Storm Force Read online

  “Did you ask?”

  “No.”

  “You should’ve.”

  “I’m getting to see my children,” Kate said in a tight voice. A lump formed in the back of her throat as she thought about all the times she couldn’t see them. Her vision blurred and tears threatened to leak down her cheeks. She steeled herself. “I’m not going to question that.”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” her dad agreed. “I should be clear here in a day or so. Okay if I come by?”

  “Of course. They would love that.”

  “What about you? Or have I worn out my welcome this mornin’ bein’ a busybody?”

  Kate grinned, knowing that despite her dad’s gruff demeanor he really was feeling awkward now that he’d said everything he had. “I’m willing to tolerate it,” she told him.

  “That’s good,” her dad said, sounding a little relieved. Most people, except for the ones that really knew him, wouldn’t have noticed the change. “Mighty good. I’ll call you before I come over.”

  “Just come, Dad.”

  “I will. An’ if you need anythin’, let me know.”

  Kate said she would, told him she loved him, and pushed the end button. She tapped the brake to slow down and slide behind the D.O.C. bus as it rounded a sweeping curve between towering cypress trees. Her thoughts ran to her kids again.

  Her dad was right: she should have asked Bryce why he was sending Steven and Hannah. During the past three years, he’d never let her see them any more than the court order had declared. For Bryce, custody was all about power and controlling his financial vulnerability. From all accounts, Bryce didn’t spend that much time with Steven and Hannah, but paid others to. She kept having visions of her kids growing up in a vast, empty apartment among strangers.

  Put that away, Kate told herself. There’s nothing you can do about it right now. You’re working to change that. Stay with it.

  The two-lane highway straightened out again. Kate knew for a fact that the Florida Highway Patrol and the Collier County Sheriff’s Department didn’t monitor the highway. In fact, she was surprised that the D.O.C. bus was using the route. The road was well off the beaten path.

  Her cell phone rang.

  Kate scooped it up and answered automatically. “Garrett Guides. Kate Garrett speaking.”

  “Kate, where the hell are you?” Tyler Jordan sounded scared and pissed and out of breath all at the same time.

  “On my way,” Kate said.

  “Well, you need to hurry. That damned idiot is out there shootin’ up half the Everglades. He gets around some of the regulars through here, they’re gonna shoot the ass offa him.”

  “I’m getting there as quick as I can,” Kate said. “Faster than my dad would have. He was over in Miami when you called him. If you’d called me first, I’d have been a few minutes closer by now.”

  “This didn’t seem like something a—” Tyler caught himself just in time and closed his mouth. “Like something you’d want to deal with,” he finished lamely.

  A gunshot cracked over the cell phone connection.

  “That was Mathis?” Kate asked.

  Three other gunshots followed in quick succession.

  “Yeah,” Tyler said. He swore vehemently. “He’s a crazy son of a bitch, Kate. If it’s movin’ out there in the brush, he’s shootin’ at it. Damn wonder he ain’t shot nobody. He’s an anesthesiologist, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Something tells me that man’s been raidin’ his own goodie box.”

  “Give me fifteen more minutes,” Kate said. She put her foot down harder on the accelerator, getting ready to pass the D.O.C. bus. “I’ll be there.”

  Another gunshot echoed over the phone connection.

  “Sure,” Tyler said sourly.

  Kate pulled alongside the D.O.C. bus. She couldn’t help glancing inside the vehicle.

  Nearly a dozen men sat in rigid-looking seats behind a wire mesh screen that protected the driver and the armed guard in the front.

  One of the prisoners sat at the window. Sunlight glinted from his unruly shoulder-length blond hair, picking up the streaks that summer had burned into it. His face was chiseled with a few days’ dark beard growth lightly covering his cheeks and jaw. Wide-spaced hazel eyes peered out from under dark brows that arched with sardonic amusement. Despite the shaggy look, the dimple in his chin showed plainly. He wore the familiar orange inmate jumpsuit.

  He glanced at his watch, then back at Kate. The amusement left his features and concern filled them.

  “Just do what you can,” Kate said into the phone. She tried to shake the prisoner’s gaze but found it hard to look away. The man was handsome and she couldn’t help wondering what he had done to get locked up. “I’ll be there as soon as—”

  The double explosion ripped through the Jeep’s interior. At the same time that she realized the sound had come from beside her and not from the cell phone, Kate saw the bus’s front tire shred and come apart. Chunks of rubber flew through the air and slapped against the Jeep, knocking bug debris from the windshield.

  Throwing the cell phone down, Kate put both hands on the wheel and tried to speed up as the bus crossed the dotted lines. Before she was able to get clear, the bus slammed against the Cherokee’s right rear quarter panel.

  Although the collision barely caught the Jeep, the vehicle wobbled and the tires tore free of the highway pavement. Kate tried to shove the transmission into four-wheel-drive with the shift-on-the-fly selector but by then it was too late.

  The Jeep swapped ends, spinning out of control. Metal screeched as the bus slammed into the smaller vehicle again, driving it like a battering ram, striking again and again. The passenger window shattered and fell away. The side mirror crumpled inward and fell off.

  Kate struggled to recover, jerking the steering wheel and alternately hitting the brakes and the accelerator. Evidently the bus driver was trying to do the same thing because the bigger vehicle tore free. As she tried to regain control of the Jeep, Kate watched in horror as the D.O.C. bus fell over on its side.

  Careening wildly across the two lanes, the bus left a trail of sparks. The sound of tortured metal shrilled over the area, startling dozens of birds from the trees and filling the sky with feathery clouds for a moment.

  Then Kate lost sight of the bus as the Jeep left the road and skidded into the swampy treeline. She held on grimly as the vehicle crashed through the brush. The seat belt felt as if it was cutting her in two as it restrained her. She came to an abrupt stop against a cluster of knobby-kneed cypress trees in black water.

  Even though he’d been prepared for the explosion and the eventual wreck, Shane still jumped at the sound. Seated in the stiff seat, he grabbed hold of the chains secured to the D-ring in the floor between his feet. He lifted a foot and jammed it against the seat in front of him.

  Some plan, he told himself. You’re going to be lucky if you don’t get somebody killed.

  That wasn’t the plan. The plan was all about escape. For himself and for the men he’d fallen in with while in prison. The man who had rigged the explosion worked in Hollywood doing elaborate movie stunts for guys like Richard Donner and John Woo. All stuff with big explosions and flying cars.

  It’s a hell of a lot easier watching a stunt like that than being involved in it, Shane thought as the bus started to flip.

  All around him, the prisoners cried out, scared and surprised.

  Except for Raymond Jolly. The big man sat braced in his seat, broad face implacable. He glanced at Shane with those dead eyes. “You ready?” he asked.

  Shane leaned forward to reach Jolly’s hands and took the lock pick he’d fashioned from a piece of wire he’d snared while the prisoners had been at the hospital. They’d been tested for an outbreak of the latest flu everyone was talking about in the media. Shane’s nose still hurt from the deep swab.

  Working quickly, he picked the lock. The cuffs fell open. By the time the bus was sliding along on its side, finally
slowing with a deep grinding noise, he had his legs free.

  He pushed himself up and checked the driver and the guard. The guard’s attention was locked on the wounded driver. Shane walked across the seats, duckwalking from seat to seat as he used his hands on the seats above him.

  Reaching the wire-mesh door, he used the lock pick again. The guard heard the noise a beat too late. Shane opened the door as the guard started to raise his shotgun. Grabbing the weapon’s barrel, Shane shoved forward, closed his hand into a big fist, then hit the man in the face.

  The guard stumbled backward, releasing the shotgun.

  Grabbing the shotgun, Shane rammed the butt into the side of the guard’s jaw. Go down! Shane thought.

  The man’s eyes rolled up inside his head and he sank into a boneless heap.

  Shane breathed a sigh of relief. He wasn’t going to kill anyone.

  “Shane!” Jolly yelled.

  Reaching down, Shane took the guard’s keys and tossed them back to Jolly.

  Jolly caught the keys and quickly uncuffed himself. He handed the keys to the prisoners next to him, then he made his way forward and joined Shane.

  “Gonna have to climb out the window.” Jolly plucked the sidearm from the fallen guard. He grinned crookedly at Shane. “Woulda been better if the bus had fallen the other way.”

  “Would have been worse if my buddy hadn’t been able to rig the bus,” Shane pointed out.

  “Yeah.” Jolly looked at the two fallen guards.

  Shane knew the man was thinking of killing them. Raymond Jolly was a merciless man and had killed before. “If you kill one of them,” Shane said in a calm, non-threatening voice, “I guarantee you’re going to amp up the pursuit. Escaping prisoners is one thing. Escaping prisoners who capped guards while they were helpless is another.”

  Jolly hesitated for just a moment, then nodded. “Let’s hit it.” He shifted his attention to the driver’s-side window and surged up.

  Shane’s stomach unknotted. He followed Jolly, climbing from the bus. He’d heard the sound of the Jeep colliding against the bus. Now he wondered what had happened to the woman.

  He slithered free of the bus, surprised at all the smoke. Then he realized the bus was on fire.

  Dazed, Kate fumbled for the cell phone in the floorboard. The Jeep’s engine sputtered and died before she could get the clutch pushed in. She punched in 911 and looked at the spiral of black smoke wafting up from where she had last seen the D.O.C. bus.

  When the phone didn’t connect, Kate looked at it. No signal.

  She switched the ignition on and heard the engine catch. Then she pressed the accelerator and tried to back out of the swamp. The tires spun, even in four-wheel-drive, and refused to find purchase.

  Thinking that the men might be trapped in the burning bus, Kate forced her door open and got out. The swamp water was almost up to her knees. Working her way around the vehicle, she opened the rear deck and took out the fire extinguisher from the other gear she kept on hand. Then she turned and slogged up the muddy hillside to the road.

  The bus lay on its side, sprawled two-thirds of the way across the road at an angle. Bilious black smoke poured from the engine compartment.

  Surely somebody is going to see that, Kate thought. There were enough hunters and fishermen in the area that someone would call in a fire.

  She sprinted across the street. The fire extinguisher banged against her thigh at every step. Although the extinguisher wasn’t much, it was all she could think to do. Her mind whirled. The driver and guard would be free, but the prisoners were shackled in the back. She couldn’t bear the thought of watching anyone burn to death.

  She attacked the flames in the back immediately, hosing down the smoke and flames with the extinguisher. The white clouds warred with the black smoke. Her eyes burned and watered.

  Movement to her right drew Kate’s attention. She turned and spotted a man in an orange jumpsuit coming through the smoke. He carried a fire extinguisher too and helped her spray the flames. In seconds the cold white powder crusted the engine compartment and the flames disappeared.

  As she staggered back, almost overcome by the smoke, Kate saw that the prisoner was the blond man she’d spotted through the window. Blood wept from a cut over one of those hazel eyes.

  “Guess you came along at a good time,” he said in a deep, resonant voice. Then he shrugged. “Of course, I guess you could say it was a bad time too. Another few minutes earlier or later, you’d have missed this altogether.”

  Another prisoner joined the blond one. The new arrival was broad and chunky. His thick-jowled face looked menacing. A thick scar bisected one eyebrow. His hair was oiled and combed straight back.

  “You the girl in the car?” the new prisoner growled.

  Kate stepped back. “Where are the guards?”

  “Guards didn’t make it,” the prisoner grunted. Then he smiled. “Where’s your car?”

  Lifting the fire extinguisher to use as a weapon if she needed to, Kate didn’t answer. If the guards were dead and the prisoners were free, she was in a hell of a mess.

  The menacing prisoner lifted his arm. He held a pistol pointed at her. “Where’s your car? I won’t ask you again.”

  “In the swamp,” Kate said. “It spun out of control across the road.”

  The prisoner held out a hand. “Gimme the keys.”

  Before the man or Kate could move, the blond man stepped forward and grabbed Kate. He stood behind her and wrapped a hand around her upper body, holding her trapped for a moment, and fished the Jeep’s keys from Kate’s vest.

  He held the keys up, dangling them from his thumb. “Got ’em, Jolly.”

  The prisoner with the gun smiled. “Good job, Shane.”

  Moving quickly, Kate stamped her heel against Shane’s shin, scraping skin with her hiking boot. He yelped in pain, but that was quickly muffled when she slammed the back of her head against his nose. She made a desperate grab for the Jeep’s keys, but Shane closed his fist over them.

  Jolly aimed the pistol at Kate.

  Moving quickly, Kate threw herself around the end of the bus out of Jolly’s line of fire. Guards didn’t make it. The cold, flat declaration ricocheted through her mind. She was out here alone with escaped prisoners.

  On the other side of the bus, Kate ran. Guide work was physically demanding. She exercised and ran every day even though finding the time was almost impossible, keeping herself in peak condition. Her life and the lives of the people who hired her depended on her ability to take care not only of herself but of them as well.

  Footsteps slapped the pavement behind her. Curses rang out.

  Kate ducked and slid down the muddy hill on the other side of the road from where the Jeep had gone off. A gunshot cracked behind her and leaves fluttered down from the cypress trees in front of her. She didn’t quit running, leaping and dodging through the cypress forest with the sure-footed grace of a deer.

  Fifty yards into the swampy tangle, hidden deeply in the brush, Kate stopped behind a tree and glanced back at the bus. Shane and Jolly hadn’t pursued her.

  As she watched through the residual smoke coming from the bus’s engine compartment, Shane, Jolly and four other prisoners in orange jumpsuits disappeared over the other side of the road.

  Knowing they were going for her Jeep, Kate edged through the cypress forest, working her way forward. Jolly had a pistol, but there might be more weapons on the bus. Once they found out the Jeep was mired in the swamp, they might come for her. After all, she knew the area. If she had a chance to get to the bus and get a weapon—a pistol or a shotgun—she was going to. But if she had to flee farther back into the swamp, she was prepared to do that too.

  She halted at the edge of the treeline and listened to the Jeep’s engine catch. The transmission whined, then she heard the wheels grab hold. Evidently with six bodies aboard, the Jeep had found enough traction to extricate itself.

  A moment later, the Jeep roared back on to the road with
Shane at the wheel. The tires slung mud off, found traction again, then dug in.

  Kate watched in disbelief as her Jeep accelerated and disappeared down the road. The adrenaline hit her then, strong and savage, and took away nearly all her strength. She leaned against a tree and shuddered, hoping that someone had seen the smoke and was coming to investigate.

  She couldn’t stay here. She had a client with buck fever and she had to pick up Steven and Hannah from Miami International Airport in a few hours. Taking a breath, she steadied herself and started for the overturned bus.

  Chapter 2

  Kate paused beside the bus, breathing hard. Slow down, she told herself. The men inside this bus have been convicted of armed robbery, drugs, murder and rape. You can’t just charge in there. But what about the guards? She sighed. She couldn’t let anyone burn to death.

  During her guide experience—with her dad and on her own—she’d had several close calls. Snake bites and other injuries to clients as well as herself topped the list. And she’d ended up being the medic for her dad and her siblings when they’d gotten hurt. Taking care of people was just second nature to her.

  She studied the bus, wondering how best to handle the situation. No matter what she did, there was some risk. At least it didn’t look as if it was going to catch on fire and burn again.

  “Is the bus gonna explode?” someone yelled from inside.

  “Man, why didn’t those guys cut us loose while they were at it?” someone else griped.

  “Can anyone reach the driver? He’s got a set of keys on him.”

  “Dude,” someone else said, “I think that guy Jolly or one of his cabrons took the key ring.”

  Kate jumped up and caught hold of the edge of the bus, then hauled herself up. The men inside the bus saw her through the windows and started screaming for help, wanting to know if the bus was on fire. They beat on the windows with their free hands, the other hands manacled to the D-rings in the floor. Several of the prisoners yelled at her, urging her to get inside and set them free. Some of the comments bordered on suggestive. Kate ignored it all, hoping she wasn’t going to find the guards dead.