Cover Me - By Catherine Mann Page 0,97
mind. Finally, she caught a glimpse of a familiar figure outside the power plant gates. Flynn. He must have taken Misty away to find something to eat at the fishing festival.
She doubled her speed, sidling out a gate, past a guard, racing toward the dock. She glanced back over her shoulder quickly, only to find Wade stalking off into the swirling snow. Collecting his thoughts, maybe? She couldn’t blame him.
Approaching Flynn softly so as not to startle him, she called out quietly, “Flynn? Are you okay? Where’s Misty? Did you find something good to eat, because I just realized I haven’t eaten yet.”
He pivoted on his boot heel toward her slowly. The morning sun streamed down over his windburned face, creased in confusion. “Did you need something?”
“I just wondered if you’re ready to go back with me to talk to Agent Lasky. They’re ready for us to look at some more photos, help figure out who may have been responsible for the bomb.”
A creaking dock plank sounded behind her, giving her only a second’s warning before something solid jabbed against her back. “Don’t make a sound,” a female voice ordered, “or I’ll be forced to shoot you. The gun has a silencer, so no one will know.”
Her eyes shot to Flynn quickly. Why wasn’t he helping her? And then she couldn’t think of anything other than the familiar voice behind her.
Astrid.
The awful, awful recognition gelled inside of Sunny that her brother’s wife had a gun wedged between her ribs and might truly shoot.
Sunny looked back over her shoulder at the woman she’d called family for nearly two years. “What are you doing here? I thought you were camping with Phoenix.”
Some camping trip. Oh God, was her brother here too, somehow tangled up in this nightmare?
Her sister-in-law tugged her hood more firmly over her blonde hair. “Your brother is off doing what he always does, communing with nature as if somehow that’s going to heal the earth. I’m taking action. Since he won’t help me, I’ve just found others who will.” She jabbed harder. “Now, since you interrupted our getaway, you’re going to come along with us in the boat.”
With us? Her eyes went to Flynn. To the line of fishing vessels tied to the moorings down at the dock. To the SWAT team and Wade, all too far away to be of any help.
Oh God, why hadn’t she listened to him about the danger here? All the information they’d gathered and put together with intel pointed to the power plant, but maybe someone on the inside knew there had been a leak, because this group sure as hell appeared to carry off their plan with adjustments to work around the police and military forces in place. Now she truly was alone to fight this battle that could create such far-reaching horror for so many if Astrid got away.
And Flynn. She couldn’t even bear to think of what this would do to Misty. Sunny could have sworn his feelings for her sister were genuine. Maybe there was some hope in getting through to him. “But Flynn? I don’t understand.”
“Flynn? That’s Ryker.” Astrid laughed. Her voice, which had once seemed so lyrical when singing to her infant son, now sounded harsh and discordant. Her eyes lit with fanaticism. She swept a hand toward the nearest fishing boat, with a lean man, his back to them, already at the helm. “And that’s Brett—our partner in the biggest, splashiest front-page news this area has ever seen and just what we need to make people sit up and take notice.”
Chapter 18
Misty slipped away from Agent Lasky, actually fairly easy to do since it had turned into a ghost town, with everyone evacuated. Authorities were confident about their security in place and busy as hell searching for more bombs. Sidling past two local cops on their radios, she scanned the huge parking lot, the outbuildings, the perimeter trees by the bay, for Flynn and Sunny. Sometime over the past twenty minutes she’d lost track of them and as much as she hated to admit it, she needed them.
Winding her way through the festival, she was scared and feeling her deafness more acutely than ever in the four years since she’d lost her hearing. Out of her comfort zone, away from everything familiar, she found this overcrowded, fast-paced world overwhelming. There was so little time to react and so many surprises—people, carts, cars, you name it—zipping past and startling her.
Of course it didn’t help that she was