Race Against Time

It wasn’t until she heard her name and how he was describing her that she realized he only considered her a product to sell.

Her life as she’d known it was about to explode. Learning that he wanted his son but he no longer wanted her was a death sentence. She would rather die than live a life somewhere else knowing her baby was growing up without her.

Anton’s voice faded as he walked away, but what she’d overheard had been the warning she needed. As soon as she put Sammy to bed she grabbed his diaper bag and began packing it for a getaway, then left it inside his closet.

The hardest thing she’d ever done was pretend nothing was wrong as she went downstairs to the kitchen. Lacey, the chef, had been preparing vegetables for Sammy and then pureeing them for her, but she wouldn’t be able to take food like this, and began gathering up jars of baby food from the pantry.

Lacey saw the tears on Star’s face as she entered the kitchen, and when Star went to the pantry without speaking, she followed.

“Good afternoon, Miss Star. Can I help you in any way?”

Star shook her head and kept sorting through the jars.

“I’ll be happy to make something fresh for Sammy,” Lacey offered.

Star couldn’t talk for fear she’d burst into tears, and just shook her head as she set aside little jars of fruit and vegetables, and a box of teething crackers.

“Looks like we’re packing for another trip. Want me to get a small box?” she asked.

Star panicked.

“No, please. I just need...” Star took a deep breath, trying to control the spreading panic, and started over. “I just need to—”

A jar of applesauce slipped from her fingers and shattered on the pantry floor.

Horrified, Star burst into tears.

“I’m so sorry.”

“No problem, Miss Star. It’ll clean right up!” Lacey said. She grabbed a handful of paper towels and quickly mopped it up.

But Star was beyond help. Once she’d started crying, she couldn’t stop, and that’s when Lacey knew something more was going on.

“Come sit with me,” she urged.

“I can’t,” Star whispered. “I don’t want them to see me cry.”

“Who? You don’t want who to see you cry?” Lacey asked.

“The guards. They’ll tell Anton.”

“But Mr. Baba adores you,” Lacey said. “I see the way he treats you.”

Star shook her head.

“Not anymore. He’s going to sell me, just like he sells the others,” she whispered and then gasped at what she’d done. “No, I didn’t mean that. I just—”

Lacey’s heart leaped, but she kept playing along.

“Sell you? But what about Sammy?”

And that’s when Star’s last defenses fell, and she took a chance.

“He’ll keep Sammy. Sammy is his son, but he’ll sell me to someone else, and I’ll never see Sammy again. Please don’t tell. Pretend you never saw me getting food. Just let me walk out of here. I have to get away before this happens. He’ll be at his club tonight. It’s the only chance I’ll have to make a run for it. I can’t lose my baby. I’d rather be dead.”

“I’ll help you,” Lacey said.

Star’s heart skipped a beat.

“How?”

“I have a friend here in the city. He’ll help.”

Star frowned.

“I don’t believe you. You’ll just tell Anton and then I’m done. If you do I’ll swear you lied, and believe me, I’m good at lying. I’ve been doing it for seven years without getting caught.”

Star made a grab for the food and was about to bolt when Lacey grabbed her hand.

“Stop,” she whispered and pulled her back into the pantry, then leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “I’m with the FBI. Will you testify against him if I help you and Sammy escape?”

Star gasped, then stared at the woman, looking for the lie on her face, but she didn’t flinch.

“You’re serious?”

Lacey nodded.

“What do I do?” Star asked.

“Be ready to run. It’ll be after dark.”

“After Anton leaves,” Star said.

Lacey nodded. “Go pack what you need for the baby and just be ready.”

“Thank you,” Star murmured. “Thank you.”

“Go,” Lacey said, and the moment the woman was out of the kitchen, she sent Ryker, her outside contact, a text.

We have ourselves a witness who’ll testify. She’s running tonight with a toddler. Pick us up at the back gate of the property.

She hit Send and then waited.

Drug the kid to keep it quiet. I’ll have to disarm the alarm at the gate. I’ll text you when it’s done.

She sent back a thumbs-up emoji and stowed the cell back in her pocket beneath the chef’s jacket and went back to prepping vegetables, but her thoughts were already locked into what she needed to do to get them off premises. She’d need to put the silencer on her weapon. There were at least three guards at all times between the house and the back of the property. She would have to take them out just to reach the gate.

* * *

Anton left to go to his casino just before 7:00 p.m., which was his habit. Since it was the Fourth of July, Las Vegas was packed with people on holidays. He got all the way to his office before it dawned on him that he hadn’t told Star or Sammy goodbye, and then dismissed it as of no concern. It wouldn’t be long before she would be gone, Sammy would be with a live-in nanny, and he would be giving full attention to the business of making money, again.

An hour passed and then another before the fireworks began. He got up and walked to the windows overlooking Vegas just as a shower of fireworks spread across the sky.

Entertainment.

That’s what Vegas was all about.

He was still watching when his cell phone rang. He went back to the desk to get it.

“Hello.”

“Boss, this is Ian. The security alarm just went off at the house. We found three guards dead in the back garden, and Star and the baby are gone.”

Anton staggered.

“Gone? How? Who was supposed to be watching them?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t me.”

“You and Dev know how to track runaways. Star has a chip as well and doesn’t know it. Send out as many men as you need. I’m on my way home.”

“Yes, sir,” Ian said and disconnected.

Anton rang for his driver and then took the back way out of Lucky Joe’s. He rode home in silence, mentally going over everything Star had said and done over the past week. He couldn’t find one instance where he’d doubted he had lost control. He had enemies. It occurred to him that this might be the case, but whatever the reason, he wasn’t too worried about getting her back. All of the procurers who worked for him, including Darren Vail, had one last duty before they turned the girls over to the men who took them out of state. They shot a tiny tracking chip just under the skin on the back of every girl’s neck. It was done while they were unconscious, and they didn’t even know it was there. It’s also why no one ever got away.

Two

Boom!

Fire exploded in the night sky over the alley behind Pizza Rock, momentarily revealing the trio running through it. If someone had aimed a spotlight at them they couldn’t have been more vulnerable. The car he’d picked them up in—the one he’d planned to make their getaway in—was stuck in traffic on a side street waiting for a parade to pass. Forced to abandon it so they wouldn’t get caught, they were now afoot and running toward the backup plan—a second vehicle parked a few blocks away.

“Damn it all to hell,” Ryker muttered and tightened his grip on the gun in his hand. “Fourth of July. This had to go down in Las Vegas on the Fourth of July? Keep moving. Whatever you do, keep moving.”

Twenty-four-year-old Star Davis was behind him with her two-year-old toddler clutched tight against her chest.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she kept saying.

“Hush, Star! Just run,” Lacey said and looked over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t being followed.

Star stumbled and then screamed, thinking she and her baby were falling.

Lacey grabbed her.

“Stay with us, honey. It’s not much farther.”

The baby whimpered and then drifted back off to sleep. The medicine they’d given him earlier to keep him quiet was working, but it made Star anxious. What if they’d given him too much? What if he didn’t wake up?

Ryker kept a continuous one-eighty sweep of the area in front of them, ready to take anyone down who got in their way while Lacey kept an eye out for who might be coming up behind them. He and his partner had been undercover too damn long to have this screw up now.

Boom!

The baby flinched in Star’s arms but didn’t cry.

A stray cat hissed from behind a Dumpster, then darted off into the shadows as they ran past.

Lacey was bringing up the rear without comment until she suddenly let out a low cry.

“Ryker! Runners coming up on our six.”

Ryker paused and pivoted, his heart pounding. He heard them, too.

“Take Star and the kid and get to the Farmers Market parking lot. I’m right behind you.”

Lacey grabbed Star’s arm.

“We have to run now. Stay with me and don’t look back.”

“Oh, my God,” Star moaned. “I’m—”

“Just don’t fucking say that you’re sorry again,” Lacey said and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her closer into the shadows and lengthening their strides as Ryker darted behind a Dumpster into a crouch. He didn’t have long to wait.

Three men were coming up the alley at a fast clip, but it was the silence they brought with them that was the tipping point for Ryker. If they had been tourists enjoying the fireworks they would have likely been drunk and noisy. Chances were more likely it was some of Baba’s hired guns. He saw them from the side as they ran past the Dumpster and knew one man on sight.

He stood up and called out.

“Hey! Bergman!”

The trio turned in an orchestrated move that would have made the Cirque du Soleil proud, but Ryker was already firing.

Pop.

Bergman went down.

Pop.

Blood fanned out behind the middle man’s head before he dropped.

Pop.

Blood flooded the front of the shortest man’s shirt as Ryker’s last shot tore through the carotid artery in his neck.

Three shots in three seconds without one fired in return. Efficient. Ryker prided himself on efficiency, and now he had to catch up. He ran past the bodies without looking down and caught up with the women just as they reached the car.

Lacey clicked the remote to unlock the doors, then tossed the keys to Ryker, who caught them in midair. He got into the driver’s seat as Lacey put Star and the baby into the back. “Buckle up,” she said and slammed the door, then jumped into the front passenger seat and grabbed her seat belt. “What happened back there?”

“Bergman and two others.”

Lacey groaned.

“Our cover is blown. How did that happen?”

“Who knows, and it’s too late to worry about it,” Ryker said.

“You’re right. Get us out of here,” Lacey said.

Star was out of breath and trembling as Ryker started the car and drove away.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“They’re sending a chopper for us,” Lacey said. “This might have worked better if the need for haste had not been an issue. Now we just have to get to the pickup site.”

The toddler whimpered in Star’s arms. Now that they were settled, she dug into the bag over her shoulder and pulled out a bottle, then smiled when the baby started drinking.

“My poor little Sammy,” she crooned. “Mama’s hungry little boy.”

Lacey glanced over her shoulder at the young woman. At first glance, and in the darkened interior, she looked like a teenager. Lacey gave Star and the baby one last look, then turned around and buckled her seat belt. They were headed out of Vegas with fireworks exploding in the sky behind them. They had a date with an FBI chopper at a GPS location just off Highway 93, and time was wasting.

Lacey kept an eye on the headlights of the cars behind them while Ryker wove through the traffic with professional precision. The farther he drove, the less traffic they met, and the fewer cars trailing behind.

“How far now?” Ryker asked, knowing Lacey was keeping track of the GPS location for him.

“Looks like about six miles,” she said.

He hit the accelerator, moving them faster, anxious to tie this up without anyone getting hurt. But he had a knot in his gut and a niggling concern that this wasn’t over.

The night sky was beautiful, peppered with stars from a heavenly explosion a thousand light-years in the past, while the mountains to the north appeared as a ragged bulwark between the city behind them and the desert landscape around them.

Star glanced out her window and then looked up through the glass sunroof. Her pulse was as erratic as the trip they were on, and then she saw a shooting star.

“Look at that! A star on the run, like me.”

“They burn out,” Ryker reminded her.

The shock of his careless comment scared her, and she buried her face against her sleeping baby’s neck.

Lacey frowned.

“Damn it, Ryker, that was harsh,” she said.

“This whole situation is harsh,” he muttered, then glanced up in his rearview mirror and frowned. “We have a tail.”

Lacey turned to look.

“Are you sure? That seems impossible.”

“See that right headlight on the car behind us? See how it’s shaking?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know how they found us that fast, but it’s been behind us ever since we left Vegas.”

“Oh no,” Star moaned.

She started to turn and look when Lacey stopped her with a shout.

“Get down!”

Star lay down on the floorboard with the baby clutched against her chest as Ryker pushed the accelerator all the way to the floor. The engine vibrated like a roar in her chest. The high-pitched whine of tires against the highway was close to her ears as they raced off into the night.

“They’re gaining,” Lacey said and grabbed her cell.

Ryker’s fingers curled even tighter around the steering wheel as the car began to vibrate, too.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Calling the chopper,” Lacey said.

Ryker’s jaw was clenched. The highway was a blur as he listened to her make the call.

“What did they say?” he asked, as she disconnected.

“They’re still en route. Not even at the pickup site yet. What the hell’s up with that?” Lacey cried.

“How far to the pickup site?” Ryker asked.

Lacey glanced at her GPS.

“Almost four miles.”

“We aren’t going to make it,” he said.

Star started to cry. Softly, hopelessly.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried, but she was talking to Sammy, not them. She’d tried so hard to get him away. God only knew how this would end.

Lacey was on her knees, her gun drawn.

“Open the sunroof,” she said.

Ryker frowned, but the headlights were closer and he didn’t argue. The glass ceiling above them slid back, opening most of the roof to the night. The loud roar of the engine and the shrill whistle of the wind inside the car was shocking.

Suddenly glad they’d doped her baby to sleep, Star held him tighter and started to pray.

Someone in the car behind them got off the first shot, exploding the back window of the car, covering Star and the baby in shattered glass.

She screamed.

Ryker cursed.

Lacey popped up through the sunroof and fired two shots back in rapid succession before the force of the wind nearly blew her out of the car. She stayed up long enough to see their windshield shatter. The car behind them was now the one in trouble as the driver fought to stay on the highway.

She ducked back down but stayed on her knees, her gaze focused on the car behind them. For a few moments they had the edge and were putting some serious distance between them and their tail—until another car came up fast behind it, passing the damaged vehicle like it was sitting still. The new threat was suddenly at Ryker’s side and swerved into them with such force that it threw their car into a spin.

“Hold on!” Ryker shouted, as the car spun backward, sliding off the highway into the desert.

He righted the spin and stomped the accelerator again, sending up a rooster tail of sand in a desperate attempt to get back onto the highway. But now both cars were coming at them fast.

“Where the hell is that chopper?” Ryker yelled.

Lacey was bleeding from her forehead and trying to focus as she reached blindly for her phone, but it wasn’t in the console.

“I can’t find my phone,” she cried.

Star was on her knees on the back floorboard with the baby in her arms, praying the same silent prayer over and over. Please, God, please, don’t let Sammy die.

Another round of bullets hit their car.

One tire blew, launching the car into a spectacular skid that threw them sideways into a roll.

Star closed her eyes and held Sammy tight, certain they were going to die. The first roll tumbled them from the bottom of the car to the roof and back down again. Just as they went into the second roll, Star and the baby shot through the open sunroof and up into the air. She felt the heel of her shoe hit the side of Lacey’s head on the way out, and she hit the ground with such impact it slid her across the desert on her back. The blow knocked the air from her lungs and set her back afire. But none of that mattered, because she still had Sammy in her arms.

She was struggling to catch her breath when there was a deafening explosion. She gasped again and again until her lungs finally expanded, and was trying to get up when fire shot straight up into the sky behind her. She felt the heat as the car was engulfed in flames.

Sammy whimpered.

She panicked. Was he hurt or waking up? The fact that he still wasn’t crying scared her, but if they found her now, they’d kill her and take Sammy. She couldn’t bear to think of Anton Baba raising him as the heir to his criminal world.

There was always some traffic on this highway. Someone was bound to see this fire at any moment. If she could just hide Sammy and run, she’d let them take her. She was going to raise hell with Anton until he, too, believed their son died because of his orders. She’d lost her chance to get away, but she wasn’t going to give up on someone saving Sammy.

His pacifier was still in her pants pocket, and she took it out and popped it into his mouth. Every muscle in her body was aching as she struggled to her feet and ran toward a small stand of scrub brush.

Both of the cars were driving toward the fire now. Her voice was shaking, her heart was breaking, but there was no time to waste.

“Sammy, my little Sammy. Mama loves you so much, but God is going to watch over you now.”

She kissed him quickly, trying to imprint the feel of his soft cheek against her lips, then tucked him beneath the brush and ran. She was sprinting toward the highway when they saw her and gave chase.

“Help me, God,” she muttered and kept running.

The night air was cooler now, the sand was in her shoes and her blouse was sticking to her bloody back. Her footsteps were jarring as she ran, adding to the thunder of her heartbeat.

All of a sudden one car sped past her and then swerved, blocking her path. The other car came up behind her, skidded to a stop, and the driver, Ian Bojalian, took her down within seconds.

Star screamed.

“Where’s the kid? Where’s your son?” he yelled.

She was already crying now, as she pointed back to the fire.

“He’s dead! You killed him! You killed him!” she cried.

She never saw the fist coming, but when he hit her, she dropped like a rock.

Dev Bosky, the driver who was now missing a windshield, frowned.

“Baba is not going to be happy about this.”

“He told us to stop them. It’s her fault for taking him away,” Ian said, then gagged her and tied her up before tossing her into the trunk. “I’m going back to Vegas. You make sure nothing that would tie you to this scene blew out of your car. Without a windshield, there’s no telling what shit you strung about out here.”

“Someone is going to see this fire any second. I don’t want to still be out here,” Dev growled.

“Then make it snappy,” Ian said from the front seat as he slammed his door and steered the car toward the highway. The moment his tires hit the pavement, he gassed it and disappeared.

Dev Bosky jumped in his car and put the headlights on bright, intent on making a quick sweep through the area for any evidence he might have left. He was on the back side of the fire and a good distance away when he saw a single light come into view out on the highway, heading toward Las Vegas.

“Damn it all to hell. A biker. If you wanna keep living, man, you better keep riding.”

* * *

Quinn O’Meara was southbound on her Harley, heading toward Las Vegas on Highway 93, when she saw fire in the sky. At first she thought it was fireworks, but the flames weren’t burning out; they were growing bigger. She sped up, topping the slight rise shortly afterward, and realized the flames came from something burning out in the desert.

The sight made her skin crawl, and the closer she came to it, the larger the fire appeared. It was on the northbound side, which was opposite to the way she was going, but her conscience wouldn’t let her ride on without investigation.

She crossed the median and then the northbound lanes and rode out into the desert, only to realize it was a car that was burning. Horrified, she braked quickly and left her bike idling as she hung her helmet on the handlebars and jumped off.

She was walking toward the fire when the silhouette of a toddler moved between her and the flames.

“Oh, my God,” she said and started running.

The baby was stumbling and falling and far too close to the fire. She ran up behind him, scooping him up in her arms. He was dirty and crying, but he didn’t look injured in any way. When she picked him up, he surprised her by putting his arms around her neck and hiding his face against the front of her jacket.

“Oh, sweetheart! If only you could talk,” Quinn said, as she looked again toward the burning fire.

The car had rolled. That much was evident because the roof was crunched inward and flames were shooting straight up through the top. It took her a few moments to figure out they were streaming through what must have been the sunroof. Then she saw what looked like two bodies inside the car and groaned. The baby must have been thrown out as the car rolled. He could have internal injuries.

She started to take out her cell phone to call 911 and then saw headlights farther out in the desert coming toward the fire. She moved away from the fire for a better view, unaware that she’d just given a killer a clear view of her and the baby in her arms. One of the headlights was flickering in the distance while the other stayed steady. Help was coming. But her relief was short-lived when she heard a series of pops and saw the dirt flying up near her feet.

Shots? Were those gunshots?

Oh God, oh God, what had she walked up on?

She unzipped her jacket and stuffed the baby into it, his belly against her breasts as she zipped him back in. Within seconds she had her helmet on and was heading toward the highway as fast as she could ride. She was almost to the pavement when something hit her in the shoulder so hard she almost lost her grip. The ensuing pain was sharp and burning.

She’d been shot! The nightmare kept getting worse! There was only one way to save both of their lives. She had to outrun the gunman. He was about a hundred yards behind her when she accelerated, crossing the median again and back onto the southbound lanes toward Vegas, riding without caution, desperate to stay far enough ahead to make shooting futile.

The baby was still now. She could smell the dust in his hair and feel the sweat of his little body. Her chin beneath the helmet was only inches away from his head when it occurred to her that the bullet might have gone through her into him. Now she had even more reason to get to Las Vegas fast.