No argument there.

Ryder turned out of Kearn’s long driveway in night as dark as tar pitch, procrastinating over calling Terrence, who was waiting anxiously to hear the outcome. Cell service would be spotty on the drive back through the Everglades Wildlife Management area. Might as well get this over with.

When Terrence answered, Ryder kept it short. “Kearn won’t deal with Hubrecht or you. I tried my best to get him to meet you for lunch or something, but he said he didn’t trust Hubrecht not to show up without warning. I think he would probably work with Van Dyke if he knew he’d be working with just you. Sorry, bro.”

“I understand. Thank you for trying.” Poor Terrence sounded kicked in the jewels. “I...was excited so I told Father, but I’ll explain it didn’t work out.”

Ryder clenched the steering wheel, really miserable now that Terrence had to go to Hubrecht with his tail tucked. He had nothing better than, “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, really. I appreciate your getting involved at all. Where are you now?”

“Just leaving. On my way back to Miami.”

“Will you be home any time soon?”

Home to Terrence meant the Hubrecht mansion in Atlanta. Not for Ryder. He’d never felt at home there, growing up as the adopted bastard child. “Don’t know my schedule for a bit. I’ll call when I’m back and we’ll–” Grab a beer? Terrence probably couldn’t drink with all the medicine he took. “Grab a burger,” Ryder finished.

“I’d like that.” Terrence sighed heavily for someone who lived in the lap of luxury. Some laps were less comforting than others. “I suppose I should go inform Father and get it over with.”

“Sorry, man. Good luck with the old bastard.”

Ryder fought with a bout of guilt after hanging up, but he’d given the meeting his best shot and missed the mark. In fact, he’d spent longer than he’d intended and had barely an hour to make the return trip, but at one in the morning he’d have an open road and no one from the team had called or sent a text.

In the middle of the dark, lonely drive through the Everglades, he felt a jolt in the front end as if he’d run over something. He pulled off the road on a stretch of empty highway, far from any businesses or streetlights. His black pickup truck blended right in. He flipped on the emergency blinkers and grabbed his flashlight to inspect the tire on his front driver side.

Flat, dammit. He rolled up his sleeves on his way to the rear of the truck where his spare

was ... not hanging under the bed?

No spare? No f*cking way.

He ran the beam of his flashlight under there again, but no brand new tire on a rim hung in the bracket.

F*cking thieves.

Cursing a streak all the way back to the cab, he reached over and lifted his cell phone ... that had no signal at all.

Call it paranoia, but instinct kicked in and he was instantly alert. He palmed his HK. When would someone have stolen his tire?